Part 7 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIII.
”Why, when my life on that one hope, cast, Why didst thou chain my future to her past?
Why not a breath to say she loved before?”
BULWER.
”Oh leave me not! or know Before thou goest, the heart that wronged thee so But wrongs no more.”
BULWER.
In the first painful moments of awakening sense, Marie was only conscious of an undefined yet heavy weight on heart and brain; but as strength returned she started up with a faint cry, and looked wildly round her. The absence of Morales, the conviction that he had left her to the care of others, that for the first time he had deserted her couch of pain, lighted up as by an electric flash the marvellous links of memory, and the whole of that morning's anguish, every word spoken, every feeling endured, rushed back upon her with such overwhelming force as for the moment to deprive her of the little strength she had regained. Why could she not die? was the despairing thought that followed. What had she to live for, when it was her ill fate to wreck the happiness of all who loved her? and yet in that moment of agony she never seemed to have loved her husband more. It was of him she thought far more than of Arthur, whose angry words and fatal threat rung again and again in her ears.
”My Lord had only just left when you recovered consciousness, Senora,”
gently remarked her princ.i.p.al attendant, whose penetration had discovered the meaning of Marie's imploring look and pa.s.sive silence, so far at least that it was Don Ferdinand she sought, and that his absence pained her. ”He tarried till life seemed returning, and then reluctantly departed for the castle, where he had been summoned, he said, above an hour before.”
”To the castle!” repeated Marie internally. ”Ay, he will do his duty, though his heart be breaking. He will take his place and act his part, and men will report him calm, wise, collected, active as his wont, and little dream his wife, his treasured wife, has bowed his lofty spirit to the dust, and laid low his light of home. Tell me when he returns,”
she said aloud, ”and bid all leave me but yourself.”
Two hours pa.s.sed, and Marie lay outwardly still and calm, neither speaking nor employed. But at the end of that time she started up hastily, resumed the robe which had been cast aside, and remained standing, as intently listening to some distant sound. Several minutes elapsed, and though she had sunk almost unconsciously on the seat Manuella proffered, it was not till full half an hour that she spoke.
”The Senor has returned,” she said calmly; ”bid Alberic hither.”
The page came, and she quietly inquired if any strangers had entered with his master.
”No, Senora, he is alone.”
”Has he long returned?”
”Almost half an hour, Senora. He went directly to his closet, desiring that he might not be disturbed.”
Ten minutes more, and Marie was standing in her husband's presence, but un.o.bserved. For the first time in his whole life had her light step approached him unheard. For two hours he had borne a degree of mental suffering which would either have crushed or roused any other man into wildest fury--borne it with such an unflinching spirit, that in neither look nor manner, nor even tone, had he departed from his usual self, or given the slightest occasion for remark. But the privacy of his closet obtained, the mighty will gave way, and the stormy waves rolled over him, deadening every sense and thought and feeling, save the one absorbing truth, that he had never been beloved.
Father and child had deceived him; for now every little word, every trifling occurrence before his marriage in the Vale of Cedars rushed back on his mind, and Henriquez imploring entreaty under all circ.u.mstances to love and cherish her was explained.
”Ferdinand!” exclaimed a voice almost inarticulate from sobs; and starting, he beheld his wife kneeling by his side. ”Oh! my husband, do not turn from me, do not hate me. I have none but thee.”
He tried to withdraw his hand, but the words, the tone, unmanned him, and throwing his arm round her, he clasped her convulsively to his heart, and she felt his slow scalding tears fall one by one, as wrung from the heart's innermost depths, upon her cheek.
For several minutes there was silence. The strong man's emotion is as terrible to witness as terrible to feel. Marie was the first to regain voice; and in low beseeching accents she implored him to listen to her--to hear ere he condemned.
”Not thus,” was his sole reply, as he tried to raise her from her kneeling posture to the cus.h.i.+on by his side.
”Yes, thus my husband. I will not rise till thou say'st thou canst forgive; wilt take the loving and the weak back to thy heart, if not to love as thou hast loved, to strengthen and forgive. I have not wronged thee. Were I false in word or thought I would not kneel to ask forgiveness, but crawl to thy feet and die! If thou couldst but know the many, many times I have longed to confess all; the agony to receive thy fond caress, thy trusting confidence, and know myself deceiving; the terror lest thou shouldst discover aught from other than myself; oh! were it not for thy deep woe, I could bless this moment, bidding me speak Truth once more!”
”And say thou hast never loved me? Wert true from duty, not from love?
Marie, can I bear this?”