" Opposed to this
interesting figure--the more striking to her as she had been hitherto
haunted by the impression that her cousin during his boyhood had been
subject to facial eruption and boils--was her own equally idealized
self. Cruelly kind to her cousin and gentle with his weaknesses while
calmly ignoring their cause, leading him unconsciously step by step in
his fatal passion, he only became aware by accident that she nourished
an ideal hero in the person of a hard, proud, middle-aged practical
man of the world,--her future husband! At this picture of the late Mr.
Ashwood, who had really been an indistinctive social bon vivant, his
amiable relict grew somewhat hysterical. The discovery of her real
feelings drove the consumptive cousin into a secret, self-imposed exile
on the shores of the Pacific, where he hoped to find a grave. But the
complete and sudden change of life and scene, the balm of the wild woods
and the wholesome barbarism of nature, wrought a magical change in his
physical health and a philosophical rest in his mind. He married the
daughter of an Indian chief. Years passed, the heroine--a rich and
still young and beautiful widow--unwittingly sought the same medicinal
solitude. Here in the depth of the forest she encountered her former
playmate; the passion which he had fondly supposed was dead revived in
her presence, and for the first time she learned from his bearded lips
the secret of his passion.
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