Chapter divisionCHAPTER XIX.Itis not pleasant to stand by and assist at each step of an incantation that draws down a star from heaven, or darkens the face of the moon. Let us be content to accept the result, when it is forced upon us, without inquiring too minutely into the process. Not with impunity can even the Adepts gain and keep the secrets of their evil Abracadabra. The beard of Merlin is gray before its time; premature wrinkles furrow the54brow of Canidia; though the terror of his stony eyes may keep the fiends at bay, the death-sleep of Michael Scott is not untroubled; the pillars of Melrose shake ever and anon as though an earthquake passed by, and the monks cross themselves in fear and pity, for they know that the awful wizard is turning restlessly in his grave.As we are not writing a three-volume novel, we have a right, perhaps, not to linger over this part of our story. For any one who likes to indulge a somewhat morbid taste, or who happens to be keen about physiology, there is daily food sufficient in those ingenious romancesd’Outre-mer.It is hardly worth while speculating how far Cecil deluded herself when she thought that she was safe in trusting to her own strength of principle and to the generosity of Royston Keene. All this seems to me not to affect the main question materially. Does it help us—after we have yielded to temptation—that our resolves, when it first assailed us, should have been prudent and sincere, if such a plea can not avert the consequences or extenuate the guilt? The grim old proverb tells us how a certain curiously tesselated pavement is laid down. Millions of feet have trodden those stones for sixty ages, yet they may well last till the Day of Judgment, they are so constantly and unsparingly renewed.It is more than rashness for any mortal to say to the strong, treacherous ocean, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;” it is trenching on the privilege of Omnipotence. The dikes may be wisely planned and skillfully built; but one night a wilder wind arises than any that they have withstood; the legions of the besieging army are mustering to storm. At one spot in the seawall, where patient miners have long been working unseen, a narrow breach is made, widening every instant; it is too late now to fly; the wolfish waves are within the intrenchments, mad for sack and pillage. On the morrow, where trim gardens bloomed, and stately palaces shone, there is nothing but a waste of waters strewn with wrecks and blue, swollen corpses. The Zuyder Zee rolls, ten fathoms deep, over the ruins of drowned Stavoren.So we will not enter minutely into the details of poor Cecil’s demoralization—gradual, but fearfully rapid. It was not by words that she was corrupted; for Royston was still as careful as ever to abstain from uttering one cynicism in her presence; but none the less was it true that daily and hourly some fresh scruple was washed away, some holy principle withered and died. The recklessness which ever carried him on straight to the attainment of a purpose or the indulgence of a fancy, trampling down the barriers that divide good from evil, seemed to communicate itself to Cecil contagiously. She seldom ventured on reflection now—still less on self-examination; but she could not help being herself sensible of the change: thoughts that she would have shrunk back from in horror not so long ago (if she could have comprehended them fully) had ceased now to startle or repel her as she looked them in the face. Do not suppose for an instant that there was a corresponding alteration in her outward demeanor, or that it displayed any wildness or eccentricity. Melodrama, etc., may be very successful at a trans-pontine theatre, but it is unpardonably out of place in oursalons. The Tresilyan understood the duties of her social, if not of her moral position (so long as the first was not forfeited) as well as the strictest duenna alive. Though she might choose to defy the world’s censure, she never dreamed of giving an opening to its ridicule; she was less capable ofgaucheriethan of a crime. In her bearing toward others she was just the same as ever; if any thing, rather more brilliant and fascinating, and, if crossed or interfered with, perhaps a shade more haughtily independent.Only when alone with Royston did she betray herself. It was sad to see how completely the stronger and worse nature had absorbed the weaker and better one till all power of volition and free agency vanished, and even individuality was lost. She was not sentimental or demonstrative in his presence (on the contrary, at such times, that loveliest face was very apt to put on the deliciousmine mutine, which made it perfectly irresistible), but the idea seemed never to enter her mind that it would be possible to resist or controvert any seriously-expressed wish of her—lover. There! the word is written; and woe is me! that I dare not erase it. It must have come sooner or later, and it is as well to have got it over.According to all rules for such cases laid down and provided, Cecil’s life ought to have been spent in alternations between feverish excitement and poignant remorse. But the truth must be told—she was unaccountably happy. The simple fact was that she had no time to be otherwise. Even when entirely alone her conscience could find no opportunity of asserting itself. Her thoughts were amply occupied with recalling every word that Royston had said, and with anticipating what he would say at their next meeting. It is idle to suppose that remorse can not be kept at arm’s length for a certain time; but the debt recklessly incurred must generally be paid to the uttermost farthing. Life, if sufficiently prolonged, will always afford leisure for reflection and retrospect, and at such seasons we appreciate in full force the tortures of “solitary confinement.” The criminal may go on pilgrimage to a hundred shrines, and never light on the purification that will scare the Erinnyes.In this instance the victor certainly did not abuse his advantage, and was any thing but exacting in his requirements. It was strange how his whole manner and nature altered when alone with his beautiful captive. The more evident became her subjugation, the more he seemed anxious to treat her with a delicate deference. They talked, as a rule, on any subject rather than their own feelings; and he spoke on all such indifferent topics honestly, if not wisely. For the rest of the world his sarcasm and irony were ready as ever; he kept all his sincerity and confidence for Cecil Tresilyan. This is the secret of the influence exercised by many men, at whose successes we all have marveled. Sweet, as well as disenchanting experiences are sometimes gained behind the scenes. None but those who have tried it can appreciate the delight of finding, in a manner that the uninitiate call cold and repellent, an ever-ready loving caress. But in Royston’s case there was no acting: it was only that he allowed Cecil to see one phase of hid character that was seldom displayed.The subordinates in the drama betrayed much more outward concern and disquietude than the55principals. When Fanny Molyneux found that Royston did not intend to evacuate his position, she tried the effect of a vigorous remonstrance on her friend. The latter heard her patiently, but quite impassively, declining to admit any probability of danger or necessity to caution.La mignonnewas not convinced, but she yielded. She wound her arm round Cecil’s waist, as they sat and whispered, nestling close to her side—“Dearest, remember this: if any thing should happen, I shall always think that some blame belongs to me, and I will never give you up—never.”The Tresilyan bent her beautiful swan-neck, as though she were caressing a dove nestling in her bosom, and pressed her lips on her companion’s cheek long and tenderly.“I could not dothat,” she said, “if I were guilty.”Neither had Harry refrained from lifting up his testimony against what he saw and suspected. The major would take more from him than from any man alive; he was not at all incensed at the interference.“My dear Hal,” he said, “don’t make an old woman of yourself by giving credit to scandal, or inventing it for yourself. If you choose to be worried before your time, I can’t help it; but it is more than unnecessary. Una can take care of herself perfectly well, without your playing the lion. Besides—what is the brother there for? You know there are some subjects I never talk about to you, and you don’t deserve that I should be communicative now. But listen—you shall not think of Cecil worse than she is: up to this time, I swear, even her lips are pure from me. Now I hope you are satisfied; you have made me break my rule, for once; drop the subject, in the devil’s name.”Though fully aware of his friend’s unscrupulous character, Harry was satisfied that nothingverywrong had occurred so far. Royston never lied.“I’m glad that you can say so much,” he replied; “the worst of it is, people will talk. I wonder that obnoxious parson has not made himself more disagreeable already. I didn’t go to church last Sunday afternoon, because I felt a conviction that he was going to be personal in his sermon.”The major laughed his hard, unpleasant laugh. “Don’t let that idea disturb your devotions another time. He is not likely to bite or even to bark very loud: he don’t get my muzzle off in a hurry.”Indeed, it was profoundly true that since the disclosure the chaplain’s reticence had become remarkable. When his own wife questioned him on the subject (very naturally), he checked her with some asperity, and read her a lecture on feminine curiosity that moved the poor woman, even to weeping. Mrs. Danvers was greatly surprised and disconcerted by the decision with which Mr. Fullarton rejected her suggestion, that he should aid and abet in thwarting Keene’s supposed designs. “He had thought it right,” he said, “to make Miss Tresilyan and others aware of the real state of the case; but he did not conceive that farther interference lay within the sphere of his duty.” It was odd how that same once arbitrarily elastic sphere had contracted since the prophet met the lion in the pathway! Dick Tresilyan—the only other person much interested in the progress of affairs—did not seem to trouble himself much about them. He was perpetually absent on shooting expeditions; but, when at home, it was observed that he drank harder than ever, getting sulky sometimes without apparent reason, and disagreeably quarrelsome.Royston had only stated the simple fact when he said that Cecil was free from any stain of actual guilt or dishonor. Whether the credit of having borne her harmless was most due to her own prudence and remains of principle, or to her tempter’s self-restraint, we will not, if you please, inquire. It is as well to be charitable now and then. Her escape was little less than miraculous, considering how often she had trusted herself unreservedly to the mercy of one who was wont to be as unsparing in his love as in his anger. Let not this immunity be made an excuse for credulous confidence, or induce others to emulate her rashness. The Millenium will not come in our time, I fancy; and, till it arrives, neither child nor maiden may safely lay their hand on the cockatrice’s den. The ballad tells us that Lady Janet was happy at last; but she paid dearly through months of sorrow and shame for those three red roses plucked in the Elfin Bower. The precise cause of Keene’s forbearance it would be very difficult to explain: more than one feeling probably had to do with it.If memory has any pleasures worth speaking of (which many grave and learned doctors take leave to doubt), certainly among the purest is the recollection of having once been endowed with the whole love of a rare and beautiful being which we did not abuse or betray. This is the only sort of lost riches on which we can look back with comfort out of the depths of present and pressing poverty; the pearl is so very precious that it confers on its possessor a certain dignity which does not entirely pass away, even when the jewel has slipped from his grasp, following the ring of Polycrates. Alas! alas! less generous than the blue Ægæan are the sullen waters of the deep.Mare mortuum.Only on these grounds can that wonderful self-possession be accounted for, which enables men, seemingly ill-fitted for the situation, to confront the world in all its phases with so grand a calmness. It is refreshing to see how even coquetry recoils from that armor of proof, and to fancy how the dead beauty might triumph over the defeat of her living rivals, laughing the seductions of their loveliness to scorn. Even in crises of graver difficulty, where sterner assailants are to be encountered than Helen’s magical smile or Florence’s magnetic eyes, the invisible presence seems to inspire her lover with supernatural valiance. Remember the story of Aslauga’s Knight; when once through the cloud of battle-dust gleamed the golden tresses, horse and man went down before him.Royston was not half good enough to appreciate all this; yet some shadowy and undefined feeling, allied to it, may have helped to hold him back from pushing his advantage to the uttermost. Another and more selfish presentiment worked probably more powerfully. There was one phantom from which the Cool Captain never could escape; for years it had followed close on the consummation of all his crimes, and56was, in truth, their best avenger: his Nemesis was satiety. He knew too well how the sweetest flowers lost their color and fragrance, so soon as they were plucked and fairly in his grasp, not to shrink before the prospect of a certain disenchantment. This curse attaches to many of his kind: the instant the prize is won there arise misgivings as to its value; and defects develop themselves hourly in what seemed faultless perfection before. It is boys’ play to simulate beingblasé; but the reality makes mature manhood disbelieve any thing sooner than inevitable retribution. Very often the thought forced itself upon Keene’s mind, “If I were to weary ofhertoo?” and made him pause before he urged Cecil to the step that must have linked him to her fate forever.Under other circumstances his patience might have held out still longer; but there were numberless difficulties and obstacles in the way of their meeting, and the perpetual constraint fretted Royston sorely. His principle always had been not openly to violate conventionalities without gaining an adequate equivalent; so he was more careful of Cecil’s reputation than she was inclined to be, and, among worse lessons, taught her prudence. They met very seldom alone. When Mrs. Danvers was present she made it her business to be as much as possible in the way; and her awkward attempts at interference were sometimes inexpressibly provoking. On one particular evening she had been unusually pertinacious and obtrusive. The major stood it tolerably well up to a certain point, but his savage temper gradually got the better of him; his face grew darker and darker, till it was black as midnight when he rose to go, and his lips were rigid as steel. It was evident he had come to some resolution that he meant to keep. When he was wishing Bessie “good-night,” he held her hand imprisoned for a moment without pressing it. “You are so good a theologian,” he said, “that perhaps you can tell me where a text comes from that has haunted me for the last hour. It speaks of some one who ‘loosed the bands of Orion.’” His manner and the sudden address disconcerted Mrs. Danvers so completely as to incapacitate her from reply: she suffered “judgment to go by default;” and left Royston under the impression that she had never read the Book of Job.The next day he asked Cecil to elope with him.She listened without betraying either terror, or anger, or disdain; but she raised her beautiful eyes to his with a sad, searching inquiry, before which many men would have quailed. “Have you counted the cost to yourself and to me?”“I have done both,” replied Keene, gravely. “I can not say that you will never repent it; but I know that I shall never regret it.”There were no promises or vows exchanged; but a silence for two long minutes; and, when these were passed, the sweet, pure lips had lost their virginity.So with few more words it was finally arranged; and the next day Royston left Dorade to make preparations all along the road of their intended flight. Their plan was to take boat at Marseilles for the East, making their first permanent resting-place one of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago. Both were most anxious to evade any possibility of interception, more especially of collision with Dick Tresilyan.On that evening Cecil was alone in her own room (Mrs. Danvers had gone out to a sort of love-feast at the Fullartons’, where the company were to be entertained with weak tea and strong doctrineà discretion). She had rejected the offer of Fanny’s companionship on the plea, not altogether false, of a tormenting headache.La mignonnewas too innocent to suspect the reason that made her friend shudder in their parting embrace, half averting her cheek, though Cecil’s arms clung round her as though they would never let her go. The saddest feeling of the many that were busy then in the guilty, troubled heart, was a consciousness that in a few hours the gulf between them would be deep and impassable as the chasm dividing Abraham from Dives.Miss Tresilyan had taken unconsciously an attitude in which you saw her once before, half-reclined, and gazing into the fire; outwardly still remained the same pensive, languid grace; but very different was the careless reverie that had stolen over her then, from the wild chaos of conflicting thoughts that involved her now.Her whole being was so bound up in Royston Keene’s, that she felt without him there would be nothing worth living for; neither had she the faintest misgiving as to the chances of his inconstancy. There had descended to her some of the stability and determination of purpose which had made many of her race so powerful for good or evil; in the pursuit of either they would never admit a doubt, or listen to a compromise. When Cecil believed, she believed implicitly, and, not even with her own conscience, made conditions of surrender. So long ashisstrong arm was round her, she felt that she could defy shame, and even remorse; but how would it be if that support should fail? He had not been away yet twenty hours, and already there came creeping over her a chilling sense of helplessness and desolation. She knew her lover’s violent passions and haughty temper, impatient of the most distant approach to insolence or even contradiction from others, too well not to be aware that such a man walked ever on the frontier-ground between life and death. Suppose that he were taken from her?—her spirit, dauntless as it was, quailed before the ghastly terrors of imagined loneliness. An evil voice that had whispered perhaps in the ear of more than one of the “bitter, bad Tresilyans,” seemed to murmur, “You, too, can die:” but Cecil was not yet so lost as to listen to the suggestion of the subtle fiend. She wasted no regrets on the past, and the wreck of all its brilliant promises: she was resolute to meet the perils of the future; nevertheless, her heart was heavy with apprehension. Remember the answer that the stout Catholic made to Des Adrets, when the savage baron taunted him with cowardice for shrinking twice from the death-leap on the tower, “Je vous le donne, en dix.” So it is not in womanhood—however ruined in principle or reckless of the consequences, to venture deliberately, without a shudder, on the fatal plunge from which no fair fame has ever risen unshattered again. Even prejudices may not be torn up by the roots without stirring the earth around them.She might have sat musing thus for about an hour; so deep in thought that she never heard57theportièreslowly drawn aside that divided the room from an ante-chamber. The Tresilyan had her emotions under tolerable control, and at least was not given to screaming; but she could hardly repress the startled cry that sprang to her lips when she raised her eyes.The reproachful spectre that had haunted her for years—till very lately, when a stronger influence chased it away—assumed substance of form and feature, as the dark doorway framed the haggard, pain-stricken face of Mark Waring.Chapter divisionCHAPTER XX.Itis not very easy to confront, with decorous composure, the sudden apparition of the person on earth that one would have least liked to see. All things considered Cecil carried it off creditably, and greeted her unexpected visitor with sufficient cordiality. Mark took her offered hand gravely, without eagerness, not holding it an instant longer than was necessary. Then he spoke—“They told me I should find you alone. I was so anxious to do so as soon as possible, that I ventured to break in upon you even at this unseasonable hour. You will guess that I had powerful reasons.”The Tresilyan threw back her haughty head, as a war-horse might do at the first blast of the trumpet: she scented battle in the wind.“Will you be good enough to explain yourself?” she said, as she took her own seat again, and motioned him into another; “I am sure you would not trifle with me, or vex me unnecessarily.”Waring did not avail himself of the chair indicated, but crossed his arms over the back of it, and stood so, regarding her intently.“You only do me justice there,” he replied; “I will speak briefly, and plainly too. I came here from Nice to ask you how much truth there is in the reports that couple your name with Major Keene’s?”No one likes to give the death-blow to the loyalty of a faithful adherent, be he ever so humble; and Cecil was bitterly pained that she could not speak truly, and satisfy him. Her face sank lower and lower, till it was buried in her hands. Nothing more was needed to convince Waring that his worst fears were realized; for a moment or two he felt sick and faint. No wonder; he had given up hope long ago, but not trust and faith; now, these were blasted utterly. In any religion, whether true or false, the fanatic is happier, if not wiser, than the infidel; if you can not replace it with a better, it is cruel to shake the foundation of the simplest creed. Mark’s voice—hollow, and hoarse, and changed—could not but betray his agony.“God help us both! Has it come to this—that you have no words to answer me, when I dare to hint at your dishonor?”She looked up quickly, flushing to her white brow, rose-red with anger.“I will not endure this, even from you. Understand at once—I deny your right to question me.” The clear blue eyes met the violet ones with a steady, judicial calmness, undazzled by their ominous lightning.“Listen to me quietly—two minutes longer,” he said, “and then resent my presumption as much as you will. Three years ago it pleased you to make me the subject of an experiment. How far you acted heedlessly, and in ignorance of the consequences, I have never stopped to inquire—it would be wasting time; the sophistries of coquetry are too subtle for me. I only know what the result has been. Before I met you I could have offered to any woman, who thought it worth her acceptance, a healthy, honest love; now—even if I could conquer my present infatuation—I could only offer a feeling something warmer than friendship; to promise more would be base treachery. Do you think I would stand by God’s altar with a worse lie than Ananias’s on my lips? Is it nothing that, to gratify your vanity or your whims, you should have condemned a man, whose blood is not frozen yet, to something worse than widowhood for life? My religion may be a false and vain idolatry; but it is all I have to trust to. I will not stand patiently by and see the image that I have bowed down to worship pilloried for the world to scorn. Now—do you deny my right to interfere?”His words had a rude energy, though little eloquence; but they came so evidently from the depths of a strong, troubled heart, that they caused a revulsion in Cecil’s feelings; returning remorse bore down her stubborn pride. Very low and plaintive was the whisper—“Ah! have mercy—have mercy; you make me so unhappy;” but there came a more piteous appeal from her eyes. In Mark’s stout manhood was an element of more than womanish compassion and tenderness; he never could bear to see even a child in tears; no wonder if his anger vanished before the contrition of the one being whom he loved far better than life. He lost sight of his own wrongs instantly, butnotof the object he had in view.“Forgive me for speaking so roughly; I ought to have declined your challenge. I behaved better once, you remember. But be patient while I plead for the right, though, if you would but listen to them, prudence and your own conscience could do that better than I. When infatuation exists, it is worse than useless to prove the object of it unworthy, so I will not attempt to blacken Major Keene’s character; besides, it is not to my taste to attack men in their absence. I fear there are few capitals in Europe where his name is not too well known. From what I have heard, I believe his wife was most in fault when they separated, but the life he has led since deprives him of all right to complain of her, or condemn her. Recollect you have only heard one side. But it is not a question of his eligibility as an acquaintance. There is the simple fact—he is married, and your name being connected with his involves disgrace. You can not have fallen yet so far as to be reckless about such an imputation. In my turn I say, ‘Have mercy!’ Do not force me henceforth to disbelieve in the purity of any created thing.”Cecil could only murmur, “It is too late—too late!” The ghastly look of horror that swept over Waring’s face showed that his thoughts had gone beyond the truth. “I mean,” she went on, blushing painfully, “that I have promised.”“Promised!” Mark repeated in high disdain; “I have lived too long when I hear such devil’s58logic from your lips. You know full well there is more sin in keeping than in breaking such engagements. I will try to save you in spite of yourself. Listen. I do not threaten; I know you well enough to be certain that such an argument would be the strongest temptation to you to persevere in taking your own course. I simply tell you what I will do. I shall speak to your brother first; if he can not understand his duty, or shrinks from it, I will carry out what I believe to be mine. I utterly disapprove of and despise the practice of dueling, but, at any risk, Iwillstand between you and Major Keene. He shall not gain possession of you while I am alive. When I am dead, if you touch his hand, you shall know that my blood is upon it, and the guilt shall be on your own head. I believe that in keeping you apart I should act kindly toward both. I do him this justice—it would make him miserable to see you pining away. There are limits to human endurance, and you are too proud to bear dishonor.”Cecil felt that every word he had spoken was good and true, and that he would not waver in his purpose for an instant. She remembered how, when they were returning together four days ago, the sidelong glance of a matronly Pharisee had lighted on her in a spiteful triumph, and how, though neither of them alluded to it afterward, the dark-red flash of anger had mounted to Royston’s forehead. She had ceased to care for herself, but could she not savehimwhile yet there was time? And more—had she not wrought wrong enough to Mark Waring without having his murder on her soul? for she never doubted as to the result if those two should meet as foes.They talk of hair that has grown gray in the briefest space of mental anguish. It is all a delusion and an old wife’s fable. When Cecil rose the next morning there was not a silver line in her tresses. Outward signs of the mortal struggle, while it lasted, there were none, for her clasped hands veiled her face jealously; when she raised it, her cheek was paler than death and wet with an awful dew, and when she spoke her voice retained not one cadence of its wonted melody.“You have prevailed, as the truth always ought to prevail. Now tell me what to do.”Mark Waring would have drained his heart’s blood drop by drop to have lightened one throb of her agony, but he never thought of flinching from his purpose.“There are perils where the only safety lies in flight. You must leave this before Major Keene returns, and he returns to-morrow.”Perhaps I have failed in making you understand one hereditary peculiarity of the Tresilyans. When their hand was fairly laid to the plow they were incapable of looking back. Had Mark come ten hours later, when Cecil’s purpose was absolutely fixed, all his arguments would have been futile. As it was, once having decided finally on the line she was to take, it never occurred to her to make farther objections. “Yes, I will go,” she said; “but I must write to him.”“I think you ought to do so,” answered Waring, “and if you will give me the letter I will deliver it myself.”Every vestige of the returning color faded from Cecil’s cheek. “You do not know him: I dare not trust you.” He misinterpreted the cause of her terror. “I promise you that, however angry Major Keene may be, I will bear it patiently, and never dream of resenting it. He is safe from me now.”She smiled very sadly, yet not without a dreary pride; she could have seen Royston pitted against any mortal antagonist, and never would have feared forhim. “You scarcely understand me; I was not anxious for his safety, but for yours.”Mark was too brave and single-hearted to suspect a taunt, even had such been intended. “Then there is nothing more to be settled,” he said, quietly, “but the time and manner of your departure. I will leave you now; I shall see you before you go.”Cecil Tresilyan rose and laid her hand on his arm, her beautiful face fixed in its firm resolve like that of one of those fair Norse Valas, from whose rigid lips flowed the bode of defeat or victory, when the Vikings went forth to the Feast of the Ravens.“I am not angry with one word you have said to-night; you have only expressed what my own cowardly conscience ought to have uttered; nevertheless, to-morrow sees our last meeting. All your account against me is fairly balanced now. I do not know what I may have to suffer, but I do know that Iwillbe alone till I die. Perhaps some day I may thank you in my thoughts for what you have done; I can not—now.”With a heavy heart Waring owned to himself that her words were bitterly true. In curing such diseases, the physician must work without hope of reward or fee; it will be long before the patient can touch without a shudder the hand that inflicted the saving cautery.Her tone changed, and she went on murmuring, low and plaintively, as if in soliloquy and unconscious of another’s presence.“I could not help loving him, though I knew it was sin; if there is shame in confessing it, I can not feel it yet. I wish I had told him—once—how dearly I loved him; I shall never be able to whisper it to him now, and I dare not write it. No, he will not forget me as he has forgotten others; but he will hate me, and call me false, and fickle, and cold. Cold—if he could only read my heart! I never read it myself till now, when we must be parted forever.”Is it pleasant, think you, to listen to such words as these, uttered by the woman that you have worshiped, even if it be hopelessly, for years? Men have gone mad under lighter tortures than those that Mark Waring was then forced to endure. But he knew that it was the extremity of her anguish that had hardened for a season Cecil’s gentle, generous, nature, and made her heedless of the pain she inflicted. So he answered in a slow, steady voice, such as we employ when trying to calm the ravings of a fever-fit:“Hush! you speak wildly. My presence here does you no good. You may think of me as hardly as you will; perhaps time will soften your judgment; if not—I shall still not repent to-night’s work. I will come for your letter at the moment of your departure. Good-night; I pray that God may help you now, and guard you always.” He raised her hand and just touched it with his lips, with the same grave courtesy that had marked his manner when they parted last,59three years ago, and in another second Cecil was alone again.She was not long in recovering from her bewilderment; and when Mrs. Danvers returned she was perfectly collected and calm. It is not worth while recording Bessie’s noisy expressions of astonishment and delight, nor describing Dick Tresilyan’s way of receiving notice of the sudden change in their plans. His stolid composure was not greatly disturbed thereby; he muttered, under his breath, some sulky anathemas on “women who never knew their own minds;” but this was only because he considered a growl to be the form of protest suitable to the circumstances and due to his masculine dignity. On the whole, he was rather glad to go. It had become evident, even to his dull comprehension, that great mischief was brewing somewhere, and for days he had been in a state of hazy apprehension—as he expressed it, “not seeing his way out of it at all.” So he set about his part of the preparations for their exodus with a right good will. Neither will we give the details of Cecil’s parting withla mignonne. The latter was so rejoiced at the idea of her friend’s being out of harm’s way that she did not question her much as to the reasons for such an abrupt departure: it was not till afterward that she learned that it had been brought about by the influence of Waring. It is unnecessary to mention that the adieus were not accomplished without a certain amount of tears; but they were all shed by Fanny Molyneux. Cecil dared not yet trust herself to weep. She took a far more formal farewell of Mr. Fullarton, and the chaplain did not even venture a parting benediction.The heavy traveling-chariot, with its hundred cunning contrivances, is packed at last, and Karl, the accomplished courier, wiping from his blonde mustache the drops of the stirrup-cup, touches his cap with his accustomed formula, “Zi ces dames zont brêtes?” Mark Waring leans over the carriage door to say “Good-by:” the hand he presses lies in his grasp, unresponsive and unsympathetic as a splinter from an iceberg. His sad, earnest look pleads in vain, for there is no softening or kindness in Cecil’s desolate, dreamy eyes. The road on which they are to travel is the same for some leagues as that along which Royston Keene must return, and she is thinking, divided between hope and fear, if there may not be a possibility of their meeting. The wheels move, and hasty farewells are waved, and Mark stands there half stupefied, unconscious of any thing but a sense of lonely wretchedness. The one solitary link that still binds him to Cecil Tresilyan will be severed when the letter is delivered that he holds in his hand.As the carriage swept round the corner of the terrace, it passed close to the spot where Armand de Châteaumesnil sat basking in the sunshine. The invalid lifted his cap in courteous adieu, but his face grew dark, and his shaggy brows were knit savagely.“On l’a triché donc, après tout,” he muttered; “Sang Dieu! les absens ont diablement tort.” Sunk as she was at that moment in gloomy meditations, Cecil never forgot that the last object on which her eyes lighted in Dorade was the blasted wreck of the crippled Algerian.Molyneux and his wife stood silent till their friends were quite out of sight, then Harry turned slowly round and gazed at hismignonne. He knew that the same thought was in both their minds, for her sweet face was paler than his own. (Neither of them guessed at the truth, and they saw in Mark Waring nothing more than an old acquaintance of the Tresilyans.)“Royston will be here in four hours,” he said, “and who will tell him this?Idare not.”Fanny feigned a carelessness that she was far from feeling.“I don’t know how that is to be managed, but I believe it is all for the best. He can’t kill either of us; that is some comfort.”Harry did not smile; his countenance wore an expression of grave anxiety, such as had seldom appeared there.“No, he will not hurt us, but I fear he will havesome one’sblood before all is done.”Chapter divisionCHAPTER XXI.Itwas past nightfall when Major Keene returned to Dorade. As he drove past the hotel where the Tresilyans lodged he looked up at the windows of their apartments, and was somewhat surprised toseeno light there; but no suspicion of the truth crossed his mind. He had made all preparations for the intended flight with his habitual skill and foresight. The Levantine steamer left Marseilles early on the third morning from this, and relays were so ordered along the road as to prevent the possibility of being overtaken, and just to hit the hour of the vessel’s sailing. So far every thing seemed to promise favorably for the accomplishment of his purposes, and Royston could not have explained even to himself the reason of his feeling so moody and discontented. He went straight to his own rooms, without looking in at the Molyneuxs’; for he was heated and travel-stained; and, under such circumstances, was wont to postpone the greeting of friends to the exigencies of the toilet. This was scarcely concluded when his servant brought him Mark Waring’s card, with a request penciled on it for an immediate interview.Even the Cool Captain started perceptibly when he read the name. He was well acquainted with the episode connected with it; for Cecil had kept back none of her secrets from him, and this was among the earliest confidences.Thenhe had felt no inclination to sneer; but now his lip began to curl cynically.“Coramba!” he muttered; “the plot begins to thicken. What brings the old loveren scène?I hope he does not mean to make himself disagreeable. I haven’t time to quarrel just now; and, besides, it would worry Cecil. Well, we’ll find out what he wants. Tell Mr. Waring that I am disengaged, and shall be happy to see him.”The major advanced to meet his visitor with a manner that was perfectly courteous, though it retained a tinge of haughty surprise.“I can not guess to what I am indebted for this pleasure,” he said. “Pardon me, if I ask you to explain your object as briefly as possible. I have much to do this evening, and my time is hardly my own.”Waring gazed fixedly at the speaker for a few seconds before he replied. Like most of his profession, he was an acute physiognomist, and in60that brief space he fathomed much of the character of the man who had rivaled him successfully. He confessed honestly to himself that there were grounds, if not excuse, for Cecil’s infatuation; but he shrank from thinking of the danger which she had escaped so narrowly.“Yes, I will be as brief as possible,” Mark answered at length. “Neither of us will be tempted to prolong this interview unnecessarily. I have promised to deliver a letter to you, and when you have read it I shall have but very few words to say.”A stronger proof than Keene had ever yet given of superhuman control over his emotions was the fact that, neither by quivering of eyelid, change of color, or motion of muscle, did he betray the faintest astonishment or concern as he took the letter from Waring, and recognized Cecil’s hand on the cover. It was not a long epistle, for it scarcely extended beyond two sides of a note-sheet. The writing was hurried, and in places almost illegible: it had entirely lost the firm, even character which usually distinguished it, from which a very moderate graphiologist might have drawn successful auguries. Perhaps this was the reason that Royston read it through twice slowly. As he did so his countenance altered fearfully; the deadly white look of dangerous passion overspread it all, and his eyes began to gleam. Yet still he spoke calmly—“You knew of this being written?”“I am happy to say I was more than passively conscious of it,” Mark replied. “I did all in my power to bring about the result that you are now made aware of, and I thank God that I did not fail.”While the other was speaking Royston was tearing up the paper he held into the smallest shreds, and dropping them one by one. The act might have been involuntary, but seemed to have a savage viciousness about it, as if a living thing were being tortured by those cruel fingers. (The poor letter! whatever its faults might have been, it surely deserved a better fate: it was doubtless not a model of composition, but some of the epistles which have moved us most in our time, either for joy or sorrow, might not in this respect emulate Montague or Chapone.) Still he controlled himself, with a mighty effort, enough to ask, steadily, “Were you weary of your life, to have done all this, and then come here to tell me so?”Waring laughed drearily.“Weary? So weary that, if it had not been for scruples you can not understand, I would have got rid of it long ago. But I need not inflict my confidences on you, and I don’t choose to see the drift of your question.”The devil had so thoroughly by this time possessed Royston Keene, that even his voice was changed into a hoarse, guttural whisper. “I asked, because I mean to kill you.”Mark’s gaze met the savage eyes that gleamed like a famished panther’s, with an expression too calm for defiance, though there might have been perhaps a shade of contempt.“Of course I shall guard my own life as best I may, either here or elsewhere, but I do not apprehend it is in great danger. There is an old proverb about ‘threatened men;’ they are not killed so easily as women are betrayed. Beyond the simplest self-defense, I warn you that I shall not resent any insult or attack. I will not meet you in the field; and as for any personal struggle, I don’t think that even you would like to make Cecil Tresilyan the occasion for a broil that might suit two drunken peasants.”Though shorter by half a head, and altogether cast in a less colossal mould, as he stood there, with his square, well-knit frame, and bold Saxon face, he looked no contemptible antagonist to confront the swarthy giant. In utter insensibility to fear and carelessness of consequences (so far as they could affect a steady resolve), the Cool Captain had met his match at last. Even then, in the crisis of his stormy passion, he was able to appreciate a hardihood so congenial to his own character; pondering upon these things afterward, he always confessed that at this juncture, and indeed all throughout, his opponent had very much the best of it. Ferocity and violence seemed puerile and out of place when contrasted with that tranquil audacity. He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment or so, and when he raised his face it had recovered its natural impassibility, though the ghastly pallor still remained. Besides, the truth of Waring’s last words struck him forcibly. He muttered under his breath, “By G—d, he’s rightthere, at all events;” then he said aloud, “Well, it appears you won’t fight, so there is little more to be said between us. You think you can thwart my purposes or mould them as you like. We’ll try it. I told you I had many things to do to-night: I have one more than I dreamed of on hand. I wish to be alone.”Mark gazed wistfully at the speaker without stirring from his seat. “I know what your intention is perfectly well. You mean to follow her. I believe it would be quite in vain; you have misjudged Cecil Tresilyan, if you fancy that she would alter her determination twice. But you might give her great pain, and compromise her more cruelly than you have done already. There are obstacles now in your way that you could not encounter without causing open scandal. Her brother’s suspicions are fairly roused by this time, and he can not help doing his duty: he may be weak and credulous, but he is no coward. There is no fear of farther interference from me: my part is played. But I do beseech you to pause. Supposing the very worst—that you could still succeed in persuading Cecil to her ruin—are you prepared deliberately to accept the consequences of the crime? You are far more experienced in such matters than I: do you know a single instance of such guilt being accomplished whereboth, before the year was ended, did not wish it undone? I do not pretend to be interested about your future; but I believe I am speaking now as your dearest friend might speak. You both delude yourselves miserably if you think that Cecil could live under disgrace. I do you so much justice. You would find it unendurable to see her withering away day by day, with no prospect before her but a hopeless death. In God’s name, draw back while there is time. It is only a sharp struggle, and self-command and self-denial will come. Loneliness is bitter to bear:Iknow that; but what is manhood worth if it can not bear its burdens? I have put every thing on the lowest grounds, and I will ask you one question more—you might guard her from some suffering by hiding her61from the world’s scorn—could you guard yourself against satiety?”He spoke without a trace of anger or animosity, and the grave, kind tones made some way in the winding avenues leading to Royston’s heart. Besides this, the last word struck the chord of the misgiving that had haunted him ever since he proposed the flight, and had already made him half repent it. But the fortress did not yet surrender.“All this while you have had some idea of improving your own position with Cecil. It is natural enough: yet I fancy you will find yourself mistaken there.”Instead of flushing at the taunt, Waring’s face grew paler, and there shot across it a sharp spasm of pain.“So you can not understand disinterestedness,” he said. “Before I ventured on interference, I was aware of the certain consequences, and weighed them all. Miss Tresilyan thought she had done me some wrong; and I trusted to her generosity to help me when I spoke for the right. But I knew that the spell could only be used once, and that the canceled debt could not be revived. I shall never speak to her—perhaps never see her—on earth again. Do you imagine I love her less for that? Hear this: I suppose I have as much pride as most men; but I would kneel down here and set your foot on my neck if I thought the humiliation would save her one iota of shame or sorrow.”Keene was fairly vanquished. He was filled with a great contempt for his own guilty passion, compared with the pure self-sacrifice of Mark’s simple chivalry. He raised his eyes from the ground, on which they had been bent gloomily while the other was speaking, and answered without hesitation, “I owe you some amends for much that has been said to-night; and I will not keep you in suspense a moment unnecessarily. I shall leave Dorade to-morrow; but it will not be to follow Cecil Tresilyan. More than this: if there is any chance of our meeting hereafter, on my honor, I will avoid it. I wish many things could be unsaid and undone; but nothing has occurred that is past remedy. As far as any future intentions of mine are concerned, I swear she is as safe as if she were my sister.”Waring drew a long breath, as if a ponderous weight had been lifted from his chest. “I believe you,” he said simply: then he rose to go. He had almost reached the door, when he turned suddenly and stretched out his hand. It was a perfectly unaccountable and perhaps involuntary impulse; for he still could not absolve the other from dark and heavy guilt. The major held it for a few seconds in a gripe that would have paralyzed weaker fingers: even Mark’s tough joints and muscles were long in forgetting it. He muttered these words between his teeth as he let it go—“Youwere worthy of her.” So the interview ended—in peace. Nevertheless, there was little peace that night for Royston Keene; he passed it alone—how, no mortal can know; but the next morning his appearance fully bore out the truth of the ancient aphorism, “There is no rest for the wicked.” His face was set in the stoniest calmness, but the features were haggard and drawn, and fresh lines and furrows were there deeper than should have been engraved by half a score of years. A violent, passionate nature does not lightly resign the one object of its aims and desires. Larches and firs will bear moving cautiously, for they are well-regulated plants, and natives of a frigid zone; but transplanting rarely succeeds in the tropics.Harry Molyneux came to his friend’s apartments early on the following day, in a very uncomfortable and perplexed frame of mind. In the first place, he was sensible of that depression of spirits which is always the portion of those who are left behind when any social circle is broken up by the removal of its principal elements. There is no such nuisance as having to stay and put the lights out. Besides this, he was quite uncertain in what temper Royston would be found; and apprehended some desperate outbreak from the latter, which would bring things, already sufficiently complicated, into a more perilous coil.Keene’s first abrupt words in part reassured him.“Well, it is all over; and I am going straight back to England.”Harry felt so relieved that he forgot to be considerate: he could not repress his exultation.“Is it really all over? I am so very glad!”“And I am not sorry,” was the reply. The speaker probably persuaded himself that he was uttering the truth; but the dreary, hopeless expression of his stricken face gave his words the lie. It cut deep into Molyneux’s kind heart; he felt more painfully than he had ever done the difficulty of reconciling his evident duty with the demand of an ancient friendship; on the whole, a guilty consciousness of treachery predominated. He was discreet enough to forbear all questions, and it was not till long afterward that he heard an outline of part of what had happened in the past night; it was told in a letter from Miss Tresilyan to his wife. Had he been more inquisitive, his curiosity would scarcely have been gratified. To do Keene justice, he guarded the secrets of others more jealously than he kept his own: and he would have despised himself for revealing one of Cecil’s, even to his old comrade, without her knowledge and leave. If the feeling which prompted such reticence was not a high and delicate sense of honor, it was at least a very efficient substitute for a profitable virtue.“You go to England?” Molyneux went on, after a brief pause. “When do you start? and what do you mean to do?”Royston looked up, and saw his own discontent reflected in the countenance of his faithful subaltern; he knew he had found there the sympathy that he was too proud to ask of any living man.“I start to-night,” he replied; “so you see I have no time to lose. I can hardly tell you what I mean to do, Hal. Do you remember what we said about the best way of spending our resources? Well—I have broken into my last large note; and I suppose I must get rid somehow of the change.”Harry’s answer was not very ready, nor very distinct when it came. “I wish—I wish, I could help you!”For one moment, there returned to Keene’s disciplined face a good, natural expression, which had been a stranger there since the days of his hot youth; when he first went forth to buckle62with the world—frank, and honest, and fearless; his voice, too, had softened almost to tenderness. “Old friend, the time has come to say good-by. Our roads have been the same—for longer than I like to think of: but henceforth they must lie so far apart, that I doubt if they will ever cross again. You will see me off, I know; but I may not be able to say then a dozen words that I should be sorry to leave unsaid. I’ll do you this justice—in no one instance have I ever seen you flinch when I wanted your help; though often you had no object of your own to serve. I believe no man ever had a cheerier comrade, or a better backer. I don’t like you the worse for standing aloof during the last five weeks. I never had one unpleasant word from you; but if any of mine have vexed or offended you—see now—I ask your forgiveness from the bottom of my heart.”It is no shame to Harry’s manhood that he could not answer intelligibly; but ten sentences of elaborate sentiment would hardly have been so eloquent as the pressure of his honest hand.Later in the day, Keene went to take leave ofla mignonne. He did so with pain and reluctance. Men, utterly hard and merciless toward their own species, have been very fond of their pets; even when these last belonged to an inferior order of creation. Couthon would fondle his spaniel while he was signing a sheaf of death-warrants; and the Prophet, who could contemplate placidly a dozen cities in flames, and watch human hecatombs falling under the sword of Omar or Ali, cut off the sleeve of his robe rather than disturb a favorite cat in her slumbers.Nevertheless, when two people agree to ignore carefully the one subject that is uppermost in the thoughts of both, the result must be an uncomfortable constraint and reserve. So the adieus, up to a certain point, were rather formal. But just as he was going, the same impulse overcame Royston which had affected him in his interview with Harry Molyneux. Considering that the age of miracles is past, it was remarkable that twice in one day the Cool Captain should have approached so near to the verge of sentimentalism.“I hope that I shall see you again before long,” he said, “but nothing seems certain—not even the meeting of friends. I should like to thank you now for some pleasant days and evenings. You have brought a good deal of sunshine into my life, since I knew you first. I like to think that, neither in deed nor intention, I have ever deliberately done you or Harry any harm. I hope you will go on taking as much care of him, and making him as perfectly happy as you have done. Perhaps I have vexed you both, lately; but all that is over, and I fancy the punishment will be proportionate to the offense before it is ended. Farewell. Don’t forget me sooner than you can help; and while you do remember me, think of me as kindly as you can.”He leaned over her as he finished speaking, and his lips just brushed her smooth forehead. When Charles the martyr embraced his children an hour before his death, they received no purer or more sinless kiss. A sob choked Fanny’s voice when she would have replied; and the beautiful brown eyes were so dim with rushing tears, that they never saw him go.Keene’s last visit in Dorade was to the Vicomte de Châteaumesnil. The latter manifested no surprise at the sudden departure, and expressed his regrets with a perfectly calm courtesy. But, at the moment of leave-taking, he detained the other’s hand for a second or so and said, looking wistfully in his face, “Ainsi, vouspartez seul? je ne l’aurais pas cru; et, je l’avoue franchement, ça me contrarie. N’importe; je connois votre jeu; et je ne vous tiens pas pour battu, quand c’est manche à. Ce serait unebêtise, de dire—‘au revoir.’ Adieu; amusez vous bien.”Royston shook his head impatiently; he was too proud to save his credit by dissembling a defeat; and his reply was quick and decisive.“Vous me flattez, M. le Vicomte. Quand on perd, on doit, au moins l’avouer loyalement, et payer l’en jeu. Cette fois j’ai tant perdu, que je ne prendrai pas la revanche.”Not another word was exchanged between them; but Armand had accepted repulses in his time with more equanimity than he could muster when ruminating afterward on the discomfiture of Royston Keene.Some days later the subject was discussed at the Cercle, and one of thehabituéshazarded several cunning conjectures, and more than cynical surmises. (Did you ever hear a thoroughly profligate Frenchman sneer a woman’s character away? It is almost worth while overcoming your disgust to listen to the diabolical ingenuity of his innuendoes. The scandal of our bitterest dowagers sounds charitable by comparison.) The savage outbreak of the Algerian’s temper, that every one had long been expecting, came at last with avengeance.“Tu mens, canaille! C’est le meilleur éloge de M. Keene, que les marans comme toi, ne puissent le comprendre. Quand à Mademoiselle—elle vaut mille fois tes sœurs, et ta mère. Si tu as le cœur de pousser l’affaire, je te donnerai raison sur mes béquilles. Pour le pistolet, ma main n’est pas encore percluse.” He held it out, as steady and strong as it was in the old days when it could sway the sabre from dawn to twilight and never know weariness.If the other persuaded himself that consideration for the invalid’s infirmities made him patient under the insult, his friends were less romantically credulous: the stigma of that night cleaves to him still. Brazen it out as he may, the hang-dog look remains, telling us that the barriers have been at least once broken down which separate the man from the serf. There would be, perhaps, less mischief abroad if slander were always so promptly and amply avenged.
Chapter division
Itis not pleasant to stand by and assist at each step of an incantation that draws down a star from heaven, or darkens the face of the moon. Let us be content to accept the result, when it is forced upon us, without inquiring too minutely into the process. Not with impunity can even the Adepts gain and keep the secrets of their evil Abracadabra. The beard of Merlin is gray before its time; premature wrinkles furrow the54brow of Canidia; though the terror of his stony eyes may keep the fiends at bay, the death-sleep of Michael Scott is not untroubled; the pillars of Melrose shake ever and anon as though an earthquake passed by, and the monks cross themselves in fear and pity, for they know that the awful wizard is turning restlessly in his grave.
As we are not writing a three-volume novel, we have a right, perhaps, not to linger over this part of our story. For any one who likes to indulge a somewhat morbid taste, or who happens to be keen about physiology, there is daily food sufficient in those ingenious romancesd’Outre-mer.
It is hardly worth while speculating how far Cecil deluded herself when she thought that she was safe in trusting to her own strength of principle and to the generosity of Royston Keene. All this seems to me not to affect the main question materially. Does it help us—after we have yielded to temptation—that our resolves, when it first assailed us, should have been prudent and sincere, if such a plea can not avert the consequences or extenuate the guilt? The grim old proverb tells us how a certain curiously tesselated pavement is laid down. Millions of feet have trodden those stones for sixty ages, yet they may well last till the Day of Judgment, they are so constantly and unsparingly renewed.
It is more than rashness for any mortal to say to the strong, treacherous ocean, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;” it is trenching on the privilege of Omnipotence. The dikes may be wisely planned and skillfully built; but one night a wilder wind arises than any that they have withstood; the legions of the besieging army are mustering to storm. At one spot in the seawall, where patient miners have long been working unseen, a narrow breach is made, widening every instant; it is too late now to fly; the wolfish waves are within the intrenchments, mad for sack and pillage. On the morrow, where trim gardens bloomed, and stately palaces shone, there is nothing but a waste of waters strewn with wrecks and blue, swollen corpses. The Zuyder Zee rolls, ten fathoms deep, over the ruins of drowned Stavoren.
So we will not enter minutely into the details of poor Cecil’s demoralization—gradual, but fearfully rapid. It was not by words that she was corrupted; for Royston was still as careful as ever to abstain from uttering one cynicism in her presence; but none the less was it true that daily and hourly some fresh scruple was washed away, some holy principle withered and died. The recklessness which ever carried him on straight to the attainment of a purpose or the indulgence of a fancy, trampling down the barriers that divide good from evil, seemed to communicate itself to Cecil contagiously. She seldom ventured on reflection now—still less on self-examination; but she could not help being herself sensible of the change: thoughts that she would have shrunk back from in horror not so long ago (if she could have comprehended them fully) had ceased now to startle or repel her as she looked them in the face. Do not suppose for an instant that there was a corresponding alteration in her outward demeanor, or that it displayed any wildness or eccentricity. Melodrama, etc., may be very successful at a trans-pontine theatre, but it is unpardonably out of place in oursalons. The Tresilyan understood the duties of her social, if not of her moral position (so long as the first was not forfeited) as well as the strictest duenna alive. Though she might choose to defy the world’s censure, she never dreamed of giving an opening to its ridicule; she was less capable ofgaucheriethan of a crime. In her bearing toward others she was just the same as ever; if any thing, rather more brilliant and fascinating, and, if crossed or interfered with, perhaps a shade more haughtily independent.
Only when alone with Royston did she betray herself. It was sad to see how completely the stronger and worse nature had absorbed the weaker and better one till all power of volition and free agency vanished, and even individuality was lost. She was not sentimental or demonstrative in his presence (on the contrary, at such times, that loveliest face was very apt to put on the deliciousmine mutine, which made it perfectly irresistible), but the idea seemed never to enter her mind that it would be possible to resist or controvert any seriously-expressed wish of her—lover. There! the word is written; and woe is me! that I dare not erase it. It must have come sooner or later, and it is as well to have got it over.
According to all rules for such cases laid down and provided, Cecil’s life ought to have been spent in alternations between feverish excitement and poignant remorse. But the truth must be told—she was unaccountably happy. The simple fact was that she had no time to be otherwise. Even when entirely alone her conscience could find no opportunity of asserting itself. Her thoughts were amply occupied with recalling every word that Royston had said, and with anticipating what he would say at their next meeting. It is idle to suppose that remorse can not be kept at arm’s length for a certain time; but the debt recklessly incurred must generally be paid to the uttermost farthing. Life, if sufficiently prolonged, will always afford leisure for reflection and retrospect, and at such seasons we appreciate in full force the tortures of “solitary confinement.” The criminal may go on pilgrimage to a hundred shrines, and never light on the purification that will scare the Erinnyes.
In this instance the victor certainly did not abuse his advantage, and was any thing but exacting in his requirements. It was strange how his whole manner and nature altered when alone with his beautiful captive. The more evident became her subjugation, the more he seemed anxious to treat her with a delicate deference. They talked, as a rule, on any subject rather than their own feelings; and he spoke on all such indifferent topics honestly, if not wisely. For the rest of the world his sarcasm and irony were ready as ever; he kept all his sincerity and confidence for Cecil Tresilyan. This is the secret of the influence exercised by many men, at whose successes we all have marveled. Sweet, as well as disenchanting experiences are sometimes gained behind the scenes. None but those who have tried it can appreciate the delight of finding, in a manner that the uninitiate call cold and repellent, an ever-ready loving caress. But in Royston’s case there was no acting: it was only that he allowed Cecil to see one phase of hid character that was seldom displayed.
The subordinates in the drama betrayed much more outward concern and disquietude than the55principals. When Fanny Molyneux found that Royston did not intend to evacuate his position, she tried the effect of a vigorous remonstrance on her friend. The latter heard her patiently, but quite impassively, declining to admit any probability of danger or necessity to caution.La mignonnewas not convinced, but she yielded. She wound her arm round Cecil’s waist, as they sat and whispered, nestling close to her side—“Dearest, remember this: if any thing should happen, I shall always think that some blame belongs to me, and I will never give you up—never.”
The Tresilyan bent her beautiful swan-neck, as though she were caressing a dove nestling in her bosom, and pressed her lips on her companion’s cheek long and tenderly.
“I could not dothat,” she said, “if I were guilty.”
Neither had Harry refrained from lifting up his testimony against what he saw and suspected. The major would take more from him than from any man alive; he was not at all incensed at the interference.
“My dear Hal,” he said, “don’t make an old woman of yourself by giving credit to scandal, or inventing it for yourself. If you choose to be worried before your time, I can’t help it; but it is more than unnecessary. Una can take care of herself perfectly well, without your playing the lion. Besides—what is the brother there for? You know there are some subjects I never talk about to you, and you don’t deserve that I should be communicative now. But listen—you shall not think of Cecil worse than she is: up to this time, I swear, even her lips are pure from me. Now I hope you are satisfied; you have made me break my rule, for once; drop the subject, in the devil’s name.”
Though fully aware of his friend’s unscrupulous character, Harry was satisfied that nothingverywrong had occurred so far. Royston never lied.
“I’m glad that you can say so much,” he replied; “the worst of it is, people will talk. I wonder that obnoxious parson has not made himself more disagreeable already. I didn’t go to church last Sunday afternoon, because I felt a conviction that he was going to be personal in his sermon.”
The major laughed his hard, unpleasant laugh. “Don’t let that idea disturb your devotions another time. He is not likely to bite or even to bark very loud: he don’t get my muzzle off in a hurry.”
Indeed, it was profoundly true that since the disclosure the chaplain’s reticence had become remarkable. When his own wife questioned him on the subject (very naturally), he checked her with some asperity, and read her a lecture on feminine curiosity that moved the poor woman, even to weeping. Mrs. Danvers was greatly surprised and disconcerted by the decision with which Mr. Fullarton rejected her suggestion, that he should aid and abet in thwarting Keene’s supposed designs. “He had thought it right,” he said, “to make Miss Tresilyan and others aware of the real state of the case; but he did not conceive that farther interference lay within the sphere of his duty.” It was odd how that same once arbitrarily elastic sphere had contracted since the prophet met the lion in the pathway! Dick Tresilyan—the only other person much interested in the progress of affairs—did not seem to trouble himself much about them. He was perpetually absent on shooting expeditions; but, when at home, it was observed that he drank harder than ever, getting sulky sometimes without apparent reason, and disagreeably quarrelsome.
Royston had only stated the simple fact when he said that Cecil was free from any stain of actual guilt or dishonor. Whether the credit of having borne her harmless was most due to her own prudence and remains of principle, or to her tempter’s self-restraint, we will not, if you please, inquire. It is as well to be charitable now and then. Her escape was little less than miraculous, considering how often she had trusted herself unreservedly to the mercy of one who was wont to be as unsparing in his love as in his anger. Let not this immunity be made an excuse for credulous confidence, or induce others to emulate her rashness. The Millenium will not come in our time, I fancy; and, till it arrives, neither child nor maiden may safely lay their hand on the cockatrice’s den. The ballad tells us that Lady Janet was happy at last; but she paid dearly through months of sorrow and shame for those three red roses plucked in the Elfin Bower. The precise cause of Keene’s forbearance it would be very difficult to explain: more than one feeling probably had to do with it.
If memory has any pleasures worth speaking of (which many grave and learned doctors take leave to doubt), certainly among the purest is the recollection of having once been endowed with the whole love of a rare and beautiful being which we did not abuse or betray. This is the only sort of lost riches on which we can look back with comfort out of the depths of present and pressing poverty; the pearl is so very precious that it confers on its possessor a certain dignity which does not entirely pass away, even when the jewel has slipped from his grasp, following the ring of Polycrates. Alas! alas! less generous than the blue Ægæan are the sullen waters of the deep.Mare mortuum.Only on these grounds can that wonderful self-possession be accounted for, which enables men, seemingly ill-fitted for the situation, to confront the world in all its phases with so grand a calmness. It is refreshing to see how even coquetry recoils from that armor of proof, and to fancy how the dead beauty might triumph over the defeat of her living rivals, laughing the seductions of their loveliness to scorn. Even in crises of graver difficulty, where sterner assailants are to be encountered than Helen’s magical smile or Florence’s magnetic eyes, the invisible presence seems to inspire her lover with supernatural valiance. Remember the story of Aslauga’s Knight; when once through the cloud of battle-dust gleamed the golden tresses, horse and man went down before him.
Royston was not half good enough to appreciate all this; yet some shadowy and undefined feeling, allied to it, may have helped to hold him back from pushing his advantage to the uttermost. Another and more selfish presentiment worked probably more powerfully. There was one phantom from which the Cool Captain never could escape; for years it had followed close on the consummation of all his crimes, and56was, in truth, their best avenger: his Nemesis was satiety. He knew too well how the sweetest flowers lost their color and fragrance, so soon as they were plucked and fairly in his grasp, not to shrink before the prospect of a certain disenchantment. This curse attaches to many of his kind: the instant the prize is won there arise misgivings as to its value; and defects develop themselves hourly in what seemed faultless perfection before. It is boys’ play to simulate beingblasé; but the reality makes mature manhood disbelieve any thing sooner than inevitable retribution. Very often the thought forced itself upon Keene’s mind, “If I were to weary ofhertoo?” and made him pause before he urged Cecil to the step that must have linked him to her fate forever.
Under other circumstances his patience might have held out still longer; but there were numberless difficulties and obstacles in the way of their meeting, and the perpetual constraint fretted Royston sorely. His principle always had been not openly to violate conventionalities without gaining an adequate equivalent; so he was more careful of Cecil’s reputation than she was inclined to be, and, among worse lessons, taught her prudence. They met very seldom alone. When Mrs. Danvers was present she made it her business to be as much as possible in the way; and her awkward attempts at interference were sometimes inexpressibly provoking. On one particular evening she had been unusually pertinacious and obtrusive. The major stood it tolerably well up to a certain point, but his savage temper gradually got the better of him; his face grew darker and darker, till it was black as midnight when he rose to go, and his lips were rigid as steel. It was evident he had come to some resolution that he meant to keep. When he was wishing Bessie “good-night,” he held her hand imprisoned for a moment without pressing it. “You are so good a theologian,” he said, “that perhaps you can tell me where a text comes from that has haunted me for the last hour. It speaks of some one who ‘loosed the bands of Orion.’” His manner and the sudden address disconcerted Mrs. Danvers so completely as to incapacitate her from reply: she suffered “judgment to go by default;” and left Royston under the impression that she had never read the Book of Job.
The next day he asked Cecil to elope with him.
She listened without betraying either terror, or anger, or disdain; but she raised her beautiful eyes to his with a sad, searching inquiry, before which many men would have quailed. “Have you counted the cost to yourself and to me?”
“I have done both,” replied Keene, gravely. “I can not say that you will never repent it; but I know that I shall never regret it.”
There were no promises or vows exchanged; but a silence for two long minutes; and, when these were passed, the sweet, pure lips had lost their virginity.
So with few more words it was finally arranged; and the next day Royston left Dorade to make preparations all along the road of their intended flight. Their plan was to take boat at Marseilles for the East, making their first permanent resting-place one of the islands of the Grecian Archipelago. Both were most anxious to evade any possibility of interception, more especially of collision with Dick Tresilyan.
On that evening Cecil was alone in her own room (Mrs. Danvers had gone out to a sort of love-feast at the Fullartons’, where the company were to be entertained with weak tea and strong doctrineà discretion). She had rejected the offer of Fanny’s companionship on the plea, not altogether false, of a tormenting headache.La mignonnewas too innocent to suspect the reason that made her friend shudder in their parting embrace, half averting her cheek, though Cecil’s arms clung round her as though they would never let her go. The saddest feeling of the many that were busy then in the guilty, troubled heart, was a consciousness that in a few hours the gulf between them would be deep and impassable as the chasm dividing Abraham from Dives.
Miss Tresilyan had taken unconsciously an attitude in which you saw her once before, half-reclined, and gazing into the fire; outwardly still remained the same pensive, languid grace; but very different was the careless reverie that had stolen over her then, from the wild chaos of conflicting thoughts that involved her now.
Her whole being was so bound up in Royston Keene’s, that she felt without him there would be nothing worth living for; neither had she the faintest misgiving as to the chances of his inconstancy. There had descended to her some of the stability and determination of purpose which had made many of her race so powerful for good or evil; in the pursuit of either they would never admit a doubt, or listen to a compromise. When Cecil believed, she believed implicitly, and, not even with her own conscience, made conditions of surrender. So long ashisstrong arm was round her, she felt that she could defy shame, and even remorse; but how would it be if that support should fail? He had not been away yet twenty hours, and already there came creeping over her a chilling sense of helplessness and desolation. She knew her lover’s violent passions and haughty temper, impatient of the most distant approach to insolence or even contradiction from others, too well not to be aware that such a man walked ever on the frontier-ground between life and death. Suppose that he were taken from her?—her spirit, dauntless as it was, quailed before the ghastly terrors of imagined loneliness. An evil voice that had whispered perhaps in the ear of more than one of the “bitter, bad Tresilyans,” seemed to murmur, “You, too, can die:” but Cecil was not yet so lost as to listen to the suggestion of the subtle fiend. She wasted no regrets on the past, and the wreck of all its brilliant promises: she was resolute to meet the perils of the future; nevertheless, her heart was heavy with apprehension. Remember the answer that the stout Catholic made to Des Adrets, when the savage baron taunted him with cowardice for shrinking twice from the death-leap on the tower, “Je vous le donne, en dix.” So it is not in womanhood—however ruined in principle or reckless of the consequences, to venture deliberately, without a shudder, on the fatal plunge from which no fair fame has ever risen unshattered again. Even prejudices may not be torn up by the roots without stirring the earth around them.
She might have sat musing thus for about an hour; so deep in thought that she never heard57theportièreslowly drawn aside that divided the room from an ante-chamber. The Tresilyan had her emotions under tolerable control, and at least was not given to screaming; but she could hardly repress the startled cry that sprang to her lips when she raised her eyes.
The reproachful spectre that had haunted her for years—till very lately, when a stronger influence chased it away—assumed substance of form and feature, as the dark doorway framed the haggard, pain-stricken face of Mark Waring.
Chapter division
Itis not very easy to confront, with decorous composure, the sudden apparition of the person on earth that one would have least liked to see. All things considered Cecil carried it off creditably, and greeted her unexpected visitor with sufficient cordiality. Mark took her offered hand gravely, without eagerness, not holding it an instant longer than was necessary. Then he spoke—
“They told me I should find you alone. I was so anxious to do so as soon as possible, that I ventured to break in upon you even at this unseasonable hour. You will guess that I had powerful reasons.”
The Tresilyan threw back her haughty head, as a war-horse might do at the first blast of the trumpet: she scented battle in the wind.
“Will you be good enough to explain yourself?” she said, as she took her own seat again, and motioned him into another; “I am sure you would not trifle with me, or vex me unnecessarily.”
Waring did not avail himself of the chair indicated, but crossed his arms over the back of it, and stood so, regarding her intently.
“You only do me justice there,” he replied; “I will speak briefly, and plainly too. I came here from Nice to ask you how much truth there is in the reports that couple your name with Major Keene’s?”
No one likes to give the death-blow to the loyalty of a faithful adherent, be he ever so humble; and Cecil was bitterly pained that she could not speak truly, and satisfy him. Her face sank lower and lower, till it was buried in her hands. Nothing more was needed to convince Waring that his worst fears were realized; for a moment or two he felt sick and faint. No wonder; he had given up hope long ago, but not trust and faith; now, these were blasted utterly. In any religion, whether true or false, the fanatic is happier, if not wiser, than the infidel; if you can not replace it with a better, it is cruel to shake the foundation of the simplest creed. Mark’s voice—hollow, and hoarse, and changed—could not but betray his agony.
“God help us both! Has it come to this—that you have no words to answer me, when I dare to hint at your dishonor?”
She looked up quickly, flushing to her white brow, rose-red with anger.
“I will not endure this, even from you. Understand at once—I deny your right to question me.” The clear blue eyes met the violet ones with a steady, judicial calmness, undazzled by their ominous lightning.
“Listen to me quietly—two minutes longer,” he said, “and then resent my presumption as much as you will. Three years ago it pleased you to make me the subject of an experiment. How far you acted heedlessly, and in ignorance of the consequences, I have never stopped to inquire—it would be wasting time; the sophistries of coquetry are too subtle for me. I only know what the result has been. Before I met you I could have offered to any woman, who thought it worth her acceptance, a healthy, honest love; now—even if I could conquer my present infatuation—I could only offer a feeling something warmer than friendship; to promise more would be base treachery. Do you think I would stand by God’s altar with a worse lie than Ananias’s on my lips? Is it nothing that, to gratify your vanity or your whims, you should have condemned a man, whose blood is not frozen yet, to something worse than widowhood for life? My religion may be a false and vain idolatry; but it is all I have to trust to. I will not stand patiently by and see the image that I have bowed down to worship pilloried for the world to scorn. Now—do you deny my right to interfere?”
His words had a rude energy, though little eloquence; but they came so evidently from the depths of a strong, troubled heart, that they caused a revulsion in Cecil’s feelings; returning remorse bore down her stubborn pride. Very low and plaintive was the whisper—“Ah! have mercy—have mercy; you make me so unhappy;” but there came a more piteous appeal from her eyes. In Mark’s stout manhood was an element of more than womanish compassion and tenderness; he never could bear to see even a child in tears; no wonder if his anger vanished before the contrition of the one being whom he loved far better than life. He lost sight of his own wrongs instantly, butnotof the object he had in view.
“Forgive me for speaking so roughly; I ought to have declined your challenge. I behaved better once, you remember. But be patient while I plead for the right, though, if you would but listen to them, prudence and your own conscience could do that better than I. When infatuation exists, it is worse than useless to prove the object of it unworthy, so I will not attempt to blacken Major Keene’s character; besides, it is not to my taste to attack men in their absence. I fear there are few capitals in Europe where his name is not too well known. From what I have heard, I believe his wife was most in fault when they separated, but the life he has led since deprives him of all right to complain of her, or condemn her. Recollect you have only heard one side. But it is not a question of his eligibility as an acquaintance. There is the simple fact—he is married, and your name being connected with his involves disgrace. You can not have fallen yet so far as to be reckless about such an imputation. In my turn I say, ‘Have mercy!’ Do not force me henceforth to disbelieve in the purity of any created thing.”
Cecil could only murmur, “It is too late—too late!” The ghastly look of horror that swept over Waring’s face showed that his thoughts had gone beyond the truth. “I mean,” she went on, blushing painfully, “that I have promised.”
“Promised!” Mark repeated in high disdain; “I have lived too long when I hear such devil’s58logic from your lips. You know full well there is more sin in keeping than in breaking such engagements. I will try to save you in spite of yourself. Listen. I do not threaten; I know you well enough to be certain that such an argument would be the strongest temptation to you to persevere in taking your own course. I simply tell you what I will do. I shall speak to your brother first; if he can not understand his duty, or shrinks from it, I will carry out what I believe to be mine. I utterly disapprove of and despise the practice of dueling, but, at any risk, Iwillstand between you and Major Keene. He shall not gain possession of you while I am alive. When I am dead, if you touch his hand, you shall know that my blood is upon it, and the guilt shall be on your own head. I believe that in keeping you apart I should act kindly toward both. I do him this justice—it would make him miserable to see you pining away. There are limits to human endurance, and you are too proud to bear dishonor.”
Cecil felt that every word he had spoken was good and true, and that he would not waver in his purpose for an instant. She remembered how, when they were returning together four days ago, the sidelong glance of a matronly Pharisee had lighted on her in a spiteful triumph, and how, though neither of them alluded to it afterward, the dark-red flash of anger had mounted to Royston’s forehead. She had ceased to care for herself, but could she not savehimwhile yet there was time? And more—had she not wrought wrong enough to Mark Waring without having his murder on her soul? for she never doubted as to the result if those two should meet as foes.
They talk of hair that has grown gray in the briefest space of mental anguish. It is all a delusion and an old wife’s fable. When Cecil rose the next morning there was not a silver line in her tresses. Outward signs of the mortal struggle, while it lasted, there were none, for her clasped hands veiled her face jealously; when she raised it, her cheek was paler than death and wet with an awful dew, and when she spoke her voice retained not one cadence of its wonted melody.
“You have prevailed, as the truth always ought to prevail. Now tell me what to do.”
Mark Waring would have drained his heart’s blood drop by drop to have lightened one throb of her agony, but he never thought of flinching from his purpose.
“There are perils where the only safety lies in flight. You must leave this before Major Keene returns, and he returns to-morrow.”
Perhaps I have failed in making you understand one hereditary peculiarity of the Tresilyans. When their hand was fairly laid to the plow they were incapable of looking back. Had Mark come ten hours later, when Cecil’s purpose was absolutely fixed, all his arguments would have been futile. As it was, once having decided finally on the line she was to take, it never occurred to her to make farther objections. “Yes, I will go,” she said; “but I must write to him.”
“I think you ought to do so,” answered Waring, “and if you will give me the letter I will deliver it myself.”
Every vestige of the returning color faded from Cecil’s cheek. “You do not know him: I dare not trust you.” He misinterpreted the cause of her terror. “I promise you that, however angry Major Keene may be, I will bear it patiently, and never dream of resenting it. He is safe from me now.”
She smiled very sadly, yet not without a dreary pride; she could have seen Royston pitted against any mortal antagonist, and never would have feared forhim. “You scarcely understand me; I was not anxious for his safety, but for yours.”
Mark was too brave and single-hearted to suspect a taunt, even had such been intended. “Then there is nothing more to be settled,” he said, quietly, “but the time and manner of your departure. I will leave you now; I shall see you before you go.”
Cecil Tresilyan rose and laid her hand on his arm, her beautiful face fixed in its firm resolve like that of one of those fair Norse Valas, from whose rigid lips flowed the bode of defeat or victory, when the Vikings went forth to the Feast of the Ravens.
“I am not angry with one word you have said to-night; you have only expressed what my own cowardly conscience ought to have uttered; nevertheless, to-morrow sees our last meeting. All your account against me is fairly balanced now. I do not know what I may have to suffer, but I do know that Iwillbe alone till I die. Perhaps some day I may thank you in my thoughts for what you have done; I can not—now.”
With a heavy heart Waring owned to himself that her words were bitterly true. In curing such diseases, the physician must work without hope of reward or fee; it will be long before the patient can touch without a shudder the hand that inflicted the saving cautery.
Her tone changed, and she went on murmuring, low and plaintively, as if in soliloquy and unconscious of another’s presence.
“I could not help loving him, though I knew it was sin; if there is shame in confessing it, I can not feel it yet. I wish I had told him—once—how dearly I loved him; I shall never be able to whisper it to him now, and I dare not write it. No, he will not forget me as he has forgotten others; but he will hate me, and call me false, and fickle, and cold. Cold—if he could only read my heart! I never read it myself till now, when we must be parted forever.”
Is it pleasant, think you, to listen to such words as these, uttered by the woman that you have worshiped, even if it be hopelessly, for years? Men have gone mad under lighter tortures than those that Mark Waring was then forced to endure. But he knew that it was the extremity of her anguish that had hardened for a season Cecil’s gentle, generous, nature, and made her heedless of the pain she inflicted. So he answered in a slow, steady voice, such as we employ when trying to calm the ravings of a fever-fit:
“Hush! you speak wildly. My presence here does you no good. You may think of me as hardly as you will; perhaps time will soften your judgment; if not—I shall still not repent to-night’s work. I will come for your letter at the moment of your departure. Good-night; I pray that God may help you now, and guard you always.” He raised her hand and just touched it with his lips, with the same grave courtesy that had marked his manner when they parted last,59three years ago, and in another second Cecil was alone again.
She was not long in recovering from her bewilderment; and when Mrs. Danvers returned she was perfectly collected and calm. It is not worth while recording Bessie’s noisy expressions of astonishment and delight, nor describing Dick Tresilyan’s way of receiving notice of the sudden change in their plans. His stolid composure was not greatly disturbed thereby; he muttered, under his breath, some sulky anathemas on “women who never knew their own minds;” but this was only because he considered a growl to be the form of protest suitable to the circumstances and due to his masculine dignity. On the whole, he was rather glad to go. It had become evident, even to his dull comprehension, that great mischief was brewing somewhere, and for days he had been in a state of hazy apprehension—as he expressed it, “not seeing his way out of it at all.” So he set about his part of the preparations for their exodus with a right good will. Neither will we give the details of Cecil’s parting withla mignonne. The latter was so rejoiced at the idea of her friend’s being out of harm’s way that she did not question her much as to the reasons for such an abrupt departure: it was not till afterward that she learned that it had been brought about by the influence of Waring. It is unnecessary to mention that the adieus were not accomplished without a certain amount of tears; but they were all shed by Fanny Molyneux. Cecil dared not yet trust herself to weep. She took a far more formal farewell of Mr. Fullarton, and the chaplain did not even venture a parting benediction.
The heavy traveling-chariot, with its hundred cunning contrivances, is packed at last, and Karl, the accomplished courier, wiping from his blonde mustache the drops of the stirrup-cup, touches his cap with his accustomed formula, “Zi ces dames zont brêtes?” Mark Waring leans over the carriage door to say “Good-by:” the hand he presses lies in his grasp, unresponsive and unsympathetic as a splinter from an iceberg. His sad, earnest look pleads in vain, for there is no softening or kindness in Cecil’s desolate, dreamy eyes. The road on which they are to travel is the same for some leagues as that along which Royston Keene must return, and she is thinking, divided between hope and fear, if there may not be a possibility of their meeting. The wheels move, and hasty farewells are waved, and Mark stands there half stupefied, unconscious of any thing but a sense of lonely wretchedness. The one solitary link that still binds him to Cecil Tresilyan will be severed when the letter is delivered that he holds in his hand.
As the carriage swept round the corner of the terrace, it passed close to the spot where Armand de Châteaumesnil sat basking in the sunshine. The invalid lifted his cap in courteous adieu, but his face grew dark, and his shaggy brows were knit savagely.
“On l’a triché donc, après tout,” he muttered; “Sang Dieu! les absens ont diablement tort.” Sunk as she was at that moment in gloomy meditations, Cecil never forgot that the last object on which her eyes lighted in Dorade was the blasted wreck of the crippled Algerian.
Molyneux and his wife stood silent till their friends were quite out of sight, then Harry turned slowly round and gazed at hismignonne. He knew that the same thought was in both their minds, for her sweet face was paler than his own. (Neither of them guessed at the truth, and they saw in Mark Waring nothing more than an old acquaintance of the Tresilyans.)
“Royston will be here in four hours,” he said, “and who will tell him this?Idare not.”
Fanny feigned a carelessness that she was far from feeling.
“I don’t know how that is to be managed, but I believe it is all for the best. He can’t kill either of us; that is some comfort.”
Harry did not smile; his countenance wore an expression of grave anxiety, such as had seldom appeared there.
“No, he will not hurt us, but I fear he will havesome one’sblood before all is done.”
Chapter division
Itwas past nightfall when Major Keene returned to Dorade. As he drove past the hotel where the Tresilyans lodged he looked up at the windows of their apartments, and was somewhat surprised toseeno light there; but no suspicion of the truth crossed his mind. He had made all preparations for the intended flight with his habitual skill and foresight. The Levantine steamer left Marseilles early on the third morning from this, and relays were so ordered along the road as to prevent the possibility of being overtaken, and just to hit the hour of the vessel’s sailing. So far every thing seemed to promise favorably for the accomplishment of his purposes, and Royston could not have explained even to himself the reason of his feeling so moody and discontented. He went straight to his own rooms, without looking in at the Molyneuxs’; for he was heated and travel-stained; and, under such circumstances, was wont to postpone the greeting of friends to the exigencies of the toilet. This was scarcely concluded when his servant brought him Mark Waring’s card, with a request penciled on it for an immediate interview.
Even the Cool Captain started perceptibly when he read the name. He was well acquainted with the episode connected with it; for Cecil had kept back none of her secrets from him, and this was among the earliest confidences.Thenhe had felt no inclination to sneer; but now his lip began to curl cynically.
“Coramba!” he muttered; “the plot begins to thicken. What brings the old loveren scène?I hope he does not mean to make himself disagreeable. I haven’t time to quarrel just now; and, besides, it would worry Cecil. Well, we’ll find out what he wants. Tell Mr. Waring that I am disengaged, and shall be happy to see him.”
The major advanced to meet his visitor with a manner that was perfectly courteous, though it retained a tinge of haughty surprise.
“I can not guess to what I am indebted for this pleasure,” he said. “Pardon me, if I ask you to explain your object as briefly as possible. I have much to do this evening, and my time is hardly my own.”
Waring gazed fixedly at the speaker for a few seconds before he replied. Like most of his profession, he was an acute physiognomist, and in60that brief space he fathomed much of the character of the man who had rivaled him successfully. He confessed honestly to himself that there were grounds, if not excuse, for Cecil’s infatuation; but he shrank from thinking of the danger which she had escaped so narrowly.
“Yes, I will be as brief as possible,” Mark answered at length. “Neither of us will be tempted to prolong this interview unnecessarily. I have promised to deliver a letter to you, and when you have read it I shall have but very few words to say.”
A stronger proof than Keene had ever yet given of superhuman control over his emotions was the fact that, neither by quivering of eyelid, change of color, or motion of muscle, did he betray the faintest astonishment or concern as he took the letter from Waring, and recognized Cecil’s hand on the cover. It was not a long epistle, for it scarcely extended beyond two sides of a note-sheet. The writing was hurried, and in places almost illegible: it had entirely lost the firm, even character which usually distinguished it, from which a very moderate graphiologist might have drawn successful auguries. Perhaps this was the reason that Royston read it through twice slowly. As he did so his countenance altered fearfully; the deadly white look of dangerous passion overspread it all, and his eyes began to gleam. Yet still he spoke calmly—“You knew of this being written?”
“I am happy to say I was more than passively conscious of it,” Mark replied. “I did all in my power to bring about the result that you are now made aware of, and I thank God that I did not fail.”
While the other was speaking Royston was tearing up the paper he held into the smallest shreds, and dropping them one by one. The act might have been involuntary, but seemed to have a savage viciousness about it, as if a living thing were being tortured by those cruel fingers. (The poor letter! whatever its faults might have been, it surely deserved a better fate: it was doubtless not a model of composition, but some of the epistles which have moved us most in our time, either for joy or sorrow, might not in this respect emulate Montague or Chapone.) Still he controlled himself, with a mighty effort, enough to ask, steadily, “Were you weary of your life, to have done all this, and then come here to tell me so?”
Waring laughed drearily.
“Weary? So weary that, if it had not been for scruples you can not understand, I would have got rid of it long ago. But I need not inflict my confidences on you, and I don’t choose to see the drift of your question.”
The devil had so thoroughly by this time possessed Royston Keene, that even his voice was changed into a hoarse, guttural whisper. “I asked, because I mean to kill you.”
Mark’s gaze met the savage eyes that gleamed like a famished panther’s, with an expression too calm for defiance, though there might have been perhaps a shade of contempt.
“Of course I shall guard my own life as best I may, either here or elsewhere, but I do not apprehend it is in great danger. There is an old proverb about ‘threatened men;’ they are not killed so easily as women are betrayed. Beyond the simplest self-defense, I warn you that I shall not resent any insult or attack. I will not meet you in the field; and as for any personal struggle, I don’t think that even you would like to make Cecil Tresilyan the occasion for a broil that might suit two drunken peasants.”
Though shorter by half a head, and altogether cast in a less colossal mould, as he stood there, with his square, well-knit frame, and bold Saxon face, he looked no contemptible antagonist to confront the swarthy giant. In utter insensibility to fear and carelessness of consequences (so far as they could affect a steady resolve), the Cool Captain had met his match at last. Even then, in the crisis of his stormy passion, he was able to appreciate a hardihood so congenial to his own character; pondering upon these things afterward, he always confessed that at this juncture, and indeed all throughout, his opponent had very much the best of it. Ferocity and violence seemed puerile and out of place when contrasted with that tranquil audacity. He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment or so, and when he raised his face it had recovered its natural impassibility, though the ghastly pallor still remained. Besides, the truth of Waring’s last words struck him forcibly. He muttered under his breath, “By G—d, he’s rightthere, at all events;” then he said aloud, “Well, it appears you won’t fight, so there is little more to be said between us. You think you can thwart my purposes or mould them as you like. We’ll try it. I told you I had many things to do to-night: I have one more than I dreamed of on hand. I wish to be alone.”
Mark gazed wistfully at the speaker without stirring from his seat. “I know what your intention is perfectly well. You mean to follow her. I believe it would be quite in vain; you have misjudged Cecil Tresilyan, if you fancy that she would alter her determination twice. But you might give her great pain, and compromise her more cruelly than you have done already. There are obstacles now in your way that you could not encounter without causing open scandal. Her brother’s suspicions are fairly roused by this time, and he can not help doing his duty: he may be weak and credulous, but he is no coward. There is no fear of farther interference from me: my part is played. But I do beseech you to pause. Supposing the very worst—that you could still succeed in persuading Cecil to her ruin—are you prepared deliberately to accept the consequences of the crime? You are far more experienced in such matters than I: do you know a single instance of such guilt being accomplished whereboth, before the year was ended, did not wish it undone? I do not pretend to be interested about your future; but I believe I am speaking now as your dearest friend might speak. You both delude yourselves miserably if you think that Cecil could live under disgrace. I do you so much justice. You would find it unendurable to see her withering away day by day, with no prospect before her but a hopeless death. In God’s name, draw back while there is time. It is only a sharp struggle, and self-command and self-denial will come. Loneliness is bitter to bear:Iknow that; but what is manhood worth if it can not bear its burdens? I have put every thing on the lowest grounds, and I will ask you one question more—you might guard her from some suffering by hiding her61from the world’s scorn—could you guard yourself against satiety?”
He spoke without a trace of anger or animosity, and the grave, kind tones made some way in the winding avenues leading to Royston’s heart. Besides this, the last word struck the chord of the misgiving that had haunted him ever since he proposed the flight, and had already made him half repent it. But the fortress did not yet surrender.
“All this while you have had some idea of improving your own position with Cecil. It is natural enough: yet I fancy you will find yourself mistaken there.”
Instead of flushing at the taunt, Waring’s face grew paler, and there shot across it a sharp spasm of pain.
“So you can not understand disinterestedness,” he said. “Before I ventured on interference, I was aware of the certain consequences, and weighed them all. Miss Tresilyan thought she had done me some wrong; and I trusted to her generosity to help me when I spoke for the right. But I knew that the spell could only be used once, and that the canceled debt could not be revived. I shall never speak to her—perhaps never see her—on earth again. Do you imagine I love her less for that? Hear this: I suppose I have as much pride as most men; but I would kneel down here and set your foot on my neck if I thought the humiliation would save her one iota of shame or sorrow.”
Keene was fairly vanquished. He was filled with a great contempt for his own guilty passion, compared with the pure self-sacrifice of Mark’s simple chivalry. He raised his eyes from the ground, on which they had been bent gloomily while the other was speaking, and answered without hesitation, “I owe you some amends for much that has been said to-night; and I will not keep you in suspense a moment unnecessarily. I shall leave Dorade to-morrow; but it will not be to follow Cecil Tresilyan. More than this: if there is any chance of our meeting hereafter, on my honor, I will avoid it. I wish many things could be unsaid and undone; but nothing has occurred that is past remedy. As far as any future intentions of mine are concerned, I swear she is as safe as if she were my sister.”
Waring drew a long breath, as if a ponderous weight had been lifted from his chest. “I believe you,” he said simply: then he rose to go. He had almost reached the door, when he turned suddenly and stretched out his hand. It was a perfectly unaccountable and perhaps involuntary impulse; for he still could not absolve the other from dark and heavy guilt. The major held it for a few seconds in a gripe that would have paralyzed weaker fingers: even Mark’s tough joints and muscles were long in forgetting it. He muttered these words between his teeth as he let it go—“Youwere worthy of her.” So the interview ended—in peace. Nevertheless, there was little peace that night for Royston Keene; he passed it alone—how, no mortal can know; but the next morning his appearance fully bore out the truth of the ancient aphorism, “There is no rest for the wicked.” His face was set in the stoniest calmness, but the features were haggard and drawn, and fresh lines and furrows were there deeper than should have been engraved by half a score of years. A violent, passionate nature does not lightly resign the one object of its aims and desires. Larches and firs will bear moving cautiously, for they are well-regulated plants, and natives of a frigid zone; but transplanting rarely succeeds in the tropics.
Harry Molyneux came to his friend’s apartments early on the following day, in a very uncomfortable and perplexed frame of mind. In the first place, he was sensible of that depression of spirits which is always the portion of those who are left behind when any social circle is broken up by the removal of its principal elements. There is no such nuisance as having to stay and put the lights out. Besides this, he was quite uncertain in what temper Royston would be found; and apprehended some desperate outbreak from the latter, which would bring things, already sufficiently complicated, into a more perilous coil.
Keene’s first abrupt words in part reassured him.
“Well, it is all over; and I am going straight back to England.”
Harry felt so relieved that he forgot to be considerate: he could not repress his exultation.
“Is it really all over? I am so very glad!”
“And I am not sorry,” was the reply. The speaker probably persuaded himself that he was uttering the truth; but the dreary, hopeless expression of his stricken face gave his words the lie. It cut deep into Molyneux’s kind heart; he felt more painfully than he had ever done the difficulty of reconciling his evident duty with the demand of an ancient friendship; on the whole, a guilty consciousness of treachery predominated. He was discreet enough to forbear all questions, and it was not till long afterward that he heard an outline of part of what had happened in the past night; it was told in a letter from Miss Tresilyan to his wife. Had he been more inquisitive, his curiosity would scarcely have been gratified. To do Keene justice, he guarded the secrets of others more jealously than he kept his own: and he would have despised himself for revealing one of Cecil’s, even to his old comrade, without her knowledge and leave. If the feeling which prompted such reticence was not a high and delicate sense of honor, it was at least a very efficient substitute for a profitable virtue.
“You go to England?” Molyneux went on, after a brief pause. “When do you start? and what do you mean to do?”
Royston looked up, and saw his own discontent reflected in the countenance of his faithful subaltern; he knew he had found there the sympathy that he was too proud to ask of any living man.
“I start to-night,” he replied; “so you see I have no time to lose. I can hardly tell you what I mean to do, Hal. Do you remember what we said about the best way of spending our resources? Well—I have broken into my last large note; and I suppose I must get rid somehow of the change.”
Harry’s answer was not very ready, nor very distinct when it came. “I wish—I wish, I could help you!”
For one moment, there returned to Keene’s disciplined face a good, natural expression, which had been a stranger there since the days of his hot youth; when he first went forth to buckle62with the world—frank, and honest, and fearless; his voice, too, had softened almost to tenderness. “Old friend, the time has come to say good-by. Our roads have been the same—for longer than I like to think of: but henceforth they must lie so far apart, that I doubt if they will ever cross again. You will see me off, I know; but I may not be able to say then a dozen words that I should be sorry to leave unsaid. I’ll do you this justice—in no one instance have I ever seen you flinch when I wanted your help; though often you had no object of your own to serve. I believe no man ever had a cheerier comrade, or a better backer. I don’t like you the worse for standing aloof during the last five weeks. I never had one unpleasant word from you; but if any of mine have vexed or offended you—see now—I ask your forgiveness from the bottom of my heart.”
It is no shame to Harry’s manhood that he could not answer intelligibly; but ten sentences of elaborate sentiment would hardly have been so eloquent as the pressure of his honest hand.
Later in the day, Keene went to take leave ofla mignonne. He did so with pain and reluctance. Men, utterly hard and merciless toward their own species, have been very fond of their pets; even when these last belonged to an inferior order of creation. Couthon would fondle his spaniel while he was signing a sheaf of death-warrants; and the Prophet, who could contemplate placidly a dozen cities in flames, and watch human hecatombs falling under the sword of Omar or Ali, cut off the sleeve of his robe rather than disturb a favorite cat in her slumbers.
Nevertheless, when two people agree to ignore carefully the one subject that is uppermost in the thoughts of both, the result must be an uncomfortable constraint and reserve. So the adieus, up to a certain point, were rather formal. But just as he was going, the same impulse overcame Royston which had affected him in his interview with Harry Molyneux. Considering that the age of miracles is past, it was remarkable that twice in one day the Cool Captain should have approached so near to the verge of sentimentalism.
“I hope that I shall see you again before long,” he said, “but nothing seems certain—not even the meeting of friends. I should like to thank you now for some pleasant days and evenings. You have brought a good deal of sunshine into my life, since I knew you first. I like to think that, neither in deed nor intention, I have ever deliberately done you or Harry any harm. I hope you will go on taking as much care of him, and making him as perfectly happy as you have done. Perhaps I have vexed you both, lately; but all that is over, and I fancy the punishment will be proportionate to the offense before it is ended. Farewell. Don’t forget me sooner than you can help; and while you do remember me, think of me as kindly as you can.”
He leaned over her as he finished speaking, and his lips just brushed her smooth forehead. When Charles the martyr embraced his children an hour before his death, they received no purer or more sinless kiss. A sob choked Fanny’s voice when she would have replied; and the beautiful brown eyes were so dim with rushing tears, that they never saw him go.
Keene’s last visit in Dorade was to the Vicomte de Châteaumesnil. The latter manifested no surprise at the sudden departure, and expressed his regrets with a perfectly calm courtesy. But, at the moment of leave-taking, he detained the other’s hand for a second or so and said, looking wistfully in his face, “Ainsi, vouspartez seul? je ne l’aurais pas cru; et, je l’avoue franchement, ça me contrarie. N’importe; je connois votre jeu; et je ne vous tiens pas pour battu, quand c’est manche à. Ce serait unebêtise, de dire—‘au revoir.’ Adieu; amusez vous bien.”
Royston shook his head impatiently; he was too proud to save his credit by dissembling a defeat; and his reply was quick and decisive.
“Vous me flattez, M. le Vicomte. Quand on perd, on doit, au moins l’avouer loyalement, et payer l’en jeu. Cette fois j’ai tant perdu, que je ne prendrai pas la revanche.”
Not another word was exchanged between them; but Armand had accepted repulses in his time with more equanimity than he could muster when ruminating afterward on the discomfiture of Royston Keene.
Some days later the subject was discussed at the Cercle, and one of thehabituéshazarded several cunning conjectures, and more than cynical surmises. (Did you ever hear a thoroughly profligate Frenchman sneer a woman’s character away? It is almost worth while overcoming your disgust to listen to the diabolical ingenuity of his innuendoes. The scandal of our bitterest dowagers sounds charitable by comparison.) The savage outbreak of the Algerian’s temper, that every one had long been expecting, came at last with avengeance.
“Tu mens, canaille! C’est le meilleur éloge de M. Keene, que les marans comme toi, ne puissent le comprendre. Quand à Mademoiselle—elle vaut mille fois tes sœurs, et ta mère. Si tu as le cœur de pousser l’affaire, je te donnerai raison sur mes béquilles. Pour le pistolet, ma main n’est pas encore percluse.” He held it out, as steady and strong as it was in the old days when it could sway the sabre from dawn to twilight and never know weariness.
If the other persuaded himself that consideration for the invalid’s infirmities made him patient under the insult, his friends were less romantically credulous: the stigma of that night cleaves to him still. Brazen it out as he may, the hang-dog look remains, telling us that the barriers have been at least once broken down which separate the man from the serf. There would be, perhaps, less mischief abroad if slander were always so promptly and amply avenged.