CHAPTER XXXI

Such was the tale presented to the young, enthusiastic, innocent Elizabeth, unveiling the secret of the life of him whom she revered above all the world. Her soul was in her eyes as she read, or rather devoured, page after page, till she arrived at the catastrophe; when a burst of passionate tears relieved her swelling bosom, and carried away upon their stream a thousand, trembling, unspeakable fears that had gathered in wild multitude around her heart. "He is innocent! He, my benefactor, my father, when he accused himself of murder, spoke, as I thought, of a consequence, not an act; and if the chief principle of religion be true, that repentance washes away sin, he is pardoned, and the crime forgotten. Noble, generous heart! What drops of anguish have you not shed in atonement! What glorious obsequies you pay your victim. For she also is acquitted. Gerard's mother is more than innocent. She was true to him, and to the purest sentiments of nature, to the end; nay, more, her life was sacrificed to them." And Elizabeth went over in her mind, as Falkner had often done, the emotions that actuated her to attempt the dangerous passage across the ford. She fancied her awakening on the fatal morning, her wild look around. No familiar object met her view—nor did any friendly voice reassure her; the strange scene and solitary hut were testimonies that she did not dream, and that she had really been torn from home and all she loved by a violence she could not resist. At first she must have listened tremblingly, and fancied her lover-enemy at hand. But all is still. She rises; she ventures to examine the strange dwelling to which she has been carried—no human being presents himself. She quits the threshold of the hut—a familiar scene is before her eyes, the ocean and the dreary but well-known shore—the river which she has so often crossed—and among the foldings of the not distant hills, imbosomed in trees, she sees Dromore, her tranquil home. She knows that it is but a few miles distant; and while she fancies her enemy near at hand, yet the hope animates her that she may cross the stream unseen, and escape. Elizabeth imaged all her hopes and fears; she seemed to see the hapless lady place her uncertain feet, her purpose being stanch and unfaltering, within the shallow wave, which she believed she could traverse in safety; the roar of the advancing tide was in her ears, the spray dashed round her, and her footing grew uncertain, as she sought to find her way across the rugged bed of the river. But she thought only of her child, from whom she had been torn, and her fears of being, through the deed of violence which had carried her off, excluded from her home for ever. To arrive at that home was all her desire. As she advanced she still fixed her eyes on the clustering woods of Dromore, sleeping stilly in the gray, quiet dawn: and she risked her life unhesitatingly to gain the sacred shelter. All depended on her reaching it, quickly and alone; and she was doomed never to see it more. She advances resolutely, but cautiously. The waves rise higher—she is in the midst of the stream—her footing becomes more unsteady—does she look back?—there is no return—her heart proudly repels the very thought of desiring it. She gathers her garments about her—she looks right onward—she steps more carefully—the surges buffet her—they rise higher and higher—the spray is dashed over her head, and blinds her sight—a false step—she falls—the waters open to ingulf her—she is borne away. One thought of her Gerard—one prayer to Heaven, and the human eye can pursue the parting soul no farther. She is lost to earth—none upon it can any longer claim a portion in her.

But she is innocent. The last word murmured in her last sleep—the last word human ears heard her utter, was her son's name. To the last she was all mother; her heart filled with that deep yearning, which a young mother feels to be the very essence of her life, for the presence of her child. There is something so beautiful in a young mother's feelings. Usually a creature to be fostered and protected—taught to look to another for aid and safety; yet a woman is the undaunted guardian of her little child. She will expose herself to a thousand dangers to shield his fragile being from harm. If sickness or injury approach him, her heart is transfixed by terror: readily, joyfully, she would give her own blood to sustain him. The world is a hideous desert when she is threatened to be deprived of him; and when he is near, and she takes him to the shelter of her bosom, and wraps him in her soft, warm embrace, she cares for nothing beyond that circle; and his smiles and infantine caresses are the life of her life. Such a mother was Alithea; and in Gerard she possessed a son capable of calling forth in its intensity, and of fully rewarding, her maternal tenderness. What wonder, when she saw him cast pitilessly down on the road-side—alive or dead she knew not—the wheel of the carriage that bore her away might have crushed and destroyed his tender limbs—what wonder that she should be threatened by instant death, through the excess of her agony? What wonder that, reviving from death, her first and only thought was to escape—to get back to him—to clasp him to her heart—never to be severed more?

How glad, and yet how miserable, Gerard would be to read this tale. His proudest and fondest assertions certified as true, and yet to feel that he had lost her for ever, whose excellence was proved to be thus paramount. Elizabeth's reflections now rested on him—and now turned to Falkner—and now she opened the manuscript again, and read anew—and then again her heart made its commentary, and she wept and rejoiced; and longed to comfort her father, and congratulate Neville, all in a breath.

She never thought of herself. This was Elizabeth's peculiarity. She could be so engrossed by sympathy for others, that she could forget herself wholly. At length she remembered her father's directions, that his manuscript should be given to Neville when he called. She had no thought of disobeying; nor could she help being glad that Gerard's filial affection should receive its reward, even while she was pained to think that Falkner should be changed at once into an enemy in her new friend's eyes. Still her generous nature led her instantly to ally herself to the weaker side. Neville was triumphant—Falkner humiliated and fallen; and thus he drew her closer to him, and riveted the chain of gratitude and fidelity by which she was bound. She had shed many tears for Alithea's untimely fate; for the virtues and happiness hurried to a mysterious end—buried in an untold grave. But she had her reward. Long had she been there, where there is no trouble, no strife—her pure soul received into the company of kindred angels. Her heroism would now be known; her actions justified; she would be raised above her sex in praise; her memory crowned with unfading glory. It was Falkner who needed the exertion of present service, to forgive and console. He must be raised from his self-abasement; his despair must be cured. He must feel that the hour of remorse was past; that of repentance and forgiveness come. He must be rewarded for all his goodness to her, by being made to love life for her sake. Neville, whose heart was free from every base alloy, would enter into these feelings. Content to rescue the fame of his mother from the injury done it; happy in being assured that his faithful, filial love had not been mistaken in its reliance, the first emotion of his generous soul would be to forgive. Yet Elizabeth fancied that, borne away by his ardour in his mother's cause, he might altogether pass over and forget the extenuating circumstances that rendered Falkner worthy of pardon; and she thought it right to accompany the narrative with an explanatory letter. Thus she wrote:—

"My father has given me these papers for the purpose of transmitting them to you. I need not tell you that I read them this day for the first time: that till now I was in total ignorance of the facts they disclose.

"It is most true that I, a little child, stopped his arm as he was about to destroy himself. Moved by pity for my orphan state, he consented to live. Is this a crime? Yet I could not reconcile him to life, and he went to Greece, seeking death. He went there in the pride of life and health. You saw him at Marseilles; you saw him to-day—the living effigy of remorse and wo.

"It is hard, at the moment you discover that he was the cause of your mother's death, to ask your sympathy for his sufferings and high-minded contrition. I leave you to follow the dictates of your own heart with regard to him. For myself, attached to him as I am by every sentiment of affection and gratitude, I am, from this moment, more than ever devoted to his service, and eager to prove to him my fidelity.

"These words come from myself. My father knows not what I write. He simply told me to inform you that he should remain here; and if you desired aught of him, he was ready at your call. He thinks, perhaps, you may require further explanation—further guidance to your mother's grave. Oh, secret and obscure as it is, is it not guarded by angels? Have you not been already led to it?"

She left off abruptly—she heard a ring at the outer gate—the hour had come—it must be Neville! She placed the papers in the writing-case, and directing and sealing the letter, gave both to the servant, to be delivered to him. Scarcely was this done, when suddenly it flashed across her how the relative situations of Neville and herself were changed. That morning she had been his chosen friend—into her ear he poured the history of his hopes and fears—he claimed her sympathy—and she felt that from her he derived a happiness never felt before. Now he must regard her as the daughter of his mother's destroyer, and should she ever see him more? Instinctively she rushed to the highest room of the house to catch one other glimpse. By the time she reached the window, the act was fulfilled that changed both their lives—the packet given. Dimly, in the twilight, she saw a horseman emerge from under the wall of the garden, and slowly cross the heath; slowly at first, as if he did not comprehend what had happened, or what he was doing. There is something that excites unspeakable tenderness when the form of the loved one is seen, even from far; and Elizabeth, though unaware of the nature and depth of her sensations, yet felt her heart soften and yearn towards her friend. A blessing fell from her lips; while the consciousness of all of doubtful and sad that he must at that moment experience, at being sent from her door with a written communication only, joined to the knowledge that each succeeding hour would add to the barriers that separated them, so overcame her, that when at last he put spurs to his horse, and was borne out of sight into the thickening twilight, she burst into a passion of tears, and wept for some time, not knowing what she did, nor where she was; but feeling that from that hour the colour of her existence was changed—its golden hue departed—and that patience and resignation must henceforth take place of gladness and hope.

She roused herself after a few minutes from this sort of trance, and her thoughts reverted to Falkner. There are few crimes so enormous but that, when we undertake to analyze their motives, they do not find some excuse and pardon in the eyes of all except their perpetrators. Sympathy is more of a deceiver than conscience. The stander-by may dilate on the force of passion and the power of temptation, but the guilty are not cheated by such subterfuges; he knows that the still voice within was articulate to him. He remembers that at the moment of action he felt his arm checked, his ear warned; he could have stopped, and been innocent. Perhaps of all the scourges wielded by the dread Eumenides, there is none so torturing as the consciousness of the wilfulness of the act deplored. It is a mysterious principle, to be driven out by no reasonings, no commonplace philosophy. It had eaten into Falkner's soul; taken sleep from his eyes, strength from his limbs, every healthy and self-complacent sentiment from his soul.

Elizabeth, however, innocent and good as she was, fancied a thousand excuses for an act, whose frightful catastrophe was not foreseen. Falkner called himself a murderer; but, though the untimely death of the unfortunate Alithea was brought about by his means, so far from being guilty of the deed, he would have given a thousand lives to save her. Since her death, she well knew that sleep had not refreshed, nor food nourished him. He was blighted, turned from all the uses and enjoyments of life; he desired the repose of the grave; he had sought death; he had made himself akin to the grim destroyer.

That he had acted wrongly, nay, criminally, Elizabeth acknowledged. But by how many throes of anguish, by what repentance and sacrifice of all that life holds dear, had he not expiated the past! Elizabeth longed to see him again, to tell him how fondly she still loved him, how he was exalted, not debased, in her eyes; to comfort him with her sympathy, cherish him with her love. It was true that she did not quite approve of the present state of his mind; there was too much of pride, too much despair. But when he found that, instead of scorn, his confession met with compassion and redoubled affection, his heart would soften, he would no longer desire to die, so to escape from blame and retribution; but be content to endure, and teach himself that resignation which is the noblest and most unattainable temper of mind to which humanity may aspire.