And during dinner, he was the life of that little party. He spoke of foreign lands--related strange incidents of travel--dwelt with animation on his schoolboy exploits. The old man was delighted--the husband forgot his wife;--and she, the false one, sat silent, and for the moment disregarded. She gazed and gazed again on that familiar face--drank in the tones of that accustomed voice--and the chill of compunction crept over her frame.
But Delancey's brain was on fire; and in the solitude of his chamber--no! he was not calm there. He paced hurriedly across the oaken floor; and he opened wide his window, and looked out on the bright stars, spangling heaven's blue vault; and then beneath him, where the cypress trees bowed their heads to the wind, and the moon's light fell on the marble statues on the terrace.
And he turned to his bed-side, and hid his tearless face in his hands; and in the fulness of his despair, he knelt and prayed, that though he had long neglected his God, his God would not now forsake him. And, as if to mock his sufferings, sleep came; but it was short, very short; and a weight, a leaden weight, oppressed his eye-lids even in slumber. And he gave one start, and awoke a prey to mental agony. His despair flashed on him--he sprung up wildly in his bed. "Liar! liar!" said he, as with clenched teeth, and hand upraised, he recalled that fond look given to another. Drops of sweat started to his brow--his pulse beat quick and audibly--quicker--quicker yet. A feeling of suffocation came over him--and God forgive him! Oliver Delancey deemed that hour his last. He staggered blindly to the bell, and with fearful energy pulled its cord, till it fell clattering on the marble hearth stone. The domestics found him speechless and insensible on the floor--the blood oozing from his mouth and ears.
It may be said that this picture is overcharged; that no vitiated mind could have thus felt. But it is not so. In life's spring we all feel acutely: and to the effects of disappointed love, and wounded pride, there are few limits.
Woman! dearest woman! born to alleviate our sorrow, and soothe our anguish! who canst bid feeling's tear trickle down the obdurate cheek, or mould the iron heart, till it be pliable as a child's--why stain thy gentle dominion by inconstancy? why dismiss the first form that haunted thy maiden pillow, until--or that vision is a dear reality beside thee--or thou liest pale and hushed, on thy last couch of repose?
And then--shall not thy virgin spirit hail him? Why first fetter us, slaves to virtue and to thee; then become the malevolent Typhoon, on whose wings our good genius flies for ever? In this--far worse than the iconoclasts of yore art thou! They but disfigured images of man's rude fashioning: whilst thou wouldst injure the once loved form of God's high creation,--wouldst entail on the body a premature decay--and on that which dieth not, an irradicable blight.
"Then the mortal coldness of the soul, like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others woes--it dares not dream its own.
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears;
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears."
On such a character as was Delancey's, the blow did indeed fall heavy. Not that his paroxysms of grief were more lasting, or his pangs more acute, than is usual in similar cases; but to his moral worth it was death. An infliction of this nature, falling on a comparatively virtuous man, is productive of few evil consequences. It may give a holier turn to his thoughts--wean him from sublunary vanities--and purify his nature. On an utterly depraved man, its effects may be fleeting also; for few can here expect a moral regeneration. But falling on Delancey, it was not thus. The slender thread that bound him to virtue, was snapt asunder; the germ whence the good of his nature might have sprung, destroyed for ever. Such a man could not love purely again. To expect him to wander to another font, and imbibe from as clear a stream, would be madness. The love of a man of the world, let it be the first and best, is gross and earthly enough; but let him be betrayed in that love--let him see the staff on which he confidingly leant, break from under him--and he becomes from henceforth the deceiver--but never the deceived. When Delmé saw him, Delancey was writhing under his affliction. When he again entered the world, and it was soon, he regarded it as a wide mart, where he might gratify his appetites, and unrestrainedly indulge his evil propensities. He believed not that virtue and true nobility were there; could he but find them. He looked at the blow his happiness had sustained, and thought it afforded a fair sample of human nature. Oliver Delancey became a selfish and a profligate man.
He was to be pitied; and from his soul did Delmé pity him. He had been one of promise and of talent; but now his lot is cast on the die of apathy;--and it is to be feared--without a miracle intervene--and should his life be spared--that when the wavy locks of youth are changed to the silver hairs of age--that he will then be that thing of all others to be scoffed at--the hoary sensualist. Let us hope not! Let us hope that she who hath brought him to this, may rest her head on the bosom of her right lord, and forget the one, whose hand used to be locked in her own, for hours--hours which flew quick as summer's evening shadows! Let us trust that remorse may be absent from her; that she may never know that worst of reflections--the having injured one who had loved her, irremediably; that she may gaze on her fair-haired children, and her cheek blanch not as she recals another form than the father's; that her life may be irreproachable, her end calm and dignified; that dutiful children may attend the inanimate clay to its resting place; that filial tears may bedew her grave; and, when the immortal stands appalled before its Judge, that the destruction of that soul may not be laid to her charge.