PART III.
For there were seen in that dark wall,
Two niches, narrow, dark and tall.
Who enters by such grisly door,
Shall ne'er, I ween, find exit more.—Walter Scott.
It would be wonderful, were it not of daily occurrence, and to be observed by all who give attention to the characteristics of the human mind, how quickly confidence, even when shaken to its very foundations, and almost obliterated, springs up again, and recovers all its strength in the bosoms of the young of either sex.
Let but a few more years pass over the heart, and when once broken, if it be only by a slight suspicion, or a half unreal cause, it will scarce revive again in a life-time; nor then, unless proofs the strongest and most unquestionable can be adduced to overpower the doubts which have well-nigh annihilated it.
In early youth, however, before long contact with the world has blunted the susceptibilities, and hardened the sympathies of the soul, before the constant experience of the treachery, the coldness, the ingratitude of men has given birth to universal doubt and general distrust, the shadow vanishes as soon as the cloud which cast it is withdrawn, and the sufferer again believes, alas! too often, only to be again deceived.
Thus it was with St. Renan, who a few minutes before had given up even the last hope, who had ceased, as he thought, to believe even in the possibility of faith or honor among men, of constancy, or purity, or truth in women, no sooner saw his Melanie, whom he knew to be the wife of another, solitary and in tears, no sooner felt her inanimate form reclining on his bosom, than he was prepared to believe any thing, rather than believe her false.
Indeed, her consternation at his appearance, her evident dismay, not unnatural in an age wherein skepticism and infidelity were marvelously mingled with credulity and superstition, her clear conviction that it was not himself in mortal blood and being, did go far to establish the fact, that she had been deceived either casually or—which was far more probable—by foul artifice, into the belief that her beloved and plighted husband was no longer with the living.
The very exclamation which she uttered last, ere she sunk senseless into his arms, uttered, as she imagined, in the presence of the immortal spirit of the injured dead, "I am true, Raoul—true to the last, my beloved!" rang in his ears with a power and a meaning which convinced him of her veracity.
"She could not lie!" he muttered to himself, "in the presence of the living dead! God be praised! she is true, and we shall yet be happy!"
How beautiful she looked, as she lay there, unconscious and insensible even of her own existence. If time and maturity had improved Raoul's person, and added the strength and majesty of manhood to the grace and pliability of youth, infinitely more had it bestowed on the beauty of his betrothed. He had left her a beautiful girl just blooming out of girlhood, he found her a mature, full-blown woman, with all the flush and flower of complete feminine perfection, before one charm has become too luxuriant, or one drop of the youthful dew exhaled from the new expanded blossom.