For some moments after Smythje was gone, Kate Vaughan remained where he
had left her--silent and motionless as the sculptured marbles by her
side. Niobe was near; and, as if by accident, the eyes of the young
Creole turned upon the statue of the weeping daughter of Dione.
"Ah!" muttered she, struck with a strange thought; "unhappy mother of a
murdered offspring! If thy sadness was hard to endure as mine, thy
punishment must have been a pleasure. Would that I, like thee, were
suddenly turned into stone. Ah, me!"
And finishing her apostrophe with a profound sigh, she stood for some
time silently gazing upon the statue.
After a while her thoughts underwent some change; and along with it her
eyes wandered away from the statues and the shrubbery. Her glance was
turned upward towards the mountain, and rested upon its summit--the
Jumbe Rock now glittering gaily under the full sheen of the sunlight.
"There," soliloquised she, in a low murmur, "upon that rock, and there
only, have I felt one hour of true happiness--that happiness of which I
have read in books of romance, without believing in; but which I now
know to be real--to gaze into the eyes of him you love, and think, as I
then thought, that you are loved in return. Oh! it was bliss! it was
bliss!"
The remembrance of that brief interview with her cousin--for it was to
that her words referred--came so forcibly before the mind of the
impassioned young Creole as to stifle her utterance, and for a moment or
two she was silent.
Again she continued--"An hour, have I said? Ah! scarce a minute did the
sweet delusion last; but had I my choice I would rather live that minute
over again, than all the rest of my past life--certainly, than all of it
that is to come!" Again she paused in her speech, still gazing upon the
rock--whose sparkling surface seemed purposely presented to her eyes, as
if to cheer her heart with the sweet _souvenir_ it recalled.
"Oh! I wonder," she exclaimed at length, "I wonder how it would be,
were I but up there again! To stand on the spot where I stood! Could I
fancy him, as then, beside me? Could I recall the look he gave me, and
my own sweet thoughts as I returned it? Oh! it would be like some
delicious dream!"
Passion again called for a pause; but soon after, her reflections found
speech.
"And why should I not indulge in it? why not? What harm can it do me?
Even if the _souvenir_ should bring sadness, it cannot add to that which
now overwhelms me. No; I need not fear to tempt the trial; and I shall.
This very hour shall I go up and stand upon that same spot. There
shall I invoke the past, and give to memory, to fancy, its fullest play.
I need not fear. There will be no witness but the heaven above and the
God who dwells in it--alike witness to the sacrifice of a broken heart
made in the fulfilment of my duty."
On completing this impassioned speech, the young girl raised a kerchief
of white cambric which she carried in her hand, and hastily adjusting it
over the luxuriant plaits of her hair, glided towards the rear of the
mansion.
She did not turn aside to enter the house, nor even to warn any one of
her sudden determination, but, hastening on, soon reached the back of
the garden.
There a small wicket-gate gave her egress into the woods--a path from
that point trending in traverses, zigzag fashion, up the mountain slope.
It was the same path she had followed upon the day of the eclipse; but
how different were the thoughts that now agitated her bosom from those
she had indulged in upon that memorable occasion! Even then, it is
true, her spirits were far from being cheerful; but still there was hope
ahead. She had not then arrived at the full knowledge of Herbert's
indifference towards her--of his determination towards her more
fortunate rival. The circumstances that had since transpired--the
scenes that had come under her own observation--the rumours heard and
too substantially confirmed--all had combined to extinguish that little
gleam of hope so faint and feebly flickering.
Indeed, there was upon that very morning a new thought in her mind,
calculated still further to render her sad and humiliated.
The revelations which her father had made before starting on his
journey--the admissions as to the inferiority of her race, and
contingently of her social rank, which he had been compelled to make--
had produced, and no wonder, a painful impression upon the spirits of
the quinteroon.
She could not help asking herself whether Herbert's disregard of her had
aught to do with this? Was it possible that her own cousin was
slighting her on account of this social distinction? Did he, too, feel
shy of the _taint_? More than once during that day had she mentally put
these interrogatories without being able to determine whether they
merited a negative or affirmative answer.
And what was her errand now? To resuscitate within her soul the memory
of one moment of bliss--to weave still more inextricably around her
heart the spell that was threatening to strangle it--to stifle the
happiness of her whole life.
But that was already gone. There could be no daring now--no danger
worth dread.
The zigzag path she ascended with free step and air undaunted--her fair,
bright form gleaming, meteor-like, amid the dark-green foliage of the
forest.
Volume Three, Chapter XII.