Stewart; and besides, if I must be candid, I have always entertained different views for her."
"Pardon me, but I believe I scarcely comprehend your meaning. You speak of other views for her; may I venture to ask the nature of these?"
"I have never expected her to marry at all, Mr. Stewart."
"And why not, pray? What can you urge in favor of your wishes?"
"I had her own words to that effect, scarce a month ago."
A proud, happy smile played round his lips, and he replied: "She may have thought so then, but I think her views have changed."
"But for Mary, she would have been the same;" and a bitter look pa.s.sed over her wrinkled face.
"Excuse me, if I ask an explanation of your enigmatical language; there is some hidden meaning, I well know."
"Mr. Stewart, your mother and I are old friends, and I wish you well; but all good Catholics love their church above every earthly thing. I should like to see Florence happy, but her eternal good should first be secured; you are a Protestant, and bitterly opposed to our Holy Church, and I cannot consent to see her marry a heretic, for such you are: she is too far astray already."
"If your niece were herself a Papist, your reason would indeed be a cogent one; but, under existing circ.u.mstances, I am puzzled to understand you."
"Were it not for Mary"s influence, Florence would even now rest in the bosom of our Holy Church. She has done her cousin a grievous wrong; may G.o.d and the blessed Virgin forgive her!"
Mary groaned in spirit, as she marked the stern glance of his eagle eye, and feebly raising herself, she said: "Mr. Stewart, will you take this seat beside the sofa? I wish to speak with you."
Aunt Lizzy left the room hurriedly, as though she had already said too much, and silently he complied with Mary"s request.
"You are pained and perplexed at what my aunt has just said; allow me to explain what may seem a great mystery. You are not aware that my uncle died a Papist. Weakened in body and mind by disease, he was sought and influenced in secret, when I little dreamed of such a change. On his death-bed he embraced the Romish faith, and, as I have since learned, exacted from Florry a promise to abide by the advice of his priest, in spiritual as well as temporal matters. He expired in the act of taking the sacrament, and our desolation of heart can be better imagined than described--left so utterly alone and unprotected, far from our relatives and the friends of our youth. I now marked a change in Florry, though at a loss to account for it. An influence, secret as that exerted on her lost parent, was likewise successful and, to my grief and astonishment, I found that she too had embraced papacy."
The door opened and Florence entered. She started on seeing her lover, but advanced to them much as usual. He raised his head, and cold and stern was the glance he bent on her beautiful face. She stood beside him, and rising, he placed a chair for her in perfect silence. Mary"s heart ached, as she noted the marble paleness which overspread her cousin"s cheek. Mr. Stewart folded his arms across his chest, and said in a low, stern, yet mournful tone:
"Florence, I could not have believed that you would have deceived me, as you have silently done."
Mournfully Florence looked for a moment on Mary"s face, yet there was no reproach in her glance; it seemed but to say--"You have wakened me from my dream of happiness."
She lifted proudly her head, and fixed her dark eye full on her lover.
"Explain yourself, Mr. Stewart; I have a right to know with what I am charged, though I almost scorn to refute that of deceit."
"Not a week since, Florence, you heard me avow my dislike of the tenets and practises of the Romish Church. I said then, as now, that no strong-minded, intelligent woman of the present age could consult the page of history and then say that she conscientiously believed its doctrines to be pure and scriptural, or its practises in accordance with the teachings of our Saviour. You tacitly concurred in my opinions. Florence, did you tell me you had once held those doctrines in reverence? Nay, that even now you lean to papacy?" Stern was his tone, and cold and slightly contemptuous his glance.
A bitter, scornful smile wreathed the lips of his betrothed. "I acknowledge neither the authority of questioning, nor allow the privilege of any on earth to impugn my motives or my actions. Had I felt it inc.u.mbent on me to acquaint you with every circ.u.mstance of my past life, I should undoubtedly have done so, when you offered me your hand. I felt no obligation to that effect, and consequently consulted my own inclinations. If, for a moment, you had doubted me, or asked an explanation of the past, I should have scorned to dissemble with you; and now that the subject is broached you shall have the particulars, which, I a.s.sure you, have kept well, though, as you suppose, sometime withheld. I have been a member of the Church of Rome: I have prayed to saints and the Virgin, counted beads and used holy water, and have knelt in confession to a priest of papal Rome. I did all this, thinking, for a time, my salvation dependent on it. You know all now."
Mr. Stewart regarded her sadly as she uttered these words, and his stern tone softened as he noticed her bloodless cheek and quivering lip.
"Florence, it is not your former belief or practise that gives me this pain, and saddens our future. If you were at this moment a professor of the Romish faith, I would still cherish and trust you: I should strive to convince you of your error--to point out the fallacy of your hopes. When I recall the circ.u.mstances by which you were surrounded, and the influences exerted, I scarcely wonder that, for a time, you lent your credence and support. But, Florence, full well you know that this is not what pains me. It is the consciousness that you have kept me in ignorance of what your own heart told you would show your momentary weakness, and led me to suppose you entertained a belief at variance with your practise. You have feared my displeasure more than the disregard of truth and candor. Florence, Florence! knowing how well I loved you, and what implicit confidence I reposed in you, how could you do this?"
"Again, Mr. Stewart, I repeat that I perceive no culpability in my conduct. Had I felt it my duty, your love or indifference would not have weighed an atom in my decision to act according to my sense of right and wrong."
He turned from her, and paced to and fro before the fire. Florence would have left the room, but Mary clasped her dress, and detained her.
"Mr. Stewart, you have been too harsh and hasty in your decision, and too severe in your remarks. Florry has not forfeited your love, though she acted imprudently. Ask your own heart whether you would be willing to expose to her eye your every foible and weakness. For you, like all G.o.d"s creatures, have faults of your own. Is there nothing you have left untold relative to your past? Oh! if you knew how deep and unutterable has been her love, even when she never again expected to meet you, you would forget this momentary weakness--a fault committed from the very intensity of her love, and fear lest she should sink in your estimation."
"Mary, if she had said, Dudley, I have not always felt as now, and my mind was darkened for a time, I should have loved her, if possible, more than before, for her n.o.ble candor. My own heart would have told me, This is one in whom you may eternally trust, for she risked the forfeiture of your love in order that truth might be unsullied.
How can I confide in one who values the esteem of man more than the approval of her own conscience? You have said her love was a palliation. No, you are wrong; it is an aggravation of her fault. She should have loved me too well to suffer me to discover by chance what should have been disclosed in confidence. Mary, her love is not greater than mine. None know how I have cherished her memory--how I have kept her loved image in my heart during our long separation. I would give every earthly joy or possession to retain her affection, for it is dearer to me than everything beside, save truth, candor, and honesty. I have nothing to conceal from her; I would willingly bare my secret soul to her scrutiny. There is nothing I should wish to keep back, unless it be the pain of this hour."
He paused by her side, and looked tenderly on the pale, yet lovely face of Florence.
"Mr. Stewart, shall one fault forever destroy your confidence in Florry, when she has declared that had she thought it inc.u.mbent on her to speak of these things--if she had felt as you do, she a.s.serts that nothing could have prevented her revealing every circ.u.mstance."
"Mary, I fear her code of morality is somewhat too lax; and the fact that she acknowledges no fault is far more painful than any other circ.u.mstance."
"Mary, I have omitted one thing which I wish him to know. I neglected to inform you, that the priest to whom I confessed is my half-brother!
I have now told you all; and thinking as you do, it is better that in future we forget the past and be as strangers to each other. That I have loved you fervently, I can never forget--neither your a.s.sertion that I am unworthy of your confidence."
She disengaged her dress from Mary"s clasp, and turned toward the door. Mr. Stewart caught her hand, and firmly held it. She struggled not to release herself, but lifted her dark eyes to his, and calmly met his earnest glance.
"Florence!"
There was a mournful tenderness in the deep tone. Her lip quivered, still her eyes fell not beneath his, piercing as an eagle"s.
"Mr Stewart, you have wronged her; you have been too severe." And Mary clasped his hand tightly, and looked up appealingly. He withdrew his hand.
"Florence, this is a bitter, bitter hour to me. Yet I may have judged too harshly: we will forget the past, and, in future, let no such cloud come between us."
"Not so, Mr. Stewart: if I am unworthy, how can you expect confidence from me? Think you I will change the code which you just now p.r.o.nounced too lax? Oh! you know not what you have done. It is no light thing to tell a woman of my nature she is unworthy of the love she prized above every earthly thing!" Her voice, despite her efforts, faltered.
"Florence, I have been too severe in my language, and you too proud and haughty. Full well we know that without the love of each other life would be joyless to both. Ours is not a common love; and again I say, let us forget the past, while, in future, need I ask you to keep nothing from me?"
He drew her to him as he spoke, and pa.s.sing his arm round her, pressed her to his heart. A long time Florence hid her head on his shoulder, as if struggling with her emotion, and then a heavy sob relieved her troubled heart. Closer he clasped her to him, and, laying his cheek on hers, murmured:
"My own darling Florence, forgive me, if I misjudged you; tell me that you will not remember my words--that this hour shall be to us a painful dream,"
She withdrew from his embrace, and, lifting her head, replied:
"I was wrong to doubt your love, or believe that you would think long of my weakness; but I am innocent of the charge of dissimulation, and never let us recur to the past"
She held out her hand, and clasping it in his, Mr. Stewart led her away.
An hour later Mary lay with closed eyes, too weary, from overexcitement, even to look about her. All had left the room, and a dim light from the hearth just faintly lighted the large, comfortless apartment. With noiseless step Dr. Bryant entered, and seating himself in the vacant chair, near Mary"s sofa, bent forward that he might look on the wan face of the sufferer. His heart ached as he noted the painful alteration of the last week, and gently and softly he took one of the thin white hands between his own. It was cold and damp, and, while he pressed it, the dark blue eyes rested earnestly on his face.
"I hoped you were sleeping, did I wake you?" and he laid the hand back, as she strove to withdraw it.
"No, I have not slept since morning."
"Oh! I am troubled at your constant suffering; is there anything I can do for you?"
"No, thank you, Doctor, I wish nothing."
"All my arrangements are completed, and to-morrow I return to your home. Can I deliver any message, or execute any commission?"