Here nature suddenly and powerfully impressed on her recollection that she was about to become a parent; and, falling on her knees, she sobbed out, "What am I, did I ask?—I am a mother, and earth still holds me by a tie too sacred to be broken!"
Then by degrees she became calmer, and rejoiced, fervently rejoiced, in her father's second marriage, though she felt it as too convincing a proof how completely he had thrown her from his affections. She knew that the fear of a second family's diminishing the strong affection which he bore to her was his reason for not marrying again, and now it was plain that he married in hopes of losing his affection for her. Still this information removed a load from her mind, by showing her that Fitzhenry felt himself capable of receiving happiness from other hands than hers; and she resolved, if she heard that he was happy in his change of situation, never to recall to his memory the daughter whom it was so much his interest to forget.
The time of Agnes's confinement now drew near,—a time which fills with apprehension even the wife, who is soothed and supported by the tender attentions of an anxious husband, and the assiduities of affectionate relations and friends, and who knows that the child with which she is about to present them will at once gratify their affections and their pride. What then must have been the sensations of Agnes at a moment so awful and dangerous as this!—Agnes, who had no husband to soothe her by his anxious inquiries, no relations or friends to cheer her drooping soul by the expressions of sympathy, and whose child, instead of being welcomed by an exulting family, must be, perhaps, a stranger even to its nearest relations!
But in proportion to her trials seemed to be Agnes's power of rising superior to them; and, after enduring her sufferings with a degree of fortitude and calmness that astonished the mistress of the house, whom compassion had induced to attend on her, she gave birth to a lovely boy.—From that moment, though she rarely smiled, and never saw any one but her kind landlady, her mind was no longer oppressed by the deep gloom under which she had before laboured; and when she had heard from Clifford, or of her father's being happy, and clasped her babe to her bosom, Agnes might almost be pronounced cheerful.
After she had been six months a mother, Clifford returned; and, in the transport of seeing him safe, Agnes forgot for a moment that she had been anxious and unhappy. Now again was the subject of the marriage resumed; but just as the wedding day was fixed, Clifford was summoned away to attend his expiring father, and Agnes was once more doomed to the tortures of suspense.
After a month's absence Clifford came back, but appeared to labour under a dejection of spirits which he seemed studious to conceal from her. Alarmed and terrified at an appearance so unusual, she demanded an explanation, which the consummate deceiver gave at length, after many entreaties on her part, and feigned reluctance on his. He told her that his father's illness was occasioned by his having been informed that he was privately married to her; that he had sent for him to inquire into the truth of the report; and, being convinced by his solemn assurance that no marriage had taken place, he had commanded him, unless he wished to kill him, to take a solemn oath never to marry Agnes Fitzhenry without his consent.
"And did you take the oath?" cried Agnes, her whole frame trembling with agitation.—"What could I do?" replied he; "my father's life in evident danger if I refused; besides the dreadful certainty that he would put his threats in execution of cursing me with his dying breath;—and, cruel as he is, Agnes, I could not help feeling that he was my father."——"Barbarian!" exclaimed she, "I sacrificed my father to you!—An oath! O God! have you then taken an oath never to be mine?" and, saying this, she fell into a long and deep swoon.
When she recovered, but before she was able to speak, she found Clifford kneeling by her; and, while she was too weak to interrupt him, he convinced her that he did not at all despair of his father's consent to his making her his wife, else, he should have been less willing to give so ready a consent to take the oath imposed on him, even although his father's life depended on it. "Oh! no," replied Agnes, with a bitter smile; "you wrong yourself; you are too good a son to have been capable of hesitating a moment;—there are few children so bad, so very bad as I am!"—and, bursting into an agony of grief, it was long before the affectionate language and tender caresses of Clifford could restore her to tranquillity.
Another six months elapsed, during which time Clifford kept her hopes alive, by telling her that he every day saw fresh signs of his father's relenting in her favour.—At these times she would say, "Lead me to him; let him hear the tale of my wretchedness; let me say to him, For your son's sake I have left the best of fathers, the happiest of homes, and have become an outcast from society!—then would I bid him look at this pale cheek, this emaciated form, proofs of the anguish that is undermining my constitution; and tell him to beware how, by forcing you to withhold from me my right, he made you guilty of murdering the poor deluded wretch, who, till she knew you, never lay down without a father's blessing, nor rose but to be welcomed by his smile!"
Clifford had feeling, but it was of that transient sort which never outlived the disappearance of the object that occasioned it. To these pathetic entreaties he always returned affectionate answers, and was often forced to leave the room in order to avoid being too much softened by them; but, by the time he had reached the end of the street, always alive to the impressions of the present moment, the sight of some new beauty, or some old companion, dried up the starting tear, and restored to him the power of coolly considering how he should continue to deceive his miserable victim.