To this speech Helena had nothing to answer: her sobs and tears choked all utterance. She hid her face with her handkerchief, and sat powerless and overwhelmed with despair. Ormond traversed the room uneasily, sometimes moving to and fro with quick steps, sometimes standing and eyeing her with looks of compa.s.sion. At length he spoke:--

"It is time to leave you. This is the first night that you will spend in dreary solitude. I know it will be sleepless and full of agony; but the sentence cannot be recalled. Henceforth regard me as a brother. I will prove myself one. All other claims are swallowed up in a superior affection." In saying this, he left the house, and, almost without intending it, found himself in a few minutes at Mr. Dudley's door.

CHAPTER VII.

The politeness of Melbourne had somewhat abated Mr. Dudley's aversion to society. He allowed himself sometimes to comply with urgent invitations.

On this evening he happened to be at the house of that gentleman. Ormond entered, and found Constantia alone. An interview of this kind was seldom enjoyed, though earnestly wished for, by Constantia, who was eager to renew the subject of her first conversation with Ormond. I have already explained the situation of her mind. All her wishes were concentred in the marriage of Helena. The eligibility of this scheme, in every view which she took of it, appeared in a stronger light. She was not aware that any new obstacle had arisen. She was free from the consciousness of any secret bias. Much less did her modesty suspect that she herself would prove an insuperable impediment to this plan.

There was more than usual solemnity in Ormond's demeanour. After he was seated, he continued, contrary to his custom, to be silent. These singularities were not un.o.bserved by Constantia. They did not, however, divert her from her purpose.

"I am glad to see you," said she. "We so seldom enjoy the advantage of a private interview. I have much to say to you. You authorize me to deliberate on your actions, and, in some measure, to prescribe to you.

This is a province which I hope to discharge with integrity and diligence. I am convinced that Helena's happiness and your own can be secured in one way only. I will emulate your candour, and come at once to the point. Why have you delayed so long the justice that is due to this helpless and lovely girl? There are a thousand reasons why you should think of no other alternative. You have been pleased to repose some degree of confidence in my judgement. Hear my full and deliberate opinion. Make Helena your wife. This is the unequivocal prescription of your duty."

This address was heard by Ormond without surprise; but his countenance betrayed the acuteness of his feelings. The bitterness that overflowed his heart was perceptible in his tone when he spoke:--

"Most egregiously are you deceived. Such is the line with which human capacity presumes to fathom futurity. With all your discernment you do not see that marriage would effectually destroy me. You do not see that, whether beneficial or otherwise in its effects, marriage is impossible.

You are merely prompting me to suicide: but how shall I inflict the wound? Where is the weapon? See you not that I am powerless? Leap, say you, into the flames. See you not that I am fettered? Will a mountain move at your bidding? Sooner than I in the path which you prescribe to me."

This speech was inexplicable. She pressed him to speak less enigmatically. Had he formed his resolution? If so, arguments and remonstrances were superfluous. Without noticing her interrogatories, he continued:--

"I am too hasty in condemning you. You judge, not against, but without knowledge. When sufficiently informed, your decision will be right. Yet how can you be ignorant? Can you for a moment contemplate yourself and me, and not perceive an insuperable bar to this union?"

"You place me," said Constantia, "in a very disagreeable predicament. I have not deserved this treatment from you. This is an unjustifiable deviation from plain dealing. Of what impediment do you speak. I can safely say that I know of none."

"Well," resumed he, with augmented eagerness, "I must supply you with knowledge. I repeat, that I perfectly rely on the rect.i.tude of your judgement. Summon all your sagacity and disinterestedness and choose for me. You know in what light Helena has been viewed by me. I have ceased to view her in this light. She has become an object of indifference.

Nay, I am not certain that I do not hate her,--not indeed for her own sake, but because I love another. Shall I marry her whom I hate, when there exists one whom I love with unconquerable ardour?"

Constantia was thunderstruck with this intelligence. She looked at him with some expression of doubt. "How is this?" said she. "Why did you not tell me this before?"

"When I last talked with you on this subject I knew it not myself. It has occurred since. I have seized the first occasion that has offered to inform you of it. Say now, since such is my condition, ought Helena to be my wife?"

Constantia was silent. Her heart bled for what she foresaw would be the sufferings and forlorn destiny of Helena. She had not courage to inquire further into this new engagement.

"I wait for your answer, Constantia. Shall I defraud myself of all the happiness which would accrue from a match of inclination? Shall I put fetters on my usefulness? This is the style in which you speak. Shall I preclude all the good to others that would flow from a suitable alliance? Shall I abjure the woman I love, and marry her whom I hate?"

"Hatred," replied the lady, "is a harsh word. Helena has not deserved that you should hate her. I own this is a perplexing circ.u.mstance. It would be wrong to determine hastily. Suppose you give yourself to Helena: will more than yourself be injured by it? Who is this lady?

Will she be rendered unhappy by a determination in favour of another?

This is a point of the utmost importance."

At these words Ormond forsook his seat, and advanced close up to Constantia:--"You say true. This is a point of inexpressible importance.

It would be presumption in me to decide. That is the lady's own province. And now, say truly, are you willing to accept Ormond with all his faults? Who but yourself could be mistress of all the springs of my soul? I know the sternness of your probity. This discovery will only make you more strenuously the friend of Helena. Yet why should you not shun either extreme? Lay yourself out of view. And yet, perhaps the happiness of Constantia is not unconcerned in this question. Is there no part of me in which you discover your own likeness? Am I deceived, or is it an incontrollable destiny that unites us?"

This declaration was truly unexpected by Constantia. She gathered from it nothing but excitements of grief. After some pause she said:--"This appeal to me has made no change in my opinion. I still think that justice requires you to become the husband of Helena. As to me, do you think my happiness rests upon so slight a foundation? I cannot love but when my understanding points out to me the propriety of love. Ever since I have known you I have looked upon you as rightfully belonging to another. Love could not take place in my circ.u.mstances. Yet I will not conceal from you my sentiments. I am not sure that, in different circ.u.mstances, I should not have loved. I am acquainted with your worth.

I do not look for a faultless man. I have met with none whose blemishes were fewer.

"It matters not, however, what I should have been. I cannot interfere, in this case, with the claims of my friend. I have no pa.s.sion to struggle with. I hope, in every vicissitude, to enjoy your esteem, and nothing more. There is but one way in which mine can be secured, and that is by espousing this unhappy girl."

"No!" exclaimed Ormond. "Require not impossibilities. Helena can never be any thing to me. I should, with unspeakably more willingness, a.s.sail my own life."

"What," said the lady, "will Helena think of this sudden and dreadful change? I cannot bear to think upon the feelings that this information will excite."

"She knows it already. I have this moment left her. I explained to her, in a few words, my motives, and a.s.sured her of my unalterable resolution. I have vowed never to see her more but as a brother; and this vow she has just heard."

Constantia could not suppress her astonishment and compa.s.sion at this intelligence:--"No surely; you could not be so cruel! And this was done with your usual abruptness, I suppose. Precipitate and implacable man!

Cannot you foresee the effects of this madness? You have planted a dagger in her heart. You have disappointed me. I did not think you could act so inhumanly."

"Nay, beloved Constantia, be not so liberal of your reproaches. Would you have me deceive her? She must shortly have known it. Could the truth be told too soon?"

"Much too soon," replied the lady, fervently. "I have always condemned the maxims by which you act. Your scheme is headlong and barbarous.

Could not you regard with some little compa.s.sion that love that sacrificed, for your unworthy sake, honest fame and the peace of virtue?

Is she not a poor outcast, goaded by compunction, and hooted at by a malignant and misjudging world? And who was it that reduced her to this deplorable condition? For whose sake did she willingly consent to brave evils, by which the stoutest heart is appalled? Did this argue no greatness of mind? Who ever surpa.s.sed her in fidelity and tenderness?

But thus has she been rewarded. I shudder to think what may be the event. Her courage cannot possibly support her against treatment so harsh, so perversely and wantonly cruel. Heaven grant that you are not shortly made bitterly to lament this rashness!"

Ormond was penetrated with these reproaches. They persuaded him for a moment that his deed was wrong; that he had not unfolded his intentions to Helena with a suitable degree of gentleness and caution. Little more was said on this occasion. Constantia exhorted him, in the most earnest and pathetic manner, to return and recant, or extenuate, his former declarations. He could not be brought to promise compliance. When he parted from her, however, he was half resolved to act as she advised.

Solitary reflection made him change this resolution, and he returned to his own house.

During the night he did little else than ruminate on the events of the preceding evening. He entertained little doubt of his ultimate success with Constantia. She gratified him in nothing, but left him every thing to hope. She had hitherto, it seems, regarded him with indifference, but this had been sufficiently explained. That conduct would be pursued, and that pa.s.sion be entertained, which her judgement should previously approve. What then was the obstacle? It originated in the claims of Helena. But what were these claims? It was fully ascertained that he should never be united to this girl. If so, the end contemplated by Constantia, and for the sake of which only his application was rejected, could never be obtained. Unless her rejection of him could procure a husband for her friend, it would, on her own principles, be improper and superfluous.

What was to be done with Helena? It was a terrible alternative to which he was reduced:--to marry her or see her perish. But was this alternative quite sure? Could not she, by time or by judicious treatment, be reconciled to her lot? It was to be feared that he had not made a suitable beginning: and yet, perhaps it was most expedient that a hasty and abrupt sentence should be succeeded by forbearance and lenity.

He regretted his precipitation, and though unused to the melting mood, tears were wrung from him by the idea of the misery which he had probably occasioned. He was determined to repair his misconduct as speedily as possible, and to pay her a conciliating visit the next morning.

He went early to her house. He was informed by the servant that her mistress had not yet risen. "Was it usual," he asked, "for her to lie so late?" "No," he was answered, "she never knew it happen before, but she supposed her mistress was not well. She was just going into her chamber to see what was the matter."

"Why," said Ormond, "do you suppose that she is sick?"

"She was poorly last night. About nine o'clock she sent out for some physic to make her sleep."

"To make her sleep?" exclaimed Ormond, in a fettering and affrighted accent.

"Yes: she said she wanted it for that. So I went to the 'pothecary's.

When I came back she was very poorly indeed. I asked her if I might not sit up with her. 'No,' she said, 'I do not want anybody. You may go to bed as soon as you please, and tell Fabian to do the same. I shall not want you again.'"

"What did you buy?"

"Some kind of water,--laud'num I think they call it. She wrote it down, and I carried the paper to Mr. Eckhart's, and he gave it to me in a bottle, and I gave it to my mistress."

"'Tis well: retire: I will see how she is myself."

Ormond had conceived himself fortified against every disaster: he looked for nothing but evil, and therefore, in ordinary cases, regarded its approach without fear or surprise. Now, however, he found that his tremors would not be stilled: his perturbations increased with every step that brought him nearer to her chamber. He knocked, but no answer was returned. He opened the door, advanced to the bed side, and drew back the curtains. He shrunk from the spectacle that presented itself.

Was this the Helena that, a few hours before, was blithesome with health and radiant with beauty? Her visage was serene, but sunken and pale.

Death was in every line of it. To his tremulous and hurried scrutiny every limb was rigid and cold.

The habits of Ormond tended to obscure the appearances, if not to deaden the emotions of sorrow. He was so much accustomed to the frustration of well-intended efforts, and confided so much in his own integrity, that he was not easily disconcerted. He had merely to advert, on this occasion, to the tumultuous state of his feelings, in order to banish their confusion and restore himself to calm. "Well," said he, as he dropped the curtain and turned towards another part of the room, "this, without doubt, is a rueful spectacle. Can it be helped? Is there in man the power of recalling her? There is none such in me.

"She is gone: well then, she _is_ gone. If she were fool enough to die, I am not fool enough to follow her. I am determined to live and be happy notwithstanding. Why not?