“And now, ever since the fatal day in which this conversation passed with my Charles, he is absent from court, and I know not whither he is gone. He has disdained to seek any further explanation, nor do I know how to appeal to his calmer feelings and more deliberate mind. One thing however I had determined on, and that was, Henry, strictly to avoid your society.
“I trust, wherever my Charles is, he will hear of this. I owe this expiation to his agonised feelings, and to the appearances that in some degree justify his misconstruction. I will wait patiently, till the simplicity and singleness of my conduct have cleared my faith. If I should otherwise have found pleasure and relief in your society, I will make a merit with myself of sacrificing this to the apprehensive delicacy of my Charles’s mind. In this single instance your importunity has prevailed with me to dispense with my rule: you were not to blame, and I thought upon more mature reflection that I owed you an explanation. But henceforth, if you have any kindness for me, or value for him who has acted and felt towards you like a brother, I must entreat you to co-operate with me in this, and that, whether in public or private, we may bestow no notice on each other, and avoid all opportunities of communication. To persuade you to this, was indeed a principal inducement with me so far to deviate from the rule I had laid down to myself, as to admit this conversation.”
I was extremely affected with the unhappiness of Pandora. I exerted myself to console her. I promised that nothing on my part should be wanting to remove every shadow of doubt that hung upon her fidelity, and I exhorted her to believe that every thing would infallibly terminate in the way most honourable and gratifying to herself. Pandora listened to me, and dried her tears. The conversation was interesting and soothing to us both; we regarded it as the last unreserved and sympathetic communication we should ever have with each other; it insensibly grew longer and longer, and we knew not how to put an end to it. We were still in this state of irresolution when, looking up, I perceived Charles de Damville approaching from the further end of the walk that led to the alcove.
I would have withdrawn. I was anxious to remove the unjust suspicion that hung upon his mind; but the instant that presented to him so strong an apparent confirmation of them, the instant that by so doing must have worked up his soul into tumult, did not appear a favourable one for explanation. To withdraw was impossible. Pandora had discerned her lover at the same moment with myself. She was seized with a faintness. She would have sunk to the ground; but I caught her in my arms. I rested with one knee on the earth; her head was reclined on my bosom. Charles approached with a quicker pace.
“Rise,” said he. “This is beyond my hopes. I left Presburg with the purpose of not revisiting it for years; but, as I proceeded further and further from a place which had lately been the centre of my affections, I began to doubt whether I had not acted with precipitation, and to believe that there was yet some uncertainty hanging on my fate. The seemingly earnest protestations of this delusive syren rung in my ears; mechanically, without any formed resolution, I changed my course, and returned on my steps. My doubts are now at an end. I find you taking instant advantage of my absence to throw yourselves into each other’s arms. The feelings I so lately uttered in your presence, Pandora, would have kept you apart, if my feelings had been in the least sacred in your eyes, if all my surmises had not been too true.”—He took by the hand the weeping Pandora, and led her to the seat which a little before she had quitted.
“Why all this artifice? Why all this deceit? It is said that we are not masters of our own hearts, and that no human passion is formed to endure for ever. Influenced by these maxims, I could have pardoned your inconstancy, too fair, too fickle Pandora! but why strain every nerve, to make me believe you still retained a passion you had discarded, to subject me to the lingering torture of deceit, instead of communicating to me a truth, agonising indeed to human frailty, but calculated to inspire fortitude and decision? This I cannot excuse: this racks me with the bitterest of disappointments, disappointment in the virtues I had ascribed to you; and convinces me, that you are neither worthy of me, nor worthy of happiness.
“And you too, D’Aubigny, you have acted a part in this unworthy plot, I rescued you from prison, from a dungeon from which, a few hours before, you had no hope of coming forth alive. I took you under my protection, when you had no friend; I placed you next myself; I conceived for you the affection of a brother; I loved you, next in degree to the mistress of my soul. In return for all that I have done, and all that I felt for you, you have with insidious heart and every base disguise, seduced from me the woman of my choice. Why not frankly and ingenuously have demanded her at my hands? The heart is free; your reciprocal passion, though I might have regretted it, I should have been unable to blame; it is the cloak that you have drawn over it, that proves the baseness of its origin. Do you think I had not the courage cheerfully and without a murmur to resign to you this illustrious fair one? I feel that I was worthy to be openly treated. Had I seen in you a mutual and ingenuous passion, I would not have been the bar to its just consummation. I would not have sought the person of a woman, whose heart, in spite perhaps of her better resolutions, was given to another. I should loathe myself for ever, were I capable of such a part. It was the sympathetic sentiment towards me, beating in accord to the sentiment of my own bosom, that I once saw in Pandora, and not either her peerless beauties, or the excellences I imputed to her mind, that formed the master-charm which fascinated my soul. I feel that I had the force, in the negation of my own happiness, to have drawn comfort and compensation from the happiness of two creatures I so dearly loved, as D’Aubigny and Pandora.
“But this alleviation in the midst of what you have condemned me to suffer, you have ungenerously denied me.”——
I sought to interrupt my son. I could no longer bear to see him involved in so painful an error, and not exert every nerve to rescue him from it. But his passions were wrought higher than mine: he would not suffer me to speak.