University of Virginia Library

19. XIX.
DE PROFUNDIS.

THIS was the history of Emilia's concealed
visits to Malbone.

One week after her marriage, in a crisis of
agony, Emilia took up her pen, dipped it in
fire, and wrote thus to him: —

“Philip Malbone, why did nobody ever tell
me what marriage is where there is no love?
This man who calls himself my husband is no
worse, I suppose, than other men. It is only
for being what is called by that name that I
abhor him. Good God! what am I to do? It
was not for money that I married him, — that
you know very well; I cared no more for his
money than for himself. I thought it was the
only way to save Hope. She has been very
good to me, and perhaps I should love her, if
I could love anybody. Now I have done what
will only make more misery, for I cannot bear
it. Philip, I am alone in this wide world, except
for you. Tell me what to do. I will
haunt you till you die, unless you tell me.
Answer this, or I will write again.”

Terrified by this letter, absolutely powerless
to guide the life with which he had so desperately
entangled himself, Philip let one day pass
without answering, and that evening he found
Emilia at his door, she having glided unnoticed
up the main stairway. She was so excited, it
was equally dangerous to send her away or to
admit her, and he drew her in, darkening the
windows and locking the door. On the whole,
it was not so bad as he expected; at least,
there was less violence and more despair. She
covered her face with her hands, and writhed
in anguish, when she said that she had utterly
degraded herself by this loveless marriage.
She scarcely mentioned her husband. She
made no complaint of him, and even spoke of
him as generous. It seemed as if this made
it worse, and as if she would be happier if she
could expend herself in hating him. She
spoke of him rather as a mere witness to some
shame for which she herself was responsible;
bearing him no malice, but tortured by the
thought that he should exist.

Then she turned on Malbone. “Philip, why
did you ever interfere with my life? I should
have been very happy with Antoine if you
had let me marry him, for I never should have

known what it was to love you. Oh! I wish
he were here now, even he, — any one who
loved me truly, and whom I could love only a
little. I would go away with such a person
anywhere, and never trouble you and Hope
any more. What shall I do? Philip, you
might tell me what to do. Once you told me
always to come to you.”

“What can you do?” he asked gloomily, in
return.

“I cannot imagine,” she said, with a desolate
look, more pitiable than passion, on her
young face. “I wish to save Hope, and to
save my — to save Mr. Lambert. Philip, you
do not love me. I do not call it love. There
is no passion in your veins; it is only a sort
of sympathetic selfishness. Hope is infinitely
better than you are, and I believe she is more
capable of loving. I began by hating her,
but if she loves you as I think she does, she
has treated me more generously than ever one
woman treated another. For she could not
look at me and not know that I loved you. I
did love you. O Philip, tell me what to do!”

Such beauty in anguish, the thrill of the
possession of such love, the possibility of
soothing by tenderness the wild mood which

he could not meet by counsel, — it would have
taken a stronger or less sympathetic nature
than Malbone's to endure all this. It swept
him away; this revival of passion was irresistible.
When her pent-up feeling was once
uttered, she turned to his love as a fancied
salvation. It was a terrible remedy. She had
never looked more beautiful, and yet she
seemed to have grown old at once; her very
caresses appeared to burn. She lingered and
lingered, and still he kept her there; and
when it was no longer possible for her to go
without disturbing the house, he led her to a
secret spiral stairway, which went from attic
to cellar of that stately old mansion, and
which opened by one or more doors on each
landing, as his keen eye had found out. Descending
this, he went forth with her into the
dark and silent night. The mist hung around
the house; the wet leaves fluttered and fell
upon their cheeks; the water lapped desolately
against the pier. Philip found a carriage
and sent her back to Mrs. Meredith's, where
she was staying during the brief absence of
John Lambert.

These concealed meetings, once begun, became
an absorbing excitement. She came

several times, staying half an hour, an hour,
two hours. They were together long enough
for suffering, never long enough for soothing.
It was a poor substitute for happiness. Each
time she came, Malbone wished that she might
never go or never return. His warier nature
was feverish with solicitude and with self-reproach;
he liked the excitement of slight risks,
but this was far too intense, the vibrations too
extreme. She, on the other hand, rode triumphant
over waves of passion which cowed him.
He dared not exclude her; he dared not continue
to admit her; he dared not free himself;
he could not be happy. The privacy of the
concealed stairway saved them from outward
dangers, but not from inward fears. Their interviews
were first blissful, then anxious, then
sad, then stormy. It was at the end of such
a storm that Emilia had passed into one of
those deathly calms which belonged to her
physical temperament; and it was under these
circumstances that Hope had followed Philip
to the door.