P. S. I find now that this town is not in Switzerland, but in Baden, for the police have been here to know "who we are?" and "why we have come?"—two questions that would take longer to answer than they suspect. How absurd these little bits of national prejudice sound, when the symbol of nationality is only a blue post or a white one, and no geographical limit announces a new country. Droll enough, too, they are most importunate in their inquiries after James; as if the appearance of his name in the passport requires that he should be forthcoming when asked for. Ah, Tom! if the fellows that knocked old Europe about in '48 had resolutely set their faces against these stumbling-blocks to civilization—passports, police spies, town dues, and gate imposts,—they 'd have won the sympathy of millions, who do not care a rush about Universal Suffrage and the Liberty of the Press,—and, what is more, the concessions could never have been revoked nor recalled!
To myself, individually, the system presents few annoyances; for I sit serene behind my ignorance of all continental languages, and say to myself, "Touch me if you dare." Maybe they half suspect the substance of my meditations, for they show the greatest deference towards my condition of passive resistance. The Brigadier has just bowed himself out of the room, with what sounded like a hearty curse, but what Mary Anne assures me was a sincere protestation of his sentiment of "high consideration and esteem." And now to dinner.
LETTER XLI. MARY ANNE DODD TO MISS DOOLAN, OF BALLYDOOLAN
Constance on the Lake.
Dearest Kitty,—With what rapture do I once more throw myself into the arms of your affection! How devotedly do I seek the sanctuary of my dearest Kitty's heart! It is all over, my sweet friend,—all over! I see you start,—your cheek is bloodless, and your lips tremble,—but reassure yourself, Kitty, and hear me. If there be anything against which I am weak and powerless,—if there be aught in life to oppose which I have neither strength nor energy,—it is the reproach of one I love! Already do I stand accused before you, even now have you arraigned me, and my condemnation is trembling on your lips. Avow it,—own it, dear girl. Your heart, at least, has said the words of my sentence: "All over! so then Mary Anne has jilted him,—changed her mind in the last hour,—trifled with his affections, and made a sport of his feelings." Yes, such is the charge against me; and, trembling as I stand before you, I syllable the word "Guilty." "Guilty, but with extenuating circumstances." Be calm then, be patient; and, above all, be merciful, while I plead before you.
I deny nothing, I evade nothing. I cannot even pretend that my altered feelings originated in any long process of reason or reflection. I will not affect to say that I struggled against conflicting doubts, and only yielded when powerless to resist them. No, dearest, I am above every such shallow artifice; and I own that it was on the very morning your letter arrived—at the moment when my hot tears were falling over the characters traced by your hand—as, enraptured, I kissed the lines that breathed your love—then there suddenly broke upon me a light illumining the dark horizon around me. Space became peopled with forms and images, voices and warnings floated around and above me, and as I read your words—"If, then, your whole heart be his"—I trembled, Kitty, my eyes grew dim, my bosom heaved in agony, and, in my heart-wrung misery, I cried aloud, "Oh, save me from this perfidy,—save me from myself!"
Save that the letter which my fingers grasped convulsively was the offspring of friendship and not of love betrayed, the scene was precisely like that which closes the second act of the "Lucia di Lammermoor." Mamma, the Baron, James, even to the priest, all were there; and, like Lucia, dressed in my bridal robe, the orange-flowers in my hair, and such a love of a Brussels veil fastened mantilla-wise to the back of the head, I stood pale, trembling, and conscience-stricken! the awful words of your question ringing in my ears, like the voice of an angel come to call me to judgment, "'If your whole heart be his!' But it is not," cried I, aloud,—"it is not, it never can be!" I know not in what wild rhapsody my emotions found utterance. I have no memory of that gushing cataract in which overwrought feelings found their channel. I spoke in that rapt enthusiasm in which, as we are told, the ancient priestesses delivered their dream-revealings, for I, too, was as one inspired, as agony alone can inspire. Of myself I know nothing, but I have since heard that the scene was harrowing to a degree that no words can convey. The Baron, mounted on his fastest courser, fled into the woods; James, spirited on by some imagined sense of injury, thirsting for a vengeance on he knew not what or whom, pursued him; mamma was seized with frantic screaming; and even papa himself, whose lethargic humor stands him like an armor of proof,—even he swore and imprecated in a manner that called forth a most impressive rebuke from the chaplain.
