CHAPTER XXXVII.

Letters from Mrs. Linwood and Edith waited me at home. Their perusal gave me an opportunity to collect my thoughts, and an excuse to talk of them, of Grandison Place, rather than of topics connected with the present. Yet all the time I was reading Mrs. Linwood's expression of trusting affection, I said to myself,—

"What would she say, if she knew I had parted with her splendid gift, unknown to my husband, whose happiness she committed so solemnly to my keeping?"

I told Ernest of the interesting circumstances connected with Mr. Brahan's house, and of the picture of my mother I so longed that I should see. The wish was gratified sooner than I anticipated; for that very evening, it was sent to me by Mr. Brahan, with a very elegant note, in which he asked me to take charge of it till the rightful owner appeared to claim it as his own.

"It is like you, Gabriella," said Ernest, gazing with evident admiration on the beauteous semblance; "and it is an exquisite painting too. You must cherish this picture as a proof of your mother's beauty and your father's genius."

I did cherish it, as a household divinity. I almost worshipped it, for though I did not burn before it frankincense and myrrh, I offered to it the daily incense of memory and love.

As Margaret consented to remain a week with her friend Miss Haven, we were left in quiet possession of our elegant leisure, and Ernest openly rejoiced in her absence. He read aloud to me, played and sung with thrilling melody, and drew out all his powers of fascination for my entertainment. The fear of his discovering my clandestine meeting grew fainter and fainter as day after day passed, without a circumstance arising which would lead to detection.

One evening, Mr. Harland, with several other gentlemen, was with us. Ernest was unusually affable, and of course my spirits rose in proportion. In the course of conversation, Mr. Harland remarked that he had a bet for me to decide.

"I cannot consent to be an umpire," said I. "I dislike betting in ladies, and if gentlemen indulge in it, they must refer to their own sex, not ours."

"But it has reference to yourself," he cried, "and you alone can decide."

"To me!" I exclaimed, involuntarily glancing at Ernest.

"Yes! A friend of mine insists that he saw you walking in the —— Park, the other morning, with a gentleman, who was too tall for Mr. Linwood. That you wore a gray shawl and green veil, but that your air and figure could not possibly be mistaken. I told him, in the first place, that you never dressed in that style; in the second, that he was too far from you to distinguish you from another; and in the third, that it was impossible you should be seen walking with any gentleman but your husband, as he never gave them an opportunity. As he offered a high wager, and I accepted it, I feel no small interest in the decision."

"Tell your friend, Mr. Harland," exclaimed Ernest, rising from his seat, and turning pale as marble, "that I will not permit my wife's name to be bandied from lip to lip in the public street, nor her movements made a subject for low and vulgar betting."

"Mr. Linwood!" cried Mr. Harland, rising too, with anger flashing from his eyes, "do you apply those remarks to me?"

"I make no application," answered Ernest, with inexpressible haughtiness; "but I again assert, that the freedom taken with my wife's name is unwarrantable, and shall not be repeated."

"If Mrs. Linwood considers herself insulted," cried Mr. Harland, "I am ready to offer her any apology she may desire. Of one thing she may be assured: no disrespect was intended by the gentleman to whom I allude, and she certainly cannot think that I would forget her claims as a lady, and as the wife of the man whom I had reason to believe my friend."

He spoke the last sentence with strong emphasis, and the blood mounted high in the pale face of Ernest. I could only bow, as Mr. Harland concluded, in acceptance of the apology, for I saw a thunder-cloud darkening over me, and knew it would break in terror over my head.

"I have spoken hastily, Mr. Harland," said Ernest. "If I have said any thing wounding to your feelings, as a gentleman, I recall it. But you may tell your friend, that the next time he asserts that he has seen Mrs. Linwood walking with a stranger, in a public place, when I know she was in company with some of the first ladies of the city for benevolent designs, I shall call him to account for such gross misrepresentations."

And I heard this in silence,—without contradiction.

Oh! how must the woman feel who has deceived her husband for a guilty purpose, when I, whose motives were pure and upright, suffered such unutterable anguish in the prospect of detection? If I were hardened enough to deny the assertion,—if I could only have laughed and wondered at the preposterous mistake,—if I could have assumed an air of indifference and composure, my secret might have been safe. But I was a novice in deception; and burning blushes, and pale, cold shadows alternately flitted across my face.

It was impossible to resume the conversation interrupted by a scene so distressing to some, so disagreeable to all. One by one our guests retired, and I was left alone with Ernest.

The chandeliers were glittering overhead, the azure curtains received their light in every sweeping fold, cherubs smiled bewitchingly from the arching ceiling, and roses that looked as if they might have blossomed by "Bendemere's stream," blushed beneath my feet,—yet I would gladly have exchanged all this splendor for a spot in the furthest isle of the ocean, a lone and barren spot, where the dark glance which I felt, but did not see, could not penetrate.

I sat with downcast eyes and wildly throbbing heart, trying to summon resolution to meet the trial I saw there was no means of escaping. If he questioned, I must answer. I could not, dared not, utter a falsehood, and evasion would be considered equivalent to it.

He walked back and forth the whole length of the parlor, two or three times, without speaking, then stopped directly in front of me, still silent. Unable to bear the intolerable oppression of my feelings, I started up and attempted to leave the room; but he arrested me by the arm, and his waxen fingers seemed hardened to steel.

"Gabriella!"

His voice sounded so distant, so cold!

"Ernest!"

I raised my eyes, and for a moment we looked each other in the face. There was fascination in his glance, and yet it had the dagger's keenness.

"What is the meaning of what I have just heard? What is the meaning of a report, which I should have regarded as the idle wind, did not your overwhelming confusion establish its truth? Tell me, for I am not a man to be tampered with, as you will find to your cost."

"I cannot answer when addressed in such a tone. Oh, I cannot."

"Gabriella! this is not a moment to trifle. Tell me, without prevarication,—were you, or were you not in the Park, walking with a gentleman, on the morning you left for Mrs. Brahan's? Answer me,—yes, or no."

Had he spoken with gentleness,—had he seemed moved to sorrow as well as indignation, I would have thrown myself at his feet, and deprecated his anger; but my spirit rose in rebellion at the stern despotism of his manner, and nerved itself to resist his coercive will.

Truly is it said, "We know not what manner of spirit we are of."

I little thought how high mine could rebound from the strong pressure which, in anticipation, crushed it to the dust.

I felt firm to endure, strong to resist.

"Ernest! I have done you no wrong," I answered, raising my eyes to his pale, dark countenance. "I have done nothing to merit the displeasure which makes you forget the courtesy of a gentleman, as well as the tenderness of a husband."

"Then it was a false report," he exclaimed,—a ray of light flashing from his clouded eyes,—"you could not look me in the face and speak in that tone unless you were innocent! Why did you not deny it at once?"

"Only listen to me, Ernest," I cried; "only give me a patient, gentle hearing, and I will give you a history, which I am certain will convert your indignation into sympathy, and free me from suspicion or blame."

I armed myself with resolution to tell him all. My father was in all probability far away on the billows of the Atlantic. My disclosures could not affect him now. My promise of secrecy did not extend into the future. I would gladly have withheld from my husband the knowledge of his degradation, for it was humiliating to the child to reveal the parent's shame. Criminal he knew him to be, with regard to my mother, but Ernest had said, when gazing on her picture, he almost forgave the crime which had so much to extenuate it. The gambler, the profligate, the lost, abandoned being, who had thrown himself so abjectly on my compassion: in these characters, the high-minded Ernest would spurn him with withering indignation. Yet as the interview had been observed, and his suspicions excited, it was my duty to make an unreserved confession,—and I did. Conscious of the purity of my motives, and assured that he must eventually acquit me of blame, I told him all, from the note he dropped into my lap at the theatre, to the diamond casket given in parting to his desperate hand. I told him all my struggles, my fears, my agonies,—dwelling most of all on the agony I suffered in being compelled to deceive him.

Silently, immovably he heard me, never interrupting me by question or explanation. He had seated himself on a sofa when I began, motioning me to sit down by him, but I drew forward a low footstool and sat at his feet, looking up with the earnestness of truth and the confidence of innocence. Oh! he could not help but acquit me,—he could not help but pity me. I had done him injustice in believing it possible for him to condemn me for an act of filial obedience, involving so much self-sacrifice and anguish. He would clasp me to his bosom,—he would fold me in his arms,—he would call me his "own, darling Gabriella."

A pause,—a chilling pause succeeded the deep-drawn breath with which I closed the confession. Cold, bitter cold, fell that silence on my hoping, trembling, yet glowing heart. He was leaning on his elbow,—his hand covered his brow.

"Ernest," at length I said, "you have heard my explanation. Am I, or am I not, acquitted?"

He started as if from a trance, clasped his hands tightly together, and lifted them above his head,—then springing up, he drew back from me, as if I were a viper coiling at his feet.

"Your father!" he exclaimed with withering scorn. "Your father! The tale is marvellously conceived and admirably related. Do you expect me to believe that that bold libertine, who made you the object of his unrepressed admiration, was your father? Why, that man was not old enough to be your father,—and if ever profligacy was written on a human countenance, its damning lines were traced on his. Your father! Away with a subterfuge so vile and flimsy, a falsehood so wanton and sacrilegious."

Should I live a thousand years, I never could forget the awful shock of that moment, the whirlwind of passion that raged in my bosom. To be accused of falsehood, and such a falsehood, by Ernest, after my truthful, impassioned revelation;—it was what I could not, would not bear. My heart seemed a boiling cauldron, whence the hot blood rushed in burning streams to face, neck, and hands. My eyes flashed, my lips quivered with indignation.

"Is it I, your wife, whom you accuse of falsehood?" I exclaimed; "dare you repeat an accusation so vile?"

"Did you not act a falsehood, when you so grossly deceived me, by pretending to go on an errand of benevolence, when in reality you were bound to a disgraceful assignation? What veteran intriguante ever arranged any thing more coolly, more deliberately? Even if the story of that man's being your father were not false, what trust could I ever repose in one so skilled in deception, so artful, and so perfidious?"

"Ernest, you will rue what you say now, to your dying day; you will rue it at the judgment bar of heaven; you are doing me the cruellest wrong man ever inflicted on woman."

The burning current in my veins was cooling,—a chill, benumbing sense of injustice and injury was settling on every feeling. I looked in his face, and its classic beauty vanished, even its lineaments seemed changed, the illusion of love was passing away; with indescribable horror I felt this; it was like the opening of a deep, dark abyss. Take away my love for Ernest, and what would be left of life? Darkness—despair—annihilation. I thought not, recked not then of his lost love for me; I only dreaded ceasing to love him, dreaded that congelation of the heart more terrible than death.

"Where is the note?" he asked suddenly. "Show me the warrant for this secret meeting."

"I destroyed it."

Again a thunder-gust swept over his countenance. I ought to have kept it, I ought to have anticipated a moment like this, but my judgment was obscure by fear.

"You destroyed it!"

"Yes; and well might I dread a disclosure which has brought on a scene so humbling to us both. Let it not continue; you have heard from me nothing but plain and holy truth; I have nothing to say in my defence. Had I acted differently, you yourself would despise and condemn me."

"Had you come to me as you ought to have done, asking my counsel and assistance, I would have met the wretch who sought to beguile you; I would have detected the imposter, if you indeed believed the tale; I would have saved you from the shame of a public exposure, and myself the misery, the tortures of this hour."

"Did he not threaten your life and his own? Did he not appeal to me in the most solemn and awful manner not to betray him?"

"You might have known the man who urged you to deceive your husband to be a villain."

"Alas! alas! I know him to be a villain; and yet he is my father."

"He is not your father! I know he is not. I would swear it before a court of justice. I would swear it before the chancery of the skies!"

"Would to heaven that your words were true. Would to heaven my being were not derived from such a polluted source. But I know too well that he is my father; and that he has entailed on me everlasting sorrow. You admit, that if he is an impostor, I was myself deceived. You recall your fearful accusation."

"My God!" he exclaimed, clasping his hands, and looking wildly upwards, "I know not what to believe. I would give worlds, were they mine, for the sweet confidence forever lost! The cloud was passing away from my soul. Sunshine, hope, love, joy, were there. I was wrapped in the dreams of Elysium! Why have you so cruelly awakened me? If you had deceived me once, why not go on; deny the accusation; fool, dupe me,—do any thing but convince me that where I have so blindly worshipped, I have been so treacherously betrayed."

I pitied him,—from the bottom of my soul I pitied him, his countenance expressed such exceeding bitter anguish. I saw that passion obscured his reason; that while under its dominion he was incapable of perceiving the truth. I remembered the warning accents of his mother: "You have no right to complain." I remembered her Christian injunction, "to endure all;" and my own promise, with God's help, to do it. All at once, it seemed as if my guardian angel stood before me, with a countenance of celestial sweetness shaded by sorrow; and I trembled as I gazed. I had bowed my shoulder to the cross; but as soon as the burden galled and oppressed me, I had hurled it from me, exclaiming, "it was greater than I could bear." I had deceived, though not betrayed him. I had put myself in the power of a villain, and exposed myself to the tongue of slander. I had expected, dreaded his anger; and was it not partly just?

As these thoughts darted through my mind with the swiftness and power of lightning, love returned in all its living warmth, and anguish in proportion to the wound it had received. I was borne down irresistibly by the weight of my emotions. My knees bent under me. I bowed my face on the sofa; and tears, hot and fast as tropic rain, gushed from my eyes. I wept for him even more than myself,—wept for the "dark-spotted flower" twined with the roses of love.

I heard him walking the room with troubled steps; and every step sounded as mournful to me as the earth-fall on the coffin-lid. Their echo was scarcely audible on the soft, yielding carpet; yet they seemed loud and heavy to my excited ear. Then I heard him approach the sofa, and stop, close to the spot where I knelt. My heart almost ceased beating; when he suddenly knelt at my side, and put his arms around me.

"Gabriella!" said he, "if I have done you wrong, may God forgive me; but I never can forgive myself."

Accents of love issuing from the grave could hardly have been more thrilling or unexpected. I turned, and leaning my head on his shoulder, I felt myself drawn closer and closer to the heart from which I believed myself for ever estranged. I entreated his forgiveness for having deceived him. I told him, for I believed it then, that the purity of the motive did not justify the act; and I promised in the most solemn manner never again, under any circumstances, to bind myself to do any thing unknown to him, or even to act spontaneously without his knowledge. In the rapture of reconciliation, I was willing to give any pledge as a security for love, without realizing that jealousy was a Shylock, exacting the fulfilment of the bond,—the pound of flesh "nearest the heart." Yes, more exacting still, for he paused, when forbidden to spill the red life-drops, and dropped the murderous knife.

And Ernest,—with what deep self-abasement he acknowledged the errors into which blind passion had led him. With what anguish he reflected on the disgraceful charge he had brought against me. Yes; even with tears, he owned his injustice and madness, and begged me to forget and forgive.

"What have I done?" he cried, when, after our passionate emotions having subsided, we sat hand in hand, still pale and trembling, but subdued and grateful, like two mariners escaped from wreck, watching the billows roaring back from the shore. "What have I done, that this curse should be entailed upon me? In these paroxysms of madness, I am no more master of myself than the maniac who hurls his desperate hand in the face of Omnipotence. Reason has no power,—love no influence. Dark clouds rush across my mind, shutting out the light of truth. My heart freezes, as in a wintry storm. O, Gabriella! you can have no conception of what I suffer, while I writhe in the tempter's grasp. It is said God never allows man to be tempted beyond his powers of resistance. I dare not question the word of the Most High, but in the hour of temptation I feel like an infant contending with the Philistine giant. But, oh! the joy, the rapture when the paroxysm is past,—when light dawns on the darkness, when warmth comes meltingly over the ice and snow, when reason resumes its sway, and love its empire,—oh! my beloved! it is life renewed—it is a resurrection from the dead,—it is Paradise regained in the heart."

Those who have floated along on a smooth, tranquil tide, clear of the breakers and whirlpools and rocks, or whose bark has lain on stagnant waters, on which a green and murky shade is beginning to gather, with no breeze to fan them or to curl the dull and lifeless pool, will accuse me of exaggeration, and say such scenes never occurred in the actual experience of wedded life; that I am writing a romance, instead of a reality.

I answer them, that I am drawing the sketch as faithfully as the artist, who transfers the living form to the canvas; that as it is scarcely possible to exaggerate the dying agonies of the malefactor transfixed by the dagger, and writhing in protracted tortures, that the painter may immortalize himself by the death-throes on which he is gazing; so the agonies of him,

"Who doubts, yet does, suspects, yet fondly loves,"

cannot be described in colors too deep and strong. Prometheus bound to the rock, with the beak of the vulture in his bleeding breast, suffering daily renewing pangs, his wounds healed only to be torn open afresh, is an emblem of the victim of that vulture passion, which the word of God declares to be cruel and insatiable as the grave.

No; my pen is too weak to describe either the terrors of the storm or the halcyon peace, the heavenly joy that succeeded. I yielded to the exquisite bliss of reconciliation, without daring to give one glance to the future. I had chosen my destiny. I had said, "Let me be loved,—I ask no more!"

I was loved, even to the madness of idolatry. My prayer was granted. Then let me "lay my hand upon my mouth, and my mouth in the dust." I had rather be the stormy petrel, whose wings dip into ocean's foaming brine, than the swallow nestling under the barn-eaves of the farmer, or in the chimney of the country homestead,—

"Better to stand the lightning's shock, Than moulder piecemeal on the rock."



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

It was fortunate for me that Margaret was absent during this exciting scene. When she returned, she was too much occupied with relating the pleasures she had enjoyed to think of what might have occurred in her absence.

"I am dying with impatience," she cried, "perfectly consuming with curiosity. Here is a letter from my mother, in which she says a gentleman, a particular friend of mine, is coming to the city, and that she has requested him to take charge of me back to Boston. She does not mention his name, and I have not the most remote idea who he is. She says she is very happy that her wild girl should be escorted by a person of so much dignity and worth. Dignity! I expect he is one of the ex-presidents or wise statesmen, whom Mrs. Linwood has recommended to my patronage. I have a great admiration for great men, large, tall men, men whose heads you can distinguish in a crowd and see in a distant procession. They look as if they could protect one in the day of trouble."

"Do you ever think of such a day, Margaret?"

"Sometimes I do. I think more than you give me credit for. I can think more in one minute than you slow folks can in a week. Who can this be? I remember a description I admire very much. It is in some old poem of Scott's, I believe,—

'Bold, firm, and high, his stature tall,'

did something, looked like something, I have forgotten what. I know it was something grand, however."

"You must be thinking of Mr. Regulus," said I, laughing, as memory brought before me some of his inimitable quackeries. "He is the tallest gentleman I have ever seen, and though not very graceful, has a very imposing figure, especially in a crowd."

"I think Mr. Regulus one of the finest looking men I ever saw," cried Madge. "He has a head very much like Webster's, and his eyebrows are exactly like his. If he were in a conspicuous station, every one would be raving about his mountainous head and cavernous eyes and majestic figure. He is worth a dozen of some people, who shall be nameless. I have no doubt he will be president of the United States, one of these days."

"I never heard you make so sensible a remark, Margaret. I thought you were amusing yourself with my respected teacher. I am glad you appreciate his uncommon merits."

Madge laughed very loud, but she actually blushed. The first symptom of womanhood I had ever seen her exhibit! It was a strange phenomenon, and I marvelled what it could mean.

To my unutterable astonishment and delight, a few evenings after, my quondam preceptor was ushered into the parlor; and strangely looked his tall, large figure in the midst of the oriental lightness and splendor through which it moved. After greeting me with the most heart-felt feeling, and Madge with a half shy, half dignified manner, he gazed around him with the simplicity and wondering admiration of a child. He was probably comparing the beautiful drapery, that seemed like the azure robe of night with its stars of glory gleaming through, with the plain green curtains that shaded the windows of the academy, the graceful and luxurious divan with the high-backed chair which was my village throne.

"Beautiful, charming!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands slowly and gently. "You remind me of the queen of a fairy palace. I shall not dare to call you my child or little girl again. Scherezade or Fatima will seem more appropriate."

"Oh no, Mr. Regulus! I had rather hear you call me child, than any thing else in the world. It carries me back to the dear old academy, the village green, the elm trees' shade, and all the sweet memories of youth."

"One would think you had a long backward journey to take, from the saddened heights of experience," said Ernest; and there was that indescribable something in his voice and countenance, which I had learned too well to interpret, that told me he was not pleased with my remark. He did not want me to have a memory further back than my first meeting with him,—a hope with which he was not intertwined.

"You may call me child, Mr. Regulus, as much as you please," cried Madge, her eyes sparkling with unusual brilliancy. "I wish I were a little school-girl again, privileged to romp as much as I pleased. When I did any thing wrong then, it was always passed over. 'Oh! she's but a child, she will get sobered when she is grown.' Now if I laugh a little louder and longer than other people, they stare and lift up their eyes, and I have no doubt pray for me as a castaway from grace and favor."

"Margaret!" said I, reproachfully.

"There! exactly as I described. Every sportive word I utter, it is Margaret, or Madge, or Meg, in such a grave, rebuking tone!"

"Perhaps it is only when you jest on serious subjects, that you meet a kindly check," observed Mr. Regulus, with grave simplicity; "there are so many legitimate themes of mirth, so many light frameworks, round which the flowers of wit and fancy can twine, it is better to leave the majestic temple of religion, untouched by the hand of levity."

"I did not intend to speak profanely," said Margaret, hastily,—and the color visibly deepened on her cheek; "neither did I know that you were a religious character, Mr. Regulus. I thought you were a very good sort of man, and all that; but I did not think you had so much of the minister about you."

"It is a great pity, Miss Margaret, that interest in religion should be considered a minister's exclusive privilege. But I hope I have not said any thing wounding. It was far from my intention. I am a sad blunderer, however, as Gabriella knows full well."

I was charmed with my straightforward, simple, and excellent teacher. I had never seen him appear to such advantage. He had on an entirely new suit of the finest black broadcloth, that fitted him quite a la mode; a vest of the most dazzling whiteness; and his thick black hair had evidently been under the smoothing hands of a fashionable barber. His head seemed much reduced in size; while his massy, intellectual forehead displayed a bolder sweep of outline, relieved of the shadows that obscured its phrenological beauty.

He had seen Mrs. Linwood and Edith in Boston. They were both well, and looking anxiously forward to the summer reunion at Grandison Place. Dr. Harlowe sent me many characteristic messages,—telling me my little rocking-chair was waiting for me at my favorite window, and that he had not learned to rub his shoes on the mat, or to hang up his hat yet.

"Does he call me the wild-cat, still?" asked Madge.

"I believe so. He told me to say that he had his house repaired, so that you could visit him without endangering Mrs. Harlowe's china."

"The monster! Well, he shall give me a new name, when I see him again. But tell me, Mr. Regulus, who is the very dignified and excellent gentleman whom mamma says is coming to escort me home? I have been expiring with curiosity to know."

"I do not know of any one answering to that description, Miss Margaret," replied Mr. Regulus, blushing, and passing his hands over his knees. "I saw your mother at Mrs. Linwood's; and when she learned I was coming to this city, she said she would be very much obliged to me, if I would take charge of you, on my return."

"Then you did not come on purpose for me, Mr. Regulus," said Madge, with a saucy smile.

"Oh no,—I had business, and a very earnest desire to see my young friend, Gabriella. If I can, however, combine the useful with the agreeable, I shall be very well pleased."

"By the useful, you mean, seeing me safe in my mamma's arms," said Madge, demurely.

"Certainly, Miss Margaret."

Even Ernest laughed at this peculiar compliment; and Madge bit her lips, half in vexation, half in merriment. I hardly knew what to think of Margaret. She was certainly the most eccentric being I ever saw. She, who seemed to care for the opinion of no one,—reckless, defying, and apparently heartless, showed more deference for Mr. Regulus, more solicitude for his attention, than I had ever seen her manifest for another's. Was it possible that this strange, wild girl, was attracted by the pure, unvarnished qualities of this "great grown boy," as Dr. Harlowe called him? It is impossible to account for the fascination which one being exercises over another; and from the days of Desdemona to the present hour, we seldom hear of an approaching marriage, without hearing at the same time some one exclaim, "that it is strange,—most passing strange."

The moment I admitted the possibility of his exercising a secret influence over Madge, I looked upon him with new interest. He had the intense, deep-set eye, which is said to tame the wild beasts of the forest, and perhaps its glance had subdued the animal nature that triumphed over her more ethereal attributes. I hoped most devoutly that my supposition might be true; for genuine affection exalts both the giver and receiver, and opens ten thousand avenues to joy and good.

"You do not look quite so rosy as you did in the country," said he, looking earnestly at me. "The dissipation of a city life does not agree with our wild-wood flowers. They need a purer atmosphere."

"Gabriella is taken very good care of," cried Madge, looking significantly at Ernest. "She is not allowed to hurt herself by dissipation, I assure you."

"Do you imply that she needs a restraining influence to keep her from excess?" asked Ernest. He spoke lightly, but he never spoke without meaning something.

"No, indeed. She is the model wife of the nineteenth century. She is 'wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.' Solomon must have seen her with prophetic eye, when he wrote the last chapter of Proverbs."

"Mock praise is the severest censure, Margaret," said I.

"No such thing. I mean every word I say. Show me a young and beautiful wife, almost bride, immuring herself as you do, and never seen in public but clinging to her husband's arm, shrinking from admiration and blushing at a glance, and I will show you another Solomon."

"Though you may speak in ridicule," said Ernest, with a contracted brow, "you have awarded her the most glorious meed woman can receive. The fashion that sanctions a wife in receiving the attentions of any gentleman but her husband, is the most corrupt and demoralizing in the world. It makes wedded vows a mockery, and marriage an unholy and heartless rite."

"Do you expect to revolutionize society?" she asked.

"No; but I expect to keep my wife unspotted from the world."

"I am glad she has so watchful a guardian," said Mr. Regulus, regarding me with his old-fashioned, earnest tenderness. "We hear very flattering accounts," he added, addressing me, "of our young friend, Richard Clyde. He will return next summer, after a year's absence, having acquired as much benefit as most young men do in two or three."

I could not help blushing, for I knew the eyes of Ernest were on me. He could never hear the name of Richard with indifference, and the prospect of his return was far from being a source of pleasure to him. Richard was very dear to me as a friend, and I was proud of his growing honors. Yet I dared not manifest the interest I felt.

Never had I been so supremely happy, as since my reconciliation with Ernest. I felt that he had something to forgive, much to forgive, and that he was magnanimous to do it, considering the weakness with which he struggled. Never had I loved him so entirely, or felt such confidence in my future happiness. Yet the moment the name of Richard Clyde was mentioned, it sounded like a prophecy of evil.

Oh that he would transfer to Edith the affections given to me, and then he could bind Ernest to his heart by the sacred bonds of fraternity!



CHAPTER XXXIX.

The few days which Mr. Regulus passed in the city, were happy ones to me. He had never visited it before; and Ernest showed him more respect and attention than I had seen him bestow on other men. I had never betrayed the romance of the academy; and not dreaming that my preceptor had ever been my lover, he tolerated the regard he manifested, believing it partook of the paternal character. Perhaps, had he remained long, he would have considered even this an infringement on his rights; but, to my unspeakable joy, nothing occurred to cloud our domestic horizon during his stay. Once or twice when the name of Richard Clyde was mentioned, I saw the shadow of coming events on the brow of Ernest; but it passed away, and the evil day of his return seemed very far off.

I could not regret Margaret's departure. There was so entire a dissimilarity in our characters, and though I have no doubt she cherished for me all the friendship she was capable of feeling, it was of that masculine cast, that I could not help shrinking from its manifestations. Her embraces were so stringent, her kisses so loud and resounding, I could not receive them without embarrassment, though no one but Ernest might be near.

The evening before she left, she was in an unusually gentle mood. We were alone in my chamber, and she actually sat still several moments without speaking. This was something as ominous as the pause that precedes the earth's spasmodic throes. I have not spoken of Margaret's destructive propensities, but they were developed in a most extraordinary manner. She had a habit of seizing hold of every thing she looked at, and if it chanced to be of delicate materials, it often shivered in her grasp. I do not wonder poor Mrs. Harlowe trembled for her glass and china, for scarcely a day passed that her path was not strewed with ruins, whose exquisite fragments betrayed the costly fabric she had destroyed. Now it was a beautiful porcelain vase, which she would have in her hands to examine and admire, then an alabaster statuette or frail crystal ornament. If I dropped a kid glove, she invariably attempted to put it on, and her hand being much larger than mine, she as invariably tore it in shreds. She would laugh, roll up her eyes, and exclaim, "shocking! why this could not be worth anything! I will let it alone next time."

I cannot say but that these daily proofs of carelessness and destructiveness were trials of the temper and constant gratings on the nerves. It was difficult to smile with a frowning heart, for such wanton disregard for the property and feelings of others must pain that nice moral sense which is connected with the great law of self-preservation.

This evening, she seized a beautiful perfume bottle that stood on my toilet, and opening it, spilled it half on her handkerchief, though one drop would fill the whole apartment with richest odor.

"Do not break that bottle, Margaret; it is very beautiful, and Ernest gave it me this very morning."

"Oh! nonsense, I am the most careful creature in the world. Once in a while, to be sure,—but then accidents will happen, you know. O Gabriella I have something to tell you. Mr. Harland wants me to marry him,—ha, ha, ha!"

"Well, you seemed pleased, Margaret. He is an accomplished gentleman, and an agreeable one. Do you like him?"

"No! I liked him very well, till he wanted me to like him better, and now I detest him. He is all froth,—does not know much more than I do myself. No, no,—that will never do."

"Perhaps you like some one else better?" said I, thinking if Margaret was ever caught in the matrimonial noose, it must be a lasso, such as are thrown round the neck of the wild horses of the prairies.

"What makes you say that?" she asked, quickly, and my beautiful essence bottle was demolished by some sudden jerk which brought it in contact with the marble table. "The brittle thing!" she exclaimed, tossing the fragments on the carpet, at the risk of cutting our slippers and wounding our feet. "I would not thank Ernest for such baby trifles,—I was scarcely touching it. What makes you think I like anybody better?"

"I merely asked the question," I answered, closing my work box, and drawing it nearer, so that her depredating fingers could not reach it. She had already destroyed half its contents.

"I do like somebody a great deal better," she said, tossing her hair over her forehead and veiling her eyes; "but if you guessed till doomsday, you could not imagine who it is."

"I pity him, whoever it may be," said I, laughing.

"Why?"

"You are no more fit to be a wife, Madge, than a child of five years old. You have no more thought or consideration, foresight or care."

"I am two years older than you are, notwithstanding."

"I fear if you live to be a hundred, you will never have the qualities necessary to secure your own happiness and that of another in the close, knitting bonds of wedded life."

I spoke more seriously than I intended. I was thinking of Mr. Regulus, and most devoutly hoped for his sake, this wild, nondescript girl would never reach his heart through the medium of his vanity. She certainly paid him the most dangerous kind of flattery, because it was indirect.

"You do not know what a sensible man might make of me," she said, shaking her head. "I really wish,—I do not know—but I sometimes think"—

She stopped and leaned her head on her hand, and her hair fell shadingly over her face.

"What, Margaret? I should like exceedingly to know your inmost thoughts and feelings. You seem to think and feel so little;—and yet, in every woman's heart there must be a fountain,—or else what a desert waste,—what a dreary wilderness it must be."

She did not speak, but put both hands over her face and bent it downwards, while her shoulders moved up and down with a spasmodic motion. I thought she was shaking with suppressed laughter; and though I could not imagine what had excited her mirth, I had known her convulsed by a ridiculous thought of her own, in the midst of general seriousness.

But all at once unmistakable sobs broke forth, and I found she was crying heartily, genuinely,—crying without any self control, with all the abandonment of a child.

"Margaret!" I exclaimed, laying my hand gently on her quivering shoulder, "what is the matter? What can have excited you in this manner? Don't, Madge,—you terrify me."

"I can't help it," she sobbed. "Now I have began, I can't stop. O dear, what a fool I am! There is nothing the matter with me. I don't know what makes me cry; but I can't help it,—I hate myself,—I can't bear myself, and yet I can't change myself. Nobody that I care for will ever love me. I am such a hoyden—such a romp—I disgust every one that comes near me; and yet I can't be gentle and sweet like you, if I die. I used to think because I made everybody laugh, they liked me. People said, 'Oh! there's Madge, she will keep us alive.' And I thought it was a fine thing to be called Wild Madge, and Meg the Dauntless; I begin to hate the names; I begin to blush when I think of myself."

And Margaret lifted her head, and the feelings of lately awakened womanhood crimsoned her cheeks, and streamed from her eyes. I was electrified. What prophet hand had smitten the rock? What power had drawn up the rosy fluid from the Artesian well of her heart?

"My dear Margaret," I cried, "I hail this moment as the dawn of a new life in your soul. Your childhood has lingered long, but the moment you feel that you have the heart of a woman, you will discard the follies of a child. Now you begin to live, when you are conscious of the golden moments you have wasted, the noble capacities you have never yet exerted. Oh Margaret, I feel more and more every day I live, that I was born for something more than the enjoyment of the passing moment,—that life was given for a more exalted purpose than self-gratification, and that as we use or abuse this gift of God we become heirs of glory or of shame."

Margaret listened with a subdued countenance and a long drawn sigh. She strenuously wiped away the traces of her tears, and shook back the hair from her brow, with a resolute motion.

"You despise me—I know you do," she said, gloomily.

"No, indeed," I answered, "I never liked you half as well before; I doubted your sensibility. Now, I see you can feel, and feel acutely. I shall henceforth think of you with interest, and speak of you with tenderness."

"You are the dearest, sweetest creature in the world," she exclaimed, putting both arms around me with unwonted gentleness; "I shall always love you, and will try to remember all you have said to me to-night. We shall meet in the summer, and you shall see, oh yes, you shall see. Dear me—what a fright I have made of myself."

She had risen, and was glancing at herself in the Psyche, which, supported by two charming Cupids, reflected the figure full length.

"I never will cry again if I can help it," she exclaimed. "These horrid red circles round the eyes,—and my eyes, too, are as red as a rabbit's. The heroines of novels are always said to look lovelier in tears; but you are the only person I ever saw who looked pretty after weeping."

"Did you ever see me weep, Madge?"

"I have noticed more than you think I have,—and believe me, Gabriella, Ernest will have to answer for every tear he draws from those angel eyes of yours."

"Margaret, you know not what you say. Ernest loves me ten thousand times better than I deserve. He lavishes on me a wealth of love that humbles me with a consciousness of my own demerits. His only fault is loving me too well. Never never breathe before Mrs. Linwood or Edith,—before a human being, the sentiment you uttered now. Never repeat the idle gossip you may have heard. If you do speak of us, say that I have known woman's happiest, most blissful lot. And that I would rather be the wife of Ernest one year, than live a life of endless duration with any other."

"It must be a pleasant thing to be loved," said Margaret, and her black eyes flashed through the red shade of tears.

"And to love," I repeated. "It is more blessed to give, than to receive."

A sympathetic chord was touched,—there was music in it. Who ever saw a person weep genuine tears, without feeling the throbbings of humanity,—the drawings of the chain that binds together all the sons and daughters of Adam? If there are such beings, I pity them.

Let them keep as far from me as the two ends of the rainbow are from each other. The breath of the Deity has frozen within them.



CHAPTER XL.

The morning of Margaret's departure, when Mr. Regulus was standing with gloves and hat in hand waiting her readiness, it happened that I was alone in the parlor with him a few moments.

"You will have a pleasant journey," said I. "You will find Margaret an entertaining companion."

"O yes!" he answered, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "but I fear she will excite too much remark by her wild antics. I do not like to be noticed by strangers."

"She will accommodate herself to your wishes, I know she will. You have great influence over her."

"Me! oh no!" he cried, with equal surprise and simplicity.

"Yes, indeed you have. Talk to her rationally, as if you had confidence in her good-sense, Mr. Regulus, and you will really find some golden wheat buried in the chaff. Talk to her feelingly, as if you appealed to her sensibility, and you may discover springs where you believe no waters flow."

"It is like telling me to search for spring flowers, when the ground is all covered with snow,—to look at the moon shining, when the night is as dark as ebony. But I am thinking of you, Gabriella, more than of her. I rejoice to find you the same artless child of nature that sat at my feet years ago in the green-wood shade. But beautiful as is your palace home, I long to see you again in our lovely valley among the birds and the flowers. I long to see you on the green lawn of Grandison Place."

"I do feel more at home at Grandison Place," I answered. "I would give more for the velvet lawn, the dear old elm, the oaken avenue, than for all the magnificence of this princely mansion."

"But you are happy here, my child?"

"I have realized the brightest dreams of youth."

"God be praised!—and you have forgiven my past folly,—you think of me as preceptor, elder brother, friend."

"My dear master!" I exclaimed, and tears, such as glisten in the eyes of childhood, gathered in mine. I was a child again, in my mother's presence, and the shade-trees of the gray cottage seemed rustling around me.

The entrance of Margaret interrupted the conversation. She never appeared to better advantage than in her closely fitting riding dress, which displayed the symmetry of her round and elastic figure. I looked at her with interest, for I had seen those saucy, brilliant eyes suffused with tears, and those red, merry lips quivering with womanly sensibility. I hoped good things of Margaret, and though I could not regret her departure, I thought leniently of her faults, and resolved to forget them.

"Just like Margaret," said I, gathering up the beautiful drapery, on which she had trodden as she left the room, and rent from the shaft that confined its folds. She stopped not to see the mischief she had done, for she was so accustomed to hear a crash and dash behind her, it is not probable she even noticed it.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Ernest, before the echo of their departing footsteps had died on the ear. "Thank God! we are once more alone."

* * * * *

Mr. Harland had visited us but seldom since the words of passion which might have been followed by a scene of strife, but for woman's restraining presence, had fallen from the lips of Ernest. One evening, he called and asked a private interview with Ernest, and they immediately passed into the library. I saw that his countenance was disturbed, and vague apprehensions filled my mind. I could hear their voices in earnest, excited tones; and though I knew there was no revelation to be made which Ernest had not already heard from me, I felt a conviction amounting to certainty, that this mysterious interview had some connection with my unhappy father, and boded evil to me. Mr. Harland did not probably remain more than an hour, but every moment seemed an hour, drawn out by suspense and apprehension. He reentered the parlor with Ernest, but left immediately; while Ernest walked silently back and forth, as he always did when agitated,—his brows contracted with stern, intense thought. He was excessively pale, and though his eyes did not emit the lightning glance of passion, they flashed and burned like heated metal.

I dared not ask him the cause of his emotion, I could only watch him with quick-drawn breath, and lips sealed with dread. Suddenly he put his hand in his bosom, and snatching thence the fatal casket I had left in my father's crime-stained hands, he hurled it to the floor, and trampled it under his feet.

"Behold," he cried, with inexpressible bitterness and grief, "my mother's gift, her sacred bridal gift,—desecrated, polluted, lost,—worse than lost! I will not upbraid you. I would spare you the pang I myself endure,—but think of the agonies in which a spirit like mine must writhe, to know that your name, that the name of my wife is blazoned to the world, associated with that of a vile forger, an abandoned villain, whose crimes are even now blackening the newspapers, and glutting the greedy appetite of slander! O rash, misguided girl! what demon tempted you to such fatal imprudence?"

I sat immovable, frozen, my eyes fixed upon the carpet, my hands as cold as ice, and my lips, as they touched each other, chill as icicles. In moments of sudden anguish I never lost consciousness, as many do, but while my physical powers were crushed, my mind seemed to acquire preternatural sensibility. I suffered as we do in dreams, intensely, exquisitely, when every nerve is unsheathed, and the spirit naked to the dagger's stroke. He stopped as he uttered this impassioned adjuration, and his countenance changed instantaneously as he gazed on mine.

"Cruel, cruel that I am!" he cried, sitting down by me, and wrapping his arms around me; "I did not know what I was saying. I meant to be gentle and forbearing, but strong passion rushed over me like a whirlwind. Forgive me, Gabriella, my darling, forgive me. Let the world say what it will, I know that you are pure and true. I care not for the money,—I care not for the jewels,—but an unspotted name. Oh! where now are the 'liveried angels' that will guard it from pollution?"

As he folded me in his arms, and pressed his cheek to mine, as if striving to infuse into it vital warmth, I felt the electric fluid flowing into my benumbed system. Whatever had occurred, he had not cast me off; and with him to sustain me, I was strong to meet the exigencies of the moment. I looked up in his face, and he read the expression of my soul,—I know he did, for he clasped me closer to him, and the fire of his eyes grew dim,—dim, through glistening tears. And then he told me all my beseeching glances sought. More than a week before, even before that, he had learned that a forgery had been committed in his name, involving a very large sum of money. Liberal rewards had been offered for the discovery of the villain, and that day he had been brought to the city. My diamonds, on whose setting Mrs. Linwood had had my name engraven, were found in his possession. He had not spoken to me of the forgery, not wishing to trouble me, he said, on a subject of such minor importance. It was the publicity given to my name, in association with his, that caused the bitterness of his anguish. And I,—I knew that my father had robbed my husband in the vilest, most insidious manner; that he had drawn upon himself the awful doom of a forger, a dungeon home, a living death.

My father! the man whom my mother had loved. The remembrance of this love, so long-enduring, so much forgiving, hung like a glory round him. It was the halo of a saint encircling the brow of the malefactor.

"Will they not suppose the jewels were stolen?" I asked, with the calmness of desperation. "Surely the world cannot know they were given by me; and though it is painful to be associated with so dark a transaction, I see not, dear Ernest, why my reputation should be clouded by this?"

"Alas! Gabriella,—you were seen by more than one walking with him in the park. You were seen entering the jeweller's shop, and afterwards meeting him in Broadway. Even in the act of giving your shawl to the poor shivering woman, you were watched. You believed yourself unremarked; but the blind man might as well think himself unseen walking in the blaze of noonday, because his own eyes are bound by the fillet of darkness, as you expect to pass unnoticed through a gaping throng. Mr. Harland told me of these things, that I might be prepared to repel the arrows of slander which would inevitably be aimed at the bosom of my wife."

"But you told him that it was my father. That it was to save him from destruction I gave them. Oh Ernest, you told him all!"

"I have no right to reveal your secret, Gabriella. If he be indeed your father, let eternal secrecy veil his name. Would you indeed consent that the world should know that it was your father who had committed so dark a crime? Would you, Gabriella?"

"I would far rather be covered with ignominy as a daughter, than disgrace as a wife," I answered, while burning blushes dyed my cheeks at the possibility of the last. "The first will not reflect shame or humiliation on you. You have raised me generously, magnanimously, to your own position; and though the world may say that you yielded to weakness in loving me,—a poor and simple girl.—Nay, nay; I recall my words, Ernest; I will not wrong myself, because clouds and darkness gather round me. You did not stoop, or lower yourself, by wedding me. Love made us equal. My proud, aspiring love, looked up; yours bent to meet its worship,—and both united, as the waves of ocean unite, in fulness, depth, and strength,—and, like them, have found their level. Let the world know that I am the daughter of St. James; that, moved by his prayers and intimidated by his threats, I met him and attempted to save him from ruin. They may say that I was rash and imprudent; but they dare not call me guilty. There is a voice in every heart which is not palsied, or deadened, or dumb, that will plead in my defence. The child who endeavors to shield a father from destruction, however low and steeped in sin he may be, cannot be condemned. If I am, I care not; but oh, Ernest, as your wife, let me not suffer reproach,—for your sake, my husband, far more than mine."

As thus I pleaded with all the eloquence and earnestness of my nature, with my hands clasped in his, their firm, close, yet gentle fold grew firmer, closer still; and the cloud passing away from his countenance, it became luminous as I gazed.

"You are right,—you are true," said he, "my dear, my noble Gabriella. Every shadow of a doubt vanishes before the testimony of your unselfish heart. Why did I not see this subject in the same clear, just light? Because my eyes are too often blinded by the mists of passion. Yes! you have pointed out the only way of extrication. The story of your mother's wrongs will not necessarily be exposed; and if it is, the sacred aegis of your filial love will guard it from desecration. We shall not remain here long. Spring will soon return; and in the sweet quietude of rural life, we will forget the tumultuous scenes of this modern Babel. You will not wish to return?"

"No! never, never. That unhappy man! what will be his doom?"

"Probably life-long imprisonment. Had I known who the offender was, I would have prayed the winds and waves to bear him to Icelandic seas, rather than have had his crime published to the world. It is, however, the retribution of heaven; and we must submit."

"It seems so strange," said I, "to think of him alive, whose existence so long seemed to me a blank. When I was a child, I used to indulge in wild dreams about my unknown parent. I pictured him as one of the gods of mythology, veiling his divinity in flesh for the love of the fairest of the daughters of men. The mystery that wrapped his name was, to my imagination, like the cloud mantling the noonday sun. With such views of my lineage, which, though they became subdued as I grew older, were still exaggerated and romantic,—think of the awful plunge into the disgraceful truth. It seems to me that I should have died on my mother's grave, had not your arms of love raised me,—had you not breathed into my ear words that called me back from the cold grasp of death itself. In the brightness of the future I forgot the gloom of the past. Oh! had I supposed that he lived,—that he would come to bring on me public shame and sorrow, and through me, on you, my husband, I never would have exposed you to the sufferings of this night."

And I clung to him with an entireness of confidence, a fulness of gratitude that swelled my heart almost to bursting. His face, beaming with unclouded love and trust, seemed to me as the face of an angel. I cared not for obloquy or shame, since he believed me true. I remembered the words of the tender, the devoted Gertrude:—

"I have been with thee in thine hour Of glory and of bliss, Doubt not its memory's living power To strengthen me in this."

But though my mind was buoyed up by the exaltation of my feelings, my physical powers began to droop. I inherited something of my mother's constitutional weakness; and, suddenly as the leaden weight falls when a clock has run down and the machinery ceases to play, a heavy burden of lethargy settled down upon me, and I was weak and helpless as a child. Dull pain throbbed in my brain, as if it were girdled by a hard, tightening band.

It was several days before I left my bed, and more than a week before I quitted my chamber. The recollection of Ernest's tender watchfulness during these days of illness, even now suffuses my eyes with tears. Had I been a dying infant he could not have hung over me with more anxious, unslumbering care. Oh! whatever were his faults, his virtues redeemed them all. Oh! the unfathomable depths of his love! I was then willing to die, so fearful was I of passing out of this heavenly light of home joy into the coldness of doubt, the gloom of suspicion.

Ernest, with all his proneness to exaggerate the importance of my actions, did not do so in reference to this unhappy transaction. Paragraphs were inserted in the papers, in which the initials of my name were inserted in large capitals to attract the gazing eye. The meeting in the Park, the jewels found in the possession of the forger, the abrupt manner in which they were taken from the jeweller's shop, even the gray shawl and green veil, were minutely described. Ernest had made enemies by the haughty reserve of his manners and the exclusiveness of his habits, and they stabbed him in secret where he was most vulnerable.

A brief sketch of the real circumstances and the causes which led to them, was published in reply. It was written with manly boldness, but guarded delicacy, and rescued my name from the fierce clutch of slander. Then followed glowing eulogiums on the self-sacrificing daughter, the young and beautiful wife, till Ernest's sensitive spirit must have bled over the notoriety given to her, whom he considered as sacred as the priestess of some holy temple, and whose name was scarcely to be mentioned but in prayer.

The only comment he made on them was,—

"My mother and Edith will see these."

"I will write and tell them all," I answered; "it will be too painful to you."

"We will both write," he said; and we did.

"You blame yourself too much," cried he, when he perused my letter.

"You speak too kindly, too leniently of me," said I, after reading his; "yet I am glad and grateful. Your mother will judge me from the facts, and nothing that you or I can say will warp or influence her judgment. She understands so clearly the motives of action,—she reads so closely your character and mine, I feel that her decision will be as righteous as the decree of eternal justice. Oh that I were with her now, for my soul looks to her as an ark of safety. Like the poor weary dove, it longs to repose its drooping wings and fold them in trembling joy on her sheltering breast."

I will not speak of the trial, the condemnation, or the agony I felt, when I learned that my father was doomed to expiate his crime by solitary confinement for ten long years. Could Ernest have averted this fate from him, for my sake he would have done it; but the majesty of the law was supreme, and no individual effort could change its just decree. My affections were not wounded, for I never could recall his image without personal repugnance, but my mother's remembrance was associated with him;—I remembered her dying injunctions,—her prophetic dream. I thought of the heaven which he had forfeited, the God whose commandments he had broken, the Saviour whose mercy he had scorned. I wanted to go to him,—to minister to him in his lonely cell,—to try to rouse him to a sense of his transgressions,—to lead him to the God he had forsaken, the Redeemer he had rejected, the heaven from which my mother seemed stretching her spirit arms to woo him to her embrace.

"My mother dreamed that I drew him from a black abyss," said I to Ernest; "she dreamed that I was the guardian angel of his soul. Let me go to him,—let me fulfil my mission. I shudder when I look around me in these palace walls, and think that a parent groans in yonder dismal tombs."

"I will go," replied Ernest; "I will tell him your filial wish, and if I find you can do him good, I will accompany you there."

"I can do him good,—I can pity and forgive him,—I can talk to him of my mother, and that will lead him to think of heaven. 'I was sick and in prison and ye came unto me.' Oh, thus our Saviour said, identifying himself with the sons of ignominy and sorrow. Go, and if you find his heart softened by repentance, pour balm and oil into the wounds that sin has made. Go, and let me follow."



CHAPTER XLI.

"And did you see him, Ernest?" I asked, with trembling eagerness.

"I did, Gabriella. I went to him as your representative, without one vindictive, bitter feeling. I proffered kindness, forgiveness, and every comfort the law would permit a condemned criminal to enjoy. They were rejected fiercely, disdainfully,—he rejected them all."

"Alas! and me, Ernest; does he refuse consolation from me?"

"He will not see you. 'I ask no sympathy,' he cried, in hoarse and sullen accents. 'I desire no fellowship; alone I have sinned,—alone I will suffer,—alone I will die.' Weep not, my Gabriella, over this hardened wretch; I do not believe he is your father; I am more and more convinced that he is an impostor."

"But he has my mother's miniature; he recognized me from my resemblance to it; he called me by name; he knew all the circumstances of my infantine life. I would give worlds to believe your assertion, but the curse clings to me. He is,—he must be my father."

"Mr. Brahan, who knew your father personally, and who is deeply interested in the disclosures recently made, has visited him also. He says there is a most extraordinary resemblance; and though seventeen years of sinful indulgence leave terrible traces on the outward man, he does not doubt his identity. But I cannot, will not admit it. Think of him no more, Gabriella; banish him, and every thing connected with this horrible event, from your mind. In other scenes you will recover from the shock occasioned by it; and even now the tongue of rumor is busy with more recent themes. Mr. Brahan will visit him from time to time and, if possible, learn something of the mystery of his life. Whatever is learned will be communicated to me. What! weeping still, my Gabriella?"

"It is dreadful to think of sin and crime in the abstract; but when it comes before us in the person of a father!"

"No more! no more! Dismiss the subject. Let it be henceforth a dark dream, forgotten if possible; or if remembered, be it as a dispensation of Providence, to be borne in silence and submission. Strange as it may seem, all that I have suffered of humiliation and anguish in this real trial, cannot be compared to the agony caused by one of my own dark imaginings."

I tried to obey the injunctions of Ernest; but though my lips were silent, it was impossible to check the current of thought, or to obliterate the dark remembrance of the past. My spirits lost their elasticity, the roses on my cheek grew pale.

Spring came, not as in the country, with the rich garniture of living green, clothing hill, valley, and lawn,—the blossoming of flowers,—the warbling of birds,—the music of waters,—and all the beauty, life, and glory of awakening nature. But the fountain played once more in the grotto, the vine-wreaths frolicked again round their graceful shells, the statues looked at their pure faces in the shining mural wall.

I cared not for these. This was not my home. I saw the faces of Mrs. Linwood and Edith in the mirror of memory. I saw the purple hills, the smiling vale, the quiet churchyard, the white, broken shaft, gleaming through the willow boughs, and the moonbeams resting in solemn glory there.

Never shall I forget my emotions when, on quitting the city, I caught a glimpse of that gloomy and stupendous granite pile which looms up in the midst of grandeur and magnificence, an awful monitor to human depravity. Well does it become its chill, funereal name. Shadows deeper than the darkness of the grave hang within its huge Egyptian columns. Corruption more loathsome than the mouldering remains of mortality dwells in those lone and accursed cells. I gazed on the massy walls, as they frowned on the soft blue sky, till their shadow seemed to darken the heavens. I thought of the inmate of one lonely cell; of the sighs and tears, the curses and wailings that had gone up from that abode of shame, despair, and misery; and I wondered why the Almighty did not rend the heavens and come down and bare the red right arm of vengeance over a world so blackened by sin, so stained by crime, and so given up to the dominion of the spirit of evil.

Ernest drew me back from the window of the carriage, that I might not behold this grim fortification against the powers of darkness; but it was not till we had quitted the walls of the metropolis, and inhaled a purer atmosphere, that I began to breathe more freely. The tender green of the fields, the freshness of the atmosphere, the indescribable odor of spring that embalmed the gale, awakened softer, happier thoughts. The footsteps of divine love were visible on the landscape. The voice of God was heard, breathing of mercy, through the cool green boughs.



CHAPTER XLII.

Once more at Grandison Place! Once more on the breezy height which commanded the loveliest valley creation ever formed! Light, bloom, joy came back to eye, cheek, and heart, as I hailed again the scene where the day-spring of love dawned on my life.

"God made the country."

Yes! I felt this truth in every bounding vein. "God made the country,"—with its rich sweep of verdant plains, its blue winding streams, shedding freshness and murmuring music through the smiling fields; its silver dews, its golden sunsets, and all its luxuriance and greenness and bloom. The black shadow of the Tombs did not darken this Eden of my youth.

Mrs. Linwood and Edith—I was with them once more. Mrs. Linwood, in her soft twilight robe of silver grey; and Edith, with her wealth of golden locks, and eye of heaven's own azure.

"You must not leave us again," said Mrs. Linwood, as she clasped us both in her maternal arms. "There are but few of us, and we should not be separated. Absence is the shadow of death, and falls coldly on the heart."

She glanced towards Edith, whose beautiful face was paler and thinner than it was wont to be. She had pined for the brother of whom I had robbed her; for the world offered her nothing to fill the void left in the depths of her loving heart. We were all happier together. We cannot give ourselves up to the dominion of an exclusive passion, whatever it may be, without an outrage to nature, which sooner or later revenges the wrong inflicted. With all my romantic love for Ernest, I had often sighed for the companionship of one of my own sex; and now, restored to Edith, whom I had always regarded a little lower than the angels, I felt that if love was more rapturous than friendship, it was not more divine.

They knew that I had suffered. They had sympathized with me, pitied me,—(if Mrs. Linwood blamed me for imprudence, she never expressed it); and I felt that they loved me better for having passed under the cloud. There was no allusion made to the awful events which were present in the minds of all, on our first reunion. If Mrs. Linwood noticed, that after the glow of excitement faded from my cheek it was paler than it was wont to be, she did not tell me so, but her kiss was more tender, her glance more kind. There was something in her mild, expressive eyes, that I translated thus:—

"Thank God that another hand than Ernest's has stolen the rose from thy cheek of youth. Better, far better to be humbled by a father's crimes, than blighted by a husband's jealousy."

This evening reminded me so much of the first I ever passed with Ernest. He asked Edith for the music of her harp; and I sat in the recess of the window, in the shadow of the curtains, through whose transparent drapery the moonbeams stole in and kissed my brow. Ernest came and sat down beside me, and my hand was clasped in his. As the sweet strains floated round us, they seemed to mingle with the moonlight, and my spirit was borne up on waves of brightness and melody. Always before, when listening to Edith's angelic voice, I had wished for the same enchanting power. I had felt that thus I could sing, I could play, had art developed the gifts of nature, only with deeper passion and sensibility; but now I listened without conscious desire,—passive, happy, willing to receive, without desiring to impart. I felt like the pilgrim who, after a sultry day of weariness, pauses by a cool spring, and, laying himself down beneath its gushing, suffers the stream to flow over him,—till, penetrated by their freshness, his soul seems a fountain of living waters. Oh! the divine rapture of repose, after restlessness and conflict! I had passed the breakers. Henceforth my life would be calm and placid as the beams that illumined the night.

And now I am tempted to lay down the pen. I would not weary thee, friend of my lonely hours, whoever thou art, by a repetition of scenes which show how poor and weak are the strongest human resolutions, when temptations assail and passions rise with the swell and the might of the stormy billows. But if I record weaknesses and errors, such as seldom sadden the annals of domestic life, it is that God may be glorified in the humiliation of man. It is that the light of the sun of righteousness may be seen to arise with healing in his beams, while the mists of error and the clouds of passion are left rolling below.

Yes! We were all happy for a while, and in the midst of such pure, reviving influences, I became blooming and elastic as a mountain maid. Dr. Harlowe was the same kind, genial, warm-hearted friend. Mr. Regulus, the same—no, he was changed,—improved, softened still more than when he surprised me by his graces, in my metropolitan home. He looked several years younger, and a great deal handsomer.

Had Margaret wrought this improvement? Had she indeed supplanted me in my tutor's guileless heart? I inquired of Edith after the wild creature, whom I suspected some secret influence was beginning to tame.

"Oh! you have no idea how Madge is improved, since her visit to you," she answered. "She sometimes talks sensibly for five minutes at a time, and I have actually caught her singing and playing a sentimental air. Mamma says if she were in love with a man of sense and worth, he might make of her a most invaluable character."

"Mr. Regulus, for instance!" said I.

Edith laughed most musically.

"Mr. Regulus in love! that would be a farce."

"I have seen that farce performed," said Dr. Harlowe, who happened to come in at that moment, and caught her last words. "I have seen Mr. Regulus as much in love as—let me see," glancing at me, "as Richard Clyde."

Much as I liked Dr. Harlowe I felt angry with him for an allusion, which always called the cloud to Ernest's brow, and the blush to my cheek.

"Do tell me the object of his romantic passion?" cried Edith, who seemed excessively amused at the idea.

"Am I telling tales out of school?" asked the doctor, looking merrily at me. "Do you not know the young enchantress, who has turned all the heads in our town, not excepting the shoemaker's apprentice and the tailor's journeyman? Poor Mr. Regulus could not escape the fascination. The old story of Beauty and the Beast,—only Beauty was inexorable this time."

"Gabriella!" exclaimed Edith, with unutterable astonishment; "he always called her his child. Who would have believed it? Why, Gabriella, how many victims have your chariot wheels of conquest rolled over?"

"I am afraid if I had not been a married man, she would have added me to the number," said the doctor, with much gravity. "I am not certain that Mrs. Harlowe is not jealous, in secret, of my public devotion."

Who would believe that light words like these, carelessly uttered, and forgotten with the breath that formed them, should rankle like arrows in a breast where reason was enthroned? But it was even so. The allusion to Richard Clyde, the revelation of Mr. Regulus' romantic attachment, even the playful remarks of Dr. Harlowe relative to his wife's jealousy, were gall and wormwood, embittering the feelings of Ernest. He frowned, bit his lip, rose, and walked into the piazza. His mother's eyes followed him with that look which I had so often seen before our marriage, and which I now understood too well. I made an involuntary movement to follow him, but her glance commanded me to remain. The doctor, who was in a merry mood, continued his sportive remarks, without appearing to notice the darkened countenance and absence of Ernest. I talked and smiled too at his good-humored sallies, that he might not perceive my anxious, wounded feelings.

A little while after Mr. Regulus called, and Ernest accompanied him to the parlor door with an air of such freezing coldness, I wonder it did not congeal his warm and unsuspecting heart. And there Ernest stood with folded arms, leaning back against the wall just within the door, stern and silent, casting a dark shadow on my soul. Poor Mr. Regulus,—now he knew he had been my lover, he would scarcely permit him to be my friend.

"Oh!" thought I, blushing to think how moody and strange he must seem to others,—"surely my happiness is based on sand, since the transient breath of others can shake it from its foundation. If it depended on myself, I would guard every look, word, and action, with never sleeping vigilance;—but how can I be secured against the casual sayings of others, words unmeaning as a child's, and as devoid of harm? I might as well make cables of water and walls of foam, as build up a fabric of domestic felicity without confidence as the foundation stone."

As these thoughts arose in my mind, my heart grew hard and rebellious. The golden chain of love clanked and chafed against the bosom it attempted to imprison.

"I will not," I repeated to myself, "alienate from me, by coolness and gloom, the friends who have loved me from my orphan childhood. Let him be morose and dark, if he will; I will not follow his example. I will not be the slave of his mad caprices."

"No," whispered the angel over my right shoulder, "but you will be the forbearing, gentle wife, who promised to endure all, knowing his infirmity, before you breathed your wedded vows. You are loved beyond the sober reality of common life. Your prayer is granted. You dare not murmur. You have held out your cup for the red wine. There is fire in its glow. You cannot turn it into water now. There is no divine wanderer on earth to reverse the miracle of Cana. 'Peace' is woman's watchword, and heaven's holiest, latest legacy."

As I listened to the angel's whisper, the voices of those around me entered not my ear. I was as far away from them as if pillowed on the clouds, whose silver edges crinkled round the moon.

As soon as our guests had departed, Ernest went up to Edith, and putting his arm round her, drew her to the harp.

"Sing for me, Edith, for my spirit is dark and troubled. You alone have power to soothe it. You are the David of the haunted Saul."

She looked up in his face suddenly, and leaned her head on his shoulder. Perhaps at that moment she felt the joy of being to him all that she had been, before he had known and loved me. He had appealed to her, in the hour of darkness. He had passed me by, as though I were not there. He sat down close to her as she played, so close that her fair ringlets swept against his cheek; and as she sang, she turned towards him with such a loving smile,—such a sweet, happy expression,—just as she used to wear! I always loved to hear Edith sing; but now my spirit did not harmonize with the strains. Again a stinging sense of injustice quickened the pulsations of my heart. Again I asked myself, "What had I done, that he should look coldly on me, pass me with averted eye, and seek consolation from another?"

I could not sit still and listen, for I was left alone. I rose and stole from the room,—stole out into the dewy night, under the heavy, drooping shade-boughs, and sat down wearily, leaning my head against the hard, rough bark. Never had I seen a more enchanting night. A thin mist rose from the bosom of the valley and hovered like a veil of silvery gauze over its rich depth of verdure. It floated round the edge of the horizon, subduing its outline of dazzling blue, and rolled off among the hills in soft, yet darkening convolutions. And high above me, serene and holy, the moon leaned over a ledge of slate-colored clouds, whose margin was plated with her beams, and looked pensively and solemnly on the pale and sad young face uplifted to her own. The stilly dews slept at my feet. They hung tremulously on the branches over my head, and sparkled on the spring blossoms that gave forth their inmost perfume to the atmosphere of night. Every thing was so calm, so peaceful, so intensely lovely,—and yet there was something deadly and chilling mingled with the celestial beauty of the scene. The lace clung in damp folds to my bosom. The hair fell heavy with moisture against my temples.

I heard a step softly crushing the grass near me. I did not look up, for I thought it was the step of Ernest; but my pulse throbbed with a quickened motion.

"Gabriella, my child, you must not sit here in this chill damp evening air."

It was Mrs. Linwood, who took me by the hand and drew me from the seat. It was not Ernest. He had not missed me. He had not feared for me the chill dews of night.

"I do not feel cold," I answered, with a slight shudder.

"Come in," she repeated, leading me to the house with gentle force.

"Not there," I said, shrinking from the open door of the parlor, through which I could see Ernest, with his head leaning on both hands, while his elbows rested on the back of Edith's chair. She was still singing, and the notes of her voice, sweet as they were, like the odor of the night-flowers, had something languishing and oppressive. I hurried by, and ascended the stairs. Mrs. Linwood followed me to the door of my apartment, then taking me by both hands, she looked me full in the face, with a mildly reproachful glance.

"O, Gabriella! if your spirit sink thus early, if you cannot bear the burden you have assumed, in the bright morning hour of love, how will you be able to support it in the sultry noon of life, or in the weariness of its declining day? You are very young,—you have a long pilgrimage before you. If you droop now, where will be the strength to sustain in a later, darker hour?"

"I shall not meet it," I answered, trying in vain to repress the rising sob. "I do not wish a long life, unless it be happier than it now promises to be."

"What! so young, and so hopeless! Where is the strength and vitality of your love? The fervor and steadfastness of your faith? My child, you have borne nothing yet, and you promised to hope all and endure all. Be strong, be patient, be hopeful, and you shall yet reap your reward."

"Alas! my mother, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

"There is no task appointed to man or woman," she answered, "which may not be performed, through the power of God and the influences of the Holy Spirit. Remember this, my beloved daughter; and remember, too, that the heart which bends will not break. Good-night! We had better not renew this theme. 'Patient continuance in well-doing;' let this be your motto, and if happiness in this world be not your reward, immortality and glory in the next will be yours."

I looked after her as she gently retreated, and as the light glanced on the folds of her silver gray dress, she seemed to me as one of the shining ones revealed in the pilgrim's vision. At that moment her esteem and approbation seemed as precious to me as Ernest's love. I entered my chamber, and sitting down quietly in my beloved recess, repeated over and over again the Christian motto, which the lips of Mrs. Linwood uttered in parting,—"Patient continuance in well-doing."

I condemned myself for the feelings I had been indulging. I had felt bitter towards Edith for smiling so sweetly in her brother's face, when it had turned so coldly from me. I was envious of her power to soothe the restless spirit I had so unconsciously troubled. As I thus communed with my own heart, I unbound my hair, that the air might exhale the mist which had gathered in its folds. I brushed out the damp tresses, till, self-mesmerized, a soft haziness stole over my senses, and though I did not sleep, I was on the borders of the land of dreams.



CHAPTER XLIII.

I suppose I must have slept, though I was not conscious of it, for I did not hear Ernest enter the room, and yet when I looked again, he was sitting in the opposite window, still as a statue, looking out into the depths of night. I started as if I had seen a spirit, for I believed myself alone, and I did not feel less lonely now. There was something dejected in his attitude, and he sighed heavily as he turned and leaned his forehead against the window sash.

I rose, and softly approaching him laid my hand on his shoulder.

"Are you angry with me, Ernest?" I asked.

He did not answer, or turn towards me; but I felt a tremulous motion of his shoulder, and knew that he heard me.

"What have I done to displease you, dear Ernest?" again I asked. "Will you not speak to me and tell me, at least, in what I have offended?"

"I am not offended," he answered, without looking up; "I am not angry, but grieved, wounded, and unhappy."

"And will you not tell me the cause of your grief? Is not sympathy in sorrow the wife's holiest privilege?"

"Gabriella, you mock me!" he exclaimed, suddenly rising and speaking in a low, stern voice. "You know that you are yourself the cause of my grief, and your words are as hollow as your actions are vain. Did you not promise, solemnly promise never to deceive me again, after having caused me such agony by the deception I yet freely forgave?"

"Tell me, Ernest, in what have I deceived? If I know myself, every word and action has been as clear and open as noonday."

"Did you ever tell me your teacher was your lover,—he with whom you were so intimately associated when I first knew you? You suffered me to believe that he was to you in the relation almost of a father. I received him as such in my own home. I lavished upon him every hospitable attention, as the friend and guide of your youth, and now you suffer me to hear from others that his romantic love was the theme of village gossip, that your names are still associated by idle tongues."

"I always believed before that unrequited love was not a theme for vain boasting, that it was a secret too sacred to be divulged even to the dearest and the nearest."

"But every one who has been so unfortunate as to be associated with you, seems to have been the victims of unrequited love. The name of Richard Clyde is familiar to all as the model of despairing lovers, and even Dr. Harlowe addresses you in a strain of unpardonable levity."

"O Ernest, cannot you spare even him?"

"You asked me the cause of my displeasure, and I have told you the source of my grief, otherwise I had been silent. There must be something wrong, Gabriella, or you would not be the subject of such remarks. Edith, all lovely as she is, passes on without exciting them. The most distant allusion to a lover should be considered an insult by a wedded woman and most especially in her husband's presence."

"I have never sought admiration or love," said I, every feeling of delicacy and pride rising to repel an insinuation so unjust. "When they have been mine, they were spontaneous gifts, offered nobly, and if not accepted, at least declined with gratitude and sensibility. If I have been so unfortunate as to win what your lovely sister might more justly claim, it has been by the exercise of no base allurement or meritricious attractions. I appeal to your own experience, and if it does not acquit me, I am for ever silent."

Coldly and proudly my eye met his, as we stood face to face in the light of the midnight moon. I, who had looked up to him with the reverence due to a superior being, felt that I was above him now. He was the slave of an unjust passion, the dupe of a distempered fancy, and as such unworthy of my respect and love. As I admitted this truth, I shuddered with that vague horror we feel in dreams, when we recoil from the brink of something, we know not what. I trembled when his lips opened, fearful he would say something more irrational and unmanly still.

"O Ernest!" I cried, all at once yielding to the emotions that were bearing me down with such irresistible power, "you frighten me, you fill me with unspeakable dread. There seems a deep abyss yawning between us, and I stand upon one icy brink and you on the other, and the chasm widens, and I stretch out my arms in vain to reach you, and I call, and nothing but a dreary echo answers, and I look into my heart and do not find you there. Save me, Ernest, save me,—my husband, save yourself from a doom so dreadful!"

Excited by the awful picture of desolation I had drawn, I slid down upon my knees and raised my clasped hands, as if pleading for life beneath the axe of the executioner. I must have been the very personification of despair, with my hair wildly sweeping round me, and hands locked in agony.

"To live on, live on together, year after year, cold and estranged, without love, without hope,"—I continued, unable to check the words that came now as in a rushing tide,—"Oh! is it not dreadful, Ernest, even to think of? There is no evil I could not bear while we loved one another. If poverty came,—welcome, welcome. I could toil and smile, if I only toiled for you, if I were only trusted, only believed. There is no sacrifice I would not make to prove my faith. Do you demand my right hand?—cut it off; my right eye?—pluck it out;—I withhold nothing. I would even lay my heart bleeding at your feet in attestation of my truth. But what can I do, when the idle breath of others, over which I have no power, shakes the tottering fabric of your confidence, and I am buried beneath the ruins?"

"You have never loved like me, Gabriella, or you would never dream of the possibility of its being extinguished," said he, in a tone of indescribable wretchedness. "I may alienate you from me, by the indulgence of insane passions, by accusations repented as soon as uttered,—I may revile and persecute,—but I can never cease to love you."

"O Ernest!" It was all gone,—pride, anger, despair, were gone. The first glance of returning love,—the first acknowledgment of uttered wrong, were enough for me. I was in his arms, next to his heart, and the last hours seemed a dream of darkness. I was happy again; but I trembled even in the joy of reconciliation. I realized on what a slender thread my wedded happiness was hanging, and knew that it must one day break. Moments like these were like those green and glowing spots found on the volcano's burning edge. The lava of passion might sweep over them quick as the lightning's flash, and beauty and bloom be covered with ashes and desolation.