University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.

In one of the bye-streets of Paris, not very far distant from the palace of the Louvre,
thern was a large old fashioned house, standing a little way back, with a narrow yard
before it surrounded by an iron railing. The outer door stood open, but just within it
there was another scarcely less strong than the first, having a grated wicket in its upper
panel, by which the porter, an old invalided soldier, might reconnoiter the faces of all
visitors, before admitting them. In this large house, as is so much the custom at the
present day on the continent, there was one common staircase, with several strong
doors, one or more on each landing; the several floors being let separately as suites of
apartments to travellers, or those natives who had neither houses of their own nor the
means of maintaining them. On the third floor of this building there was a handsome
suite of rooms, consisting of an antechamber with a small closet opening from it for a
servant, a large saloon, a spacious and luxurious bedchamber, and several small apartments
for the attendants of a gentleman of consequence; and, at a late hour of the
night, or it would be, perhaps, more correct to say, early in the morning that succeeded
the royal ball, the principal room of the suite was brightly illuminated, and occupied by
a person who appeared in no wise inclined to sleep, though all the rest of the inhabit
ants of the great city were buried in deep slumber. The room, as I have said, was
large and airy, with windows reaching to the ground, and was well furnished with a
rich carpet on the floor, and hangings on the walls. Two or three slabs and tables of
various forms were ranged against the panels, or occupied the central space, covered
with Persian carpets, and littered with a variety of articles for use and show—some
ornamental vases and other specimens of the antique that might have charmed a virtuoso,
papers, and books, and instruments of music, two or three swords with their
embroidered baldrics, a plumed hat, gloves with silver fringes, a scarlet mantle heavily
laced with gold, and many other things which seemed to designate the occupant for a
man of elegant and intellectual tastes, a soldier and a gentleman. Over the mantelpiece
was hung a richly chased and inlaid musketoon, and a pair of long horseman's
pistols with Spanish barrels, at that time the most famous in the world; and, upon
hooks, along the wall facing the windows, were several cuirasses of steel, two polished
head-pieces, and several pair of gauntlets; and below them three of the long, straight,
double-edged swords peculiar to the cavalry of the period. A little fire of wood was
burning on the hearth, for though the autumn was not far advanced, and the days
were yet warm, the nights were chilly; and, near the fire, there had been placed a
small round table, with a silver lamp, a writing-desk bestrewn with notes and letters,
most of them written in a feminine hand, and among these a miniature portrait, in
enamel, of an exceedingly beautiful girl with dark hair and eyes, and a marked aspect
of voluptuous boldness. A large arm-chair stood close to the table, as if some one had
just occupied it; but it had been pushed a little way back, and Marmaduke Wyvil, for
it was to him these rooms belonged, was walking to and fro the floor, with rapid and
irregular strides; his face all pale and bloodless, his eye full of a wild and anxious restlessness,
and his arms folded on his breast with the hands tightly clenched. Several
times he walked up and down the saloon, pausing at each turn, and standing still beside
the table for a little while, gazing upon the letters and the miniature, although there
was but little speculation in the fixed stare with which he regarded them; and, although
he seemed hardly conscious how he was occupied, at last he caught the picture up, and
gazed upon it earnestly.

“Lovely!” he said, “ay, it is very lovely! but, after all, it is the loveliness of a
bona roba, rather than of a wife; and, when you see them both together, she is not
half so truly beautiful. I marvel how I could have so forgotten!” He paused again
for a moment or two, and casting down the portrait half disdainfully—“Curses!” he
muttered between his teeth—“curses upon it! This comes of playing double! Both
won—ay, both; and now, I trow, both lost! And then, and then?” and he resumed

his hurried strides, smiting his forehead with his hand as he did so, and muttering
stifled imprecations.

He soon, however, became tired of pacing and repacing the apartment; and again
threw himself into the chair, covering his face with both his hands. After a little while
he again started up, and nothing could more thoroughly display the perturbation and
the agony of his mind, than did the sharp, and keen, and haggard look which had come
over his smooth features; changing him, in the space of a few hours, from a fresh-looking
fair young man, to a pale, conscience-stricken, spectral-looking personage. “Let
me think,” he said, as he did so; “I must think—for there is everything to gain, and
more than all to lose. Let me think!” and he did think, very long and deeply; and
though he spoke no more aloud, he muttered to himself often; and his thoughts shaped
and arranged themselves in words and sentences, almost as definite as those which he
had just before enunciated.

“This girl,” so ran his anxious meditation—“this artless and unsophisticated girl!
what can it mean? I do not understand. By heaven! no regular town beauty, accustomed
for long years to all the homage, all the gay flattery of courts, could carry it
more easily. So calm, so self-possessed, so graceful! Can she have heard? can she
suspect? No, no! it is not possible; there would have been wrath, indignation, jealousy!
No, no! she could not so have met me, could not have so conversed with me,
and that, too, touching Isabella, had she dreamed only that she was her rival—her successful
rival! And yet in what—in what is there comparison, or rivalry? In what? in
nothing. She must! she shall be mine!” and, with the thought, he sprang up from
his chair, and began once more to stride with heavy and irregular steps, to and fro the
saloon, till he stopped once again, and said aloud—“And what then—what with Isabella?
her fiery Spanish temper, when she shall find herself deserted! There will be
no restraint, no curb upon its fury! no corselet that could ward off her sharp vengeance!
And it was but to-day; this cursed—ay, doubly cursed to-day! that I committed myself
to her, beyond all retraction—and if I could retract, would Alice hear me? There
was no love in her cool eye—no consciousness, either of injury endured, or of reanimating
tenderness, or of premeditated wrong. All calm, as if we had been ever
friends—more than friends ever! Oh! I am hedged about with toils on every side—
beset, betrayed—thousands of devils! ruined—ay, ruined beyond hope! My estates
forfeited! ay, and the very hope of their restoration gone—sold to the pestilent Jews
—lost! lost! beyond redemption! Ha!” as a sudden thought, as if by inspiration,
flashed on his soul—“ha! but Sir Henry might refuse—might? would! By heaven!
I have observed it in his eye, his voice, his manner! and, till this night, that was my
terror—that which shall be my preservation. He knows, too, or suspects, I fancy, that
I am given to those infernal cubes of bone—those devilish dice! but if I once succeed,
I have done with them for ever! Ay—that is it, seek out a quarrel with Sir Henry,
and find in that a cause for rupture with this bold beauty—had I but known this somewhat
sooner, I might have won her without marriage! but that is too late now! She
is the richer, though—tush! Woolverton is worth three thousand, every pound of it, in
yearly rent; and the old graybeard scholar, simple as any child, and unsuspicious—it
is the better, the better every way! And Alice—ay, sweet Alice! in good truth, she
is the only woman I ever looked upon, that was worth love—love! ay, I do love
her—have loved her always—although necessity, and opportunity, and this girl's beauty
blinded me for a while; there needed but one tone of her soft voice, one glance of
those sweet eyes, to argue me of guilt! of madness! But it shall soon be ended!
This morning I will see her—this morning seal my recantation, and the rest will be
soon managed.”

He took a few more turns about the room, then entered his bedchamber hastily, and
pulling off his boots, threw himself down without undressing further; and wearied,
both in mind and body, soon forgot all his plots and cares in profound slumber. The
sun was high in the heavens, and the streets of Paris had been filled for several hours,
with all their dissonant and ceaseless din, before he summoned his attendants, and,

dressing himself with unusual care, ordered his horses, and sat down to amuse himself
during their preparation, by dallying with his morning meal.

Alice, meantime, on her return from the ball, had been met by a strange and glad
surprise; for, scarcely had she reached the head of the great staircase, before her girl
Margaret came running out, full of wild and eager joy, with her eyes sparkling—

“Oh! Mistress Alice, they have come. I am so glad—so glad—they have all come!”

Who have come, Margaret? what in the world ails you?” asked Alice, greatly
astonished and half-frightened.

“Why, General Henry, Mistress Alice; and Master Fletcher, the steward, and
Anthony and Matthew Harland, and Frank Norman, who used to live with the Lord
Fairfax. The general was up stairs with Master Selby for an hour or better, soon after
you went hence.”

“Well! this is good news, Margaret,” Alice replied; “did you see General Henry?”

“Oh yes! I saw him, and he knew me instantly, and left word with me that he
would call and see you very early, at nine o'clock. So you had better go to bed directly,
or you will never be afoot in time to see him. And all the folks are well at Woolverton
except poor old dame Rainsford, who has been dead some time—and good John
Sherlock is striving hard to get Marian—but Marian never will wed any more, I think.”

“Never, indeed,” said Alice with a sigh, “she has loved once too deeply!” and,
without saying any more, she suffered the girl to undress her, and lay down. But she
continued sleepless until within an hour of the time when Margaret had been ordered
to awaken her, and when she slept at last, her sleep was restless and uneasy; and when
she rose her face was extremely pale, and its expression painful, and exceedingly unlike
its usually calm and serene character. The glance of her eye, too, as her maid observed,
was uncommonly bright and glassy; and ere she had been long up, a round defined spot
of hectic crimson settling on either cheek, remained there throughout the day—an evidence
of the strong conflict that was at work within. Chaloner arrived, as he had
promised to do, at an early hour; and was, as ever, all that was kind, affectionate, and
noble. He was, he told her, on his way to the Hague, whither he had been appointed
as a special envoy to their High Mightenesses, for the purpose of demanding reparation
of wrongs and outrages done to the British commissioners by certain royal refugees;
and had been induced to take Paris on his route, partly on business of the state, and
partly from the wish of seeing her, and communicating to her, in person, the agreeable
tidings, that a full pardon had been made in due form to herself and Master Selby,
accompanied by a reversal of the decree of sequestration—“So that your property is
all restored to you,” he said, “after a very brief alienation, during which you will find
that it has suffered no diminution, or detriment whatever. I have likewise obtained a
full indemnity, and permission to return to England at his pleasure, for your friend,
Major Wyvil, whom I shall endeavor to see to-day, in order that I may congratulate
him on his fortune—for your good father, my dear Alice, has told me everything; and
I know that he is to be the owner of that hand and heart, to which I once so foolishly
aspired. But it is the best as it is. Even as all the things of the Great Maker's planning
are better than the fitful dreams of mortals! and I thank Him that it is so—that I
can freely and fully wish you all that happiness which you so merit, without one feeling
of base envy, or weak repining, at the success of another; who, I can well believe,
is better fitted far than I, to make you happy. I feel, that had I won that heart and
hand, they would have all unfitted me for the vocation to which I am unerringly
devoted—my country's service! There is nought now to distract me from my single line
of duties, and I believe and feel, that I shall be as happy in following out what I know
to be the right course, as you, I trust, will be in that sphere to which God has called you.'

“Oh, Henry!” replied Alice, affected almost to tears; “ever the same—the same
pure, noble, excellent! I thank our God most fervently and truly that you are happy,
and, I doubt not, you will be happier tenfold in your high course, than any being, so
poor and frail as I, could have made you by love, had it been mine to give; but,” and
her voice faltered for a moment, till with a little effort she recovered herself, and spoke

quite firmly; “I think you are mistaken—I do not believe that I shall ever be the bride
of Major Wyvil.”

“How!” exclaimed Chaloner—“how! not the bride of Wyvil? why, it was but last
night your father told me that it should be so! How, Alice!” and his whole grand and
noble face brightened with glorious indignation; “this man, whom you rescued from
destruction, well-nigh at the price of your own ruin—this man has not—cannot have
dared to slight you?”

“Cousin,” said Alice quietly—“dear cousin Henry, you must now ask me nothing.
Be sure that should poor Alice Selby require defence or aid, there is no arm on earth
from which she would so gladly seek it as from his who did once save her! But there
is no cause now—not even why I should ask advice—and, trust me, I know well how
to provide for my own dignity and happiness and honor.”

“Indeed you do,” Chaloner answered, his wonted calmness conquering the brief
passion; “I never doubted it, so far as dignity or honor—the way of these is clear and
not to be mistaken by an eye which takes, like yours, truth for its only lamp. But
happiness! happiness, Alice! men often toil to win what they deem happiness, and,
when won, find it anguish! But this I cannot understand—you loved him once.”

“You cannot, Henry, you cannot,” she replied. “But I did love him, or perchance
I had loved a better man, if not a brighter—and I do love him yet, and I shall love him
while I live. But, Henry, do you remember how my mother died? Look at my cheek,
and eye, and see if you cannot therein read the signs of the same sure destroyer?”

He started; for, with these words, a terror almost amounting to conviction flashed
on his soul, and he believed almost that her foreboding was prophetic. He tried, for a
little space, to conquer this depression, to give the conversation a more cheerful tone;
but it was useless all, and ere long he departed, with a promise to revisit her in the
evening:

“When,” he added, as he left the room, “I trust I shall find you with better and
more cheerful spirits; for I feel sure that you are overtired, and you had better take
some rest.” But, as he descended the great stairs, he muttered to himself, “There is
more—there is something more in this! I fear he is a villain! I will watch—I will
watch! It is providential that I came here. I will see St. Eloy; I fancy he can tell me, or
find out—I will see St. Eloy forthwith!” Thus saying, he reached the door, and was just
going down the steps into the yard, where his horses waited for him, when a young
cavalier, gorgeously dressed, but rather in the English than in the French fashion, and
mounted on a superior charger, entered the porte cochère, and throwing his rein to one
of his attendants, leaped to the ground, came quickly up to the door—and face to face
stood Chaloner and the very man on whom his thoughts were running at the moment.

“Ha! Major Wyvil, I believe,” said Chaloner, raising his hand quietly to his hat; “the
last time we met was in a hotter place.”

“I do not recollect at all,” Marmaduke answered; “I am Major Wyvil, very much
at your service; but I do not recollect when we have met before; nor have I even now
the happiness of knowing whom I am addressing.”

“We met last, sir,” Chaloner answered, “upon Worcester field—on different sides
it is true—and I had the honor of exchanging two thrusts and a cut with you, till we
were parted by the meleè—but all this is ended now happily. My name is Henry
Chaloner; and as I understand we are soon to be cousins, I hope we may be good
friends. I believe I speak to my fair kinswoman, Alice Selby's destined husband. I
had a cause for speaking to you now, sir—since, in consideration of what I heard and
believed true, I was induced to apply to the person who now virtually governs England;
and, having some weight with him, I am very happy to say, that I succeeded in obtaining
from him the full pardon of Major Marmaduke Wyvil, with permission to return
home at his own will and pleasure. If you will do me the favor to call at my lodging
—General Chaloner's lodging in the Rue Royale—I will give you the document,
formally sealed and witnessed. In the mean time, I will not detain you from more fair
society. Give you good day, sir;” and bowing, in reply to Wyvil's profuse thanks and

acknowledgments, he mounted his horse and rode silently away. The face of the
other brightened with exultation.

“Free pardon!” he exclaimed aloud, “and full permission to return! And Woolverton,
and Alice Selby!” he added in a lower tone—“Fortune, thou art a Goddess!”
He entered the house, and giving his name to a servant, was immediately ushered into
the presence of Alice, who was waiting alone to receive the visit that was to determine
her fate for ever. The meeting of the lovers was not as such are, or should be; both
were confused, embarrassed, almost cold; but Alice was the first to recover herself,
and she spoke, as was usual to her frank and open disposition, freely at once and to the
point.

“I am glad you have come here to-day,” she said, “Major Wyvil, for I have much
to say to you, and hear from you; and I will pray you—”

“But why so cold,” he vehemently interrupted—“why so calmly and bitterly cold,
Alice? Why `Major Wyvil?' time was when I was Marmaduke. Is it, can it be
possible, that Alice Selby—the pure, and true, and tender Alice Selby—can have so
fallen off from her plighted faith, so utterly forgot the vows she swore, not one year
past—so totally overcome the love she once professed!”

“Professed!” exclaimed Alice, her beautiful eyes flashing fire—“Professed! No,
Marmaduke, it is not—it is not possible; no word of it is possible or true—and that no
man more surely knows, than you do! I did, as you say, plight my faith; and from
that faith my soul has neyer swerved—no! not so much as a hair's breadth; and never
will swerve while the life quivers in my veins! Nay! hear me out, for I must speak!
I did, as you say, profess to love you—for, as you know too well, I did—did love you!
oh! man, man! you cannot know how deeply! But let me ask you now, and I adjure
you answer me frankly, truly, freely—so may all yet be well—God is my gracious
judge, that I ask it in no mean spirit of suspicion or vain jealousy; but in that I have
heard things that must, will be heard, and must be answered. Have you, Marmaduke
Wyvil—have you not fallen from the faith you pledged to me at Woolverton? Have
you not so forgotten the vows you then swore, as—I say not to flirt, or toy, or trifle—
but to pledge solemn vows to another? Have you not so overcome the love which
you once felt for me—for I believe that you did feel it—as to lose sight of me in absence,
and give your heart up to another? Pause! pause! I beseech you, and answer truly;
and above all, fear not too harsh a judge in your poor Alice—for my heart yearns
toward you, Marmaduke, with an undying love; and I would fain be yours, if yours I
may be honorably, in this life and for ever!”

He did pause—he did reflect—and the better spirit that was for the time awakened
in him, half-prompted, half-persuaded him to own the truth—to confess his brief hallucination,
to throw himself at her feet, and implore her pardon. But no! he thought, no!
woman cannot forgive such errors—and then he proudly raised his head; and, though
his soul quailed in him with the dread sickening sensation of conscious guilt and baseness,
he proudly answered—with a lie!

“Never!” he said—“never! so help me He, who looks on all things—no, never!”
and he went on so rapidly, heaping asseveration on asseveration, that she could not,
although she wished it, interrupt or check him. “I may, as you say, have laughed,
and danced, and whispered tender nonsense in ears that believed it not; but never! on
my salvation, Alice, never has my faith ever wavered—never has vow been plighted—
or love felt by me, for any girl or woman, saving you only, Alice!”

“Have you done?” she exclaimed fiercely—“have you done now? Never to
Isabella Oswald? Oh! think—think Wyvil, ere you speak—think and beware! for I
have heard, and seen, and know!”

“Never! oh, Alice, I swear never! I will swear—”

“Swear NOTHING!” she looked at him, with an air of majesty so perfect and so grand,
that he could not brook it, but cowed before her like a whipped and whimpering
hound—“you have already sworn too deeply, and too falsely! A traitor, traitor, traitor!
Oh, man! that I should so have loved you—that I should even now, knowing you base

and false beyond conception, still love—almost adore you! No words! no words!
Listen—I sat yestreen in a green bower of the Tuileries—there is another unseen bower
just behind it—and thither, while I sat—thither came Isabella Oswald; and there to her
did Marmaduke Wyvil—ay, you pale now and tremble! swear, as he swore to-day
to me, that he did never love, did never even think of Alice Selby! her answer I heard
not. Oh, Wyvil, Wyvil! you know not what a heart you have cast off from you for ever!
Even to-day, had you frankly owned your error; had you convinced me that it was
but a temporary and involuntary treason; had you showed me that her happiness was not
jeoparded—even to-day, I had taken you to my bosom: I had said, `all is forgotten,
all is forgiven—let us be happy, Marmaduke!' but now—”

“Oh! say so—say so now!” exclaimed Wyvil, falling upon his knees before her.

“Kneel not to me,” she said—“kneel not to me, but to the great God, whom you
have so grievously insulted!”

But he went on, quite disregarding her interruption—

“For it is all as you have said, it was mere frenzy—the wild frenzy of a moment.”

“Degrade yourself no more,” she said, in a voice wherein no touch of passion, anger,
or pity, or contempt, was audible; but slow and even and majestic, as one might imagine
the voice to have sounded from the oracular tripod—“degrade yourself no more,
but leave me—strive not, speak not—your case is hopeless! Not for the empire of the
universe, would Alice Selby marry a man whom she thoroughly despises. And I—
Marmaduke Wyvil, the words must be spoken—I love you still, I shall for ever love
you. I shall rejoice to hear of your well-being, of your well-doing, of your repenting, of
your becoming what I fear too deeply you never will—an upright and honorable man;
but I thoroughly—ay, utterly depise you! A cowardly, base LIE! sworn to two trusting
women! Oh! you have filled my heart with fire—oh! you have heaped my head with
ashes, blighted my young fresh life—left me no hope, nor aim, nor object; but only a
long solitary waste of weary days to traverse—a long sad pilgrimage to travel, unlightened
by a gleam of hope, unaided and forsaken, before I may find rest in the grave!
All this have you done to me; yet I forgive, I love, and I will pray for you. Begone!
begone! and commune with your own soul in silence! repent and prosper! No word
of what has passed between us will I breathe to any mortal ear, so long as you insult
me not with your addresses. Speak one word more to shake my resolution! presume
to persecute me with your love hereafter! and I will blazon forth your infamy to the
broad world, if my heart break in uttering it. Begone—farewell! farewell for ever!'

And, goaded by the stings of that dread conscience, more terrible avengers than the
blood-hunting serpent-locked Eumenides, he rushed forth from her presence with the
undying worm already gnawing at the heart strings; while she, deserted by the strength
that had so nerved her in his presence, drew a long sob, and fell to the ground senseless—and
lay there till she was found, cold and unconscious, by Madame de Gondi; who,
seeing the precipitate departure of the false lover, and therefrom foreboding evil, came
hurriedly to see her, barely in time to bring her back once more to that long act of
agony, which is called life by mortals.