 Chapter 19 of The Mute Singer, a novel by Anna Koromowicz-Ritchie. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Kelly Taylor. Chapter 19, Conclusion We pass over the joy of Monsieur et Madame de la Roche when their gentle and gifted daughter was restored to them. Before her arrival, Dr. Sylvester had made known his hopes to her parents and obtained permission to address Sylvie. The young and agreeable physician was high in favor with her father, who was too much elated with the prospect of securing such a son-in-law for reticence or delay to be possible to his communicative and impulsive nature. Only a few hours after his daughter's return, he delightedly informed her of Dr. Sylvester's suit and his own approval. His surprise was only surpassed by his disappointment when she earnestly entreated that her suitor might be prevented from touching upon a subject which must give her excessive pain, as she would be forced to meet his proposals with an unqualified refusal. Monsieur de la Roche squandered a large amount of eloquence in representing the folly of her determination, but Sylvie was firm in her resolution, so firm that her father was impressed with the possibility of her having formed some other attachment. Her confusion, when he suddenly asked that searching question, confirmed his suspicions. He insisted upon an ingenuous reply. Sylvie's upright nature could not bend to falsehood, even upon a subject which has custom sanction for untruth. She, accordingly, gave no answer. While Monsieur de la Roche was strongly urging her to confide in him, Dr. Sylvester was announced, but before he could enter, Sylvie escaped from the apartment, making a gesture as she fled that supplicated her father not to summon her back. Monsieur de la Roche, with much hesitation, executed the difficult task of communicating Sylvie's rejection to her lover, trying to soften the unflattering truth by the no less palatable information that her parents had reason to believe their daughter's affections were already engaged. Dr. Sylvester was at first confounded, then wounded, then inclined to be angry, not exactly with Sylvie or her father, but with all the world, including himself. Regret and ejection succeeded to passion, and in this mood he took his leave. As he was descending the stairs, he encountered the Marquis de Saint Amar and his sister. Honoreen was too impatient to behold her friend to bestow upon him more than a passing salutation as she hurried on. Her brother stopped and shook hands. It was impossible not to perceive the physician's disordered appearance. You look disturbed. Has anything happened to distress you, as the nobleman kindly? Dr. Sylvester was one of those beings to whom sympathy under disappointment was indispensable. To conceal a pang was to double its poignancy. Nothing more than happens to deluded men every day, he replied, with a stoical air which the perspective relief of confiding in another rendered it more easy to assume. I have submitted myself to mortification, made a fool of myself, and gained my desserts. That ends the matter. You do not mean, began the Marquis, and hesitated. I mean that I have been distinctly rejected by the father of Marmoselle de La Roche, and in her name. He informed me that her heart was no longer at her disposal. It is very strange. To whom can she be attached? The letters of Marmoselle de La Roche clearly and frequently stated that she had proved insensible to all the advances made during her travels, and before she left Paris she was not equated with any gentleman but the Marquis de Saint Amar and her physician. What a delicious suggestion was unintentionally infused into these words. At their breath a long varied hope burst its sermons and sprang back to life, a hope that must at once receive Sylvie's sanction for its existence or be entombed anew. The Marquis could not frame any direct reply, but muttering something about joining his sister passed on and entered the drawing-room. As Sylvie rose to welcome him he noted her changing colour, the almost imperceptible quivering of her lip, the slight tremulousness of the hand she permitted him to clasp for an instant. His interpretation of these auguries arched over the head of that resuscitated hope and its most glorious rainbow. He seated himself beside her and talked with the same genial ease and gaiety which had characterised his conversation before those sad days of sudden estrangement. Sylvie's slender fingers glanced rapidly over the leaves of her tablets in reply. Honourine, either because she was charmed to see her brother resume his olden deportment towards her friend or because she had the sort of instinct against being detlore, prowled away to Monsieur and Madame de La Roche. They chanced to be seated at some distance from their daughter and the Marquis. The table near Sylvie was heaped with books which had been taken from her trunks and were not yet arranged in order. Several volumes had been selected before she left from the little bookcase and had accompanied her upon her journeyings. In turning over the handsomely bound volumes the eyes of the Marquis rested upon one which he could not have placed in that elegant library for the cover was dingy and worn. He took it up to read the title. It was Sylvie's Bible, for she was a Protestant and the good book was in daily use. As he held it lightly in his hands two sprigs of pressed and withered heliotrope fell from between the leaves. He lifted them up, recognised them, replaced them, and turning to Sylvie a face in which a whole history was written in luminous characters of the soul said in a low thrilling tone, You have kept them. May I dare to believe that you have cherished the memory of him who gave them? Sylvie's fingers did not grasp her pencil or open her tablets. She had seized the little volume and closed it upon the telltale heliotropes. Her head was bowed over it so closely that her countenance was no longer visible. The time has come, continued the Marquis, when I feel that I may venture to plead for an explanation of the past. Need I tell you that almost from the first moment we met you inspired me with a feeling which is only strengthened with every hour? You were very young, very immature. It behoove me to wait in silence and with patience until your character was formed and you were aware of your own capacity to respond to my emotions. But while I waited, an icy shape to which I could give no name rose up between us and with outstretched arms tore us asunder. You withdrew yourself from my sister's society and my own. You refused her entreaties to grant her any explanation of the mysterious change. I will not tell you of what anguish I endured and how zealously I sought for the cause of your inexplicable demeanor. I thought I had found it. I thought you suspected my passion and were too generous to encourage it after bestowing your heart upon a younger and doubtless, more captivating man. Sylvie's eyes lifted for a brief instant in genuine amazement would have convinced the Marquis of his error had not the delusion been already dispelled. That look tells me I was wrong. I know it already. Dr. Sylvester ingenuously told me so himself. Then I dared to entertain the hope that you did not shun me from indifference. These flowers have confirmed that precious belief. Sylvie's head drooped lower and lower as though she could not lift it from her breast. I fear I have been very abrupt, he resumed. But I have suffered so long that I could not tolerate another's moments doubt. Will you trust your happiness in my keeping? I implore you to reply. Your father's eyes are turned upon us inquiringly. Tell me that I may ask him if he is willing to confide his child to my tender care. Sylvie's great heart heaved as though it would burst from her breast. She took up her pencil and tablets. They dropped unused. But in the hand which the Marquis extended to receive what she wrote, she timidly placed her own. Clasping it fervently, he rose and led her towards her parents. The action had a most eloquent language of its own. But the entrance of Maître Bourgeois and Monsieur Le Grand prevented him from interpreting it into speech. Le Grand held a business like paper in his hand. After the customary salutations, Maître Bourgeois said to Sylvie, Today your contract with Monsieur Le Grand expires. He has come to ask if you will renew it for another year, and you will find how liberally he has dealt when you peruse that paper. Sylvie mechanically took the offered document. The Marquis gently put it aside. My dear Monsieur Bourgeois, he remarked, it is a very valueless instrument. Madame Zelle Sylvie only waits the consent of her parents to enter into another engagement, which will preclude the possibility of her fulfilling this, an engagement of somewhat longer duration, an engagement for life, which I trust will secure her happiness in exchange for laurels, home joys instead of public adulation, the voice of love to replace the clamorous voices of the multitude. Honoreen sprang up and threw her arms about Sylvie. My sister, my sister, now you are indeed a sister. Did I not always say in field that you were my sister, though I had not the wit to remember that there was a way by which you could legally become one? Oh, I am so rejoiced. I never dreamed that there was such happiness in store. Sylvie, did you? If Sylvie's answering look could have found voice upon her lips, her reply might have been concentrated in that outburst of a grateful heart wandering at its own joy, which was made musical by the breath of Aurora Lee when she exclaimed, God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame. End of The Mute Singer, a novel by Anna Cora Mawet Ritchie.