He gave me the letter. It was, like the writer, a pretty melange; trifles gracefully expressed; strong sense expressed like trifles; feeling carried off with a laugh; and palpable and fond anxiety for Lafontaine couched in the most merciless badinage. While I gave this missive a second, and even a third perusal—for it finished with some gentle mention of the being whose name was a charm to my wearied spirit—my eyes accidentally fell on Lafontaine. His were fixed on me with an expression of inconceivable distress. At length his generous nature broke forth.
"Marston, if I were capable of jealousy, I should be jealous of you and of Mariamne. What can be the caprice which dictated that letter? what can be the interest which you evidently take in it? I wish that the bullet which laid me at your door this evening had finished its work, and put an end to an existence which has been a perpetual fever. I shall not ask what Mariamne has said to you—but I am miserable."
"Yes, but you shall ask, and shall have all you ask," said I, giving him the letter. "It is the language of the heart, and of a heart strongly attached to you. I can see affection in every line of it. Of course she mingles a little coquetry with her sentiment; but was there ever a pretty woman, who was not more or less a coquette? She is a gem: never think it the less pure because it sparkles. Rely upon your little Mariamne."
"Then you have no sincere regard for her—no wish to interfere with my claims?" said my pallid friend, dubiously extending his hand towards me.
"Lafontaine, listen to me, and for the last time on the subject. I have a very sincere regard for her." (My sensitive auditor started.) "But, I have also a perfect respect for your claims. It is impossible not to acknowledge the animated graces of the lady on whom you have fixed your affections. But mine are fixed where I have neither hope to sustain them, nor power to change.—Those matters have nothing to do with choice. They are effects without a cause, judgments without a reason, influences without an impulse—the problems of our nature, without a solution since the beginning of the world."
"But, Marston, you will only laugh at me for all my troubles."
"Lafontaine, I shall do no such thing. Those pains and penalties have been the lot of some of the noblest hearts and most powerful minds that the earth has ever seen; and have been most keenly felt by the noblest and the most powerful. The poet only tells the truth more gracefully when he says—
"'The spell of all spells that enamours the heart,
To few is imparted, to millions denied;
'Tis the brain of the victim that poisons the dart,
And fools jest at that by which sages have died.'
"But now, my friend, let us talk of other things. We must not sink into a pair of sentimentalists; these are terrible times. And now, tell me what brought you out of quiet England among our madmen here?"
"I may now tell all the world," was the reply, "for the evil is done beyond remedy. I was sent by our friends in London, to carry the last warning to the royal family of all that has happened this day. My papers contained the most exact details, the names of the leaders, their objects, their points of assembling, and even their points of attack. Those were furnished, as you may conceive, by one of the principal conspirators; a fellow whom I afterwards saw on horseback in front of the Tuileries, and whom, I think, I had the satisfaction of dismounting by a shot from my carbine."