I spent a most anxious night, my heart racked by a thousand wild emotions. Need I describe them? Has any human being the power of conveying to another in words the storm of jealousy, compassion, rage, and love that filled my bosom? I know that there is a great want of dignity in acknowledging that I still loved this man, that I could for an instant think of him without virtuous detestation; but I am writing of a human heart as it was, not, perhaps, as it should have been. To me George Irving seemed two beings. The man I had known, generous, wise, impetuous, all that my heart acknowledged to be grand in humanity; and the man I had heard of, treacherous, full of hypocrisy, and vile in every aspiration. I could not reconcile these clashing qualities in my mind. To my reason, George Irving was a depraved, bad man; but my heart rejected the character, and always turned leniently toward the first idea it had formed. While I pitied Cora from the bottom of my soul, and loved her so dearly that no sacrifice would have been too costly a proof of this devotion, there was jealousy in my heart that embittered it all. Alas, it is often much easier to act right than to feel right.
When I went for Cora, the next day, she took me to an oaken cabinet in her room, and with a sad smile—for all her pretty smiles had a shade of sadness in them now—asked me to examine some old books that lay huddled together on the shelf.
“It is singular,” she said, “but your name is written in some of these books, and Zana is a very uncommon name. Would you like to see how it is used?”
She took up a small, antique Bible, and after unclasping the cover of sandal-wood, on which some sacred story was deeply engraved, placed it open in my hands. On the fly-leaf was written, in a clear and very beautiful hand,
“Clarence, Earl of Clare, to his wife Aurora.”
A date followed this, and lower down on the page was a register, in the same bold writing, dated at the hamlet, some months after the presentation lines were written. This was the register:
“Born, June ——, Zana, daughter of Clarence, Earl of Clare, and Aurora, his wife.”
The book fell from my hands; I did not know its entire importance, or what bearing it might have on my destiny, but my heart swelled with a flood of gratitude that almost overwhelmed me. I had no idea of its legal value, but the book seemed to me of inestimable worth. In it were blended, in terms of honor, the names of my parents; how it came there I did not ask.
Cora stooped down to recover the book, but I seized it first, exclaiming, amid my sobs,
“It is mine—it is mine, Cora! Cora, I bless you—God will bless you for giving me this great happiness.”