CHAPTER XXXII.
"She clasped her hands"!—the strife
Of love—faith—fear, and the vain dream of life,
Within her woman-heart so deeply wrought—
It seemed as if a reed, so slight and weak,
Must, in the rending storm, not quiver only—break!
MRS. HEMANS.
Isabella's expressive countenance was grave and calm; but it was impossible to doubt the firmness of her purpose, though what that purpose might be, Marie had no power to read. She stood leaning against the back of one of the ponderous chairs; her head bent down, and her heart so loudly and thickly throbbing that it choked her very breath.
"We have summoned thee hither, Marie," the Queen said at length, gravely, but not severely, "to hear from thine own lips the decision which Father Denis has reported to us; but which, indeed, we can scarcely credit. Wert thou other than thou art—one whose heavy trials and lovable qualities have bound thee to us with more than common love—we should have delivered thee over at once to the judgment of our holy fathers, and interfered with their sentence no farther. We are exposing ourselves to priestly censure even for the forbearance already shown; but we will dare even that, to win thee from thine accursed creed, and give thee peace and comfort. Marie canst thou share the ingratitude—the obstinacy—of thy benighted race, that even with thee we must deal harshly? Compel me not to a measure from which my whole heart revolts. Do not let me feel that the charge against thy people is true, without even one exception, and that kindness shown to them, is unvalued as unfelt."
A convulsive sob was the sole reply. Marie's face was buried in her hands; but the tears were streaming through her slender fingers, and her slight figure shook with the paroxysm.
"Nay, Marie, we ask not tears. We demand the proof of grateful affection on thy part; not its weak display. And what is that proof? The acceptance of a faith without which there can be no security in this life, nor felicity hereafter! The rejection of a fearfully mistaken—terribly accursed—creed; condemning its followers to the scorn and hate of man, and abiding wrath of God."
"'To the scorn and hate of man?' Alas, gracious Sovereign, it is even so; but not to the 'abiding wrath of God,'" answered Marie, suppressing with a desperate effort, her painful emotion. "The very scorn and loathing we encounter confirms the blessed truth, of our having been the chosen children of our God, and the glorious promise of our future restoration. We are enduring now on earth the effects of the fearful sins of our ancestors; but for those who live and die true to His law, there is a future after death laid up with Him; that, how may we forfeit for transitory joy?"
"If it were indeed so, we would be the last to demand such forfeit," answered the Queen; "but were it not for the blinding veil of wilful rejection cast over the eyes and hearts of thy people, thou wouldst know and feel, that however thy race were once the chosen of God, the distinction has been lost for ever, by their blaspheming rejection of Jesus and his virgin mother; and the misery—its consequence—on earth, is but a faint type of that misery which is for everlasting. It is from this we would save thee. Father Denis has brought before thee the solemn truths which our sainted creed advances, in reply to the mystifying fallacies of thine; and, he tells me, wholly without effect. My arguments, then, can be of such little weight, that I have pledged myself to my confessor to attempt none. We summoned thee merely to tell our decision in this matter; of too vital importance to be left to other lips. Once more let me ask—and understand thee rightly!—have all the Holy Father's lessons failed to convince, even as all our affection has failed to move, thee?"
"Would—would to Heaven I could believe as thou demandest!" answered Marie. "Would that those lessons had brought conviction! The bitter agony of your Grace's displeasure—of feeling that, while my heart so throbs and swells with grateful devotion that I would gladly die to serve thee, yet the proof thou demandest I cannot give; and I must go down to an early grave, leaving with thee the sole impression that thou hadst cherished a miserable ingrate, whom, even as thou hast loved, so thou must now hate and scorn. Oh, madam! try me by other proof! My creed may be the mistaken one it seems to thee; but, oh! it is no garment we may wear and cast off at pleasure. Have mercy, gracious Sovereign! condemn me not as reprobate—hardened—more insensible than the veriest cur, who is grateful for the kindness of his master!—because I love my faith better even than thy love—the dearest earthly joy now left me."