Calantha thought that madness had fallen upon his mind, and wept to think that talents such as his were darkened and shrouded over by so heavy a calamity. But when the fierce moment was passed, tears would force their way into his eyes, and placing her hand upon his burning head, he would call her his sole comforter, the only hope that was left him upon earth; his dearest, his only friend; and he would talk to her of happier times; of virtues that had been early blighted; of hopes that his own rashness and errors had destroyed.
It was one day, one dark and fatal day, when passion raging in his bosom, and time and opportunity at hand, he suddenly approached her, and seizing her with violence, asked her if she returned his love. “My friendship is ruin,” he cried; “all alliance with me must cast disgrace upon the object of my regard. But, Calantha, you must be mine! May I not even now call you thus? Shall they ever persuade you to abandon me? Vain is all attempt at disguise,” he continued; “I love you to madness and to distraction—you know it too well. Why then suffer me to feel the tortures I endure, when a word—a look from you could relieve me. You are not indifferent: say then that you are not—thou, who alone canst save me. Here even, in the presence of heaven, I will open my whole heart before you—that heart is seared with guilt; it is bleeding with venomed wounds, incurable and deadly. A few short years, I have perhaps yet to linger: thou mayest accelerate my fate, and plunge me still lower, whilst I cling to thee for mercy; but will you do it, because you have the power?”
Calantha scarce could support herself. After a moment’s pause, he continued, “You shall hear me.—Never, since the hour of my birth, never—I make no exception of either the living, or, what is far dearer and more sacred to me, the dead—never did I love with such mad and frantic violence as now. O seek not to disguise it; that love is returned. I read it even now in thine eyes, thy lips; and whilst, with assumed and barbarous coldness, you would drive me from you, your own heart pleads for me; and, like myself, you love.”
Faint and trembling, Calantha now leant for support upon that arm which surrounded her, and from which she, in vain, attempted to shrink. It was a dreadful moment. Glenarvon, who never yet had sued in vain, marked every varying turn of her countenance which too well expressed his empire and her own weakness. “I cannot live without you.—Mine you are—mine you shall ever be,” he said, “whilst this heart beats with life.” Then with a smile of exultation, he seized her in his arms.
Starting however with all the terror which the first approach to guilt must ever cause, “Spare me,” she cried, terrified and trembling: “even though my heart should break in the struggle, let me not act so basely by him to whom I am bound.”—“Say only, that you do not hate me—say only,” he continued, with more gentleness, and pressing her hand to his lips—“say only, that you share the tortures of agony you have inflicted—say that which I know and see—that I am loved to adoration—even as I love you.”
With tears she besought him to spare her. “I feel your power too much,” she said. “All that I ought not—must not say, I think and feel. Be satisfied; your empire is complete. Spare me—save me; I have not power to feign.” Her tears fell now unrestrained. “There is no need of this,” he said, recovering himself; “you have sealed my fate. A moment of passion beguiled me: I am calm now, as when first I met you—calm and cold, even as yourself. Since it is your wish, and since my presence makes your misery, let us part.—I go, as I have often said; but it shall be alone. My country I leave without regret; for the chain of tyranny has encompassed it: friends, I have none; and thou, who wert as an angel of light to me—to whom I knelt for safety and for peace—mayst thou be blest: this is all I ask of heaven. As for me, nothing can increase the misery I feel. I wish you not to believe it, or to share it. This is no lover’s despondency—no sudden and violent paroxysm occasioned by disappointed passion. It is uttered,” he continued, “in the hopelessness of despair: it is the confession, not the repining of a heart that was early blighted and destroyed.”
Calantha now interrupted him. “I alone am guilty,” she replied, “talk not of leaving me; we may still be friends—we must never be more.” “Oh! promise that we shall never be less.” Glenarvon looked on her with kindness. “Let no fears dissuade you until I shew myself unworthy of the trust. Forsake not him, whose only happiness is in your affection. I was joyless and without hope, when first I met you; but the return, to loneliness and misery, is hard to bear. Be virtuous, and, if it may be so, be happy.” “That I never more can be,” she answered. “You are young in sin yet,” said Glenarvon; “you know not its dangers, its pleasures, or its bitterness. All this, ere long, will be forgotten.” “Never forgotten,” she replied, “oh never!”
CHAPTER XX.
Glenarvon wandered forth every evening by the pale moon, and no one knew whither he went, and no one marked but Calantha how late was his return. And when the rain fell heavy and chill, he would bare his forehead to the storm; and faint and weary wander forth, and often he smiled on others and appeared calm, whilst the burning fever of his blood continued to rage within.
Once Calantha followed him, it was at sunset, and he shewed when he beheld her, no mark of surprise or joy. She followed him to the rocks called the Black Sisters, and the cleft in the mountain called the Wizzard’s Glen; there was a lonely cottage near the cleft where St. Clara, it was said, had taken up her abode. He knocked; but she was from home: he called; but no one replied from within. Her harp was left at the entrance of a bower: a few books and a table were also there. Glenarvon approached the harp and leaning upon it, fixed his eyes mournfully and stedfastly upon Calantha. “Others who formerly felt or feigned interest for me,” he said “were either unhappy in their marriage, or in their situation; but you brave every thing for me. Unhappy Calantha! how little do you know the heart for which you are preparing to sacrifice so much.”