Part 49 (2/2)
”A friend,” said Sybil, dropping her arms and bending her head in woe; ”a kind good friend. I met him but this morn, and he warned me of all this.”
”Hah, hah!” said Morley with a sort of stifled laugh; ”Hah, hah; he told you did he; the kind good friend whom you met this morning? Did I not warn you, Sybil, of the traitor? Did I not tell you to beware of taking this false aristocrat to your hearth; to worm out all the secrets of that home that he once polluted by his espionage, and now would desolate by his treason.”
”Of whom and what do you speak?” said Sybil, throwing herself into a chair.
”I speak of that base spy Egremont.”
”You slander an honourable man,” said Sybil with dignity. ”Mr Egremont has never entered this house since you met him here for the first time; save once.”
”He needed no entrance to this house to worm out its secrets,” said Morley maliciously. ”That could be more adroitly done by one who had a.s.signations at command with the most charming of its inmates.”
”Unmannerly churl!” exclaimed Sybil starting in her chair, her eye flas.h.i.+ng lightning, her distended nostril quivering with scorn.
”Oh! yes. I am a churl,” said Morley; ”I know I am a churl. Were I a n.o.ble the daughter of the people would perhaps condescend to treat me with less contempt.”
”The daughter of the people loves truth and manly bearing, Stephen Morley; and will treat with contempt all those who slander women, whether they be n.o.bles or serfs.”
”And where is the slanderer?”
”Ask him who told you I held a.s.signations with Mr Egremont or with any one.”
”Mine eyes--mine own eyes--were my informant,” said Morley. ”This morn, the very morn I arrived in London, I learnt how your matins were now spent. Yes!” he added in a tone of mournful anguish, ”I pa.s.sed the gate of the gardens; I witnessed your adieus.”
”We met by hazard,” said Sybil, in a calm tone, and with an expression that denoted she was thinking of other things, ”and in all probability we shall never meet again. Talk not of these trifles. Stephen; my father, how can we save him?”
”Are they trifles?” said Morley, slowly and earnestly, walking to her side, and looking her intently in the face. ”Are they indeed trifles, Sybil? Oh! make me credit that, and then--” he paused.
Sybil returned his gaze: the deep l.u.s.tre of her dark orb rested on his peering vision; his eye fled from the unequal contest: his heart throbbed, his limbs trembled; he fell upon his knee.
”Pardon me, pardon me,” he said, and he took her hand. ”Pardon the most miserable and the most devoted of men!”
”What need of pardon, dear Stephen?” said Sybil in a soothing tone. ”In the agitated hour wild words escape. If I have used them, I regret; if you, I have forgotten.”
The clock of St John's told that the sixth hour was more than half-past.
”Ah!” said Sybil, withdrawing her hand, ”you told me how precious was time. What can we do?”
Morley rose from his kneeling position, and again paced the chamber, lost for some moments in deep meditation. Suddenly he seized her arm, and said, ”I can endure no longer the anguish of my life: I love you, and if you will not be mine, I care for no one's fate.”
”I am not born for love,” said Sybil, frightened, yet endeavouring to conceal her alarm.
”We are all born for love,” said Morley. ”It is the principle of existence, and its only end. And love of you, Sybil,” he continued, in a tone of impa.s.sioned pathos, ”has been to me for years the h.o.a.rded treasure of my life. For this I have haunted your hearth and hovered round your home; for this I have served your father like a slave, and embarked in a cause with which I have little sympathy, and which can meet with no success. It is your image that has stimulated my ambition, developed my powers, sustained me in the hour of humiliation, and secured me that material prosperity which I can now command. Oh! deign to share it; share it with the impa.s.sioned heart and the devoted life that now bow before you; and do not shrink from them, because they are the feelings and the fortunes of the People.”
”You astound, you overwhelm me,” said Sybil, agitated. ”You came for another purpose, we were speaking of other feelings; it is the hour of exigency you choose for these strange, these startling words.”
”I also have my hour of exigency,” said Morley, ”and its minutes are now numbering. Upon it all depends.”
”Another time,” said Sybil, in a low and deprecatory voice; ”speak of these things another time!”
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