"Yes, thus my husband. I will not rise till thou say'st thou canst forgive; wilt take the loving and the weak back to thy heart, if not to love as thou hast loved, to strengthen and forgive. I have not wronged thee. Were I false in word or thought I would not kneel to ask forgiveness, but crawl to thy feet and die! If thou couldst but know the many, many times I have longed to confess all; the agony to receive thy fond caress, thy trusting confidence, and know myself deceiving; the terror lest thou shouldst discover aught from other than myself; oh! were it not for thy deep woe, I could bless this moment, bidding me speak Truth once more!"
"And say thou hast never loved me? Wert true from duty, not from love?
Marie, can I bear this?"
"Yes—for I do love thee. Oh! my husband, I turn to thee alone, under my God, for rest and peace. If I might not give thee the wild passions of my youth, when my heart was sought, and won ere I was myself conscious of the precipice I neared, I cling to thee now alone—I would be thine alone. Oh, take me to thy heart, and let me lie there. Ferdinand, Ferdinand! forgive me!—love—save me from myself!"
"Ay, now and ever! Come to my heart, beloved one!" answered her husband, rousing himself from all of personal suffering to comfort her; and he drew her to him till her head rested on his bosom. "Now tell me thy sorrowing tale, to me so wrapt in mystery. Fear not from me. It is enough thou clingest to me in such sweet guileless confidence still."
She obeyed him; and the heavy weight of suffering years seemed lightening as she spoke. From her first meeting Arthur, to that morning's harrowing interview, every feeling, every incident, every throb of reproach and dread were revealed with such touching and childlike truth, that even in his suffering, Morales unconsciously clasped his wife closer and closer to him, as if her very confidence and truth, rendered her yet dearer than before, and inexpressibly soothed at the very moment that they pained. Their interview was long, but fraught with mutual comfort. Morales had believed, when he entered his closet that day, that a dense cloud was folded round him, sapping the very elements of life; but though he still felt as if he had received some heavy physical blow, the darkness had fled from his spirit, and light dawned anew for both, beneath the heavenly rays of openness and Truth.
"And Arthur?" Marie said, as that long commune came to a close; and she looked up with the fearless gaze of integrity in her husband's face. "Thou wilt forgive him, Ferdinand? he knew not what he said."
"Trust me, beloved one. I pity and forgive him. He shall learn to love me, despite himself."
Great was the astonishment and terrible the disappointment of Don Luis Garcia at the visible failure of one portion of his nefarious schemes. Though seldom in Don Ferdinand's actual presence, he was perfectly aware that instead of diminishing, Morales' confidence in and love for his wife had both increased, and that Marie was happier and more quietly at rest than she had been since her marriage. But though baffled, Garcia was not foiled. The calm, haughty dignity which, whenever they did chance to meet, now characterized Don Ferdinand's manner towards him; the brief, stern reply, if words were actually needed; or complete silence, betraying as it did tire utter contempt and scorn with which his crafty design was regarded, heightened his every revengeful feeling, and hastened on his plans.
Two or three weeks passed: a calm security and peaceful happiness had taken the place of storm and dread in Marie's heart. She felt that it had been a secret consciousness of wrong towards her husband, the dread of discovery occasioning estrangement, the constant fear of encountering Stanley, which had weighed on her heart far more than former feelings; and now that the ordeal was past, that all was known, and she could meet her husband's eye without one thought concealed; now that despite of all he could love and cherish, aye, trust her still, she clung to him with love as pure and fond and true as ever wife might feel; and her only thought of Stanley was prayer that peace might also dawn for him. It was pain indeed to feel that the real reason of her wedding Ferdinand must for ever remain concealed. Could that have been spoken, one little sentence said, all would have been explained, and Stanley's bitter feelings soothed.
It was the custom of Ferdinand and Isabella to gather around them, about once a month, the wisest and the ablest of their realm—sometimes to hold council on public matters, at others merely in friendly discussion on various subjects connected with, politics, the church, or war. In these meetings merit constituted rank, and mind nobility. They commenced late, and continued several hours through the night. To one of these meetings Don Ferdinand Morales had received a summons as usual. As the day neared, he became conscious of a strange, indefinable sensation taking possession of heart and mind, as impossible to be explained as to be dismissed. It was as if some impassable and invisible, but closely-hovering evil were connected with the day, blinding him—as by a heavy pall—to all beyond. He succeeded in subduing the ascendency of the sensation, in some measure, till the day itself; when, as the hours waned, it became more and more overpowering. As he entered his wife's apartment, to bid her farewell ere he departed for the castle, it rose almost to suffocation in his throat, and he put his arm round her as she stood by the widely-opened casement, and remained by her side several minutes without speaking.