“How like a younker or a prodigal,
The scarfed bark puts from her native bay!”
_Merchant of Venice_.
WE are apt to connect the voice of Conscience with the stillness of
midnight. But I think we wrong that innocent hour. It is that terrible
“NEXT MORNING,” when reason is wide awake, upon which remorse fastens
its fangs. Has a man gambled away his all, or shot his friend in a
duel--has he committed a crime or incurred a laugh--it is the _next
morning_, when the irretrievable Past rises before him like a spectre;
then doth the churchyard of memory yield up its grisly dead--then is the
witching hour when the foul fiend within us can least tempt perhaps, but
most torment. At night we have one thing to hope for, one refuge to fly
to--oblivion and sleep! But at morning, sleep is over, and we are called
upon coldly to review, and re-act, and live again the waking bitterness
of self-reproach. Maltravers rose a penitent and unhappy man--remorse
was new to him, and he felt as if he had committed a treacherous and
fraudulent as well as guilty deed. This poor girl, she was so innocent,
so confiding, so unprotected, even by her own sense of right. He went
down-stairs listless and dispirited. He longed yet dreaded to encounter
Alice. He heard her step in the conservatory--paused, irresolute, and at
length joined her. For the first time she blushed and trembled, and her
eyes shunned his. But when he kissed her hand in silence, she whispered,
“And am I now to leave you?” And Maltravers answered fervently, “Never!”
and then her face grew so radiant with joy that Maltravers was comforted
despite himself. Alice knew no remorse, though she felt agitated and
ashamed; as she had not comprehended the danger, neither was she aware
of the fall. In fact, she never thought of herself. Her whole soul was
with him; she gave him back in love the spirit she had caught from him
in knowledge.
* * * * *
And they strolled together through the garden all that day, and
Maltravers grew reconciled to himself. He had done wrong, it is true;
but then perhaps Alice had already suffered as much as she could in the
world’s opinion, by living with him alone, though innocent, so long.
And now she had an everlasting claim to his protection--she should never
know shame or want. And the love that had led to the wrong should, by
fidelity and devotion, take from it the character of sin.
Natural and commonplace sophistries! _L’homme se pique!_ as old
Montaigne said; Man is his own sharper! The conscience is the most
elastic material in the world. To-day you cannot stretch it over a
mole-hill, to-morrow it hides a mountain.
O how happy they were now--that young pair! How the days flew like
dreams! Time went on, winter passed away, and the early spring, with its
flowers and sunshine, was like a mirror to their own youth. Alice never
accompanied Maltravers in his walks abroad, partly because she feared to
meet her father, and partly because Maltravers himself was fastidiously
averse to all publicity. But then they had all that little world of
three acres--lawn and fountain, shrubbery and terrace, to themselves,
and Alice never asked if there was any other world without. She was now
quite a scholar, as Mr. Simcox himself averred. She could read aloud
and fluently to Maltravers, and copied out his poetry in a small,
fluctuating hand, and he had no longer to chase throughout his
vocabulary for short Saxon monosyllables to make the bridge of
intercourse between their ideas. Eros and Psyche are ever united, and
Love opens all the petals of the soul. On one subject alone, Maltravers
was less eloquent than of yore. He had not succeeded as a moralist, and
he thought it hypocritical to preach what he did not practise. But Alice
was gentler and purer, and as far as she knew, sweet fool! better than
ever--she had invented a new prayer for herself; and she prayed as
regularly and as fervently as if she were doing nothing amiss. But the
code of Heaven is gentler than that of earth, and does not declare that
ignorance excuseth not the crime.