THE CONFESSION.
To err is human; to forgive—divine!
The astonishment of Paullus, at this strange burst of feeling on the part of one usually so calm, so self-controlled, and seemingly so unimpassioned as that sweet lady, may be more easily imagined than described.
That she, whose maidenly reserve had never heretofore permitted the slightest, the most innocent freedom of her accepted lover, should cast herself thus into his arms, should rest her head on his bosom, was in itself enough to surprise him; but when to this were added the violent convulsive sobs, which shook her whole frame, the flood of tears, which streamed from her eyes, the wild and disjointed words, which fell from her pale lips, he was struck dumb with something not far removed from terror.
That it was fear, which shook her thus, he could not credit; for during all the fearful sounds and rumours of the past night, she had been as firm as a hero.
Yet he knew not, dared not think, to what other cause he might attribute it.
He spoke to her soothingly, tenderly, but his voice faltered as he spoke.
"Nay! nay! be not alarmed, dear girl!" he said. "The tumults are all, long since, quelled; the danger has [pg 224]all vanished with the darkness, and the storm. Cheer up, my own, sweet, Julia."
And, as he spoke, he passed his arm about her graceful form, and drew her closer to his bosom.
But whether it was this movement, or something in his words that aroused her, she started from his arms in a moment; and stood erect and rigid, pale still and agitated, but no longer trembling. She raised her hands to her brow, and put away the profusion of rich auburn ringlets, which had fallen down dishevelled over her eyes, and gazed at him stedfastly, strangely, as she had never gazed at him before.
"Your own Julia!" she said, in slow accents, scarce louder than a whisper, but full of strong and painful meaning. "Oh! I adjure you, by the Gods! by all you love! or hope! Are you false to me, Paullus!"
"False! Julia!" he exclaimed, starting, and the blood rushing consciously to his bold face.
"I am answered!" she said, collecting herself, with a desperate effort. "It is well—the Gods guard you!—Leave me!"
"Leave you!" he cried. "By earth, and sea, and heaven, and all that they contain! I know not what you mean."
"Know you this writing, then?" she asked him, reaching the letter from the table, and holding it before his eyes.
"No more than I know, what so strangely moves you," he answered; and she saw, by the unaffected astonishment which pervaded all his features, that he spoke truly.
"Read it," she said, somewhat more composed; "and tell me, who is the writer of it. You must know."
Before he had read six lines, it was clear to him that it must come from Lucia, and no words can describe the agony, the eager intense torture of anticipation, with which he perused it, devouring every word, and at every word expecting to find the damning record of his falsehood inscribed in characters, that should admit of no denial.
Before, however, he had reached the middle of the letter, he felt that he could bear the scrutiny of that pale girl no longer; and, lowering the strip of vellum on which it was written, met her eye firmly.
For he was resolute for once to do the true and honest thing, let what might come of it. The weaker points of [pg 225]his character were vanishing rapidly, and the last few eventful days had done the work of years upon his mind; and all that work was salutary.
She, too, read something in the expression of his eye, which led her to hope—what, she knew not; and she smiled faintly, as she said—
"You know the writer, Paullus?"
"Julia, I know her," he replied steadily.
"Her!" she said, laying an emphasis on the word, but how affected by it Arvina could not judge. "It is then a woman?"
"A very young, a very beautiful, a very wretched, girl!" he answered.
"And you love her?" she said, with an effort at firmness, which itself proved the violence of her emotion.
"By your life! Julia, I do not!" he replied, with an energy, that spoke well for the truth of his asseveration.
"Nor ever loved her?"
"Nor ever—loved her, Julia." But he hesitated a little as he said it; and laid a peculiar stress on the word loved, which did not escape the anxious ears of the lovely being, whose whole soul hung suspended on his speech.
"Why not?" she asked, after a moment's pause, "if she be so very young, and so very beautiful?"
"I might answer, because I never saw her, 'till I loved one more beautiful. But—"
"But you will not!" she interrupted him vehemently. "Oh! if you love me? if you do love me, Paullus, do not answer me so."
"And wherefore not?" he asked her, half smiling, though little mirthful in his heart, at her impetuosity.
"Because if you descend to flatter," answered the fair girl quietly, "I shall be sure that you intended to deceive me."
"It would be strictly true, notwithstanding. For though, as she says, we met years ago, she was but a child then; and, since that time, I never saw her until four or five days ago—"
"And since then, how often?" Julia again interrupted him; for, in the intensity of her anxiety, she could not wait the full answer to one question, before another suggested itself to her mind, and found voice at the instant.
"Once, Julia."
"Only once?"
"Once only, by the Gods!"
"You have not told me wherefore it was, that you never loved her!"
"Have I not told you, that I never saw her till a few days, a few hours, I might have said, ago? and does not that tell you wherefore, Julia?"
"But there is something more. There is another reason. Oh! tell me, I adjure you, by all that you hold dearest, tell me!"
"There is another reason. I told you that she was very young, and very beautiful; but, Julia, she was also very guilty!"
"Guilty!" exclaimed the fair girl, blushing fiery red, "guilty of loving you! Oh! Paullus! Paullus!" and between shame, and anger, and the repulsive shock that every pure and feminine mind experiences in hearing of a sister's frailty, she buried her face in her hands, and wept aloud.
"Guilty, before I ever heard her name, or knew that she existed," answered the young man, fervently; but his heart smote him somewhat, as he spoke; though what he said was but the simple truth, and it was well for him perhaps at the present moment, that Julia did not see his face. For there was much perturbation in it, and it is like that she would have judged even more hardly of that perturbation than it entirely deserved. He paused for a moment, and then added,
"But if the guilt of woman can be excusable at all, she can plead more in extenuation of her errors, than any of her sex that ever fell from virtue. She is most penitent; and might have been, but for fate and the atrocious wickedness of others, a most noble being—as she is now a most glorious ruin."
There was another pause, during which neither spoke or moved, Julia overpowered by the excess of her feelings—he by the painful consciousness of wrong; the difficulty of explaining, of extenuating his own conduct; and above all, the dread of losing the enchanting creature, whom he had never loved so deeply or so truly as he did now, when he had well nigh forfeited all claim to her affection.
At length, she raised her eyes timidly to his, and said,
"This is all very strange—there must be much, that I have a right to hear."
"There is much, Julia!—much that will be very painful for me to tell; and yet more so for you to listen to."
"And will you tell it to me?"
"Julia, I will!"
"And all? and truly?"
"And all, and truly, if I tell you at all; but you—"
"First," she said, interrupting him, "read that strange letter to the end. Then we will speak more of these things. Nay?" she continued, seeing that he was about to speak, "I will have it so. It must be so, or all is at an end between us two, now, and for ever. I do not wish to watch you; there is no meanness in my mind, Paullus, no jealousy! I am too proud to be jealous. Either you are worthy of my affection, or unworthy; if the latter, I cast you from me without one pang, one sorrow;—if the first, farther words are needless. Read that wild letter to the end. I will turn my back to you." And seating herself at the table, she took up a piece of embroidery, and made as if she would have fixed her mind upon it. But Paullus saw, as his glance followed her, that, notwithstanding the firmness of her words and manner, her hand trembled so much that she could by no means thread her needle.
He gazed on her for a moment with passionate, despairing love, and as he gazed, his spirit faltered, and he doubted. The evil genius whispered to his soul, that truth must alienate her love, must sever her from him for ever. There was a sharp and bitter struggle in his heart for that moment—but it passed; and the better spirit was again strong and clear within him.
"No!" he said to himself, "No! I have done with fraud, and falsehood! I will not win her by a lie! If by the truth I must lose her, be it so! I will be true, and at least I can—die!"
Thereon, without another word, he read the letter to the end, neither faltering, nor pausing; and then walked calmly to the table, and laid it down, perfectly resolute and tranquil, for his mind was made up for the worst.
"Have you read it?" she asked, and her voice trembled, as much as her hand had done before.
"I have, Julia, to the end. It is very sad—and much of it is true."
"And who is the girl, who wrote it?"
"Her name is Lucia Orestilla."
"Orestilla! Ye Gods! ye Gods! the shameless wife of the arch villain Catiline!"
"Not so—but the wretched, ruined daughter of that abandoned woman!"
"Call her not woman! By the Gods that protect purity! call her not woman! Did she not prompt the wretch to poison his own son! Oh! call her anything but woman! But what—what—in the name of all that is good or holy, can have brought you to know that awful being's daughter?"
"First, Julia, you must promise me never, to mortal ears, to reveal what I now disclose to you."
"Have you forgotten, Paullus, that I am yet but a young maiden, and that I have a mother?"
"Hortensia!" exclaimed the youth, starting back, aghast; for he felt that from her clear eye and powerful judgment nothing could be concealed, and that her iron will would yield in nothing to a woman's tenderness, a woman's mercy.
"Hortensia," replied the girl gently, "the best, the wisest, and the tenderest of mothers."
"True? she is all that you say—more than all! But she is resolute, withal, as iron; and stern, and cold, and unforgiving in her anger!"
"And do you need so much forgiveness, Paullus?"
"More, I fear, than my Julia's love will grant me."
"I think, my Paullus, you do not know the measure of a girl's honest love. But may I tell Hortensia? If not, you have said enough. What is not fitting for a girl to speak to her own mother, it is not fitting that she should hear at all—least of all from a man, and that man—her lover!"
"It is not that, my Julia. But what I have to say contains many lives—mine among others! contains Rome's safety, nay! existence! One whisper breathed abroad, or lisped in a slave's hearing, were the World's ruin. But be it as you will—as you think best yourself and wisest. If you will, tell Hortensia."
"I shall tell her, Paullus. I tell her everything. Since I could babble my first words, I never had a secret from her!"
"Be it so, sweet one. Now I implore you, hear me to the end, before you judge me, and then judge mercifully, as the Gods are merciful, and mortals prone to error."
"And will you tell me the whole truth?"
"The whole."
"Say on, then. I will hear you to the end; and your guilt must be great, Paullus, if you require a more partial arbitress."
It was a trying and painful task, that was forced upon him, yet he went through it nobly. At every word the difficulties grew upon him. At every word the temptation, to swerve from the truth, increased. At every word the dread of losing her, the agony of apprehension, the dull cold sense of despair, waxed heavier, and more stunning. The longer he spoke, the more certain he felt that by his own words he was destroying his own hope; yet he manned his heart stoutly, resisted the foul tempter, and, firm in the integrity of his present purpose, laid bare the secrets of his soul.
Beginning from his discovery of Medon's corpse upon the Esquiline, he now narrated to her fully all that had passed, including much that in his previous tale he had omitted. He told of his first meeting with Cataline upon the Cælian; of his visit to Cicero; of his strange conversation with the cutler Volero; of his second encounter with the traitor in the field of Mars, not omitting the careless accident by which he revealed to him Volero's recognition of the weapon. He told her of the banquet, of the art with which Catiline plied him with wine, of the fascinations of that fair fatal girl. And here, he paused awhile, reluctant to proceed. He would have given worlds, had he possessed them, to catch one glance of her averted eye, to read her features but one moment. But she sat, with her back toward him, her head downcast, tranquil and motionless, save that a tremulous shivering at times ran through her frame perceptible.
He was compelled perforce to continue his narration; and now he was bound to confess that, for the moment, he had been so bewitched by the charms of the siren, that he [pg 230]had bound himself by the fatal oath, scarce knowing what he swore, which linked him to the fortunes of the villain father. Slightly he touched on that atrocity of Catiline, by telling which aloud he dared not sully her pure ears. He then related clearly and succinctly the murder of the cutler Volero, his recognition of the murderer, the forced deception which he had used reluctantly toward Cicero, and the suspicions and distrust of that great man. And here again he paused, hoping that she would speak, and interrupt him, if it were even to condemn, for so at least he should be relieved from the sickening apprehension, which almost choked his voice.
Still, she was silent, and, in so far as he could judge, more tranquil than before. For the quick tremors had now ceased to shake her, and her tears, he believed, had ceased to flow.
But was not this the cold tranquillity of a fixed resolution, the firmness of a desperate, self-controlling effort?
He could endure the doubt no longer. And, in a softer and more humble voice,
"Now, then," he said, "you know the measure of my sin—the extent of my falsehood. All the ill of my tale is told, faithfully, frankly. What remains, is unmixed with evil. Say, then; have I sinned, Julia, beyond the hope of forgiveness? If to confess that, my eyes dazzled with beauty, my blood inflamed with wine, my better self drowned in a tide of luxury unlike aught I had ever known before, my senses wrought upon by every art, and every fascination—if to confess, that my head was bewildered, my reason lost its way for a moment—though my heart never, never failed in its faith—and by the hopes, frail hopes, which I yet cling to of obtaining you—the dread of losing you for ever! Julia, by these I swear, my heart never did fail or falter! If, I say, to confess this be sufficient, and I stand thus condemned and lost for ever, spare me the rest—I may as well be silent!"
She paused a moment, ere she answered; and it was only with an effort, choking down a convulsive sob, that she found words at all.
"Proceed," she said, "with your tale. I cannot answer you."
But, catching at her words, with all the elasticity of [pg 231]youthful hope, he fancied that she had answered him, and cried joyously and eagerly—
"Sweet Julia, then you can, you will forgive me."
"I have not said so, Paullus," she began. But he interrupted her, ere she could frame her sentence—
"No! dearest; but your speech implied it, and—"
But here, in her turn, she interrupted him, saying—
"Then, Paullus, did my speech imply what I did not intend. For I have not forgiven—do not know if I can forgive, all that has passed. All depends on that which is to come. You made me promise not to interrupt your tale. I have not done so; and, in justice, I have the right to ask that you should tell it out, before you claim my final answer. So I say, once again, Proceed."
Unable, from the steadiness of her demeanour, so much even as to conjecture what were her present feelings, yet much dispirited at finding his mistake, the young man proceeded with his narrative. Gaining courage, however, as he continued speaking, the principal difficulties of his story being past, he warmed and spoke more feelingly, more eloquently, with every word he uttered.
He told her of the deep depression, which had fallen on him the following morning, when her letter had called him to the house of Hortensia. He again related the attack made on him by Catiline, on the same evening, in Egeria's grotto; and spoke of the absolute despair, in which he was plunged, seeing the better course, yet unable to pursue it; aiming at virtue, yet forced by his fatal oath to follow vice; marking clearly before him the beacon light of happiness and honour, yet driven irresistibly into the gulf of misery, crime, and destruction. He told her of Lucia's visit to his house; how she released him from his fatal oath! disclaimed all right to his affection, nay! to his respect, even, and esteem! encouraged him to hold honour in his eye, and in the scorn of consequence to follow virtue for its own sake! He told her, too, of the conspiracy, in all its terrible details of atrocity and guilt—that dark and hideous scheme of treason, cruelty, lust, horror, from which he had himself escaped so narrowly.
Then, with a glow of conscious rectitude, he proved to her that he had indeed repented; that he was now, how[pg 232]soever he might have been deceived into error and to the brink of crime, firm, and resolved; a champion of the right; a defender of his country; trusted and chosen by the Great Consul; and, in proof of that trust, commissioned by him now to lead his troop of horsemen to Præneste, a strong fortress, near at hand, which there was reason to expect might be assailed by the conspirators.
"And now, my tale is ended," he said. "I did hope there would have been no need to reveal these things to you; but from the first, I have been resolved, if need were, to open to you my whole heart—to show you its dark spots, as its bright ones. I have sinned, Julia, deeply, against you! Your purity, your love, should have guarded me! Yet, in a moment of treacherous self-confidence, my head grew dizzy, and I fell. But oh! believe me, Julia, my heart never once betrayed you! Now say—can you pardon me—trust me—love me—be mine, as you promised? If not—speed me on my way, and my first battle-field shall prove my truth to Rome and Julia."
"Oh! this is very sad, my Paullus," she replied; "very humiliating—very, very bitter. I had a trust so perfect in your love. I could as soon have believed the sunflower would forget to turn to the day-god, as that Paul would forget Julia. I had a confidence so high, so noble, in your proud, untouched virtue. And yet I find, that at the first alluring glance of a frail beauty, you fall off from your truth to me—at the first whispering temptation of a demon, you half fall off from patriotism—honour—virtue! Forgive you, Paullus! I can forgive you readily. For well, alas! I know that the best of us all are very frail, and prone to evil. Love you? alas! for me, I do as much as ever—but say, yourself, how can I trust you? how can I be yours? when the next moment you may fall again into temptation, again yield to it. And then, what would then remain to the wretched Julia, but a most miserable life, and an untimely grave?"
The proud man bowed his head in bitter anguish; he buried his face in his hands; he gasped, and almost groaned aloud, in his great agony. His heart confessed the truth of all her words, and it was long ere he could answer her. Perhaps he would not have collected courage to do so at all, but would have risen in his agony of pride [pg 233]and despair, and gone his way to die, heart-broken, hopeless, a lost man.
But she—for her heart yearned to her lover—arose and crossed the room with noiseless step to the spot where he sat, and laid her fair hand gently on his shoulder, and whispered in her voice of silvery music,
"Tell me, Paullus, how can I trust you?"
"Because I have told you all this, truly! Think you I had humbled myself thus, had I not been firm to resist? think you I have had no temptation to deceive you, to keep back a part, to palliate? and lo! I have told you all—the shameful, naked truth! How can I ever be so bribed again to falsehood, as I have been in this last hour, by hope of winning, and by dread of losing you, my soul's idol? Because I have been true, now to the last, I think that you may trust me."
"Are you sure, Paullus?" she said, with a soft sad smile, yet suffering him to retain the little hand he had imprisoned while he was speaking—"very, very sure?"
"Will you believe me, Julia?"
"Will you be true hereafter, Paullus?"
"By all—"
"Nay! swear not by the Gods," she interrupted him; "they say the Gods laugh at the perjury of lovers! But oh! remember, Paullus, that if you were indeed untrue to Julia, she could but die!"
He caught her to his heart, and she for once resisted not; and, for the first time permitted, his lips were pressed to hers in a long, chaste, holy kiss.
"And now," he said, "my own, own Julia, I must say fare you well. My horse awaits me at your door—my troopers are half the way hence to Præneste."
"Nay!" she replied, blushing deeply, "but you will surely see Hortensia, ere you go."
"It must be, then, but for a moment," he answered. "For duty calls me; and you must not tempt me to break my new-born resolution. But say, Julia, will you tell all these things to Hortensia?"
She smiled, and laid her hand upon his mouth; but he kissed it, and drew it down by gentle force, and repeated his question,
"Will you?"
"Not a word of it, Paul. Do you think me so foolish?"
"Then I will—one day, but not now. Meanwhile, let us go seek for her."
And, passing his arm around her slender waist, he led her gently from the scene of so many doubts and fears, of so much happiness.