"Such thoughts could have never," he falter'd, "I know,
Reach'd the heart of Matilda."
"Matilda? oh no!
But reflect! when such thoughts do not come of themselves
To the heart of a woman neglected, like elves
That seek lonely places,—there rarely is wanting
Some voice at her side, with an evil enchanting
To conjure them to her."
"O lady, beware!
At this moment, around me I search everywhere
For a clew to your words"—
"You mistake them," she said,
Half fearing, indeed, the effect they had made.
"I was putting a mere hypothetical case."
With a long look of trouble he gazed in her face.
"Woe to him,..." he exclaim'd... "woe to him that shall feel
Such a hope! for I swear, if he did but reveal
One glimpse,—it should be the last hope of his life!"
The clench'd hand and bent eyebrow betoken'd the strife
She had roused in his heart.
"You forget," she began,
"That you menace yourself. You yourself are the man
That is guilty. Alas! must it ever be so?
Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,
And fight our own shadows forever? O think!
The trial from which you, the stronger ones, shrink,
You ask woman, the weaker one, still to endure;
You bid her be true to the laws you abjure;
To abide by the ties you yourselves rend asunder,
With the force that has fail'd you; and that too, when under
The assumption of rights which to her you refuse,
The immunity claim'd for yourselves you abuse!
Where the contract exists, it involves obligation
To both husband and wife, in an equal relation.
You unloose, in asserting your own liberty,
A knot, which, unloosed, leaves another as free.
Then, O Alfred! be juster at heart: and thank Heaven
That Heaven to your wife such a nature has given
That you have not wherewith to reproach her, albeit
You have cause to reproach your own self, could you see it!"
VI.
In the silence that follow'd the last word she said,
In the heave of his chest, and the droop of his head,
Poor Lucile mark'd her words had sufficed to impart
A new germ of motion and life to that heart
Of which he himself had so recently spoken
As dead to emotion—exhausted, or broken!
New fears would awaken new hopes in his life.
In the husband indifferent no more to the wife
She already, as she had foreseen, could discover
That Matilda had gain'd at her hands, a new lover.
So after some moments of silence, whose spell
They both felt, she extended her hand to him....
VII.
"Well?"
VIII.
"Lucile," he replied, as that soft quiet hand
In his own he clasp'd warmly, "I both understand
And obey you."
"Thank Heaven!" she murmur'd.
"O yet,
One word, I beseech you! I cannot forget,"
He exclaim'd, "we are parting for life. You have shown
My pathway to me: but say, what is your own?"
The calmness with which until then she had spoken
In a moment seem'd strangely and suddenly broken.
She turn'd from him nervously, hurriedly.
"Nay,
I know not," she murmur'd, "I follow the way
Heaven leads me; I cannot foresee to what end.
I know only that far, far away it must tend
From all places in which we have met, or might meet.
Far away!—onward upward!"
A smile strange and sweet
As the incense that rises from some sacred cup
And mixes with music, stole forth, and breathed up
Her whole face, with those words.
"Wheresoever it be,
May all gentlest angels attend you!" sighed he,
"And bear my heart's blessing wherever you are!"
And her hand, with emotion, he kiss'd.
IX.
From afar
That kiss was, alas! by Matilda beheld.
With far other emotions: her young bosom swell'd,
And her young cheek with anger was crimson'd.
The Duke
Adroitly attracted towards it her look
By a faint but significant smile.
X.
Much ill-construed,
Renown'd Bishop Berkeley has fully, for one, strew'd
With arguments page upon page to teach folks
That the world they inhabit is only a hoax.
But it surely is hard, since we can't do without them,
That our senses should make us so oft wish to doubt them!