University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
THE LOVESUIT.

The morning was still very young, and the sun which was
but just beginning to rise above the brow of the eastern hill,
poured his long, yellow rays, full of a million dusty motes, in
almost level lines down the soft, green slopes, diversified by
hundreds of cool purple shadows, projected far and wide over
the laughing landscape, from every tree and bush that intercepted
the mild light.

The dews of the preceding night still clustered unexhaled,
sparkling like diamonds to the morning beams, on every leaf
and flower; a soft west wind was playing gently with the thousands
of bright buds and blossoms which decked the pleasant
gardens; and the whole air was perfumed with the delicate fragrance
of the mignionette and roses, which filled the luxuriant
parterres. The hum of the revelling bees came to the ear
with a sweet, domestic sound, and the rich carol of the black-bird
and the thrush came swelling from the tangled shrubberies,
full fraught with gratitude and glee.

It was into such a scene, and among such sights and sounds,
that the young free-trader wandered forth from the tranquillity
and gloom of the sick chamber in which he had spent a sleepless

night; but his mind had been too deeply stirred by his conversation
with Sir Miles St. Aubyn, and chords of too powerful
feeling had been thrilled into sudden and painful life, to allow
him to be penetrated, as he might have been in a less agitated
hour, by the sweet influences of the time and season.

Still, though he was unconscious of the pleasant sights and
sounds and smells which surrounded him, as he strolled slowly
through the bowery walks of the old garden, they had more or
less effect upon his perturbed and bitter spirit; and his mood
became gradually softer, as he mused upon what had passed
within the last hour, alone in that bright solitude.

Wild and impetuous and almost fierce by nature, he had
brooded from his very boyhood upward over his real and imaginary
wrongs, until the iron had so deeply pierced his soul,
that he could see nothing but coldness, and hostility, and persecution,
in the conduct of all around him, with the exception
of his old student uncle and his sweet Theresa. Ever suspecting,
ever anticipating injury and insult, or at least coldness and
repulsion from all with whom he was brought into contact, he
actually generated in the breasts of others the feelings, which
he imputed to them all unjustly. Accusing the world of injustice
or ere it was unjust, in the end he made it to be so indeed;
and then hated it, and railed against it, for that which it had
never dreamed of, but for his own fantastic waywardness.

It was unfortunate for Denzil, that the good man, into whose
care he had fallen, ever of a philosophical and studious, nay,
even mystic disposition, had become, since the sad fate of his
beloved sister, and the early death of a yet dearer wife, so
wholly visionary, so entirely given up to the wildest theorizing,
the most abstruse and abstract metaphysical inquiries, that no
one could have been devised less fitting for the guardian and
instructor of a high-spirited, hot-headed, fiery boy than he was.

The consequence of this was, as it might have been expected,

that disgusted early with the strange sorts of learning which
the old man persisted in forcing into him against the grain, and
discontented with the stillness and deathlike tranquility of all
around him, the boy ran away from his distasteful home, and
shipped for the India voyage in a free-trader, half merchantman,
half-picaroon, before he had yet attained his thirteenth
year. In that wild and turbulent career, well suited to his
daring and contemptuous spirit, he had, as he himself expressed
it, become hardened and inured, not to toils and sufferings
only, but to thoughts and feelings, habits and opinions,
which perhaps now could never be eradicated from his nature,
of which they had become, as it were, part and parcel.

When he returned, well nigh a man of years, quite a man in
stature, and perhaps more than most men in courage, resource,
coolness, and audacity, old Allan, to whom he had written once
or twice, apprizing him that he had adopted the sea as his
home and his profession, received him with a hearty welcome,
and with few or no inquiries as to the period during which he
had been absent.

Thereafter, he came and went as he would, unasked and unheeded.
When he was ashore, the cottage by the fords of
Widecomb was his home; and his increasing wealth — for he
had prospered greatly in his adventurous career — added materially
to the comforts of old Allan's housekeeping. His life
was, therefore, spent in strange alternations; now amid the
wildest excitement — the storm, the chase, the fierce and frantic
speculation, the perilous and desperate fight, the revelry, the
triumph, and the booty; and now, in the calmest and most
peaceful solitude, amid the sweetest pastoral scenery, and with
the loveliest and most innocent companion that ever soothed the
hot and eager spirit of erring and impetuous man, into almost
woman's softness.

And hence it was, perhaps, that Denzil Bras-de-fer had, as

it were, two different natures — one fierce, rash, bitter, scornful,
heedless of human praise or human censure, pitiless to human
sorrow, reckless of human life, merciless, almost cruel—
the other generous, and soft, and sympathetic, and full of every
good and gentle impulse.

And it was in the latter of these only, that Theresa Allan
knew him.

It must not be supposed, from what I have written, that Denzil
was a pirate, or a buccanceer — far from it. For though, at
times, he and his comrades assumed the initiative in warfare,
and smote the Spaniards, and the Dutchmen, and the French,
unsparingly, beyond the line, and made but small distinction
between the meum and the tuum, especially if the tuum pertained
to the stranger and the papist, still neither public opinion,
nor their own consciences condemned them — they were
regarded, as Cavendish, and Raleigh, and Drake, and Frobisher,
and Hawkins, had been, a reign or two before, as bold,
headlong adventurers; perhaps a little lawless, but on the whole,
noble and daring men, and were esteemed in general rather an
ornament than a disgrace to their native land.

As men are esteemed of men, such they are very apt to be
or to become; and, having the repute of chivalrous spirit, of
generosity and worth, no less than of dauntless courage, and
rare seamanship, the adventurous free-traders of that day held
themselves to be, in all respects, gentlemen, and men of honor;
and holding themselves so, for the most part they became so.

It was, therefore, by no means either wonderful or an exception
to a rule, that Denzil Bras-de-fer should have been such as
I have described him, awake to gentle impulses, alive to good
impressions, easily subject to the influences of the finest female
society, and in no respect a person from either his habits, his
tastes, or his profession, to be rejected by men of honor, or eschewed
by women of refinement.

And now, as he followed slowly on the steps of his beautiful
cousin, the young man was more alive than usual to the higher
and nobler sensibilities of his mind. The information which
he had gained concerning his own father's feelings, at the moment
of his death, had greatly softened him, and it began to
occur to him — which was, indeed true — that, he might have
been during his whole life conjuring up phantoms against which
to do battle, and attributing thoughts and actions to the world at
large, of which the world might well be wholly innocent.

Up to this moment, although he had long been aware of his
constantly increasing passion for his fair cousin, he had rested
content with the mild and sisterlike affection which she had
ever manifested toward him; and, having been ever her sole
companion, ever treated with most perfect confidence and sympathy,
having found her at all times charmed to greet his return,
and grieved at his departure; knowing, above all things,
that at the worst he had no rival, and that her heart had never
been touched by any warmer passion than she felt toward himself,
he had scarcely paused to inquire even of himself, whether
he was beloved in turn, much less had he endeavored to penetrate
the secrets of her heart, or to disturb the calm tenor of
her way by words or thoughts of passion.

Now, however, the words, the questions of the old cavalier
had awakened many a doubt in his soul; and with the doubt
came the desire irrepressible to envisage his fate, to learn and
ascertain, once and for all, whether his lot was to be cast henceforth
in joy or in sorrow; whether, in a word, he was to be a
wanderer and an outcast, by sea and land, unto his dying day,
or whether this very hour was to be to him the commencement
of a new era, a new life.

Now, as he walked forth in the beautiful calm morning, in
that old, pleasant garden, which had been the scene of so
much peaceable and innocent enjoyment, he felt himself at once

a sadder and a better man than he had ever been before; and
while determined to delay no longer, but to try his gentle cousin's
heart, he was supported by no high and fiery hope. He
seemed to have lost, he knew not how or wherefore, that proud,
heaven-reaching confidence, which was wont to count all things
won while they were yet to win; still less did his heart kindle
and blaze out with that preconceived indignation at the idea of
being unappreciated or neglected, which would a few hours before
have goaded him almost to frenzy.

I have written much of his character to little purpose, if it
be not plain that humility was the frame of mind least usual to
the youthful seaman, yet now, for once, he was humble. He
had discovered, for the first time in his life, that he had erred
grossly in his estimate of others, and was beginning to suspect
that that false estimate had led him far away from true principles,
true conceptions; he was beginning, in a word, to suspect
that he was himself less sinned against than sinning; and that
his was, in fact, a very much misguided and distempered spirit.

He clasped his brow closely with a feverish and trembling
hand, as he walked onward slowly, pondering, with his whole
soul intent upon the future and the past. He was inquiring of
himself, “Does she, can she love me?” and he could make no
answer to his own passionate questioning. While he was in
this mood, bending his steps toward the favorite bower wherein
he half hoped half feared to find Theresa, a soft voice fell upon
his ear, and a light hand was laid upon his arm, as he passed
the intersection of another shady walk with that through which
he was strolling.

“Good-morrow, Denzil,” said the young girl merrily. “I
never thought to see you out so early in the garden; but I am
glad that you are here, for I want you. So come along with
me at once, and tell me if it be not a nest of young nightingales
which I have found in the thick syringa-bush beside my arbor.

Come, Denzil, don't you hear me? Why, what ails you, that
you look so sad, and move so heavily this glorious summer
morning? You are not ill, are you, dear Denzil?”

“Dear Denzil,” he repeated, in a low, subdued tone. “Dear
Denzil! I would to God that I were dear to you, Theresa —
that I were dear to any one.”

So singular was the desponding tone in which he spoke, so
strange and unwonted was the cloud of deep depression which
sat on his bold, intelligent brow, that the young girl stared at
him in amazement, almost in alarm.

“You are ill,” she cried, in tones of affectionate anxiety;
“you must be ill, or you would never speak so strangely, so
unkindly; or is it only that you are overdone with watching by
that poor youth's sick bed? Yet no, no, that can never be, you
who are so strong and so hardy. What is it, dearest cousin?
Tell me, what is it makes you speak so wildly? — would that
you were dear to me! why, if not you, you and my good, kind
father, who on the face of the wide earth is dear to poor Theresa!
That you were dear to any one! You, whom my father
looks upon and loves as his own son; you, whose companions
hold as almost more than mortal — for have I not
marked the inscriptions on your sabre's guard, and on the telescope
they gave you? You, who have saved the lives of so
many fellow-mortals; you, to whom those ladies, rescued at
Darien from the bloodthirsty Spaniards, addressed such glowing
words of gratitude and love; you, Cousin Denzil, you, who
are so great, so brave, so wise, so skilful, and above all, so generous
and kind; you talk of wishing you were dear to any one!
Good sooth! you must be dreaming, or you are bewitched, gentle
Denzil.”

“If I be,” he replied with a smile, for her high spirits and
gay enthusiasm aroused him from his gloomier thoughts, and

began to enkindle brighter hopes in his bosom, “if I be, thou,
Theresa, art the enchantress who has done it.”

“Ay! now you are more like yourself; but tell me,” she
said, caressingly, “what was it made you sad and dark but
now?”

“Only this, dear Theresa, that I am again about to leave
you.”

“To leave us — to leave us so soon and so suddenly. Why
you have been here but three little weeks, which have passed
like so many days, and when you came you said that you would
stay with us till autumn. Oh, dear! my father will be so
grieved at your going. You do not know, you do not dream
how much he loves you, Denzil. He is a different person altogether
when you are at home — so much gayer, and more sociable!
Oh! wherefore must you leave us so quickly, and after
so long an absence, too, as your last? Oh, truly, it is unkind,
Denzil.”

“And you, Theresa, shall you be sorry?”

“I will not answer you,” she replied, half-petulantly, half-tearfully.
“It is unkind of you to go, and doubly unkind to
speak to me thus. What have I done to you now, what have I
ever done to you, that you should doubt my being sorry? Are
not you the only friend, the only companion I have got in the
wide world? Are you not as near and dear to me, as if you
were my own brother? Do not I love you as my brother, even
as my father loves you as his son? Ah, Denzil! if you are
never less loved than you are by poor Theresa Allan, you will
ne'er need to complain for lack of loving.”

And she burst into tears as she ended her rapid speech; for
she did not comprehend in the least at what he was aiming, and
her innocent and artless heart was wounded by what she fancied
to be a doubt of her affection.

“And if you feel so deeply the mere temporary absence

which my profession forces on me, Theresa, how think you,
should you feel were that absence to be eternal?”

“Eternal!” she exclaimed, turning very pale. “Eternal!
What do you mean by eternal?”

“It may well be so, Theresa; and yet it rests with yourself,
after all, whether I go or not — and yet be sure of this, if I do
go, I go for ever.”

“With me — does it rest with me?” she cried, joyously.
“Oh! if it rests with me, you will not go at all — you will
never go any more. I am always in terror while you are absent;
and the west wind never blows, howling as it does over
these desolate, bare hills, with its mournful, moaning voice,
which they say is the very sound of a spirit's cry, but it conjures
up to my mind all dread ideas of the tremendous rush
and roar of the mountain billows upon some rock-bound, leeward
coast, as I have heard you tell by the cheerful hearth;
and of stranded vessels, creaking and groaning as their huge
ribs break asunder, and of corpses weltering on the ruthless
waves; oh! such dread day-dreams! If it rest with me, go
you shall not, Denzil, ever again to sea. And why should you?
You have won fame enough, and glory and wealth more than
enough to supply your wants as long as you live. Why should
you go to sea again, dear Denzil?”

“I will not go again, Theresa, if such seriously be your deliberate
desire.”

“If such seriously be my deliberate desire!” the fair girl repeated
the words after him with a sort of half-solemn drollery.
Was it the native instinct of the female heart, betraying itself
in that innocent and artless creature, scarcely in years more
than a child — the inborn, irrepressible coquetry of the sex, foreseeing
what was about to follow from the young man's lips, yet
seeking all unconsciously to delay the avowal, to protract the
uncertainty, the excitement, or was it genuine, unsuspecting innocence?

“You are most singularly solemn,” she continued,
“this fine morning, Denzil, wondrously serious and deliberate;
and so, as you are so precise, I must, I suppose, answer you
likewise, in due set form. Of course, it is my desire to have
the company of one whom I esteem and love, of one to whom
I look up for countenance and protection, of my only relative
on earth, except my dear old father, as much as I can have it,
with due regard to his interests and well-being. My father is
getting very old, too, and infirm; and at times I fancy that his
mind wanders. I can not fail, therefore, to perceive that he
needs a more able and energetic person near him than I am.
I can, moreover, see no good cause why you should persist in
following so perilous and stormy a profession, unless it be that
you love it. Therefore, as I have said, of course, if it rest with
me to detain you, I would do so — but always under this proviso,
that it were with your own good will; for I confess, dear
Denzil, that I fear, if you were detained against your wish, if
you still pant for the strong excitement, the stormy rapture, as
I have heard you call it, of the chase, the battle, and the tempest,
you never could be happy here, whatever we might do to
please you. Now, Denzil, seriously and deliberately, you are
answered.”

“I could be happy here. I am weary of agitation and excitement.
I feel that I have erred — that the path I have taken
leads not to happiness. I want tranquillity, repose of the heart,
above all things — love!”

“Then do not go — then I say positively, Denzil, dear Denzil,
stay with us — you can find all these here.”

“Are you sure — all of them?”

“Sure? Why, if not here in this delicious, pastoral, simple
country, in this dear cottage, with its lovely garden and calm
waters, where in the world should you find tranquillity? If

not here, in the midst of your best friends, in the bosom of
your own family, where should you look for love?”

“Theresa, there be more kinds of love than one — and that
I crave is not cold, duteous, family affection.”

Now, for the first time, it seemed that the young man's meaning
broke clearly upon her mind; now a sudden and bright illumination
burst upon all that seemed strange, and wild, and
inconsistent in his conduct, in his speech, in his very silence.
Unsuspected before, it was now evident to her at once that
deep, overmastering passion was the cause to which she must
refer all that had been, for some time past, to her an incomprehensible
enigma in her cousin's demeanor.

And now that she was assured, for the first time in her life,
that she was really, deeply, ardently beloved — not as a pretty,
childish playmate, not as an amiable and dear relative, but as
herself, for herself, a loveable and lovely woman, how did the
maiden's heart respond to the great revelation?

Elevated on the instant from the girl to the woman, a strange
and thrilling sense, a sort of moral shock affected her whole
system — was it of pleasure or of pain?

It has been often said, and I presume said truly, that no woman
— no, not the best and purest, the most modest and considerate
of their sex — ever received a declaration of love from any
man, even if the man himself be distasteful to her, even if the
love he proffer be illicit and dishonest, without a secret and instinctive
sense of high gratification, a consciousness of power,
of triumph, a pride in the homage paid to her charms, a sort of
gratitude for the tribute rendered to her sex's loveliness. She
may, and will, repulse the dishonorable love with scorn and
loathing, yet still, though she may spurn the worthless offering,
and heap reproach upon the daring offerer, still she will be half
pleased by the offer — if it be only that she has had the power,
the pleasure — for all power is pleasure — of rejecting it. She

may, and will, gently, considerately, sympathetically decline
the honest offers of a pure love which she can not reciprocate
or value as it should be valued; but even if he who made the
tender be repulsive, almost odious, still she must be gratified,
perhaps almost grateful for that which he has done.

To a young girl more especially, just bursting from the bud
into the bloom of young womanhood, scarce conscious yet that
she is a woman, scarcely awake to the sense of her own powers,
her own passions — a creature full of vague, shadowy, mysterious
fancies, strange, uncomprehended thoughts, and half-perceived
desires, there is — there must be — something of wondrous
influence, of indescribable excitement, in the receiving a
first declaration.

And so it was with Theresa Allan. She was, in truth, no
angel — for angels are not to be met with in the daily walks of
this world — she was, indeed, neither more nor less than a mere
mortal woman, mortal in all the imperfection, and narrowness,
and feebleness, and inability to rise even to the height of its
own best aspirations, which are peculiar to mortality — woman
in all the frailty, and vanity, and variety, no less than in all the
tenderness, the truth, the constancy, the loveliness, the sweetness
of true womanhood. She was, in a word, just what a
great modern poet has described in those sweet lines: —

And no one who is a true judge of human nature, and yet more
of woman's nature, will regret that she was such; for he must be
a poor judge indeed, he must know little of the real character
of womanhood, who does not feel that one half of her best influences,
one half of her sweetest power of charming, soothing,
controlling, winding herself about the very heart-strings, arises
from her very imperfections. Take from her these, and what
she might then be we know not, but she would not be woman, and
until the world has seen something better and more endearing,
until a wiser artificer can be found than He who made her,
even as she is, a help meet for man — away with your abstractions!
give her to us as she is, at least, if not perfect, the best
and brightest of created things — a very, very woman.

She heard his words, she felt his meaning, yet the sense of
the words seemed to be lost, the very sounds rang in her ears
dizzily, her breath came so painfully that she almost fancied
she was choking, the earth appeared to shake under her feet,
and everything around her to wheel drunkenly to and fro.

She pressed one hand upon her heart, aud caught her cousin's
arm with the other to support herself. Her whole face,
which a moment before had been alive and radiant with the
warm hues of happiness and youth, became as white as marble.
Her very lips were bloodless; her whole frame trembled as if
she had an ague-fit.

He gazed on her in wonder, almost in terror. For a moment
he thought she was about to faint, almost to die; and so
violent, in truth, was the affection of her nerves, that, had she
not been relieved by a sudden passion of tears, it is doubtful
what might have been the result.

They were standing, when Denzil Bras-de-fer uttered the
words which had wrought so singular a change in Theresa's
manner, within a pace or two of the sylvan bower of which she
had spoken, and without a moment's pause, or a syllable uttered,
he hurried her into its quiet recess, and placing her gently on
the mossy seat within, knelt down at her feet, holding her left
hand in his own, and gazing up anxiously in her face.

He was amazed — he was alarmed. Not for himself alone,
not from the selfish fear of losing what he most prized on earth
— but for her.

He knew not, indeed, whether that strange and almost terrible
revulsion arose from pleasure or from pain. He knew not, could
not even conjecture whether it boded good or evil to his hopes,
to his happiness. But the scales had fallen from his eyes in an
instant. He had discovered now, what her old father, recognizing
genius with the intuitive second-sight of kindred genius,
had perceived long before, that this young, artless, inexperienced,
childlike girl, was, indeed, a creature wonderfully and
fearfully made.

He had never before suspected that beneath that calm, gentle,
tranquil, unexcitable exterior there beat a heart, there
thrilled a soul, full of the strongest capabilities, the most earnest
aspirations, the most intense imaginings, that ever were awakened
by the magic touch of love, into those overwhelming
passions, which can tend to no middle state, but must lead to
the perfect happiness or utter misery of their possessor.

But he saw it, he knew it now; and he felt that so soon as
the present paroxysm should pass over, she too, would feel and
know all this likewise. Whether for good or for evil, for weal
or for wo, he perceived that he had unlocked for her whom he
truly and singly loved, the hitherto sealed fountain of knowledge.

And he almost shuddered at the thought of what he had done
— he almost wished that he had stifled his own wishes, sacrificed
his own hopes.

For though impetuous and impulsive, though in some degree
warped and perverted, he was not selfish. And when he observed
the terrible power which his words had produced upon
her, and judged thence of the character and temper of her mind
and intellect, a sad suspicion fell upon him that hers was one
of those over-delicate temperaments, one of those spirits too
rarely endowed, too sensitively constituted, ever to know again,
when once awakened to self-consciousness, that quietude, in
which alone lies true happiness.

Several minutes passed before a word was spoken by either.
But gradually the color returned to her lips, to her cheeks, and
the light relumed her beautiful blue eyes, and the tremor passed
away from her slight frame; but her face continued motionless,
and so calm that its gravity almost amounted to severity. It
was not altogether melancholy, it was not at all anger, but it was,
what in a harder and less youthful face would have been sternness.
Never before had he seen such an expression on any
human face — never, assuredly, had hers worn it before. It
was the awakening of a new spirit — the consciousness of a
new power — the first struggling into life of a great purpose.

Her hand lay passive in his grasp, yet he could feel the
pulses throbbing to the very tips of those small, rosy fingers, so
strongly and tumultuously, that he could not reconcile such evidence
of her quick and lively feeling with the fixed tranquillity
of the eye which was bent upon his own, with the rigidity
of the marble brow.

At length, and contrary to what is wont to happen, it was he
who first broke silence.

“Theresa,” he said, “I have grieved — I have pained — perhaps
offended you.”

And then she started, as his voice smote her ears, so complete
had been the abstraction of her mind, and recovering all
her faculties and readiness of mind on the instant.

“Yes, Denzil,” she said, very sweetly, but very sorrowfully,
“you have grieved me, you have pained me, very, very deeply;
but oh, do not imagine that you have offended me — that you could
offend me. No; you have torn away too suddenly, too roughly,
the veil that covered my eyes and my heart. You have
awakened thoughts, and feelings, and perceptions, in my soul,
of whose existence I never dreamed before. You have made
me know myself, as it were, better within the last few minutes
than I ever knew myself before. It seems to me, that I have

lived longer and felt more since we have sat here together, than
in all the years I can count before. And, oh, my heart! my
heart! I am most unhappy!

“You can not love me, then, Theresa,” he said, tranquilly;
for he had vast self-control, and he was too much of a man to
suffer his own agitation or distress to agitate or distress her
further. “You can not love me as I would be loved by you
— you can not be mine.”

“Denzil,” she said, in tones full of the deepest emotion,
“until the moment in which you spoke to me, I never thought
of love; I never dreamed or imagined to myself what it should
be, other than the love I bear to my father, to you, to all that is
kind, and good, and beautiful, in humanity or in nature. But
your words, I know not how or wherefore, have awakened me,
as it were, into a strange sort of knowledge. I do not love, I
almost hope that I never may love, as you would wish me to
love you; but I do feel now that I know what such love should
be; and I tremble at the knowledge. I feel that it would be
too strong, too full of fear, of anxiety, of agony, to allow of happiness.
Oh, no, no! Denzil, do not ask me, do not wish me
to love you so; pray rather, pray for me to God rather, that I may
never love at all — for so surely as I do love, I know that I shall
be a wretched, wretched woman!”

That was a strange scene, and it passed between a strange
pair. Great influences had been at work in the minds of both
within the last few hours, and it would have been very difficult
to say in which the greatest change had been wrought.

In her, the tranquil, innocent, unconscious girl had been
aroused into the powerful, passionate, thoughtful woman. A
knowledge of that whereof she had been most ignorant before,
“her glassy essence,” had awakened her, as the breeze awakens
the lake, from repose into power.

In him, the violent, hot-headed, stubborn, and impetuous man

of action, had been tamed down by a conversion almost as sudden
and convincing into the slow, self-controlled, self-denying
man of counsel. As the discovery of power had aroused her
into life, so had the discovery of long-cherished, long-injurious
error, tamed him into tranquility.

One day ago he would have raved furiously, or brooded sullenly
and darkly over her words. Now, even with the fit of
passion all-puissant over him, with the wild heat of love burning
within his breast, with the keen sense of disappointment
wringing him, he had yet force of temper to control himself,
nay, more, he had force of mind enough to see and apprehend,
that this Theresa, was no longer the Theresa whom he loved;
and that, although he still adored her, it was impossible either
for him to meet the aspirations of her glowing and inspired
genius, or for her to be to him what he had dreamed of, the
tranquillizing, soothing spirit which should pour balm upon his
wounded, restless, irritable feelings — the wife, whose first, best
gift to him should be repose and tranquility of soul.

He pressed her hand tenderly, and said, as he might have
done to a dear sister.

“I have been to blame, Theresa. I have given you pain,
rashly, but not wantonly. Forgive me, for you are the last person
in the world to whom I would give even a moment's uneasiness.
I did not suspect this, dear, little girl. I did not dream
that you were so nervous, or moved so easily; but you must
not yield to such feelings — such impulses — for it is only by
yielding to them that they will gain power over you, and make
you, indeed, an unhappy woman. You shall see, Theresa, how
patiently I will bear my disappointment — for that it is a disappointment,
and a very bitter one, I shall not deny — and how I
will be happy in spite of it, and all for love of you. And in
return, Theresa, if you love poor Denzil, as you say you do, as
your true friend and your brother, you will control these foolish

fancies of your little head, which you imagine to be feelings of
your heart, and I shall one day, I doubt not, have the pleasure
of seeing you not only a very happy woman, but a very happy
wife.”

“Oh, you are good, Denzil,” she said, tearfully and gently.
“Oh, you are very good and noble. Why — why can not I —”
and she interrupted herself suddenly, and covering her eyes
with both her hands, wept silently and softly for several minutes.
And he spoke not to her the while, nor even sought to
soothe, for he well knew that tears were the best solace to an
over-wrought, over-excited spirit.

After a little while, as he expected, she recovered herself
altogether, and looking up in his face with a wan and watery
smile —

“You are not hurt, you are not wounded by what I have
done,” she said, “dear Denzil. You do not fancy that I do not
perceive, do not feel, and esteem, and love all your great, and
good, and generous, and noble qualities. I am a foolish, weak,
little girl — I am not worthy of you; I could not, I know I
could not make you happy, even if I could — if I could — if —
you know what I would say, Denzil.”

“If you could be happy with me yourself,” he answered,
smiling in his turn, and without an effort, although his smile
was pensive and sad likewise. “No, my Theresa, I am not
hurt or wounded. I am grieved, it is true, I can not but be
grieved at the dissipating of a pleasant dream, at the vanishing
of a hope long-indulged, long-cherished — a hope which has
been a solace to me in many a moment of pain and trial, a
sweet companion in many a midnight watch. But I am neither
hurt nor wounded; for your have never given me any reason to
form so bold, so unwarranted a hope, and you have given me
now all that you can give me, sympathy and kindness. Our
hearts our affections, I well know, let men say what they will,

are not our own to give — and a true woman can but do what
you have done. Moreover, even with the sorrow and regret
which I feel at this moment, there is mingled a conviction that
you are doing what is both wise and right; for although you
have all within yourself, though you are all that would make
me, or a far better man than I — ay, the best man who ever
breathed the breath of life — supremely happy; still, if you
could not be happy with me, and in me yourself — how could I
be so?”

She looked up at him again, and now, with an altered expression,
for there was less of sadness and more of surprise,
more of respect for the man who spoke so composedly, so well,
in a moment of such trial, on her fair features. Perhaps, too,
there might have been a shadow of regret — could it be of regret
that he did not feel more acutely the loss which he had
undergone? If there were such a feeling in her mind — for
she was woman — it was transient as the lightning of a summer's
night — it was gone before she had time even to reproach
herself for its momentary existence.

“You are astonished,” he said, interpreting her glance, almost
before she knew that he had observed it, “you are astonished
that I should be so calm, who am by nature so quick and
headlong. But I, too, have learned much to-day — have learned
much of my own nature, of my own infirmities, of my own errors
— and with me to learn that these exist, is to resolve to
conquer them. I have learned first, Theresa, that my father,
whom I have ever been forced to regard as my worst enemy,
died conscious of the wrong he had done me — done my mother
— and penitent, and full of love and of sorrow for us both.
And therein have I convicted myself of one great error, committed,
indeed, through ignorance, which has, however, been the
cause, the source of many other errors — which has led me to
charge the world with injustice, when I was myself unjust

rather to the world — which has made me guilty of the great
offence, the great crime of hating my brother-men, when I
I should have pitied them, and loved them. Therefore I will
be wayward no more, nor rash, nor reckless. I will make one
conquest at least — that of myself and of my own passions.”

“I know — I know,” said the girl, suddenly blushing very
deeply, “that you are everything that is good and great; everything
that men ought to admire and women to love, and yet —”

“And yet you can not love me. Well, think no more of
that, Theresa. Forget —”

“Never! never!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands eagerly
together. “I never can forget what you have made me feel,
what I must have made you suffer this day.”

“Well, if it be so, remember it, Theresa; but remember it
only thus. That if you have quenched my love, if you destroyed
my hope, you have but added to my regard, to my affection.
Promise me that wherever you may be, however, or
with whomsoever your lot shall be cast, you will always remember
me as your friend, your brother; you will always call
on me at your slightest need, as on one who would shed his
heart's blood to win you a moment's happiness.”

“I will — I will,” she cried affectionately, fervently. “On
whom else should I call? And God only knows,” she added
mournfully, “how soon I shall need a protector. But will you,”
she continued, catching both his hands in her own, “will you
be happy, Denzil?”

“I will,” he replied, firmly, returning the gentle pressure;
“I will, at least in so far as it rests with man to be so, in despite
of fortune. But mark me, dear Theresa, if you would
have me be so, you can even yet do much toward rendering me
so.”

“Can I? — then tell me, tell me how, and it is done already.”

“By letting me see that you are happy.”

“Alas!” and she clasped her hand hard over her heart, as if
to still its violent beating. “Alas! Denzil.”

“And why, alas! Theresa?”

“Can we be happy at our own will?”

“Independently of great woes, great calamities, which we
may not control, which are sent to us for wise ends from above
— surely, I say, surely we can.”

“And can you, Denzil?”

“Theresa, this is to me a great wo — yea, a great calamity;
and yet I reply, ay! after a time, after the bitterness shall be
overpast, I can, and more, I will. Much more, then, can you,
who have never felt, who I trust and believe will never meet
any such wo or grief — much more can you be happy. Wherefore
should you not, foolish child? — have you not been happy
hitherto? What have you, that you should not be happy now?”

“Nothing,” she replied, faintly. “I have nothing why I
should be unhappy, unless it be, that if I have made you so.”

“Theresa, you have not — you shall see that you have not
— made me unhappy.”

“And yet, Denzil, yet I feel a foreboding that I shall be,
that I must be unhappy. A want — I feel a want of something
here.”

“You are excited, agitated now; all this has been too much
for your spirits, for your nerves; and I think, Theresa, I am
sure that you are too much alone — you think, or rather you
muse and dream, which are not healthy modes of thinking —
too much in solitude. I will speak to my uncle about that before
I go —”

“Before you go!” she interrupted him, quickly. “Go
whither?”

“To sea. To my ship, Theresa.”

“Then you are hurt, then you are angry with me. Then I
have no influence over you.”

“Cease, cease, Theresa. It is better, it is necessary — I
must go for a while, until I have weaned myself from this desperate
feeling, until I shall have accustomed myself to think of
you, to regard you as a sister only; until I shall have schooled
myself so far as to be able to contemplate you without agony
as not only not being mine — but being another's.”

“Would it — would it be agony to you, Denzil? Then mark
me, I never, never will be another's.

“Madness!” he answered, firmly; “madness and wickedness,
too, Theresa. Neither men nor women were intended by
the great Maker to be solitary beings. God forbid, if you can
not be mine, that I should be so selfish as to wish your life barren,
and your heart loveless. No; love, Theresa, when you
can — only love wisely. Then the day shall come when it will
add to my happiness to see and know you happy in the love of
one whom you can love, and who shall love you as you should
be loved. Never speak again as you did but now, Theresa.
And now, dearest girl, I will leave you. Rest yourself awhile,
and compose yourself, and then go if you will to your good
father.”

“Shall I — shall I tell him,” she faltered, “what has passed
between us?”

“As you will, as you judge best, Theresa. I am no advocate
for concealment, still less for deceit — but here there is
none of the latter, and to tell him this might grieve his kind
spirit.”

“You are wise — you are good. God bless you.”

“And you, Theresa,” and he passed his arm calmly across
her shoulder, and bending over, pressed his lips, calmly as a
brother's kiss, on her pure brow. “Fare you well.”

“You are not going — going to leave us, now?”

“Not to-day — not to-day, Theresa.”

“Nor to-morrow?” she said, beseechingly.

“Nor to-morrow,” he replied, after a moment's hesitation,
“but soon. Now compose yourself, my dear little girl. Farewell,
and God bless you.”