"Sara!" exclaimed the Judge, in a tone of severe displeasure.
The mother, unable longer to repress the outbreak of excited feeling, left the room with her handkerchief to her eyes.
"For shame, Sara," said the Judge with severe gravity, and standing before her with a reproving glance, "for shame! this arrogance goes too far!"
She trembled now before his eye as she had done once before; a remembrance from the days of her childhood awoke within her; her eyelids sunk, and a burning crimson covered her face.
"You have forgotten yourself," continued he, calmly, but severely, "and in your childish haughtiness have only shown how far you are below that worth and excellence which you cannot understand, and which, in your present state of mind, you never can emulate. Your own calm judgment will make the sharpest reproaches on this last scene, and will, nay, must lead you to throw yourself at the feet of your mother. All, however, that I now ask from you is, that you think over your intentions rationally. How is it possible, Sara, that you overlook your own inconsistency? You argue zealously against domestic life—against the duties of marriage, and yet, at the same time, wilfully determine to tie those bonds with a man who will make them actual fetters for you."
"He will not fetter me," returned she; "he has promised it—he has sworn it! I shall not subject myself to him as a wife, but I shall stand at his side as an equal, as an artiste, and step with him into a world beautiful and rich in honours, which he will open to me."
"Ah, mere talk!" exclaimed the Judge. "Folly, folly! How can you be so foolish, and believe in such false show? The state gives your husband a power over you which he will not fail to abuse—that I can promise you from what I know of his character, and from what I now discover of yours. No woman can withdraw from a connexion of this kind unpunished, more especially under the circumstances in which you are placed. Sara, you do not love the man to whom you are about to unite yourself, and it is impossible that you can love him. No true esteem, no pure regard binds you to him."
"He loves me," answered Sara, with trembling lips; "I admire his power and artistical genius;—he will conduct me to independence and honour! It is no fault of mine that the lot of woman is so contracted and miserable—that she must bind herself in order to become free!"
"Only as a means?" asked he; "the holiest tie on earth only as a means, and for what? For a pitiable and ephemeral chase after happiness, which you call honour and freedom. Poor, deceived Sara! Are you so misled, so turned aside from the right? Is it possible that the miserable book of a writer, as full of pretension as weak and superficial, has been able thus to misguide you?" and with these words he took Volney's Ruins out of his pocket, and threw it upon the table.
Sara started and reddened. "Ah," said she, "this is only another instance of espionage over me."