Lady Avondale sent the portrait to Miss St. Clare, and vainly endeavoured
to restore her to her uncle’s protection. She again spoke of her to
Glenarvon.
“Cannot I yet save her?” she said; “Cannot I take her home, and sooth
her mind, and bring her back to virtue and to peace?” “Never more,” he
replied: “it is past: her heart is perverted.” “Is there no recall from
such perversion?” “None, none, my friend.” His countenance, whilst he
spoke, assumed much of bitterness. “Oh there is no recall from guilty
love. The very nature of it precludes amendment, as these beautiful,
these emphatic lines express, written by the Scottish bard, who had felt
their truth:”—
“The sacred lore o’weel-plac’d love,
Luxuriantly indulge it;
But never tempt th’ illicit rove,
Tho’ naething should divulge it:
I wave the quantum o’ the sin,
The hazard of concealing;
But och! it hardens a’ within,
And petrifies the feeling.”
“Is it indeed so?” “Alas! then, what will become of me?” “Calantha,
your destiny is fixed,” he cried, suddenly starting as if from deep
thought; “there is a gulph before you, into which you are preparing to
plunge. I would have saved you—I tried; but cannot. You know not how to
save yourself. Do you think a momentary pause, a trifling turn, will
prevent the fall? Will you now fly me? now that you are bound to me,
and the fearful forfeiture is paid? Oh turn not thus away:—look back at
the journey you have taken from innocence and peace: and fear to tread
the up-hill path of repentance and reformation alone. Remember when a
word or look were regarded by you as a crime—how you shuddered at the
bare idea of guilt. Now you can hear its language with interest: it has
lost its horror: Ah soon it shall be the only language your heart will
like. Shrink not, start not, Calantha: the road you pursue is that which
I have followed. See and acknowledge then, the power I hold over your
heart; and yield to what is already destined. You imagine, when I speak
of guilt, that you can shrink from me, that you can hate me; but you
have lost the power, and let me add, the right: you are become a sharer
in that iniquity—you must be a sharer in my fate. The actual commission
of crime still excites horror; but do you remember when you shuddered
at every approach to it? And cannot he who has triumphed thus far gain
all, think you, if it were his desire? Yes, you are mine—a being wholly
relying upon a wish, a breath, which I may chuse to kindle. Avondale’s
peace—your honour, are in my hands. If I resign you, my heart will break
in the struggle; but if I give way....”
“Oh then,” she cried, “then are we ruined for ever and for ever. Do
not, even were I to consent, O! do not lead me to wrong. What shall ever
remunerate us for the loss of self-approbation?” He smiled bitterly. “It
is,” he said, “a possession, I never yet cared greatly to retain.” “And
is self-approbation the greatest of all earthly enjoyments? Is man so
independent, so solitary a being, that the consciousness of right will
suffice to him, when all around brand him with iniquity, and suspect him
of guilt?” He paused, and laughed. “Let us be that which we are thought,”
he cried, in a more animated tone. “The worst is thought; and that worst
we will become. Let us live on earth but for each other: another country
will hide us from the censures of the prejudiced; and our very dependence
upon each other, will endear us more and more.” Calantha withdrew her
hand—she looked upon him with fear; but she loved, and she forgot her
alarm.