"Night and day—night and day," he murmured, "have I passed to complete my thought, my dream—for I dreamed I saw her thus; and how like it is! What is wanting? the spark of life to make it move and speak to me. Speak to me! No, she would turn away, either in indifference, and love for another, or horror of me! Perhaps I have murdered her!" and the man's voice sank to a hollow whisper—"her, and her infant! Oh, if I have!" and the cold dew stood on his brow at the thought. "What a bitter reckoning there will be against me when they stand before heaven to condemn! Not only here, but hereafter! Never to find peace again, nor rest, nor happy thought? Oh! life is indeed a burthen; and death a terror!" He sank for some time in silent thought before her; then brushing away the dew from his brow, and hastily drawing the curtain before the statue, he turned away. "Poor, weak fool!" he cried contemptuously, "I am not fit to be alone. She was false—false to them, the nurses of her childhood—false to me, her loving husband—false to heaven! I will destroy all memory of her." He tore back the curtain, and raised his arm to do so—but the arm fell. "No," he said, turning away, "'tis a work of art—only that; only these have I to spur me over the mountains of sorrow, before I meet death—art and occupation, inactivity would be madness. And she, her cousin!" and he laughed aloud in scorn, "thinks I love her. That having loved Minnie, I could give even the memory of that affection so base a counterfeit! Heartless, worldly, proud earth-worm!—only this! to place herself beside——But I will not dream of her! If that other had held in her veins one drop of human blood, she would have shielded, upheld, watched over her, and she had not been lost. I was too rude a guardian; I loved her with a lion's love, and the shrinking thing, in terror, sought refuge where words were soft, and the hand gentler; but the heart—the heart, his did not love like mine! Mine would have poured out its every drop of life's current, to spare one hair of her fair head from suffering.——I am growing weak—weak—womanly weak," and he moved feverishly about the room, whispering to himself, "I must shake this off, I have a part to play; I must avoid solitude, seek excitement; time may do much, bring oblivion, as it darkens the mental vision. She will be here to-day—she who loves to entangle—to wanton with the insect awhile, and then crush it with her heel. Crush me!—me!!" and he laughed aloud. "I will bring her down, in her subdued pride, to acknowledge that she envies even the place in hatred, which her once despised cousin holds in my heart. I will bring her to marry another in hate, and love me in unloved bitterness, and be false to him—if I will. I will revenge Minnie, even though I cast her from me—only I had a right to condemn and blast her." A bell sounded in the outer chamber. "'Tis she!" he cried. "Not here yet; there is a spirit in the place—I have evoked it." And, hastily closing the door, he passed into a salon luxuriantly furnished.
In a moment more, Lady Dora entered in all the pride of her glowing, majestic beauty, set off to greater advantage by her mourning robes, which floated in mockery of woe around her—Lady Ripley accompanied her. How false some positions are, in what's called society! Here were three persons, nearly allied, meeting as mere strangers, almost in coldness, without an allusion even to the past. Lady Ripley was gracious; her daughter strove by an unconstrained cordiality, where pride towered in majestic condescension, to seem perfectly indifferent, though Tremenhere smiled in his heart, as he read her well—his manner was so free from any significance of tone or look, so calm and unembarrassed, that Lady Dora asked herself involuntarily, "Have I dreamed the past of yesterday?" and she felt humbled on reflecting how weary an hour she had passed that morning, in schooling her looks and heart to meet, without betraying herself to him.
"You will scarcely pardon me, I fear," he said, "when I tell you, Lady Dora, that I had totally forgotten this engagement this morning, and was going to pass a morning at the Louvre."
"Oh, pray, do not let us detain you, Mr. Tremenhere!" she exclaimed haughtily. "I, too, had other engagements, but mamma wished me to come, having promised."
"You cannot doubt, Lady Dora," he gallantly said—but it was mere gallantry; no hidden tone of meaning could be detected by the nicest ear—"the great pleasure this remembrance gives me. I was blaming my own wretched memory, and anxious to convey to you the forgotten happiness, which was driving me for a morning's amusement among the dead beauties in the Spanish gallery, instead of immortalizing my pencil, by endeavouring to pourtray your living loveliness."
She bowed, and, biting her lip, accepted this overstrained compliment at its full value—empty as the wind; and in this mood she sat down to lend herself to his pencil. Lady Ripley had not noticed the by-play of all this, indeed how could she, ignorant as she was of the previous scene, and totally incapable of comprehending the possibility of her daughter, even condescending to the slightest approach to flirtation even with an artist, whatever his pretensions to birth might be? She was unusually gracious this day, which removed much of the embarrassment the others could not otherwise have failed to feel. As some little revenge for his cool impertinence when they entered, Lady Dora suddenly inquired—
"Mr. Tremenhere, how many days' journey do you reckon it from Paris to Florence? I mean," she added, fearful that her meaning might be misunderstood, "from Florence to Paris, supposing a person to travel as expeditiously as possible?"
"As many," he answered, smiling blandly in her face, and with perfect sincerity of tone, "as it would take a person to go from Paris to Florence."
"Is he a fool?" she thought, "or only insensible? Thank you," she added aloud. "I presume they would be the same, but my question remains unanswered."
"True," he replied, smiling; "I am very rude, but my attention was so engrossed by this most lovely Diana. I will endeavour to answer you: were I a happy man, whom one so fair as yourself, Lady Dora, expected impatiently, I should not choose the commonplace mode of transporting myself; but, borrowing the wings of the wind (that is, supposing them disengaged,) flutter to her feet."