SED REVOCARE GRADUM!--
The fatigue, drenching, and terror of the unlucky day's sail produced
their natural effects upon a rather delicate constitution. Miss Sandford
was ill the following day, and, in spite of the doctors, a fever set in.
Her sister-in-law was assiduous in her attentions, and Greenleaf called
daily with inquiries and tender messages. While thus occupied, he had
little time to consider the real state of his feelings towards the new
love, still less to reflect upon his conduct towards the old. For the
first time in his life he became a coward. If he meant to abide by his
last engagement, honor should have led him to break the unwelcome news
to Alice as best he might, and extricate himself from his false and
embarrassing position. If he still loved the girl of his first choice,
and felt that his untruth to her was only the result of a transient,
sensuous passion, it was equally plain that he must resolutely break
away from the beautiful tempter. But he oscillated, pendulum-like,
between the two. When Marcia began to recover, and he was allowed to see
her in her chamber, the influence she had at first exerted returned upon
him with double force. In her helplessness, she appealed powerfully
to the chivalric sentiment which man feels towards the dependent; her
tones, softened by affection and tremulous from weakness, thrilled his
soul; and the touch of her hand was electric. When he returned to his
studio, as he thought of the trustful, unsuspecting, generous heart of
Alice, he was smitten with a pang of remorse too keen to be borne. He
tried to look at her picture, but the face was to him like the sight of
a reproving angel. He could not look steadily upon the placid features;
the calm eyes turned his heart to stone; the sweet mouth was an accuser
he dared not face. But when next he saw Marcia, all was forgotten; while
under her spell he could have braved the world, only too happy to live
and die for her.
For days this struggle continued. His art had no power to amuse him or
engross his thought. His friends were neglected,--Easelmann with the
rest. His enemy could not have wished to see him more completely
miserable. He knew that he must decide, must act; but whatever might be
his determination, he had a most painful duty to perform. Let him do
what he might, he must prove himself a villain. He loathed, detested
himself. Sometimes he was tempted to fly; but then he reflected that he
should in that way prove a scoundrel to two women instead of one. For
three weeks he had not written to Alice, and the last letter he had
received from her was now a month old. He took it from his pocket, where
it lay among the perfumed and tinted evidences of his unfaithfulness. It
was a simple thing, but how the gentle words smote upon his heart!
"MY DEAR GEORGE, (_her_ dear George!)--How I wish I could be with you,
to rejoice over your success! You are really a great artist, the papers
say, and are becoming famous! Not that I love you the more for that. If
you were still unknown to the world, still only a lover of beauty for
its own sake, and content with painting for your own pleasure, I am not
sure that I should not love you the more. But you will believe me, that
I am proud of your success. If I am ambitious, it is for you. I would
have the world see and know you as I do. Yet not as I do,--nobody can
do that. To the world you are a great painter. To me--ah, my dearest
George!--you are the noblest and truest heart that ever woman rested
upon. Nobody but me knows that. I shall be proud of the homage the world
gives you, because at the same time I shall say, 'That is my betrothed,
my husband, whom they praise; what his heart is, no woman knows but
me'"----
He could read no farther. His emotions were too powerful to be borne in
silence. He yielded, and, strong man as he was, bowed his head and wept.
The tears of childhood, and oftentimes the tears of woman, lie shallow;
they come at the first bidding of sorrow or sympathy. But it is no
common event, no common feeling, that prevails over man; nothing less
than a convulsion like an earthquake unseals the fountain of tears in
him. Whoever has seen the agony of a manly nature in groans and tears
and sobs has something to remember for a life-time.
It was a long night,--a night of unutterable suffering, struggle, and
doubt. The hours seemed shod with lead. Sleep seemed banished from the
universe. But with the coming of dawn the tempest was stilled. In the
clear light of day the path of duty seemed plain. He felt sure that in
his heart of hearts he loved Alice, and her only. He would go at once to
Marcia and tell her of his perfidy, implore the forgiveness of silence
and charity, and bid her farewell. When he had reached this conclusion
he became calm. As he looked out from his window, he saw the world awake
from slumber, and he shared in the gladness of Nature. He even rejoiced
in the prospect of deliverance from his wretched condition, although he
well knew the humiliation he must pass through to attain it. He waited
impatiently for the hour when he could present himself before Marcia,
own his duplicity, and take leave of her. He felt strong in his new
resolution. All vacillation was past. He could face any temptation
without one flutter of inconstancy towards his first-love.
Greenleaf was not the only one in the city with whom the night had
passed heavily. The cloud still hung over the mercantile world.
Failures, by dozens, were announced daily. Men heard the dismal
intelligence, as in time of pestilence they would hear the report of
the dead and dying. No business-man felt secure. No amount of property,
other than ready money, was any safeguard. Neighbor met neighbor,
asking, with doleful accent, "Where is this going to end?" The street,
at 'change hours, presented a crowd of haggard faces, furrowed
with care, their eyes fixed and despairing. Some looked white with
apprehension, some crushed and tearful, others stony, sullen, or
defiant. Whatever was bravest had been drawn out in manly
endeavor; whatever was most generous was excited to sympathy and
brotherly-kindness; whatever was most selfish was stimulated by the
fierce desire for self-preservation; whatever was most fiendish was
roused by blind rage and useless resentment. In the halcyon days of
plenty and prosperity men know little of each other; trade has its
accustomed way; balances are smoothly adjusted; notes are given and paid
with smiling faces; one would think that honor and manliness were the
commonest of qualities. Now, every man was put to the severest proof,
and showed the inborn and essential traits of his nature. Like a ship's
crew on a raft, alone on the ocean without provisions, they looked at
each other as they were. There, in their extremity, were to be seen
calm resignation, unmanly terror, moody despair, turbulent passion, and
stealthy, fiendish glances that blinked not at cannibalism itself.
Mr. Sandford, almost for the first time in his life, had been
rendered nervous with apprehension. To be sure, he was not one of the
"sleek-headed men that sleep o' nights"; he was always busy with some
scheme; but, heretofore, success had followed every plan, and he had
gone on with steadfast confidence. Now the keenest foresight was of
no avail; events defied calculation; misfortunes came without end and
without remedy. It was the moment of fate to him. He had gone to the
last verge, exhausted every resource, and, if there were not some help,
as unlooked for as a shower of gold from heaven, he must stop payment
--he, whose credit had been spotless and without limit, whose name in
the financial world was honor itself, whose influence had been a tower
of strength in every undertaking. It was not without a struggle that he
brought himself to look this inexorable fact in the face. Marcia and his
sister-in-law heard him as he paced the room through the night; they had
noticed his abstracted and downcast air the preceding evening; and at
breakfast the few words that escaped from between his firm-set lips were
sufficiently ominous. It was the first morning that Marcia had appeared
at the table, and in her feeble condition the apprehension of danger
was intense and overpowering. Mrs. Sandford tried in vain to change
the conversation, by significant glances towards the invalid; but the
brother was too much absorbed to notice anything outside of the gloomy
circle that hemmed him in. Muttering still of "ruin," "beggary," and
similar topics, so admirably adapted to cheer the convalescent, he
swallowed his breakfast like an animal, left the room without his usual
bland "good morning," and slammed the street-door after him.
A fit of hysterics was the natural consequence. The kind and sisterly
widow bore, rather than led, Marcia to an upper room, propped her with
pillows in an arm-chair, and employed every tender and womanly art to
soothe her excited nerves. Calmness came, but only with exhaustion.
The door-bell rang. Mrs. Sandford gave an inaudible direction to the
servant. But Marcia exclaimed, "It is George! I heard his step on the
pavement. I must see him. Let him in." Mrs. Sandford remonstrated to no
purpose, and then went to her own room.
It _was_ "George." He entered the room with a pale face, and a look
betokening both suffering and resolution. He was evidently struck by the
appearance of Miss Sandford, rightly judging that she was not able
to bear what he had come to tell her. He would have uttered a few
commonplace courtesies, and deferred his weighty communication to
another time. But Marcia's senses were preternaturally sharpened; weak
as a vine without its trellis, instinct seemed to guide her to clasp
by every tendril the support to which she had been wont to cling. She
noticed a certain uneasiness in Greenleaf's demeanor; ready to give
the worst interpretation to everything, she exclaimed, in a quick,
frightened manner, "George, dear George, what is the matter? You are
cold, you are distant. Are _you_ in trouble, too, like all the world?"
"Deeply in trouble," he answered gravely,--still standing, hat in hand.
"Trouble that I cannot soothe?"
"I am afraid not."
"And you won't tell me?"
"Not to-day."
"Then you don't love me."
Greenleaf was silent; his lips showing the emotion he strove to control.
Her voice took a more cheerful tone, as if she would assure herself,
and, with a faint smile, she said,--
"You are silent; but I am only childish. You do love me,--don't you,
George?"
"As much as I ever did."
A mean subterfuge; for though it was true, perhaps, to him, he knew it
was a falsehood to her. She attempted to rise from her chair; he sprang
to support her.
"You are so gloomy, reserved, to-day!" she continued.
Still Greenleaf was silent. He aided her to resume her seat; but when he
had done so, she detained him, seizing his arm and then his hand. His
heart beat rapidly, and he turned away his head to avoid the fond but
keen scrutiny of her eyes,--at the same time gently, but ineffectually,
attempting to free his hand. Once more he resolved, since the
conversation had taken such a turn, to risk the consequences, and
prepare her mind for a separation. But a sudden thought struck her, and,
before he could frame a sentence, she spoke:--
"You have heard bad news this morning?"
He shook his head.
"No,--I know you are not mercenary; I would not wrong you with the
suspicion."
"What suspicion, pray?" he asked, turning suddenly towards her.
"You have not heard?"
"I have heard nothing."
"Pity my foolishness. But my brother is in difficulty; he may fail;
perhaps has failed even now. Pray, don't chide me for my fears. All the
world goes with the rich and the prosperous."
"The world has very little company just now, then," said Greenleaf, with
a grim smile. "But assure yourself," he continued; "the dowry of my wife
is a matter I have never considered. _With the woman I love_," said he,
with deep emphasis, "honest poverty is what I do not dread."
Interpreting this fervent declaration in the natural way, Marcia reached
forth her arms with sudden fervor, drew him nearer, and covered his
forehead, lips, and cheeks with kisses. Every kiss fell like a spot
of mildew on his flesh; her caresses filled him with shame. Could he
undeceive her? In her feeble condition, the excitement into which she
had been thrown by her brother's danger was all she could bear. False as
his position was, heartless and empty as his soothing words and caresses
were, he must continue to wear the mask, and show himself as he was at
some time when she had no other trouble to weigh her down. Still she
chid his gloomy reserve, his absent air, and mechanical movements. Was
he weak, if under such influences his fixed resolves bent?--if his
nerves felt the old thrill?--if his voice took a softer tone?--and if
he parted from her with something of his former tenderness? He tried to
excuse himself to his conscience by the plea, that the deception once
begun must be kept up until it could be ended with safety. For he saw
that her heart was really bound up in him. She no longer kept up the
brilliant fence of repartee; she had abandoned all coquettish arts, and,
for once at least, was sincerely, fondly, even foolishly, in love. Home
he went, sadder than before, his conscience yet more aroused, and his
resolutions farther than ever from accomplishment.
Poor little Alice!