Part 45 (1/2)
”There is no task appointed to man or woman,” she answered, ”which may not be performed, through the power of G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 att.i.tude, 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 a.s.sociated 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 a.s.sociated 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 a.s.sociated 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, pa.s.ses 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 n.o.bly, and if not accepted, at least declined with grat.i.tude 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 pa.s.sion, 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sions, by accusations repented as soon as uttered,--I may revile and persecute,--but I can never cease to love you.”