THE RECORD OF A MADNESS WHICH WAS NOT INSANITY.
A fresh, bright dawn, the loveliest hour of an English summer, was rousing the slumbering life in woods and fields, and painting the heavens and the earth in the gorgeous hues of the sunrise.
Beautiful it was to see the first blush of day mantling over the distant hills, tinging them with a faint crimson, and the first smile shooting, in one bright beam through the sky, while it lit up the fair face of nature with a sparkling light. Lilias Randolph stood on the flight of steps which led from the Abbey to the park, and looked down on the joyous scene. She seemed herself a very type of the morning, with her sunny eyes, and her golden hair; and her gaze wandered glad and free over the spreading landscape, while her thoughts roamed far away in regions yet more bright—even the sunlit fields of fancy.
It was the day and the hour when she was to go and meet Richard Sydney, in order to have, at length, a full revelation of his mysterious connection with her cousin. She knew that it was an interview of solemn import to both of those, in whom she felt so deep an interest; yet, so entirely were one thought and one feeling alone gaining empire over her spirit that, even then, in that momentous hour, they had no share in the visions with which her heart was busy.
So soon, therefore, as Lilias came within sight of Richard Sydney, who had arrived first at the place of rendezvous, she resolutely banished the thoughts that were so absorbing to her own glad heart, and set herself seriously to give her entire attention to the work now before her, if, haply, it might be given her, in some degree, to minister unto their grievous misery. And truly her first glance upon the face of the man who stood there, with his eyes fixed on the path which was to bring her and her hoped-for succor near to him, would have sufficed to have driven all ideas from her mind, save the one conviction, that in that look alone she had acquired a deeper knowledge of suffering than her own past life, in all its details, had ever afforded her. Sydney heard her step, long before she believed it possible, and, bounding toward her, he seized her hand with a grasp which was almost convulsive. He drew her aside to some little distance from her nurse, who sat down on a bank to wait for them.
Lilias bent down her head that she might not seem to note the workings of his countenance, as he laid bare before her the most hidden springs of his soul, and he began:
"I was born heir to a curse. Centuries ago an ancestor of mine murdered a woman he once had loved, because his neglect had driven her mad, and that in her ravings she revealed his many crimes. With her dying breath she invoked the curse of insanity on him and his house forever, and the cry of her departing soul was heard. There has not been a generation in our family since that hour which has not had its shrieking maniac to echo in our ears the murdered woman's scream. Some there have been among the Sydneys of peculiar constitution, as it would seem, who have not actually been visited with the malady; but they have never failed to transmit it to their children. Of such am I; while my father died a suicide by his own senseless act, and his only other child besides myself, my sister, wears her coronet of straw in the Dublin Asylum, and calls herself a queen.
"It would appall you to hear the fearful calamities which each succeeding family has undergone through this awful curse. At last, as the catalogue of tragic events grew darker and darker, it became a solemn matter of discussion to our unhappy race, whether it were not an absolute duty that the members of a house so doomed, should cease at last to propagate the curse, and by a resolute abandonment of all earthly ties, cause our name and misery to perish from the earth. The necessity for this righteous sacrifice was admitted; but the resolution in each separate individual to become the destined holocaust, has hitherto forever failed before the power of the mighty human love that lured them ever to its pure resistless joys. It was so with my father—like myself he was an only son; and, in the ardor of a generous youth, he vowed to be the offering needful to still the cry of that innocent blood for vengeance; but the sweet face of my mother came between him and his holy vow. He married her, and the punishment came down with fearful weight on both, when her fond heart broke at sight of his ghastly corpse. Then it was she knew the retribution in their case had been just; and on her dying bed, with the yet unclosed coffin of her husband by her side, she made me vow upon the holy cross that I, myself, would be the sacrifice—that never would I take a wife unto my heart or home; and that never, from my life, should any helpless being inherit existence with a curse. That vow I took, that vow I kept, and that vow I will keep, though Aletheia, beloved of my heart and soul, dearer than all beneath the skies, were to lay herself down beneath my very feet to die. Oh! shall we not rest in heaven."
He bowed his head for a moment, and his frame shook with emotion, but driving back the tide of anguish, he went on: "After my mother's death and my sister's removal, who had been insane almost from childhood, I shut myself up entirely at Sydney Court, and gave way to a species of morbid melancholy which was thought to be fearfully dangerous for one in my position. I had friends, however; and the best and truest was Colonel Randolph, my Aletheia's father, the early companion of my own poor, hapless parent. He was resolved to save me from the miserable condition in which I then was. He came to me and told me, with all the authority of his long friendship, that I must go with him to the M——, where he had been appointed governor. He said it was a crime to waste a life, which, though unblest by human ties, might be made most useful to my fellow-creatures. I had studied much in brighter days, and given to the world the fruits of my labors. These had not passed unheeded; he told me they had proved that talents had been committed to me whereby I might be a benefactor to my race, all the more that no soft endearments of domestic joys would wean my thoughts from sterner duties. I was to go with him; he insisted it would benefit myself, and would injure none. His family consisted of his one daughter, his precious, beloved Aletheia, for he doated on her with more than the ordinary love of a father. She knew my history, and would be to me a sister. Alas! alas! for her destruction, I consented."
Again, a momentary pause. Lilias gently raised her compassionate eyes, but he saw her not; he seemed lost in a vision of the past, and soon went on:
"That lovely land where I dwelt with her, it seems a type of the beauty and happiness which was around me then! And, oh! what a dream it is to think of now—the cloudless sky—the glorious sun—and her eyes undimmed, her smile unfaded! Oh! Aletheia—my Aletheia—treasure of many lives! bright and joyous—light to the eyes that looked on her, blessing to the hearts that loved her—would that I had died or ever I drew her very soul into mine, and left her the poor, crushed, helpless being that she is! You can not picture to yourself the fascination that was around her then—high-minded, noble in heart, lofty in soul; her bright spirit stamped its glory on her face, and she was beautiful, with all spiritual loveliness. None ever saw her who loved her not—her rare talents—her enchanting voice; that voice of her very soul, which spoke in such wonderful music, drew to her feet every creature who knew her; for with all these gifts, this wonderful intellect, and rarest powers of mind, she was playful, winning, simple as an innocent child. I say none saw her, and loved her not; how, think you, I loved her?—the doomed man, the desolate being, whose barren, joyless life walked hand in hand with a curse. Let this anguish tell you how I loved her;" and he turned on Lilias a face of ghastly paleness, convulsed with agony, and wet with the dews of suffering; but he did not pause, he went on rapidly: "I was mad, then, in one sense, though it was the madness of the heart, and not the brain. Poor wretch, I thought I would wring a joy out of my blasted life in spite of fate, and, while none other claimed her as their own, I would revel in her presence, and in the rapture of her tenderness. I knew it was mockery when I bid her call me brother—a sister truly is loved with other love than that I gave her. I would have seen every relation I had ever known laid dead at my feet, could I have thereby purchased for her, my thrice-beloved one, one moment's pleasure.
"Lilias, does a passion of such fearful power shock and terrify you, who have only known the placid beating of a gentle, childlike heart? Take a yet deeper lesson, then, in the dark elements of which this life may be composed, and learn that deep, and true, and mighty as was my love for her, it is as a mere name, a breath, a vapor, compared with that most awful affection which Aletheia had already, even then, vowed unto me, in the depth of her secret heart. Ah! it needed, in truth, such an agony as that which is now incorporate with it in her heart, to cope with its immensity; for, truly, no weak happiness of earth could have had affinity with it—a love so saint-like must needs have been a martyr. I will not attempt to tell you what her devotion to me was, and is, and shall be, while one faintest throb of life is stirring in her noble heart. You have seen it—you have seen that love looking through those eyes of hers, like a mighty spirit endowed with an existence separate from her own, which holds her soul in its fierce, powerful grasp.
"I must hurry on now, and my words must be rapid as the events that drove us from the serene elysian fields of that first dear companionship, through storm and whirlwind, to this wilderness of misery where I am sent to wander to and fro, like a murderer, as I am; condemned to watch the daily dying of the sweet life I have destroyed. You may think me blind and senseless, for so I surely was, but it is certain that I never suspected the love she bore me. I saw that she turned away from the crowds that flocked around, and was deaf to all the offers that were made to her, of rank, and wealth, and station, and many a true heart's love; but I thought this was because her own was yet untouched, and when I saw that I alone was singled out to be the object of her attention and solicitude, I fancied it was but the effect of her deep, generous pity for my desolate condition—and pity it was, but such as the mother feels for the suffering of the first-born, whom she adores. And the day of revelation came!
"I told you how Colonel Randolph doated on his daughter; truly, none ever loved Aletheia with a common love. When he was released from the duties of his high office, it was one of his greatest pleasures to walk, or ride with me, that he might talk to me of her. One morning he came in with a packet of letters from England, and, taking me by the arm, drew me out into the garden, that he might tell me some news, which, he said, gave him exceeding joy. The letters announced the arrival of the son of an old friend of his, who had just succeeded to his title and estates, the young Marquis of L——, and further communicated, in the most unreserved manner, that his object in coming to the M—— was to make Aletheia his wife, if he could win her to himself; he had long loved her, and had only delayed his offer till he could install her in his lordly castle with all the honors of his station. To see this union accomplished, Colonel Randolph said, had been his one wish since both had played as children at his feet, and he now believed the desired consummation was at hand. Aletheia's consent was alone required, and there seemed no reason to doubt it would be given, for there was not, he asserted, in all England, one more worthy of her, by every noble gift of mind, than the high-born, generous-hearted L——.
"Why, indeed, should she not, at once, accept the brilliant destiny carved out for her!—I did not doubt it more than the exulting father, and I heard my doom fixed in the same senseless state of calm with which the criminal who knows his guilt and its penalty, hears the sentence of his execution. I had long known this hour must come; and what had I now to do but gather, as it were, a shroud round my tortured soul, and, like the Cæsars, die decently to all earthly happiness! Even in that tremendous hour, I had a consciousness of the dignity of suffering—suffering, that is, which comes from the height of heaven above, and not from the depths of crime below! I resolved that the lamp of my life's joy should go out without a sigh audible to human ears, save hers alone, who had lit that pure flame in the black night of my existence.
"Lilias, I enter into no detail of what I felt in that momentous crisis, for you have no woman's heart if you have not understood it, in its uttermost extent of misery. One thought, however, stood up pre-eminent in that chaos of suffering—the conviction that I must not see Aletheia Randolph again, or the very powers of my mind would give way in the struggle that must ensue. This thought, and one other—one solitary gleam of dreary comfort, that alone relieved the great darkness which had fallen upon me, were all that seemed distinct in my mind: that last mournful consolation was the resolution taken along with the vow to see her no more, that ere I passed forever from her memory, she should know what was the love with which I loved her.
"Quietly I gave her father my hand when I quitted him, and he said, 'We shall meet in the evening;' my own determination was never to look upon his face again. I went home, and sitting down, I wrote to Aletheia a letter, in which all the pent-up feelings of the deep, silent devotion I cherished for her, were poured out in words to which the wretchedness of my position gave a fearful intensity—burning words, indeed! She has told me since, that they seemed to eat into her heart like fire. I left the letter for her and quitted the house; and I believed my feet should never pass that beloved threshold again. There was a spot where Aletheia and I had gone almost day by day to wander, since we had dwelt in that land. She loved it, because she could look out over the ocean in its boundlessness, whose aspect soothed her, she said, as with a promise of eternity. It was a huge rock that rose perpendicularly from the sea, and sloped down on the other side, by a gentle declivity, to the plain. I have often thought what a type of our life it was; we saw nothing of the precipice as we ascended the soft and verdant mount, and suddenly it was at our feet, and if the blast of heaven had driven us another step, it had been into destruction.
"Thither, when I had parted, as I believed, forever, with that darling of my heart, I went with what intent I know not: it was not to commit suicide; although in that form, in the mad longing for it, the curse of my family has ever declared itself. I was yet sane, and my soul acknowledged and abhorred the tremendous guilt of that mysterious crime, wherein the created dashes back the life once given, in the very face of the Creator; not for suicide I went, yet, Lilias, as I stood within an inch of death, and looked down on the placid waters that had so swiftly cooled the burning anguish of my heart and brain, I felt, in the intense desire to terminate my life, and in that desire resisted, a more stinging pain than any which my bitter term of years has ever offered me. Oh, how shall I tell you what followed? I feel as though I could not: and briefly, and, indeed, incoherently, must I speak; for on the next hour—the supreme, the crowning hour of all my life—my spirit enters not, without an intensity of feeling which well-nigh paralyzes every faculty.
"I stood there, and suddenly I heard a sound—a soft, breathing sound, as of a gentle fawn wearied in some steep ascent—a sound coming nearer and nearer, bringing with it ten thousand memories of hours and days that were to come no more: a step, light and tremulous, falling on the soft grass softly, and then a voice.—Oh, when mine ears are locked in death, shall I not hear it?—a voice uttering low and sweet, my well-known name. I turned, and when I saw that face, on whose sweet beauty other eyes should feed, yea, other lips caress, for one instant the curse of my forefather seemed upon me; my brain reeled, and I would have sprung from the precipice to die. But ere I could accomplish the sudden craving of this momentary frenzy, Aletheia, my own Aletheia, was at my feet, her clinging arms were round me, her lips were pressed upon my hands, and her voice—her sweet, dear voice—went sounding through my soul like a sudden prophecy of most unearthly joy, murmuring, 'Live, live for me, mine own forever!'
"Oh, Lilias, how can I attempt with human words to tell you of these things, so far beyond the power of language to express! I felt that what she said was true—that in some way, by some wonderful means, she was in very deed and truth, 'mine own, forever,' though, in that moment of supremest joy, no less firmly than in the hour of supremest sorrow by my mother's dying bed, my heart and soul were faithful to the vow then taken, that never on my desolate breast a wife should lay her head to rest. 'Mine own forever!'—as I looked down, and met the gaze of fathomless, unutterable love with which her tearful eyes were fastened full upon my own, I was as one who having long dwelt in darkest night, was blinded with the sudden glare of new returning day. I staggered back, and leant against the rock; faint and shivering I stretched out my hands on that beloved head, longing for the power to bless her, and said, 'Oh, Aletheia, what is it you have said: have you forgotten who and what I am!'
"'No!' was her answer, steady and distinct; 'and for that very reason, because you are a stricken man, forever cut off from all the common ties of earth, have I been given to you, to be in heart and soul peculiarly your own, with such a measure of entire devotion as never was offered to man on earth before.'
"I looked at her almost in bewilderment. She rose up to her full height, perfectly calm, and with a deep solemnity in her words and aspect.
"'Richard,' she said, 'the lives of both of us are hanging on this hour; by it shall all future existence on this earth be shaped for us, and its memory shall come with death itself to look us in the face, and stamp our whole probation with its seal; it becomes us, therefore, to cast aside all frivolous rules of man's convention, and speak the truth as deathless soul with deathless soul. Hear me, then, while I open up my inmost spirit to your gaze, and then decide whether you will lay your hand upon my life, and say—'Thou art my own;' or whether you will fling it from you to perish as some worthless thing?'
"I bowed my head in token that she should continue, for I could not speak. I, Lilias, who had looked death and insanity in the face, under their most frightful shapes, trembled, like a reed in the blast, before the presence of a love that was mightier than either! Aletheia stretched out her hand over the precipice, and spoke—
"'Hear me, then, declare first of all, solemnly as though this hour were my last, that, not even to save you from that death which, but now, you dared to meditate, would I ever consent to be your wife, even if you wished it, as utterly as I doubt not you abhor the idea of such perjury—not to save you from death—I say—the death of the mortal body, for by conniving at your failure in that most righteous vow, once taken on the holy cross itself, I should peril—yea, destroy, it may be, the immortal soul, which is the true object of my love. Hear me, in the face of that pure sky announce this truth, and then may I freely declare to you all that is in my heart—all the sacred purpose of my life for you, without a fear that my worst enemy could pronounce me unmaidenly or overbold, though I have that to say which few women ever said unasked.'
"Unmaidenly! Oh, Lilias, could you have seen the noble dignity of her fearless innocence in that hour, you would have felt that never had the impress of a purer heart been stamped upon a virgin brow."
"'Have you understood and well considered this my settled purpose never to be your wife?' she continued.
"And I said—'I have.'"
"'Then speak out, my soul,' she exclaimed, lifting up her eyes as if inspired. 'Tell him that there is a righteous Providence over the life that immolates itself for virtue's sake! and that another existence hath been sent to meet it in the glorious sacrifice, in order that this one may yield up its treasures to the heart that would have stript itself of all! Richard, Richard Sydney, you have made a holocaust of your life, and lo! by the gift of another life, it is repaid to you.'
"Slowly she knelt down, and took my hand in both of hers, while with an aspect calm and firm, and a voice unfaltering, she spoke this vow:
'I, Aletheia Randolph, do most solemnly vow and promise to give myself, in heart and soul, unto the last day of my life, wholly and irrevocably, to Richard Sydney. I devote to him, and him alone, my whole heart, my whole life, and my whole love. I do forever forswear, for his sake, all earthly ties, all earthly affections, and all earthly hopes. I will love him only, live for him only, and make it my one happiness to minister to him in all things as faithfully and tenderly as though I were bound to him by the closest of human bonds—in spite of all obstacles and the world's blame—in defiance of all allurements, which might induce me to abandon him. I will seek to abide ever as near to him as may be, that I may bestow on him all the care and tender watchfulness which the most faithful wife could offer; but absent or present, living or dying, no human being on this earth shall ever have known such an entire devotion as I will give to him till the last breath pass from this heart in death!'
"I was speechless, Lilias—speechless with something almost of horror at the sacrifice she was making! I strove to withdraw my hand—I could have died to save her from thus immolating herself; but she clung to me, and a deadly paleness spread itself over her countenance as she felt my movement.
"'Hear me! hear me yet again, Richard Sydney!' she exclaimed; 'you can not prevent me taking this vow; it was registered in the record of my fate—uttered again and again deep in my soul, long before it was spoken by these mortal lips!—it is done—I am yours forever, or forever perjured! But hear me!—hear me!—although the offering of my life is made, yea, and it shall be yours in every moment, in every thought, in every impulse of my being, yet I can not force you to accept this true oblation, made once for all, and forever! I can not constrain you to load your existence with mine. Now, now, the consummation of all is in your own hands; you may make this offering, which is never to be recalled, as you will—a blessing or a curse to yourself as unto me! I am powerless—what you decree I must submit to; but hear me, hear me!—although you now reject, and scorn, and spurn me—me, and the life which I have given you—although you drive me from you, and command me never to appear before your eyes again, yet, Richard Sydney, I will keep my vow! Even in obeying you, and departing to the uttermost corner of the earth that you may never look upon my face again; yet will I keep my vow, and the life shall be yours, and the love shall be around you; and the heart, and the soul, and the thoughts, and the prayers of her, who is your own forever, shall be with you night and day, till she expires in the agony of your rejection.
"'This were the curse, and curse me if you will, I yet will bless you! And now hear, hear what the blessing might be if you so willed it. In spiritual union we should be forever linked, soul with soul, and heart with heart—all in all to one another in that wedding of our immortal spirits only, as truly and joyously as though we had been bound in an earthly bridal at the altar; abiding forever near each other in sweetest and most pure companionship, while my father lives under the same roof, and afterward still meeting daily; one in love, in joy, in hope, in sorrow; one in death (for if your soul were first called forth, I know that mine would take that summons for its own), and one, if it were so permitted, in eternity itself. This we may be, Richard Sydney, this we shall be, except you will, this day, trample down beneath your feet the life that gives itself to you. But wherefore, oh, wherefore would you do so? Why cast away the gift which hath been sent, in order that, by a wondrous and most just decree, the righteous man who, in his noble rectitude, abandoned every earthly tie, should be possessed, instead thereof, of such a deep, devoted love as never human heart received before? Wherefore, oh! wherefore? Yet, do as you will, now you know all; and I, who still, whatever be your decree, happen what may, am verily your own forever, must here abide the sentence of my life.'
"Slowly her dear head fell down upon her trembling hands, and, kneeling at my feet, she waited my acceptance or rejection of the noblest gift that ever one immortal spirit made unto another. Lilias, I told you when I commenced this agonizing record, that there were portions of it which I would breathe to no mortal ears, not even to yours, good and gentle as you are. And now, of such is all that followed in the solemn, blessed hours of which I speak; you know what my answer was; it can not be that you doubt it—could it have been otherwise, indeed? She had said truly, that the deed was done—the sacrifice was made—the life was given. What would it have availed if I, by my rejection, had punished her unparalleled devotion with unexampled misery? and for myself, could I—could I—should I have been human if I, who, till that hour, had believed myself of all men most accursed on earth—had suddenly refused to be above all men blest?
"When the sun went down that night, sinking into the sea, whose boundlessness seemed narrow to my infinity of joy, Aletheia lay at my feet like a cradled child; and as I bent down over her, and scarcely dared to touch, with deep respect, the long, soft tresses of her waving hair, which the light breeze lifted to my lips, I heard her ever murmuring, as though she could never weary of that sound of joy—'Mine own, mine own forever.'
"The period which followed that wonderful hour was one of an Eden-like happiness, such as, I believe, this fallen world never could before have witnessed—it was the embodiment, in every hour and instant, of that blessing of which my Aletheia had so fervently spoken—the spiritual union which linked us in heart and soul alone, was as perfect as it was unearthly; and the intense bliss which flowed from it, on both of us, could only have been equaled by the love, no less intense, that made us what we were.
"But, Lilias, of this brief dream of deep delight I will not and I can not speak. This is a record of misery and not of joy," he continued, turning round upon her almost fiercely. "It becomes not me, who have been the murderer of Aletheia's joyous life, to take so much as the name of happiness between my lips. It passed—it departed—that joy, as a spirit departs out of the body; unseen, unheard; you know not it is gone, till suddenly you see that the beautiful living form has become a stark and ghastly corpse!—and so, in like manner, our life became a hideous thing....
"Colonel Randolph asked me to go on an embassy to a distant town; the absence was to be but for a fortnight. We were to write daily to one another, and we thought nothing of it. Nevertheless, in one sense, we felt it to be momentous. Aletheia designed, if an opportunity occurred, to inform her father of the change in her existence, and the irrevocable fate to which she had consigned herself. She had delayed doing so hitherto, because his mind had been fearfully disturbed by grievous disappointments in public affairs; and as he was a man of peculiarly sensitive temperament, she would not add to his distresses by the announcement of the fact, which she knew he would consider the great misfortune of his life. It was impossible, indeed, that the doating father could fail to mourn bitterly over the sacrifice of his one beloved daughter, to the man who dared not so much as give her barren life the protection of his name lest haply, he wed her to a maniac.
"It was within two days of my proposed return to their home, that an express arrived in fiery haste to tell me Colonel Randolph had fallen from his horse, had received a mortal injury, and was dying. I was summoned instantly. He had said he would not die in peace till he saw me. One hurried line from Aletheia, in addition to the aid-de-camp's letter, told how even, in that awful hour, I was first and last in his thoughts. It ran thus: 'He is on his death-bed, and I have told him all. I could not let him die unknowing the consecration of his child to one so worthy of her. But, alas! I know not why, it seems almost to have maddened him. He says he will tell you all; come, then, with all speed.'
"In two hours I was by the side of the dying man. Aletheia was kneeling with her arms round him, and he was gazing at her with sombre, mournful fondness. The instant he saw me he pushed her from him. 'Go,' he said, 'I must see this man alone.' The epithet startled me. I saw he was filled with a bitter wrath. His daughter obeyed; she rose and left the room; but as she passed me she took my hand, and bowing herself as to her master, pressed it to her lips, then turning round she said. 'Father, remember what I have told you: he is mine own forever; not even your death-bed curse could make me falter in my vow.' He groaned aloud: 'No curse, no curse, my child,' he cried; 'fear not; it is not you whom I would curse. Come—kiss me; we may perhaps not meet again; and if you find me dead at your return—' He waited till she closed the door, and then added, 'Say that Richard Sydney killed me, and you will speak the truth! Madman, madman, indeed! What is it you have done? Was it for this I took you into my home, and was to you a father? That you might slay my only daughter—that you might make such havoc of her life as is worse than a thousand deaths.'
"I would have spoken; he fiercely interrupted me: 'I know what you would say—that she gave herself to you—that she offered this oblation of a whole existence—but I tell you, if one grain of justice or of generosity had been within your coward heart, you would have flung yourself over that precipice, and so absolved her from her vow, rather than let her immolate herself to a doom so horrible; for you know not, yourself, what is that doom! Yes, poor wretch,' he added, more gently, 'you knew not what you did; but I know, and now will I tell. I, who have watched over the soul of Aletheia Randolph for well-nigh twenty years, know well of what fire it is made; I tell you I have long foreknown that there was a capacity of love in her which is most awful, and which would most infallibly work her utter woe, except its ardent immensity found a perpetual outlet in the many ties which weave themselves around a happy wife and mother. And now, oh! was there none to have mercy on her, and save her noble heart and life from such destruction; this soul of flame, fathomless as the deep, burning and pure as the spotless noonday sky, hath gone forth to fasten itself upon a desolating, barren, mournful love, where, hungering forever after happiness, and never fed, it will be driven to insanity or death! Yes, I tell you, it will be so; my departing spirit is almost on my lips, and my words must be few, but they are words of fearful truth. I know her, and I know that thus it will be; one day's separation from you, whom the world will never admit to be her own—one cloud upon your brow, which she has not the power to disperse, will work in her a torment that will sap her noble mind, and will make her, haply, the lunatic, and you—you, descendant of the maniac Sydneys, her keeper! Oh, what had she done to you that you should hate her so? Oh, wherefore have you cursed her, my innocent child, my only daughter?'
"I fell on my knees; I gasped for breath; Lilias, I felt that every word he said was true, that all would come to pass as he foretold; for he spoke with the prophetic truth of the dying; he saw my utter agony. Suddenly he lifted himself up in the bed, and the movement broke the bandage on his head, whence the blood streamed suddenly with a destructive violence; he heeded it not, but grasped my arm with the last energy of life.
"'I see you are in torments,' he said, 'and fitly so; but if you have this much of grace left, now at least to suffer, it may be that every spark of justice is not dead within you, and that you will save her yet.'
"'Save her!' I almost shrieked. 'Yes, if by any means upon this earth such a blessing be possible! Shall I die? I am ready—oh, how ready.'
"'No; to die were but to carry her into your grave,' the cruel voice replied; 'but living, I believe that you may save her. From what I know of that most noble child's pure soul, I do believe that you may save her yet. Man! who have been her curse and mine, will you swear to do so, by any means I may command?'
"'I will swear!' was my answer, and his glazing eyes were suddenly lit up with a fierce delight. 'And how?' I cried.
"'Thus,' he answered, drawing me close to him, and putting his lips to my ear: 'by rendering yourself hateful to her! To quit her were to bid her lament you unto the death; but by her very side to render yourself abhorrent to her, thus shall you save her! You have sworn—remember, you have sworn! Go! When I am dead, give up that voice and look of love; put on a stern aspect; treat her as a cruel taskmaster treats a slave; be harsh; be merciless; tell her the love she bears you, by its depth of passion, hath become a crime, and you have vowed to crush it out of her; but say not I commanded it; let her believe it is your own free will; punish her for that love; let her think you hate her for it; trample her soul beneath your haughty feet; let her hear naught but bitterest words—see naught but sternest looks—feel naught but a grasp severe and torturing—to tear her clinging arms from around you!—so shall you save her; for she will suffer but a little while at first, and then will leave you to be forever blest;—so shall you crush her love, and send her out from your heart to seek a better. Sydney, you have sworn to do it—you have sworn!'
"He repeated the words with fearful vehemence, for life was ebbing with the blood that flowed. Gathering up his last energies, he shrieked into my ear—'Say that you have sworn!—answer, or my spirit curses you forever!' and I answered: 'I have sworn!'
"He burst into a laugh of awful triumph, sunk back, and expired....
"Lilias, I have kept that vow!"
At these words, uttered in a hoarse and ominous tone, which seemed to convey a volume of fearful meaning, a cold shiver crept over the frame of the young Lilias: a horror unspeakable took possession of her, as the vail seemed suddenly lifted up from the mysterious agony which had made Aletheia's life, even to the outward eye, a mere embodiment of perpetual suffering; and her deep and womanly appreciation of what her unhappy cousin had endured, caused her to shrink almost in fear from the wretched man by her side, who had thus been constrained to become the cruel tyrant of her he loved so fondly. But he spoke again in such broken, faltering accents, that her heart once more swelled with pity for him.
"Yes, Lilias, I kept that fearful vow: the grasp of the dead man's hand, which, even as he stiffened into a mass of senseless clay, still locked my own as with an iron gripe, seemed to have bound it on my soul, and I, alas! believed in the efficacy of this means for her restoration from the destructive madness of her love to such an one as I. I believed I thus should save her, and turn her pure affection to a salutary hate. Yes; with energy, with fierce determination, I did keep that vow, because it was to bind myself unto such untold tortures, that it seemed a righteous expiation; and what, oh, what has been the result! Her father thought he knew her. He thought the intensity of her tenderness would brave insanity or death; but, not my hatred and contempt! and he knew her not, in her unparalleled generosity! for behold her glorious devotion hath trampled even my contumely under foot, and hath risen faithful, changeless, all perfect as before.
"Oh, Lilias, I can not tell you the detail of the cruelties I have perpetrated on her—redoubled, day by day, as I saw them all fall powerless before her matchless love. I told her that because of its intensity, her affection had become a crime, for one whose eternal abiding place was not within this world, and that it inspired me with horror and with wrath; and since she had taken me for her master, as her master, I would drive this passion from her soul, by even the sternest means that fancy can devise; and then, I dare not tell you all that I have done; but she, with her imploring voice, her tender, mournful eyes, forever answered that if she were hateful to me I had better leave her, only with me should go her love, her life, her very soul! Alas! alas! I could not leave her till my fearful task was done. I have labored—oh, let the spirit of that dead father witness—I have labored according to his will, and what has been the up-shot of it all? Lilias," he spoke with sudden fierceness, "I have learnt to crush the life out of her, but not the love! the pure, devoted, boundless love is there, still, true and tender as before, only it abides my torture, day and night, chained to the rack by these cruel hands."
He buried his face on his knees, and a strong convulsion shook his frame.