"The caverns of my mind are open," said Morley, "and they will not close."
"Stephen," said Sybil, "dear Stephen, I am grateful for your kind feelings: but indeed this is not the time for such pa.s.sages: cease, my friend!"
"I came to know my fate," said Morley, doggedly.
"It is a sacrilege of sentiment," said Sybil, unable any longer to restrain her emotion, "to obtrude its expression on a daughter at such a moment."
"You would not deem it so if you loved, or if you could love me, Sybil,"
said Morley, mournfully. "Why it"s a moment of deep feeling, and suited for the expression of deep feeling. You would not have answered thus, if he who had been kneeling here had been named Egremont."
"He would not have adopted a course," said Sybil, unable any longer to restrain her displeasure, "so selfish, so indecent."
"Ah! she loves him!" exclaimed Morley, springing on his legs, and with a demoniac laugh.
There was a pause. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances Sybil would have left the room and terminated a distressing interview, but in the present instance that was impossible; for on the continuance of that interview any hope of a.s.sisting her father depended. Morley had thrown himself into a chair opposite her, leaning back in silence with his face covered; Sybil was disinclined to revive the conversation about her father, because she had already perceived that Morley was only too much aware of the command which the subject gave him over her feelings and even conduct. Yet time, time now full of terror, time was stealing on. It was evident that Morley would not break the silence. At length, unable any longer to repress her tortured heart, Sybil said, "Stephen, be generous; speak to me of your friend."
"I have no friend," said Morley, without taking his hands from his face.
"The Saints in heaven have mercy on me," said Sybil, "for I am very wretched."
"No, no, no," said Morley, rising rapidly from his seat, and again kneeling at her side, "not wretched; not that tone of anguish! What can I do? what say? Sybil, dearest Sybil, I love you so much, so fervently, so devotedly; none can love you as I do: say not you are wretched!"
"Alas! alas!" said Sybil.
"What shall I do? what say?" said Morley.
"You know what I would have you say," said Sybil. "Speak of one who is my father, if no longer your friend: you know what I would have you do--save him: save him from death and me from despair."
"I am ready," said Morley; "I came for that. Listen. There is a meeting to-night at half-past eight o"clock; they meet to arrange a general rising in the country: their intention is known to the government; they will be arrested. Now it is in my power, which it was not when I saw your father this morning, to convince him of the truth of this, and were I to see him before eight o"clock, which I could easily do, I could prevent his attendance, certainly prevent his attendance, and he would be saved; for the government depend much upon the papers, some proclamations, and things of that kind, which will be signed this evening, for their proofs. Well, I am ready to save Gerard, my friend, for so I"ll call him as you wish it; one I have served before and long; one whom I came up from Mowbray this day to serve and save; I am ready to do that which you require; you yourself admit it is no light deed; and coming from one you have known so long, and, as you confess, so much regarded, should be doubly cherished; I am ready to do this great service; to save the father from death and the daughter from despair.
--if she would but only say to me, "I have but one reward, and it is yours.""
"I have read of something of this sort," said Sybil, speaking in a murmuring tone, and looking round her with a wild expression, "this bargaining of blood, and shall I call it love? But that was ever between the oppressors and the oppressed. This is the first time that a child of the people has been so a.s.sailed by one of her own cla.s.s, and who exercises his power from the confidence which the sympathy of their sorrows alone caused. It is bitter; bitter for me and mine--but for you, pollution."
"Am I answered?" said Morley.
"Yes," said Sybil, "in the name of the holy Virgin."
"Good night, then," said Morley, and he approached the door. His hand was on it. The voice of Sybil made him turn his head.
"Where do they meet to-night?" she inquired, in a smothered tone.
"I am bound to secrecy," said Morley.
"There is no softness in your spirit," said Sybil.
"I am met with none."
"We have ever been your friends."
"A blossom that has brought no fruit."
"This hour will be remembered at the judgment-seat," said Sybil.
"The holy Virgin will perhaps interpose for me," said Morley, with a sneer.
"We have merited this," said Sybil, "who have taken an infidel to our hearts."
"If he had only been a heretic, like Egremont!" said Morley. Sybil burst into tears. Morley sprang to her. "Swear by the holy Virgin, swear by all the saints, swear by your hope of heaven and by your own sweet name; without equivocation, without reserve, with fulness and with truth, that you will never give your heart or hand to Egremont;--and I will save your father."
As in a low voice, but with a terrible earnestness, Morley dictated this oath, Sybil, already pale, became white as the marble saint of some sacred niche. Her large dark eyes seemed fixed; a fleet expression of agony flitted over her beautiful brow like a cloud; and she said, "I swear that I will never give my hand to--"
"And your heart, your heart," said Morley eagerly. "Omit not that.
Swear by the holy oaths again you do not love him. She falters! Ah! she blushes!" For a burning brightness now suffused the cheek of Sybil. "She loves him," exclaimed Morley, wildly, and he rushed franticly from the room.
Book 5 Chapter 5
Agitated and overcome by these unexpected and pa.s.sionate appeals, and these outrageous ebullitions acting on her at a time when she herself was labouring under no ordinary excitement, and was distracted with disturbing thoughts, the mind of Sybil seemed for a moment to desert her; neither by sound nor gesture did she signify her sense of Morley"s last words and departure; and it was not until the loud closing of the street door echoing through the long pa.s.sage recalled her to herself, that she was aware how much was at stake in that incident. She darted out of the room to recall him; to make one more effort for her father; but in vain. By the side of their house was an intricate pa.s.sage leading into a labyrinth of small streets. Through this Morley had disappeared; and his name, more than once sounded in a voice of anguish in that silent and most obsolete Smith"s Square, received no echo.
Darkness and terror came over the spirit of Sybil; a sense of confounding and confusing woe, with which it was in vain to cope. The conviction of her helplessness prostrated her. She sate her down upon the steps before the door of that dreary house, within the railings of that gloomy court, and buried her face in her hands: a wild vision of the past and the future, without thought or feeling, coherence or consequence: sunset gleams of vanished bliss, and stormy gusts of impending doom.
The clock of St John"s struck seven.
It was the only thing that spoke in that still and dreary square; it was the only voice that there seemed ever to sound; but it was a voice from heaven; it was the voice of St John.
Sybil looked up: she looked up at the holy building. Sybil listened: she listened to the holy sounds. St John told her that the danger of her father was yet so much advanced. Oh! why are there saints in heaven if they cannot aid the saintly! The oath that Morley would have enforced came whispering in the ear of Sybil--"Swear by the holy Virgin and by all the saints."
And shall she not pray to the holy Virgin and all the saints? Sybil prayed: she prayed to the holy Virgin and all the saints; and especially to the beloved St John: most favoured among Hebrew men, on whose breast reposed the divine Friend.
Brightness and courage returned to the spirit of Sybil: a sense of animating and exalting faith that could move mountains, and combat without fear a thousand perils. The conviction of celestial aid inspired her. She rose from her sad resting-place and re-entered the house: only, however, to provide herself with her walking attire, and then alone and without a guide, the shades of evening already descending, this child of innocence and divine thoughts, born in a cottage and bred in a cloister, she went forth, on a great enterprise of duty and devotion, into the busiest and the wildest haunts of the greatest of modern cities.
Sybil knew well her way to Palace Yard. This point was soon reached: she desired the cabman to drive her to a Street in the Strand in which was a coffee-house, where during the last weeks of their stay in London the scanty remnants of the National Convention had held their sittings. It was by a mere accident that Sybil had learnt this circ.u.mstance, for when she had attended the meetings of the Convention in order to hear her father"s speeches, it was in the prime of their gathering and when their numbers were great, and when they met in audacious rivalry opposite that St Stephen"s which they wished to supersede. This accidental recollection however was her only clue in the urgent adventure on which she had embarked.
She cast an anxious glance at the clock of St Martin"s as she pa.s.sed that church: the hand was approaching the half hour of seven. She urged on the driver; they were in the Strand; there was an agitating stoppage; she was about to descend when the obstacle was removed; and in a few minutes they turned down the street which she sought.
"What number. Ma"am?" asked the cabman.
""Tis a coffee-house; I know not the number nor the name of him who keeps it. "Tis a coffee-house. Can you see one? Look, look, I pray you!
I am much pressed."
"Here"s a coffee-house, Ma"am," said the man in a hoa.r.s.e voice.
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"How good you are! Yes; I will get out. You will wait for me, I am sure?"