Part 169 (2/2)

Dale hurried along the corridor, much agitated, Violante stole from a recess formed by a large bay window, and linking her arm in his, said anxiously, but timidly: ”I have been waiting for you, dear Mr. Dale; and so long! You have been with Lord L'Estrange?”

”Well!”

”Why do you not speak? You have left him comforted, happier?”

”Happier! No.”

”What!” said Violante, with a look of surprise, and a sadness not unmixed with petulance in her quick tone. ”What! does he then so grieve that Helen prefers another?”

Despite the grave emotions that disturbed his mind, Mr. Dale was struck by Violante's question, and the voice in which it was said. He loved her tenderly. ”Child, child,” said he, ”I am glad that Helen has escaped Lord L'Estrange. Beware, oh, beware how he excite any gentler interest in yourself. He is a dangerous man,--more dangerous for glimpses of a fine original nature. He may well move the heart of the innocent and inexperienced, for he has strangely crept into mine. But his heart is swollen with pride and ire and malice.”

”You mistake; it is false!” cried Violante, impetuously. ”I cannot believe one word that would asperse him who has saved my father from a prison, or from death. You have not treated him gently. He fancies he has been wronged by Leonard, received ingrat.i.tude from Helen. He has felt the sting in proportion to his own susceptible and generous heart, and you have chided where you should have soothed. Poor Lord L'Estrange!

And you have left him still indignant and unhappy?”

”Foolish girl! I have left him meditating sin; I have left him afraid to pray; I have left him on the brink of some design--I know not what--but which involves more than Leonard in projects of revenge; I have left him so, that if his heart be really susceptible and generous, he will wake from wrath to be the victim of long and unavailing remorse. If your father has influence over him, tell Dr. Riccabocca what I say, and bid him seek, and in his turn save, the man who saved himself. He has not listened to religion,--he maybe more docile to philosophy. I cannot stay here longer,--I must go to Leonard.”

Mr. Dale broke from Violante and hurried down the corridor; Violante stood on the same spot, stunned and breathless. Harley on the brink of some strange sin! Harley to wake, the victim of remorse! Harley to be saved, as he had saved her father! Her breast heaved, her colour went and came, her eyes were raised, her lips murmured. She advanced with soft footsteps up the corridor; she saw the lights gleaming from Harley's room, and suddenly they were darkened, as the inmate of the room shut to the door, with angry and impatient hand.

An outward act often betrays the inward mind. As Harley had thus closed the door, so had he sought to shut his heart from the intrusion of softer and holier thoughts. He had turned to his hearthstone, and stood on it, resolved and hardened. The man who had loved with such pertinacious fidelity far so many years could not at once part with hate. A pa.s.sion once admitted to his breast, clung to it with such rooted force! But woe, woe to thee, Harley L'Estrange, if tomorrow at this hour thou stand at the hearthstone, thy designs accomplished, knowing that, in the fulfilment of thy blind will, thou hast met falsehood with falsehood, and deception with deceit! What though those designs now seem so consummate, so just, so appropriate, so exquisite a revenge,--seem to thee the sole revenge wit can plan and civilized life allow: wilt thou ever wash from thy memory the stain that will sully thine honour? Thou, too, professing friends.h.i.+p still, and masking perfidy under smiles! Grant that the wrong be great as thou deem it,--be ten times greater: the sense of thy meanness, O gentleman and soldier, will bring the blush to thy cheek in the depth of thy solitude. Thou, who now thinkest others unworthy a trustful love, wilt feel thyself forever unworthy theirs. Thy seclusion will know not repose. The dignity of man will forsake thee. Thy proud eye will quail from the gaze. Thy step will no longer spurn the earth that it treads on. He who has once done a base thing is never again wholly reconciled to honour. And woe--thrice woe, if thou learn too late that thou hast exaggerated thy fancied wrong: that there is excuse, where thou seest none; that thy friend may have erred, but that his error is venial compared to thy fancied retribution!

Thus, however, in the superb elation of conscious power, though lavished on a miserable object,--a terrible example of what changes one evil and hateful thought, cherished to the exclusion of all others, can make in the n.o.blest nature, stood, on the hearth of his fathers, and on the abyss of a sorrow and a shame from which there could be no recall, the determined and scornful man.

A hand is on the door,--he does not hear it; a form pa.s.ses the threshold,-he does not see it; a light step pauses, a soft eye gazes.

Deaf and blind still to both.

Violante came on, gathering courage, and stood at the hearth by his side.

CHAPTER XXIX.

”LORD L'ESTRANGE, n.o.ble friend!”

”You!--and here--Violante? Is it I whom you seek? For what? Good heavens! what has happened? Why are you so pale; why tremble?”

”Have you forgiven Helen?” asked Violante, beginning with evasive question, and her cheek was pale no more. ”Helen, the poor child! I have nothing in her to forgive, much to thank her for. She has been frank and honest.”

”And Leonard--whom I remember in my childhood--you have forgiven him?”

”Fair mediator,” said Harley, smiling, though coldly, ”happy is the man who deceives another; all plead for him. And if the man deceived cannot forgive, no one will sympathize or excuse.”

”But Leonard did not deceive you?”

”Yes, from the first. It is a long tale, and not to be told to you; but I cannot forgive him.”

”Adieu! my Lord. Helen must, then, still be very dear to you!” Violante turned away. Her emotion was so artless, her very anger so charming, that the love, against which, in the prevalence of his later and darker pa.s.sions, he had so sternly struggled, rushed back upon Harley's breast; but it came only in storm.

”Stay, but talk not of Helen!” he exclaimed. ”Ah, if Leonard's sole offence had been what you appear to deem it, do you think I could feel resentment? No; I should have gratefully hailed the hand that severed a rash and ungenial tie. I would have given my ward to her lover with such a dower as it suits my wealth to bestow. But his offence dates from his very birth. To bless and to enrich the son of a man who--Violante, listen to me. We may soon part, and forever. Others may misconstrue my actions; you, at least, shall know from what just principle they spring.

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