University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

Within an hour after that most momentous conversation,
Annabel sat beside the window, in that pleasant summer-parlor,
looking out on the fair prospect of mead and dale and river,
with its back-ground — of purple mountains the very window
from which she had first looked upon De Vaux!

Perhaps a secret instinct had taught her to select that spot,
now that she was about to renounce him for ever; but if it were
so, it was one of those indefinable impulsive instincts of which
we are unconscious, even while they prompt our actions.

De Vaux was summoned to her presence, and Annabel
awaited him — arbiter of her own and her sister's destinies!

“Ernest,” she said, as he entered, cutting across his eager
and impetuous inquiries, “Ernest de Vaux, I have learned to-day
a secret” — she spoke with perfect ease, and without a
symptom of irritation, or anxiety, or sorrow, either in her voice
or manner; nor was she cold, or dignified, or haughty. Her
demeanor was not, indeed, that of a fond maid toward her accepted
suitor; nor had it the flutter which marks the consciousness
of unacknowledged love; a sister's to a dear brother's
would have resembled it more nearly than, perhaps, anything
to which it could be compared, yet was not this altogether similar.
He looked up in her face with a smile, and asked her at
once: —

“What secret, dearest Annabel?”

“A secret, Ernest,” she replied, “which I can not but fancy
you must have learned before, but which you certainly have
learned, as well as I, to-day. My sister loves you, Ernest.”

The young man's face was crimson on the instant, and he
would have made some reply, but his voice failed him, and,
after a moment of confused stuttering, he stood before her in
embarrassed silence; but she went on at once, not noticing apparently,
his consternation.

“If you did know this, as I fear must be the case, long, long
ago! most basely have you acted, and most cruelly to both of
us; for never! never! even if it had been a rash, unsought, and
unjustifiable passion on her part, would I have wedded, knowingly,
the man who held my sister's heart-strings!”

“It was,” he answered, instantly, “it was a rash, unsought,
and unjustifiable passion on her part, believe me, oh! believe
me, Annabel! that is — that is,” he continued, reddening again
at feeling himself self-convicted, “that is, if she felt any passion.”

“Then you did know it — then you did know it,” she interrupted
him, without paying any regard to his attempt at self-correction,
“then you did know it from the very first — oh!
man, man! oh! false heart of man — oh! false tongue that can
speak thus of the lady whom he loves! yes, loves!” she added,
in a clear, high voice, as thrilling as the alarm-blast of a silver
trumpet; “yes, loves, Ernest de Vaux, with his whole heart
and spirit! Never think to deny it! Did I not see you, when
you rushed to save her from lesser peril, when you left me, as
you must have thought, to perish? Did I not see love written
as clearly as words in a book, on every feature of your face,
even as I heard love crying out aloud in every accent of her
voice?”

“What! jealous, Annabel? the calm and self-controlling Annabel,
can she be jealous, of her own sister, too?”

“Not jealous, sir,” she answered, now most contemptuously,
“not jealous, in the least, I do assure you! For though, most
surely, love can exist without one touch of jealousy, as surely
can not jealousy exist where there is neither love, nor admiration,
nor esteem, nor so much as respect existing.”

“How! do I hear you aright?” he asked somewhat sharply,
“do I understand you aright? What have become, then, of
your vows and protestations, your protestations of yester-even?”

“You do hear me, you do understand me,” she replied, “entirely
right, entirely! In my heart — for I have searched it
very deeply — in my heart there is not now one feeling of love,
or admiration, or esteem, much less of respect for you; alas!
that I should say so; alas! for me and you; alas! for one, more
to be pitied twentyfold than the other!”

“Annabel Hawkwood, you have never loved me.”

“Ernest de Vaux, you never have known, never will know, because
you are incapable of knowing the depth, the singleness, the
honesty, of a true woman's love! So deeply did I love you,
that I have come down hither, seeing that long before you knew
me, you had won Marian's heart — seeing that you loved her, as
she loves you, most ardently, and hoping that you had not discovered
her affection, nor suspected your own feelings until
to-day — I came down hither, I say, with that knowledge, in that
hope. And had I found that you had erred no further than in
trivial fickleness, she loving you all the while beyond all things
on earth, I purposed to resign your hand to her, thus making
both of you happy, and trusting for my own consolation to consciousness
of right, and to the love of Him who, all praise be
to him therefor, has so constituted the spirit of Annabel Hawkwood,
that when she can not honor, she can not afterward for
ever feel either love or friendship. You are weighed, Ernest
de Vaux, weighed in the balance and found wanting! I leave
you now, sir, to prepare my sister to bear the blow your baseness

has inflicted. Our marriage is broken off at once, now
and for ever! Lay all the blame on me — on me! if it so
please you; but not one word against my own or my sister's
honor! My aunt I shall inform instantly, that, for sufficient
reasons, our promised union will not take place at all; the reasons
I shall lock up in my own bosom. You may remain here,
you must do so, this one night; to-morrow morning we will bid
you adieu for ever!”

“Be it so,” he replied. “Be it so, lady; the fickleness I
can forgive, but not the scorn! I will go now, and order that
the regiment march hence forthwith. What more recruits
there be, can follow at their leisure, and I will overtake the
troops before noon, on the march, to-morrow;” and with the words
he left the room, apparently as unconcerned as if he had not left
a breaking heart behind him, and as if all the agonies of hell
had not been burning within his own.

And was it true that Annabel no longer loved him? True!
oh, believe it not! where woman once has fixed her soul's affections,
there they will dwell for ever; principle may compel
her to suppress them; prudence may force her to conceal
them; the fiery sense of instantaneous wrong may seem to
quench them for a moment; the bitterness of jealousy may turn
them into gall; but, like that Turkish perfume, where love has
once existed, it must exist for ever, so long as one fragment
of the earthly vessel which contained it survives the wreck of
time and ruin.

She believed that she loved him not; but she knew not herself;
what woman ever did — what man — when the spring-tide
of passion was upon them? And she, too, left the parlor, and
within a few minutes, Marian had heard her fate, and after
many a tear, and many a passionate exclamation, she, too, apparently,
was satisfied of Ernest's worthlessness; oh! misapplied
and heartless term! She satisfied? satisfied by the

knowledge that her heart's idol was an unclean thing, an evil
spirit, a false God! she satisfied? oh! Heaven!

Around the hospitable board once more — once more they
were assembled; but oh! how sadly altered; the fiat had been
distinctly, audibly pronounced; and all assembled there had
heard it, though none, except the sisters and De Vaux, knew
of the cause; none probably, but they, suspected it. Well
was it that there were no young men — no brothers with high
hearts and strong hands to maintain or question? Well was it,
that the only relatives of those much-injured maidens, the only
friends, were superannuated men of peace — the ministers of
pardon, not of vengeance — and weak, old, helpless women!
There had been bloodshed else — and, as it was, among the
serving-men, there were dark brows, and writhing lips, and
hands alert to grasp the hilt at a word spoken; had they but
been of rank one grade higher — had they dared even as they
were — there had been bloodshed! Cold, cold and cheerless
was the conversation; formal and dignified civilities, in place
of gay, familiar mirth; forced smiles for hearty laughter; pale
looks and dim eyes, for the glad blushes of the promised bride
— for the bright sparkles of her eye!

The evening passed, the hour of parting came; and it was
colder yet and sadder. Ernest de Vaux, calm and inscrutable,
and seemingly unmoved, kissed the hands of his lovely hostesses,
and uttered his adieu and thanks for all their kindness, and
hopes for their prosperity and welfare; while the old clergymen
looked on with dark and angry brows, and their helpmates
with difficulty could refrain from loud and passionate invective.
His lip had a curl upon it — a painful curl, half sneer, as he
bowed to the rest, and left the parlor; but none observed that
as he did so, he spoke three or four words, in a low whisper,
so low that it reached Marian's ear alone, of all that stood
around him, yet of such import, that her color came and went

ten times within the minute, and that she shook from head to
foot, and quivered like an aspen.

For two hours longer, the sisters sat together in Annabel's
bedchamber, and wept in one another's arms, and comforted
each other's sorrows, and little dreamed that they should meet
no more for years — perchance for ever.