Part 23 (2/2)
There was a slight rustling of her dress, and turning he saw that she had risen, and with one hand pressed upon the table for support, was advancing to the door. Falteringly, one--two--three steps were taken, and completely overcome, pale and ready to faint, she sank upon a sofa near her. He sprang forward, but she motioned him away, and covering her face with her hands, burst into tears--tears of shame as well as of sorrow. For an instant he stood irresolute--but only for an instant, when bending over her, he whispered, ”Dare I hope that you sympathize with me, Mary--that the feeling which made even liberty painful to me since it separates me from you, is not confined to my own bosom?”
Mary's sobs ceased--but she spoke not--moved not.
”Answer me, dear Mary--remember I have little time to woo, for my orders admit of no delay in their execution--I must leave you to-morrow. Rise then above the petty formalities of your s.e.x, and if I may indeed hope ever to call you mine, let me do so this night--this hour--your father will not, I think, fear to commit you to my tenderness.”
Mary uncovered her face, and raised her eyes for an instant to his, with an expression so confiding that he thought his suit was won, and pressing her hand to his lips, he said, ”That glance tells me that you are my own, Mary. My life shall prove my grat.i.tude--but now I must seek your father--_our_ father--will you await us here?”
”I have something to say to you--sit down and hear me,” said Mary, in a voice which she strove in vain to raise above a whisper.
He placed himself beside her on the sofa, still clasping the hand he had taken, and with a voice faltering and low at first, but gathering strength as she proceeded, Mary resumed:--”I will not attempt--I do not wish to deny that you have read my heart aright--that--that you who saved me are--are--” a lover's ear alone could detect the next words--”very dear to me--but I cannot--I think I ought not----”
She paused, and Captain Percy said, ”You are not willing to intrust your happiness to one so lately known.”
”Oh, no! you mistake my meaning--I can have no doubt of you--no fear for my own happiness--but my father--who will care for him if I, his daughter, his only child, thus give myself to another at the very time that he needs me most?”
”I will not take you from him--at least not now, Mary--give me but the right to call you mine, and I will leave you here in your own sweet home--not again, I trust, to be visited by war--till peace shall leave me at liberty to return to England with my bride--my wife.”
He would have clasped her to him as he named her thus, but Mary struggled almost wildly to free herself, exclaiming, ”Oh! plead not thus lest I forget my father in myself--my duty in love--the forgetfulness would be but short--I should be unhappy even at your side, when I thought of the loneliness of heart and life to which I had condemned him.”
”But he should go with us--he should have our home. It will be a simple home, Mary--for though I come of a lordly race, I inherit not their wealth--but it will be large enough for our father.”
”Kind and generous!” exclaimed Mary, as she suffered her fingers to clasp the hand in which they had hitherto only rested, ”would that it might be so--but that were to ask of my father a sacrifice greater even than the surrender of his daughter--the sacrifice of his sense of duty to the people who have chosen him as their spiritual father--and to whom he considers himself bound for life.”
Captain Percy remained silent long after she had ceased to speak, with his eyes resting on her downcast face. At length in low, sad tones, he questioned, ”And must we part thus?”
Mary's lips moved, but she could not speak.
”I will not ask you to remember me, Mary,” he resumed, ”for if forgetfulness be possible to you, it will perhaps be for your happiness to forget--yet--pardon me if I am selfish--I would have some little light amidst the darkness gathering around my heart--may I hope that had no duty forbidden you would have been mine?”
She yielded to his clasping arm, and sinking on his bosom, murmured there, ”Yours--yours ever and only--yours wholly if I could be yours holily.”
From this interview Mary retired to her chamber, and Captain Percy sought his host in his study. After communicating to Mr. Sinclair the contents of the dispatch he had just received, he continued, ”I must in consequence of these orders leave you immediately--but before I go I have a confession to make to you. You will not wonder that your lovely daughter should have won my heart; but one hour since, I could have said that I had never yielded for an instant to that heart's suggestions--had never consciously revealed my love, or endeavored to excite in her feelings which, in my position and the present relations of our respective countries, could scarcely fail to be productive of pain. I can say so no longer. The moment of parting has torn the veil from the hearts of both--she loves me,”--there was a joyous intonation in Captain Percy's voice as he p.r.o.nounced these last words. He was silent a moment while Mr. Sinclair continued to look gravely down--then suddenly he resumed--”Pardon my selfishness--I forget all else in the sweet thought that I am loved by one so pure, so gentle, so lovely. But though I have dared without your permission to acknowledge my own tenderness, and to draw from her the dear confession of her regard, there my wrong has ended--she has a.s.sured me that she could never be happy separated from you, and that you are wedded to your people.” Mr. Sinclair shaded with his hand features quivering with emotion. ”At present,” continued Captain Percy, ”these feelings, which are both of them too sacred for me to contest, place a barrier between us, and I have sought from her no promise for the future--if she can forget me--” Captain Percy paused a moment, then added abruptly--”may a happier destiny be hers than I could have commanded--but, sir, the time may come when England shall no longer need all her soldiers--an orphan and an only child, I have nothing to bind me to her soil--should I seek you then, and find your Mary with an unchanged heart, will you give her to me?--will you receive me as a son?”
”Under such circ.u.mstances I would do so joyfully,” Mr. Sinclair replied, ”yet I cannot conceal from you now that I grieve to know that my daughter must wear out her youth in a hope long deferred at best, perhaps never to be realized.”
Both gentlemen were for a few minutes plunged in silent thought. Captain Percy arose from his seat--walked several times across the room, and then stopping before the table at which Mr. Sinclair was seated, resumed the conversation.
”Had I designedly sought the interest with which your daughter has honored me,” he said, ”your words would inflict on me intolerable self-reproach, but I cannot blame myself for not being silent when silence would have been a reproach to her delicacy and a libel on my own affection. Now, however, sir, I yield myself wholly to your cooler judgment and better knowledge of her nature, and I will do whatever may in your opinion conduce to her happiness, without respect to my own feelings. If you think that she can forget the past, and you desire that she should”--his voice lost its firmness and he grasped with violence the chair on which he leaned--”I will do nothing to recall it to her memory. It is the only _amende_ I can make for the shadow I have thrown upon her life--dark indeed will such a resolve leave my own.”
”It would cast no ray of light on hers. Be a.s.sured her love is not a thing to be forgotten--it is a part of her life.”
”And it shall be repaid with all of mine which my duties as a soldier and subject leave at my disposal. Do not think me altogether selfish when I say that your words have left no place in my heart for any thing but happiness--I have but one thing more to ask you--it is a great favor--inexpressibly great--but----”
”Nay--nay,” Mr. Sinclair exclaimed, gathering his meaning more from his looks and manner than from the words which fell slowly from his lips--”ask me not so soon to put the irrevocable seal upon a bond which may be one of misery.”
”If your words be true--if her love be a part of her life, the irrevocable seal has been already affixed by Heaven, and I only ask you to give your sanction to it, that by uniting her duty and her love, you may save her gentle spirit all contest with itself, and give her the fairest hope of future joy.”
It was now Mr. Sinclair's turn to rise and pace the floor in agitated silence--”I know not how to decide so suddenly on so momentous a question,” he at length exclaimed.
”Suppose you leave its decision to her whom it most concerns. It is for her happiness we are most anxious--so entirely is that my object that I would not influence her determination even by a look. I will not even ask to be present when you place my proposal before her; but I must repeat, sir, if you design to do it, there is no time to be lost, for I must be on my way to Canada to-morrow.”
”So be it then--she shall choose for herself, and Heaven direct her choice!”
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