Easter Tuesday had arrived, and all the excitement of Easter in Rome was over. Our friends had joined in the grand ceremonies of Holy Week; they had heard the silver trumpets sound forth the Alleluias on Easter morn, and on the evening of the same great day they had looked upon the glorious illumination of San Pietro; on the next day they had seen the girandola, or fireworks, on the Pincio; and Easter, with all its festivities, had become bygone things.
Before we proceed we surely ought to ask how Flora Adair had got over her accident at Frascati. On the day after it happened Mr. Earnscliffe called, as he had said, to inquire for her; and, considering himself in some degree as the cause of the mishap, he was quite distressed to find that it was so serious as to give her a good deal of pain, and keep her from walking for some time. It was so tiresome, he said, to be obliged to lie upon a sofa in such lovely weather—and in Rome, too! Would that he could do anything to make amends for the mischief he had caused!
He exerted himself to the utmost to amuse and interest her during the time of his visit; and so well did he succeed, that before he left her she had become quite animated, and seemed to have forgotten her ailment. When he stood up to take leave, he said, "I hope, Mrs. Adair, that you will allow me to call again to see how the invalid progresses?"
"Certainly, we shall always be happy to see you, and, now that Flora cannot go out, society is particularly desirable for her. The interest of conversation will make her forget her suffering—for a time, at least."
"Thank you! Then I shall indeed avail myself of your permission; I shall be so glad to think that I can in any degree lessen, even for half an hour, the weariness of that imprisonment of which, I must repeat, I feel I am the remote cause."
Thus he went constantly, and Flora found a charm in conversing with him which she had never known before. They often disagreed and looked at things each from a different point of view, yet their way of thinking seemed the same; there was sympathy even where they least appeared to agree. As she recovered, and when the excitement of Easter was over, she began to feel the blank caused by the cessation of those long and looked-for visits. There remained nothing to expect from day to day with hope and pleasure. She enjoyed his society as she had never enjoyed that of any other person, and did not at all like the prospect of being obliged to do without it, or indeed without much of it, for the future.
There are women who centre every delight in the object of their affections, and this, to a certain degree, even in friendship; but in love alone is it fully shown. To love, for such, is to centre everything in the beloved; they have no fits of great ardour followed by calmness—theirs is one unbroken act of love. Should there be no obstacles to their love, it is to them a source of happiness undreamed of by many, for their world is full. They have attained happiness, as far as it can be attained on earth from earthly things—for the human heart is made for the Infinite, and nothing finite can ever fully satisfy it. These do not stop to calculate whether loving another will be for their own advantage; they call that, egotism—the very opposite of love. "Non amate Dio per voi" is for them the expression of perfect love; and is not the love of God the model, ay, and the motor too, of all true human love? When love is pure and disinterested it wants not its due reward, but it obtains so much the greater recompense the less it seeks.
But should such obstacles arise, should they be separated from the object of their love, their misery is correspondingly great. Like a native of some sunny clime banished in the noonday of life to a northern land, clouded in chilly mists, it is vain to surround him with all that should cheer his heart; vain to strive—how tenderly soever it may be—to beguile his weariness; he pines for the beloved sun of other days, and sighs hopelessly for the glowing brightness of his home. So is the sun of their life beclouded,—he who was their sun, he who threw a halo over all, is gone; the chilly mist is ever upon their hearts, and they know in this life something of that terrible torture—the pain of loss.
But another pang is often reserved for them, and it is of all the most bitter; it comes when they have to choose between love and conscience, and when, in obeying the dictates of the latter, they have to bear the reproach of not loving truly, whilst, as they know but too well, they love so fully that few understand or realise it. To feel all this, and yet to be powerless to prove their love, is torture so great that they must indeed be watched over from above if they get safely through the ordeal.