Thus it often is. God gives man his instincts and desires. Having made him after his own image, that image must be vital with the eternal principles of God-nature. If the author of all has inseparably connected cause and effect in the physical world, He has carried the law no less positively into the moral world. There can be, therefore, no instinct without its proper function, and no aspiration that may not be realized progressively towards Him. Duty is the password to heaven, which, in the rightly balanced mind begins on earth. Finding all things good according to their kind, it is not afraid to honor God by the right use of his gifts. Man begins his hell here also, by the bars to his progress, which his misunderstood organization, selfish passions, and the foolish learning or spiritual tyranny of his merely human theology fabricate for him. He fears, and seeks to compromise or deceive. If the spirit of God be upon him, then he enjoys all things of God, each in its due degree, with a peace that passeth understanding.
Beatriz, therefore, was right in feeling that the Being who had made the human heart and given it the capacity of loving, intended that it should love; that he had not given affections and the affinities of soul to either sex, to be a torment from want of the very object which He had made that man might not be Alone. And alone must be man or woman into whose heart enter no sympathies, responding to their own. If Adam had his mate, so has each son of his, by the same great law of Nature. God chose for Adam, but he gave to his children a delicate heritage of instincts and emotions of commingled matter and spirit, which were to be their guides towards finding the other being who is to complete their unity. That Olmedo was to her that being and she to him, Beatriz now knew full well. Her past life, with all that she had gained in character through him, and all she had enjoyed in feeling, the repose of perfect trust in his truth, the delicacy of his deportment, which, whether as confessor or friend, had always sought her highest good, all came back to her as a new revelation. Not that a single word of love had ever passed between them, or a single action, which angels might not have witnessed, escaped him. Both had been in too full enjoyment of that calm but unconscious love that springs from a mutual, mental and spiritual adaptation, without the suggestion of a more intimate relation, until to her the pang of his supposed death, and to him the reawakening of his physical life, amid the allurements of a tropical climate, disclosed to both the full extent of their attachment.
From that moment Beatriz was wretched, because however calm her exterior, within love and conscience were in conflict. Her misery was the greater, that she must hide her secret within her own bosom. Hitherto, every doubt or struggle had been disclosed to her confessor, and in his advice or consolation she had found repose. Now, the duties of her religion required her to confess this great sin to her confessor, and seek absolution for her soul’s sake; but that confessor was the man she loved, and the confession itself, besides being forbidden by every principle of womanly feeling, might, if made to him, precipitate both into the gulf their faith told them to avoid.
“Sinning woman that I am, how can I pray to the Holy Virgin with such a stain on my soul! Aid me, thou Chaste Mother, purest and best of women. Must I ever carry this sorrow, known to him and seen to God, yet dare not confess it, for fear of a greater sin? Would that I had drowned at the wreck,” and the tears dropped fast upon her pale cheeks. For a moment her body swayed to and fro with anguish, till faint and worn she sank upon the ground.
Woman! thine hour of trial has come; as the good or evil principle succeeds within thee, so wilt thou be saved or lost!
Every soul is born into the kingdom of Heaven only through spirit throes, such as thou now feelest test thy power! Much has been given thee, and much is required in this hour. Conquer, and eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the joy reserved for thee!
“God knows I love Olmedo. Were I to force my tongue to perjure my soul to man, He sees my heart and its secret sin. Father in heaven, can it be sin to love this man! Thou art all-wise, all-good, all-merciful. Thou hast told us that imperfect mortals cannot look on Thee and live, but through him, thy likeness so shines, that I can dimly see Thee. Do I not then in loving him, love Thee?” And she mused for an instant with a dubious smile, as if hope had began to dawn on her mind.
It was but for a short moment. Again her features darkened, and the cold shudder came back upon her. Life seemed struggling to escape from so bitter a trial. But her vital organization was so exquisite, that as she could enjoy, so must she also suffer.
“Oh! my God! my God!” broke passionately from her lips, “what blasphemy is this! Save me, Holy Mother! intercede for me with thy Son! the Evil One seeks to snare my soul,” and she knelt in prayer.