A DRAMA
By JAMES T. ROBERTS
BEING A DRAMATIZATION OF
THE LUCILE OF THE EARL OF LYTTON
Copyrighted 1903
by JAMES T. ROBERTS
All Rights Reserved
The Library of Congress
JAN 5 1903
Copyright Entry
Jan. 5 - 1903
CLASS D - XXc. No.
2860
COPY B.
LUCILE, A DRAMA
DRAMATIS PERSONS
Lord Alfred Vargrave.
Eugene, Duke De Luvois.
John Somerset, Cousin of Lord Vargrave.
John Vargrave, Son of Alfred and Matilda.
Lucile, Countess De Nevers.
Matilda, Wife of Lord Vargrave.
Marie, Countess of Perche, Aunt of Lucile.
An Aide to the Duke De Luvois.
A Man Servant
A Maid Servant.
ACT I.
Scene 1.- A smoking room of an inn in the Pyranees Mountains, Bigorre, France. Time-A morning in September, 1825. Lord Alfred Vargrave seated at a table reading London Times. Enters a servant bringing a letter.
Lord Vargrave (opening letter, reads). "I learn from Bigorre you are there. I am told you are going to marry a Miss Darcy. Of old, so long since you may have forgotten it now (when we parted as friends, some mere strangers to grow). Your last words recorded a pledge what you will, a promise -- the time is now come to fulfil. The letters I ask you, my lord, to return, I desire to receive from your hand. You discern my reasons, which, therefore, I need not explain. The distance to Luchon is short. I remain a month in these mountains. Miss Darcy, perchance, will forego one brief page from the summer romance of her courtship, and spare you one day from your place at her feet, in the light of her fair English face. I desire nothing more, and trust you will feel I desire nothing much.
"Your friend always,
"Lucile."
Alfred (facing room with letter in his hand).
Confound it.
Enters John Somerset.
John.
A fool, Alfred, a fool, a most motley fool!
Alfred.
Who?
John. The man who has anything better to do; and yet so far forgets himself, so far degrades his position as man, to this worst of all trades, which even a well-brought-up ape were above, to travel about with a woman in love,- unless she's in love with himself.
Alfred.
Indeed! why are you here then, dear Jack?
John.
Can't you guess it?
Alfred.
Not I.
John. Because I have nothing that's better to do. I had rather be bored, my dear Alfred, by you, on the whole (I must own), than be bored by myself. That perverse, imperturbable, golden-hair'd elf -- your Will-o'-the-wisp -- that has led you and me such a dance through these hills-
Alfred.
Who, Matilda?
John.
Yes! she of course! who but she could contrive so to keep one's eyes, and one's feet, too, from falling asleep for even one-half hour of the long twenty-four?
Alfred.
What's the matter?
John. Why, she is -- a matter, the more I consider about it, the more it demands an attention it does not deserve; and expands beyond the dimensions which ev'n crinoline, when possess'd by a fair face, and saucy eighteen, is entitled to take in this very small star, already too crowded, as I think, by far. You read Malthus and Sadler?
Alfred.
Of course.
John.
To what use, when you countenance, calmly, such monstrous abuse of one mere human creature's legitimate space in this world? Mars, Apollo, Virorum ! the case wholly passes my patience.
Alfred.
My own is worse tried.
John.
Yours, Alfred?
Alfred.
Read this, if you doubt, and decide.
John (reading the letter).
"I hear from Bigorre you are there. I am told you are going to marry Miss Darcy. Of old -------" What is this?
Alfred.
Read it on to the end, and you'll know.
John (continues reading).
"When we parted, your last words recorded a vow what you will-" Hang it! this smells all over, I swear, of adventures and violets. Was it your hair you promised a lock of?
Alfred.
Read on. You'll discern.
John (continues reading).
"Those letters I ask you, my lord, to return." Humph! Letters! the matter is worse than I guessed; I have my misgivings-
Alfred.
Well, read out the rest, and advise.
John.
Eh? Where was I? (Continues reading).
"Miss Darcy, perchance will forego one brief page from the summer romance of her courtship," -Egad! a romance, for my part I'd forego every page of, and not break my heart.
Alfred.
Continue!.
John (reading).
"And spare you one day from your place at her feet" --Pray forgive me the passing grimace. I wish you had my place! (Continues reading). "I trust you will feel I desire nothing much. Your friend" -- Bless me! "Lucile?" The Comtesse de Nevers?
Alfred.
Yes.
John.
What will you do?
Alfred.
You ask me just what I would rather ask you.
John.
You can't go.
Alfred.
I must.
John.
But think of Matilda.
Alfred.
You must arrange that.
John. What excuse will you make to Matilda-- to her mother.
Alfred.
Oh, tell Mrs. Darcy that -- lend me your wits, Jack! Can you not stretch your genius to fit a friend's use?
John.
My dear boy, Matilda is jealous, you know, as Othello.
Alfred.
You joke.
John.
I am serious. Why go to Luchon?
Alfred.
Don't ask me. I have not a choice, my dear John. Besides, shall I own a strange sort of desire, before I extinguish forever the fire of youth and romance, to move from the dead past the gravestone of the years long departed forever, to take one last look, one final farewell; to awake the heroic of youth from the hades of joy, and once more be, though but for an hour, Jack -- a boy!
John.
You had better go hang yourself.
Alfred.
No! were it but to make sure that the past from the future is shut, it were worth the step back. Do you think we should live with the living so lightly, and learn to survive that wild moment in which to the grave and its gloom we consign'd our heart's best, if the doors of the tomb were not lock'd with a key which fate keeps for our sake? If the dead could return or the corpses awake?
John.
Nonsense!
Alfred.
Not wholly. The man who gets up a fill'd guest from the banquet, and drains off his cup, sees the last lamp extinguish'd with cheerfulness, goes well contented to bed, and enjoys its repose. But he who hath supp'd at the tables of kings, and yet starved in the sight of luxurious things; who hath watch'd the wine flow, by himself but half tasted; heard the music, and yet miss'd the tune; who hath wasted one part of life's grand possibilities; that man will bear with him, be sure, to the end, a blighted experience, a rancor within.
John.
I see you remember the cynical story of a hoary Lothario, whom dying, the priest (knowing well the unprincipled life he had led, and observing with no small amount of surprise, a calm resignation in the old sinner's eyes), ask'd if he had nothing that weigh'd on his mind; "well, -no," - says Lothario, " I think not. I find, on reviewing my life, which in most things was pleasant, I never neglected an occasion of pleasing myself. On the whole, I have naught to regret;" --and so, smiling, his soul took its flight from this world.
Alfred.
Well, regret or remorse, which is best?
John.
Why, regret.
Alfred.
No; remorse, Jack, of course; for the one is related to the other. Regret is a spiteful old maid; but her brother, remorse, though a widower certainly, yet has been wed to young pleasure. Dear Jack, hang regret!
John.
You mean, then, to go?
Alfred.
I do.
John. One word -- stay! Are you really in love with Matilda?
Alfred.
Love, eh? What a question! Of course.
John.
Were you really in love with Lucile de Nevers?
Alfred.
What; Lucile? No, by Jove, never really.
John.
She's pretty?
Alfred.
Decidedly so. At least, so she was, some ten years ago. As soft, and as sallow as autumn -- with hair neither black, nor yet brown, but that tinge which the air takes at eve in September, when night lingers lone through a vineyard, from beams of a slow-setting sun. Eyes -- the wistful gazelle's; the fine foot of a fairy; and a hand fit a fay's wand to wave, a voice soft and sweet as a tune that one knows. Something in her, there was, set you thinking of those strange backgrounds of Raphael -- that hectic and deep brief twilight in which tropic suns fall asleep.
John.
Coquette?
Alfred.
Not at all. 'Twas her one fault. Not she! I had loved her the better, had she less loved me. The heart of a man's like that delicate weed which requires to be trampled on, boldly indeed, ere it give forth the fragrance you wish to extract.
John.
Women change so.
Alfred.
Of course.
John.
And unless rumor errs, I believe that last year, at Baden, the Comtesse de Nevers was the rage -- held an absolute court of devoted adorers, and really made sport of her subjects.
Alfred.
Indeed!
John.
When she broke off with you her engagement, her heart did not break with it?
Alfred.
Pooh! Pray would you have had her dress always in black, and shut herself up in a convent, dear Jack? Besides, 'twas my fault the engagement was broken.
John.
Most likely. How was it?
Alfred.
The tale is soon spoken. She bored me. I show'd it. She saw it. She reproach'd. I retorted. Of course she was vex'd, I was vex'd that she was so. She sulk'd. So did I. If I ask'd her to sing, she look'd ready to cry. I was contrite, submissive. She soften'd. I harden'd. At noon I was banish'd. At eve I was pardon'd. She said I had no heart. I said she had no reason. I swore she talk'd nonsense. She sobb'd I talk'd treason. In short, my dear fellow, 'twas time, as you see, things should come to a crisis, and finish. 'Twas she by whom, to that crisis, the matter was brought. She released me. I linger'd. I linger'd, she thought, with too sullen an aspect. This gave me, of course, the occasion to fly in a rage, mount my horse, and declare myself uncomprehended. And so we parted. The rest of the story you know.
John.
No, indeed.
Alfred.
Well, we parted. Of course we could not continue to meet, as before, in one spot. You conceive it was awkward? I think that I acted exceedingly well, considering the time of this rupture, for Paris was charming just then. It deranged all my plans for the winter. I ask'd to be chang'd -- wroted for Naples, then vacant -- obtain'd it -- and so join'd my new post at once; but scarce reach'd it, when my first news from Paris informs me Lucile is ill, and in danger. Conceive what I feel. I fly back. I find her recover'd, but yet looking pale. I am seized with a contrite regret; I ask to renew the engagement.
John.
And she?
Alfred.
Reflects, but declines. We part swearing to be friends ever, friends only. All that sort of thing! We each keep our letters --a portrait --a ring -- with a pledge to return them whenever the one or the other shall call for them back.
John.
Pray go on.
Alfred.
My story is finish'd. Of course I enjoined on Lucile all those thousand good maxims we coin to supply the grim deficit found in our days, when love leaves them bankrupt. I preached. She obeys, she goes out in the world; takes to dancing -- a pleasure she rarely indulged in before. I go back to my post, and collect (I must own 'tis a taste I had never before, my dear John) antiques and small Elzevirs. Heigho! now, Jack, you know all.
John (after a pause).
You are really resolved to go back?
Alfred.
Eh, where?
John. To that worst of all places-- the past. You remember Lot's wife?
Alfred.
'Twas a promise when last we parted. My honor is pledged to it.
John.
Well, what is it you wish me to do?
Alfred.
You must tell Matilda, I meant to have call'd -- to leave word -- to explain -- but the time was so pressing --
John.
My lord, your lordship's obedient! I really can't do- -
Alfred.
You wish then to break off my marriage.
John.
No, no! But indeed I can't see why yourself you need take these letters.
Alfred.
Not see! would you have me, then, break a promise my honor is pledged to?
John (humming).
"Off, off and away! said the stranger-" .
Alfred.
Oh, good! oh, you scoff!
John.
At what, my dear Alfred?
Alfred.
At all things!
John.
Indeed?
Alfred.
Yes; I see that your heart is as dry as a reed. That the dew of your youth is rubb'd off you; I see you have no feeling left in you even for me! At honor you jest; you are cold as a stone to the warm voice of friendship. Belief you have none. You have lost faith in all things. You carry a blight about with you everywhere. Yes, at the sight of such callous indifference, who could be calm? I must leave you at once, Jack, or else the last balm that is left me in Gilead you'll turn into gall. Heartless, cold, unconcerned--
John.
Have you done? Is that all? Well, then, listen to me! I presume when you made up your mind to propose to Miss Darcy, you weigh'd all the drawbacks against the equivalent gains, ere you finally settled the point. What remains but to stick to your choice? You want money; 'tis here. A settled position; 'tis yours. A career: you secure it. A wife, young and pretty as rich, whom all men will envy you. Why must you itch to be running away, on the eve of all this, to a woman whom never for once did you miss all these years since you left her? Who knows what may happen, this letter -- to me -- is a palpable trap. The woman has changed since you knew her. Perchance she yet seeks to renew her youth's broken romance. When women begin to feel youth and their beauty slip from them, they count it a sort of a duty to let nothing else slip away. Lucile's a coquette to the end of her fingers, I will stake my last farthing. Perhaps the wish lingers to recall the once reckless, indifferent, lover to the feet he has left; let intrigue now recover what truth could not keep. "Twere a vengeance, no doubt -- a triumph -- but why must you bring it about? You are risking the substance of all that you schemed to obtain; and for what? some mad dream you have dream'd.
Alfred.
But there's nothing to risk. You exaggerate, Jack; you mistake. In three days, at the most, I am back.
John.
Ay, but how? --discontended, unsettled, upset, bearing with you a comfortless twinge of regret; preoccupied, sulky, and likely enough to make your betrothed break off all in a huff. Three days, do you say? But in three days who knows what may happen? I don't, nor do you, I suppose. Have you answered this?
Alfred.
No, but I was about to do so as you entered.
John.
Then don't.
Alfred. I must, Jack, I gave her my promise. My honor is pledged to it.
John. Well then, Alfred, I must go, but remember your promise to me, in three days. [Exit John.]
Alfred (writing, then reads):
"Bigorre, Tuesday.
"Your note reach'd me to-day, at Bigorre, and commands my obedience. Before the night I shall be at Luchon --where a line, if sent to Duval's, the hotel where I dine, will find me awaiting yours orders. Receive my respects.
Yours sincerely,
"A. Vargrave." (Seals letter and rings for servant. Enter servant.)
Alfred.
Post this at once (handing servant the letter).
Servant.
Yes my lord (taking letter).
Alfred.
At what time does the next coach leave for Luchon?
Servant.
In one hour, milord.
Alfred.
Arrange, then, for my going. Does anyone else go?
Servant.
The Duke de Luvois, who has just arrived from Paris, milord. (Exit servant).
Enters Duke de Luvois.
Duke.
Pardon, but do I intrude?
Alfred.
Not in the least, sir. Do you go to Luchon?
Duke.
Yes; and you?
Alfred.
Charmed, sir, to find I shall have such agreeable company. We shall have a wait of nearly an hour. Pardon, but are you a smoker? Allow me, will you take a cigar?
Duke.
Many thanks. Such cigars are a luxury here.
Alfred.
Indeed, I find the dream of your nation in this weed. It makes all men brothers that use it.
Duke.
Will you remain long at Luchon?
Alfred.
Only a day or two.
Duke.
The season is done.
Alfred.
Already?
Duke.
Twas shorter this year than last. Folly soon wears her shoes out. She dances so fast, we are all of us tired.
Alfred.
You know the place well?
Duke.
I have been there two seasons.
Alfred.
Pray who is the belle of the baths at this moment?
Duke.
The same who has been the belle of all places in which she is seen; the belle of all Paris last winter; last spring the belle of all Baden.
Alfred.
An uncommon thing!
Duke.
Sir, an uncommon beauty!-- I rather should say, an uncommon character. Truly, each day one meets women whose beauty is equal to hers, but none with the charm of Lucile de Nevers.
Alfred.
Comtesse de Nevers!
Duke.
Do you know her?
Alfred.
I know, or, rather, I knew her-- a long time ago. I almost forget.
Duke.
What a wit! what a grace in her language! her movements! what play in her face! And yet what a sadness she seems to conceal!
Alfred.
You speak like a lover.
Duke.
I speak as I feel, but not like a lover. What interests me so in Lucile, at the same time forbids me, I know, to give to that interest, whate'er the sensation, the name we men give to an hour's admiration, a night's passing passion, an actress's eyes, a dancing girl's ankles, a fine lady's sighs.
Alfred.
Yes, I qute comprehend. But this sadness-- this shade which you speak of?-- it almost would make me afraid your gay countrymen, sir, less adroit must have grown, since when, as a stripling, at Paris, I own I found in them terrible rivals,-- if yet they have all lack'd the skill to console this regret (if regret be the word I should use), or fulfill this desire (if desire be the word), which seems still to endure unappeased; For I take it for granted, from all that you say, that the will was not wanted.
Duke.
I have heard that an Englishman-- one of your nation, I presume-- and if so, I must beg you, indeed, to excuse the contempt which I--
Alford.
Pray, sir, proceed with your tale. My compatriot, what was his crime?
Duke.
Oh, nothing! His folly was not so sublime as to merit that term. If I blamed him just now, it was not for the sin, but the silliness.
Alfred.
How.
Duke.
I own I hate botany. Still-- I admit, although I myself have no passion for it, and do not understand, yet I can not despise the cold man of science, who walks with his eyes all alert through a garden of flowers, and strips the lilies' gold tongues, and the roses' red lips, with a ruthless dissection; since he, I suppose, has some purpose beyond the mere mischief he does. But the stupid and mischievous boy, that uproots the exotics, and tramples the tender young shoots, for a boy's brutal pastime, and only because he knows no distinction 'twixt heart's-ease and haws-one would wish, for the sake Qf each nursling so nipp'd, to catch the young rascal and have him well whipp'd!
Alfred.
Some compatriot of mine, do I then understand, with a cold Northern heart, and a rude English hand, has injured your rosebud of France?
Duke.
Sir, I know but little or nothing. Yet some faces show the last act of a tragedy in their regard; though the first scenes be wanting, it yet is not hard to divine, more or less, what the plot may have been, and what sort of actors have pass'd o'er the scene. And whenever I gaze on the face of Lucile, with its pensive and passionless languor, I feel that same feeling hath burnt there -- burnt out and burnt up health and hope. So you feel when you gaze down the cup of extinguish'd volcanoes; you judge of the fire once there, by the ravage you see-- the desire, by the apathy left in its wake, and that sense of a moral, immovable, mute impotence.
Alfred.
Humph!-- I see you have finished, at last your cigar. Can I offer another?
Duke.
No, thank you. Enter Servant.
Servant.
The coach.
Duke.
To Luchon.
Alfred.
To Luchon? You know the road well?
Duke.
I have often been over it. Exit.
Curtain.
End of Scene 1.
ACT II.
Scene 1.- At Luchon next day. Parlor of Chalet occupied by Lucile opening on garden. Servant arranging room. A bell sounds. She opens the door.
Enters Lord Alfred.
Alfred.
Your mistress expects me. (Exit Servant. Lord Alfred stands by window gazing out. Enters Lucile unobserved.)
Alfred.
Madam, you see that your latest command has secured my immediate obedience-- presuming I may consider my freedom restored from this day.
Lucile.
I had thought that your freedom from me not a fetter has had. Indeed!-- in my chains have you rested till now? I had not so flattered myself.
Alfred.
For Heaven's sake Madam! do not jest! has the moment no sadness?
Lucile.
'Tis an ancient tradition, if we wrote, when we first love, forseeing that hour, wherein of necessity each would recall from the other the poor foolish records of all these emotions, whose pain when recorded seem'd bliss, should we write as we wrote? But one thinks not of this? At twentv we write believing eternal the frail vows we plight; and we smile with a confident pity, above the vulgar results of all poor human love; for we deem with that vanity common to youth, because what we feel in our bosoms, in truth, is novel to us-- that 'tis novel to earth, and will prove the exception, in durance and worth, to the great law to which all on earth must incline. The error was noble, the vanity fine. Shall we blame it because we survive it? Ah, no; 'twas the youth of our youth, my lord, is it not so?
Alfred.
But Madam-------
Lucile (interrupting).
You know me enough, or what I would say is, you yet recollect (do you not, Lord Alfred?) enough of my nature to know that these pledges of what was perhaps long ago a foolish affection, I do not recall from those motives of prudence which actuate all or most women when their love ceases. Indeed, if you have such a doubt, to dispel, it I need but remind you that ten years these letters have rested unreclaim'd in your hands.
Alfred.
You are generous madam.
Lucile. Come! (laying her hand on his), do not think I abuse the occasion. We gain justice, judgment, with years, or else years are in vain. From me not a single reproach can you hear. I have to sinn'd to myself-- to the world-- nay, I fear, to you chiefly. The woman who loves should, indeed, be the friend of the man that she loves. She should heed not her selfish and often mistaken desires, but his interest whose fate her own interest inspires; and rather than seek to allure, for her sake, his life down the turbulent, fanciful wake of impossible destinies, use all her art that his place in the world find its place in her heart. I, alas!-- I preceived not this truth till, too late; I tormented your youth, I have darken'd your fate. Forgive me this ill I have done for the sake of its long expiation.
A ring. Enters servant.
Servant.
The Duke de Luvois had just enter'd, and insisted--
Lucile.
The Duke! say I do not receive till the evening. Explain, I have business of private importance.
Alfred. Let not me interfere with the claims on your time, lady! when you are free from more pleasant engagements, allow me to see and to wait on you later.
Exit Alfred to garden.
Lucile.
Tell the Duke he may enter.
Enters Duke de Luvois.
Duke.
Ah! forgive-- I desired so deeply to see you to-day. You retired so early last night from the ball-- this whole week I have seen you pale, silent, preoccupied-- speak, speak, Lucile, and forgive me!-- I know that I am a rash fool-- but I love you! I love you, Madame. More than language can say! do not deem, O Lucile, that the love I no longer have strength to conceal is a passing caprice! It is strange to my nature, it has made me, unknown, to myself, a new creature. I implore you to sanction and save the new life which I lay at your feet with this prayer-- Be my wife! stoop, and raise me!
Lucile.
But Duke, my heart.
Duke.
Hush! hush! I know all. Tell me nothing, Lucile.
Lucile.
You know all, Duke? Well then, know that, in truth, I have learn'd from the rude lesson taught to my youth from my own heart to shelter my life; to mistrust the heart of another. We are what we must, and not what we would be. I know that one hour assures not another. The will and the power are diverse.
Duke.
O madam! you fence with a feeling you know to be true and intense.'Tis not my life, Lucile, that I plead for alone: If your nature I know, 'tis no less for your own. That nature will prey on itself; it was made to influence others. Consider, that genius craves power-- what scope for it here? Gifts less noble to me give command of that sphere in which genius is power. Such gifts you despise? But you do no disdain what such gifts realize! I offer you, lady, a name not unknown-- a fortune which worthless, without you, is grown-- all my life at your feet I lay down-- at your feet a heart which for you, and you only, can beat.
Lucile.
The heart, Duke, that life-- I respect both. The name and position you offer, and all that you claim in behalf of their nobler employments, I feel to deserve what, in turn, I now ask you--
Duke.
Lucile!
Lucile.
I ask you'to leave me--
Duke.
You do not reject?
Lucile.
I ask you to leave me the time to reflect.
Duke.
You ask me--?
Lucile.
The time to reflect.
Duke.
Say-- One word! May I hope?
Answer inaudible. Duke bends over her hand and departs. Enters Lord Alfred.
Alfred.
It was not my fault, Lucile. I have heard all. Now the letters (handing her a package). And now farewell. When you wed, may you--
Lucile.
Perhaps this farewell is our last, Alfred Vargrave, in life, who can tell. Let us part without bitterness. Here are your letters. Be assured I retain you no more in my fetters!
Lord Alfred lingers.
Alfred.
My pride fights in vain with the truth that leaps from me. I entreat your pardon, Lucile, for the past-I implore for the future your mere}'-implore it with more of passion than prayer ever breathed. By the power which invisibly touches us both in this hour, by the rights I have o'er you, Lucile, I demand-
Lucile.
The rights?
Alfred.
Yes, the rights! for what greater to man may belong than the right to repair in the future the wrong to the past? and the wrong I have done you, of yore hath bequeath'd to me all the sad right to restore, to retrieve, to amend! I, who injured your life, urge the right to repair it, Lucile! Be my wife, my guide, my good angel, my all upon earth, and accept, for the sake of what yet may give worth to my life, its contrition!
Lucile.
And your pledge to another?
Alfred.
Hush, hush! my honor will live where my love lives, unshamed. 'Twere poor honor indeed, to another to give that life of which you keep the heart. Could I live in the light of those young eyes, suppressing a lie? Alas, no! your hand holds my whole destiny. I can never recall what my lips have avow'd; in your love lies whatever can render me proud. For the great crime of all my existence hath been to have known you in vain. And the duty best seen, and most hallow'd-- the duty most sacred and sweet is that which hath led me, Lucile, to your feet. O speak! and restore me the blessing I lost when I lost you-- my pearl of all pearls beyond cost! and restore to your own life its youth, and restore the vision, the rapture, the passion of yore! ere our brows had been dimm'd in the dust of the world, when our souls their white wings yet exulting unfurld! for your eyes rest no more on the unquiet man, the wild star of whose course its pale orbit outran, whom the formless indefinite future of youth, with its lying allurements, distracted. In truth I have wearily wander'd the world, and I feel that the least of your lovely regards, O Lucile, is worth all the world can afford, and the dream which, though follow'd forever, forever doth seem as fleeting, and distant, and dim, as of yore when it brooded in twilight, at dawn, on the shore of life's untraversed ocean! I know the sole path to repose, which my desolate destiny hath, is the path by whose course to your feet I return. And who else, O Lucile, will so truly discern, and so deeply revere, all the passionate strength, the sublimity in you, as he whom at length these have saved from himself, for the truth they reveal to his worship?
Lucile.
No, Alfred, if over the present, there arose for a moment the mist and glamor of the past it hath now rolled away, and our two paths are plain, and those two paths divide us. That hand which again mine one moment has clasp'd as the hand of a brother, that hand and your honor are pledged to another! forgive, Alfred Vargrave, forgive me, if yet for that moment (now past!) I have made you forget what was due to yourself and that other one. Yes, mine the fault, and be mine the repentance. Not less, in now owning this fault, Alfred, let me own, too, I foresaw not the sorrow involved in it. True, this meeting I sought, I alone! But oh! deem not it was with the thought or your heart to regain, or the past to rewaken. No! believe me, it was with the firm and unshaken conviction, at least, that our meeting would be without peril to you, although haply to me the salvation of all my existence. I own, when the rumor first reach'd me, which lightly made known to the world your engagement, my heart and my mind suffer'd torture intense. It was cruel to find that so much of the life of my life, half unknown to myself, had been silently settled on one upon whom but to think it would soon be a crime. Then I said to myself, "from the thraldom which time hath not weak-en'd there rests but one hope of escape. That image which fancy seems ever to shape from the solitude left round the ruins of yore, is a phantom. The being I loved is no more. What I hear in the silence, and see in the lone void of life, is the young hero born of my own perish'd youth: and his image, serene and sublime, in my heart rests unconscious of change and of time. Could I see it but once more, as time and as change have made it, a thing unfamiliar and strange, see, indeed, that the being I loved in my youth is no more, and what rests now is only, in truth, the hard pupil of life and the world: then, oh, then, I should wake from a dream, and my life be again reconciled to the world; and, released from regret, take the lot fate accords to my choice." So we met but the danger I did not foresee has occurr'd: the danger, alas, to yourself! I have err'd. But happy for both that this error hath been discover'd as soon as the danger was seen! Return, O return to the young living love! Whence, alas! if, one moment, you wander'd, think only it was more deeply to bury the past love. And, oh! believe, Alfred Vargrave, as I go on my far distant pathway through life, shall rejoice to treasure in memory all in which others have clothed to my fancy with beauty and worth your betrothed! in the fair morning light, in the orient dew of that young life, now yours, can you fail to renew all the noble and pure aspirations, the truth, the freshness, the faith, of your own earnest youth? Yes! you will be happy. I, too, in the bliss I foresee for you, I shall be happy. And this proves me worthy your friendship. And so-- let it prove that I cannot-- I do not-- respond to your love. Yes, indeed! be convinced that I could not (no, no, never, never!) have render'd you happy. And so, rest assured that, if false to the vows you have plighted, you would have endured, when the first brief, excited emotion was o'er, not alone the remorse of honor, but also (to render it worse) disappointed affection. Yes, Alfred; you start? but think! if the world was too much in your heart, and too little in mine, when we parted ten years ere this last fatal meeting, that time (ay, and tears!) have but deepen'd the old demarcations which then placed our natures asunder; and we two again, as we then were, would still have been strangely at strife. In that self-independence which is to my life its necessity now, as it once was its pride, had our course through the world been henceforth side by side, I should have revolted forever, and shock'd your respect for the world's plausibilities, mock'd, without meaning to do so, and outraged, all those social creeds which you live by.
Alfred.
Lucile, each word betrays the love you seek to conceal. You refuse me for one reason alone, that my love is not free. True, I am not free, but I can be ere long, free as the air. I have but to tell the truth to Matilda and she will be the first to release me. Matilda's relations will snatch any pretext, with pleasure, to break off a match in which they have yielded alone at the whim of a spoiled child-a languid approval of me. Her love for me is naught but the first fancy succeeding the thought she gave to her last doll. She has beauty and fortune and youth and her heart is too young to have deeply involved all its hopes in the tie which binds us. It is a false sense of honor in me to suppress the sad truth which I owe it to her to confess. What right have I to presume that this life of mine, wearied alreadv with its frivolous strife, is so precious a boon that its withdrawal can wrong her? Matilda has all of this world's best gifts and will not miss aught I could procure her. In short there is nothing in me Matilda will miss when once we have parted.
Lucile.
No, Alfred, no. Oh, do not suppose that I blame you, but your honor is pledged to Matilda and before me would ever arise her fair face, with eyes so sad, so reproachful, yet so kind; they would harrow my heart. Best all as it is. You have made me an offer of which I well know the worth. But doubt is over. My future is fixed; my course is decided; we meet no more; deem this life's good night. If tears fall unbidden at this parting, they are tears of a friend. So farewell to the past and to you, Alfred Vargrave. [Exit Vargrave.]
Lucile throws herself weeping on divan. Enters Marie, Countess of Perche.
The Countess. (Taking Lucile in her arms).
My poor child. I fondled you on my knee when you left, as an infant in far-away India, the tomb of your mother. I brought you to pine as a floweret in the great Paris town. I soothed your childish sobs when I read you the letter that told you your father was dead. He had studied men, cities, laws, wars, the abysses of statecraft, with varying fortunes, he had wander'd the world through, by land and by sea, and knew it in most of its phases. Strong will, subtle tact and soft manners had given him skill to conciliate fortune, and courage to brave her displeasure. Thrice shipwreck'd, and cast by the wave on his own quick resources, they rarely had fail'd his command; often baffled, he ever prevail'd, in his combat with fate; to-day flatter'd and fed by monarchs, to-morrow in search of mere bread. The offspring of times trouble haunted, he came of a family ruin'd in purse, yet noble in name. He lost sight of his fortune, at twenty, in France, and, half statesman, half soldier, and wholly free lance, had wander'd in search of it, over the world, into India. But scarce had the nomad unfurl'd his wandering tent at Mysore, in the smile of a Rajah (whose court he controll'd for a while, and whose council he prompted and govern'd by stealth); scarce, indeed, had he wedded an Indian princess, who died giving you birth before he was borne to the tomb of his wife at Mysore.
Lucile.
Then take me once more to your arms to your heart, and the places of old-- never, never to part! Once more to the palm and the fountain! Once more to the land of my birth, and the deep skies of yore! From the cities of Europe, pursued by the fret of their turmoil wherever my footsteps are set; from the children that cry for the birth, and behold, there is no strength to bear them-old time is so old-- back-- back to the Orient, to the palms! to the tomb of my mother! to the still sacred river! where I too, the child of a day that is done, first leaped into life, and look'd up at the sun, back again, back again, to the hill tops of home. Do you still remember the free games I play'd on the hill, 'mid those huge stones upheav'd, where we recklessly trod o'er the old ruin'd fane of the old ruin'd god! how he frown'd while around him I careless'y play'd! that frown on my life ever after hath stay'd. I am no longer the free child, I forget. I am a sad woman, defrauded of rest; I bear to you only a laboring breast; my heart is a storm-beaten ark, wildly hurl'd o'er the whirlpools of time, with the wrecks of a world; the dove from my bosom hath flown far away; it is flown and returns not, though many a day have I watch'd from the windows of life for its coming. I sigh for repose, I am weary of roaming. I know not what Ararat rises for me far away, o'er the waves of the wandering sea; I know not what rainbow may yet, from far hills, lift the promise of hope, the cessation of ills, but a voice, like the voice of my youth, in my breast wakes and whispers me on-- to the East! to the East! Shall I find the child's heart that I left there? or find the lost youth I recall with its pure peace of mind? Who shall seal up the caverns the earthquake hath rent? Who shall bring forth the winds that within them are pent? Let me return, a recluse, to those cloisters of yore, whence too far I have wander'd. How many long years does it seem to me now since the quick, scorching tears, while I wrote to you, splash'd out a girl's moans of pain at what women in silence endure! To your eyes, friend of mine, and to your eyes alone, that now long-faded page of mv life hath been shown which recorded my heart's birth and death, as you know, many years since-- how many! A few months ago I seem'd reading it backward, that page! The old dream of my life rose again. The old superstition! the idol of old! It is over. The leaf trodden down in the mould is not to the forest more lost than to me, that emotion. I bury it there by the sea which will bear me anon far away from the shore of this land, which my footsteps will visit no more. And a heart's requiescat I write on that grave. And I seem as unreal and weird to myself as those idols of old. Other times, other men, other passions! So be it!, yet again I turned to my birthplace, the birthplace of morn, and the light of those lands where the great sun is born! Spread your arms, O my friend! on your breast let me rest for awhile, I am weary. Hark! the sigh of the wind, and the sound of the wave, seem like voices of spirits that whisper me home! I come, O you whispering voices, I come!
End of Scene 1.
ACT II.
Scene 2.- A small inn in the mountains where Lucile has has stopped after leaving Luchon. Time- Day succeeding last scene. Lucile seated at table. Servant brings letter.
Lucile (reading letter).
"I know why now you refuse me:'tis for the man who has trifled before, wantonly, and now trifles again with the heart you deny to myself. But he shall not! By man's last wild law, I will seize on the right to avenge for you, woman, the past, and to give to the future its freedom. That man shall not live to make you as wretched as you have made me!
"Duke de Luvois."
Lucile (hastily writes answer and reads it over as follows).
"Your letter makes me stay till I see you again. With no moment's delay I entreat, I conjure you, by all that you feel or profess, to come to me directly.
"Lucile."
Rings for servant. Enter servant.
Lucile.
Send this at once. (Exit servant.)
Enters Duke.
Duke.
You relent? And your plans have been changed by the letter?
Lucile.
Your letter! yes, Duke. For it threaten'd man's life-- woman's honor.
Duke.
The last, madam, not?
Lucile.
Both. I glance at your own words; blush, son of the knighthood of France, as I read them! You say in this letter-- "I know why now you refuse me: 'tis (is it not so?) for the man who has trifled before, wantonly, and now trifles again with the heart you deny to myself. But he shall not! By man's last wild law, I will seize on the right (the right Duke de Luvois!) to avenge for you, woman, the past, and to give to the future its freedom. That man shall not live to make you as wretched as you have made me!"
Duke.
Well, Madam, in those words what word do you see that threatens the honor of woman?
Lucile.
See!-- what, what word, do you ask? Every word! would you not, had I taken your hand thus, have felt that your name was soiled and dishonor'd by more than mere shame if the woman that bore it had first been the cause of the crime in which these words is menaced? You pause! Woman's honor, you ask? Is there, sir, no dishonor in the smile of a woman, when men, gazing on her, can shudder and say: "In that smile is a grave!" No! you can have no cause, Duke, for no right you have in the contest you menace. That contest but draws every right into ruin. By all human laws of man's heart I forbid it, by all sanctities of man's social honor!--
Duke.
I obey you, but let woman beware how she plays fast and loose thus with human despair, and the storm in man's heart. Madam, yours was the right when you saw that I hoped, to extinguish hope quite. But you should from the first have done this, for I feel that you knew from the first that I loved you. Lucile, was I wrong? Is it so?
Lucile.
Hear me, Duke! you must feel that whatever you deem your right to reproach me in this, your esteem I may claim on one ground-- I at least am sincere. You say that to me from the first it was clear that you loved me. But what if this knowledge were known at a moment in life when I felt most alone, and least able to be so? a moment, in fact, when I strove from one haunting regret to retract and emancipate life, and once more to fulfill woman's destinies, duties, and hopes? Would you still so bitterly blame me, Eugene de Luvois, if I hoped to see all this, or dreem'd that I saw for a moment the promise of this in the plighted affection of one who, in nature, united so much that from others affection might claim, if only affection were free? Do you blame the hope of that moment? I deem'd my heart free from all, saving sorrow. I deemed that in me there was yet strength to mould it once more to my will, to uplift it once more, to my hope. Do you still blame me, Duke, that I did not then bid you refrain from hope? alas! I, too, then hoped!
Duke.
Oh, again-- yet again, say that thrice blessed word! say, Lucile, that you then deign'd to hope--
Lucile.
Yes! to hope I could feel, and could give to you, that without which all else given were but to deceive, and to injure you even, a heart free from thoughts of another. Say, then, do you blame that one hope?
Duke.
O Lucile!
Lucile.
Say again, do you blame me that, when I at last had to own to my heart that the hope it had cherish'd was o'er, and forever, I said to you then: "Hope no more?" I myself hoped no more!
Duke.
What, then! he re-crosses your path, this man, and you have but to see him, despite of his troth to another, to take back that light, worthless heart to your own, which he wrong'd years ago!
Lucile.
No! no! 'tis not that-- but alas!-- but I cannot conceal that I have not forgotten the past-- but I feel that I cannot accept all these gifts on your part,-- in return for what-- ah, Duke, what is it?-- a heart which is only a ruin!
Duke.
Though a ruin it be, trust me yet to rebuild and restore it, though ruin'd it be, since so dear is that ruin, ah, yield it to me!
Lucile.
No.
Duke.
Am I right? You reject me, accept him?
Lucile.
I have not done so.
Duke. Not yet-- no! But can you with accents as firm promise me that you will not accept him?
Lucile.
Accept! Is he free-- free to offer?
Duke.
You evade me, Lucile; ah, you will not avow what you feel! He might make himself free? Oh, you blush-- turn away? Dare you openly look in my face, lady, say! While you deign to reply to one question from me? I may hope not, you tell me: but tell me, may he? What! silent? I alter my question. If quite freed in faith from this troth, might he hope then?
Lucile.
He might. (Moves toward door). Farewell! We, alas! have mistaken each other. Once more illusion, to-night, in my lifetime is o'er. Duke de Luvois, adieu!
End of Act II.
ACT III.
Scene 1.- Ems, a German watering place. A garden near the promenade. Time- August, 1829. Matilda, wife of Alfred Vargrave, seated on rustic bench. Duke de Luvois standing near.
Matilda.
This poor flower seems out of place in this hot air (plucking petals from a rose). Duke, you know, then, this-- lady?
Duke.
Too well. She is just back from her long hiding place at the source of the sunrise. Back from her far home in India to the cities of Europe and the scenes of men. Back to the life she had led. The charming Lucile, the gay Countess, to her old friend the world has re-opened the door and the world seems pleased and amused.
Matilda. Have you met her?
Duke. Not since her return.
Matilda. You draw her portrait with ardor.
Duke. With ardor?
Matilda.
You describe her as possessed of charms all unrivaled.
Duke.
Alas! you mistook me completely! You, madam, surpass this lad}' as moonlight does lamplight; as youth surpasses its best imitations; as truth the fairest of falsehood surpasses; as nature surpasses art's masterpiece; ay, as the creature fresh and pure in its native adornment surpasses all the charms got by heart at the world's looking-glasses!
Matilda.
Yet you said that you quite comprehended a passion so strong as--
Duke.
True, true! but not in a man that had once look'd at you. Nor can I conceive, or excuse, or--
Matilda.
Hush! hush! Between man and woman these things differ so! It may be that the world pardons (how should I know?) in you what it visits on us; or 'tis true, it may be that we women are better than you.
Duke.
Who denies it? Yet, madam, once more you mistake. The world, in its judgment, some difference may make 'twixt the man and the woman so far as respects its social enchantments; but not as affects the one sentiment which it were easy to prove, is the sole law we look to the moment we love.
Matilda.
That may be. Yet I think I should be less severe. Although so inexperienced in such things, I fear I have learn'd that the heart cannot always repress or account for the feelings which sway it.
Duke.
Yes! yes! that is too true, indeed! And yet! what avails, then, to woman, the gift of a beauty like yours if it cannot uplift her heart from the reach of one doubt, one despair, one pang of wrong'd love, to which women less fair are exposed when they love? Young, lovely and loving, as you are, are you loved?
Matilda.
'Tis three vears since the day when I first was a bride, and my husband I never had cause to suspect; nor never have stoop'd, sir, such cause to detect. Yet if in his looks or his acts I should see-- see, or fancy-- some moment's oblivion of me, I trust that I too should forget it-- for you must have seen that my heart is my husband's.
Duke.
Will you suffer me, lady, your thoughts to invade by disclosing my own? The position in which we so strangely seem placed may excuse the frankness and force of the words which I use. You say that your heart is your husband's. You say that you love him. You think so, of course, lady, but, trust me, no true love there can be without its dread penalty-- jealousy. Well, do not start! Until now-- either thanks to a singular art of supreme self-control, you have held them all down unreveal'd in your heart, Or you never have known even one of those fierce, irresistible pangs which deep passion engenders; that anguish which hangs on the heart like a nightmare, by jealousy bred. But if, lady, the love you describe, in the bed of a blissful security thus hath reposed undisturb'd, with mild eyelids on happiness closed, were it not to expose to a peril unjust, and most cruel, that happy repose you so trust, to meet, to receive, and, indeed, it may be, for how long I know not, continue to see a woman whose place rivals yours in the life and the heart which not only your title of wife, but also (forgive me!) your beauty alone should have made wholly yours? You, who gave all your own! Reflect! 'Tis the peace of existence you stake on the turn of a die. And for whose-- for his sake? While you witness this woman, the false point of view from which she must now be regarded, by you will exaggerate to you, whatever they be, the charms I admit she possesses. To me they are trivial indeed; yet to your eyes, I fear and forsee, they will true and intrinsic appear. Self-unconscious, and sweetly unable to guess how more lovely by far is the grace you possess, you will wrong your own beauty. The graces of art, you will take, for the natural charm of the heart; studied manners, the brilliant and bold repartee, will too soon in that fatal comparison be to your fancy more fair than the sweet timid sense which, in shrinking, betrays 'tis own best eloquence. O then, lady, then, you will feel in your heart the poisonous pain of a fierce, jealous dart! While you see her, yourself you no longer will see-- you will hear her, and hear not yourself-- you will be unhappy; unhappy because you will deem your own power less great than her power will seem. And I shall not be by your side, day by day, in despite of your noble displeasure, to say: "You are fairer than she, as the star is more fair than the diamond, the brightest that beauty can wear!"
Matilda.
Sir, the while I thank you, for your fervor in painting my fancied distress; allow me the right some surprise to express at the zeal you betray in disclosing to me the possible depth of my own misery.
Duke.
That zeal would not startle you, madam, could you read in my heart, as myself I have read. The peculiar interest which causes that zeal--
Matilda.
Duke, I continue to hear; but permit me to say, I no more understand.
Duke.
Forgive, oh, forgive me! I forgot that you know me so slightly. Your leave I entreat (from your anger those words to retrieve) for one moment to speak of myself-- for I think that you wrong me. Beneath an exterior which seems, and may be, worldly, frivolous, careless, my heart hides in me, a sorrow which draws me to side with all things that suffer. Nay, laugh not, at so strange an avowal. O, lady! alas, could you know what injustice and wrong in this world I have seen! How many a woman, believed to have been without a regret, I have known turn aside to burst into heartbroken tears undescried! On how many a lip have I witness'd the smile which but hid what was breaking the poor heart the while!
Matilda.
Your life, it would seem, then, must be one long act of devotion.
Duke.
Perhaps so, but at least that devotion small merit can boast, for one day may yet come-- if one day at the most-- when, perceiving at last all the difference-- how great! 'twixt the heart that neglects, and the heart that can wait, 'twixt the natures that pity, the natures that pain some woman, that else might have pass'd in disdain or indifference by me-- in passing that day might pause with a word or a smile to repay this devotion-- and then--
Enter Alfred Vargrave and Lucile strolling through the garden. Lord Alfred introduces his wife to Lucile. All walk toward hotel. Lucile and Duke side by side.
Lucile (to the Duke).
Duke de Luvois, let us feel that the friendship between us in years that are fled has survived one mad moment forgotten. Do you remain at Ems?
Duke.
Perchance, I have here an attraction. (Glancing toward Matilda.) And you--
Lucile.
I, too. (Joins Matilda and both exit, leaving Lord Alfred and Duke in the garden.)
Duke.
We meet her, once more, the woman for whom we two madmen of yore (laugh, mon cher Alfred, laugh!) were about to destroy each other!
Alfred.
It is not with laughter that I raise the ghost of that once troubled time. Say! can you recall it with coolness and quietude now?
Duke.
Now? yes! I, mon cher, am a true Parisien: Now, the red revolution, the tocsin, and then the dance and the play. I am now at the play.
Alfred. At the play, are you now? Then perchance I now may presume, Duke, to ask you what, ever until such a moment, I waited--
Duke.
Oh! ask what you will. Franc jeu! on the table my cards I spread out. Ask!
Alfred.
Duke, you were called to a meeting (no doubt you remember it yet) with Lucile. It was night when you went; and before you return'd it was light. We met: you accosted me then with a brow bright with triumph: your words (you remember them nowl) Well let us be friends!
Duke.
Well?
Alfred.
How then, after that, can you and she meet as acquaintances?
Duke.
What! Did she not then, herself, the Comtesse de Nevers, solve your riddle to-night with those soft lips of hers?
Alfred.
In our converse to-night we avoided the past, but the question I ask should be answer'd at last; by you, if you will; if you will not, by her.
Duke.
Indeed? but that question, milord, can it stir such an interest in you, if your passion be o'er?
Alfred.
Yes. Esteem may remain, although love be no more, Lucile ask'd me, this night, to my wife (understand, to my wife!) to present her. I did so. Her hand has clasped that of Matilda. We gentlemen owe respect to the name that is ours; and, if so, to the woman that bears it a twofold respect. Answer, Duke de Luvois! Did Lucile then reject the proffer you made of your hand and your name? Or did you on her love then relinquish a claim urged before? I ask bluntly this question, because my title to do so is clear by the laws that all gentlemen honor. Make only one sign that you know of Lucile de Nevers aught, in fine, for which, if your own virgin sister were by, from Lucile you would shield her acquaintance, and I and Matilda leave Ems on the morrow.
Duke.
Nay! Madame de Nevers had rejected me. I, in those days, I was mad, and in some mad reply I threatened the life of the rival to whom that rejection was due, I was led to presume. She feared for his life; and the letter which then she wrote me, I show'd you. We met; and again my hand was refused, and my love was denied. The glance you mistook was the vizard which pride lends to humiliation. And so, in this best world, 'tis all for the best; you are wedded (bless'd Englishman!) wedded to one whose past can be call'd into question by none; and I (fickle Frenchman!) can still laugh to feel I am lord to myself, and the mode; and Lucile still shines from her pedestal, frigid and fair as yon German moon o'er the linden tops there! A Dian in marble that scorns any troth with the little love-gods, whom I thank for us both, while she smiles from her lonely Olympus apart, that her arrows are marble as well as her heart. Stay at Ems, Alfred Vargrave!
End of Scene 1.
ACT III.
Scene 2.- Same as Scene 1. Night. Ten days later. Enter Lord Alfred, who meets Lucile walking through the garden.
Alfred.
Thank the good stars, we meet. I have so much to say to you.
Lucile. Yes, and I, too, was wishing indeed to say somewhat to you.
Alfred.
Are you ill?
Lucile.
No, no!
Alfred.
You alarm me.
Lucile.
If your thoughts have of late sought, or cared to divine the purpose of what has been passing in mine, my farewell can scarcely alarm you.
Alfred.
Lucile! your farewell! You go!
Lucile.
Yes, Lord Alfred.
Alfred. Reveal the cause of this sudden unkindness.
Lucile.
Unkind?
Alfred.
Yes! what else is this parting?
Lucile.
No, no! are you blind? Look into your own heart and home. Can you see no reason for this save unkindness in me? Look into the eyes of your wife-- those true eyes, too pure and too honest in aught to disguise the sweet soul shining through them.
Alfred.
Lucile! (first and last be the word, if you will!) let me speak of the past. I know now, alas! though I know it too late, what pass'd at that meeting which settled my fate. Nay, nay, interrupt me not yet! let it be! I but say what is due to yourself-- due to me, and must say it. When the Duke returned from that meeting with you, forgive me, Lucile, but from his look and his laughter. O Lucile, what was left me when my life was defrauded of you, but to take that life, as 'twas left, and endeavor to make unobserved by another, the void which remain'd unconceal'd to myself? If I have not attain'd, I have striven. One word of unkindness has never pass'd my lips to Matilda. Her least wish has ever received my submission. And if, of a truth, I have failed to renew what I felt in my youth, I at least have been loyal to what I do feel, respect, duty, honor, affection. Lucile, I speak not of love now, nor love's long regret; I would not offend you, nor dare I forget the ties that are round me. But may there not be a friendship yet hallow'd between you and me? May we not be yet friends-- friends the dearest?
Lucile.
Alas! for one moment, perchance, did it pass through my own heart, that dream which forever hath brought to those who indulge it in innocent thought so fatal an evil awaking! But no. For in lives such as ours are, the dream-tree would grow on the borders of hades: beyond it, the cries of the lost and tormented. Departed, for us, are the days when with innocence we could discuss dreams like these. Fled, indeed, are the dreams of my life! Oh trust me, the best friend you have is your wife. And I-- in that pure child's pure virtue, I bow to the beauty of virtue. I felt on my brow not one blush when I first took her hand. With no blush shall I clasp it to-night, when I leave you. Hush! hush I would say what I wish'd to have said when you came do not think that years leave us and find us the same! the woman you knew long ago, long ago, is no more. You yourself have within you, I know, the germ of a joy in the years yet to be, whereby the past years will bear fruit. As for me, I go my own way,-- onward, upward! O yet, let me thank you for that which ennobled regret when it came, as it beautified hope ere it fled,-- the love I once felt for you. True, it is dead, but it is not corrupted. I too have at last lived to learn that love is not-the sole part of life, which is able to fill up the heart; even that of a woman. Between you and me heaven fixes a gulf, over which you must see that our guardian angels can bear us no more. We each of us stand on an opposite shore. Trust a woman's opinion for once. Women learn, by an instinct men never attain, to discern each other's true natures. Matilda is fair, Matilda is young-- how tenderly fashion'd (oh, is she not? say), to love and be loved!
Alfred.
Matilda is young, and Matilda is fair; of all that you tell me pray deem me aware; but Matilda's a statute, Matilda's a child; Matilda loves not--
Lucile.
Yesterday all that you say might be true; it is false, wholly false, though, to-day.
Alfred.
How? What mean you?
Lucile.
I mean that to-day the stalue with life has become vivified. I mean that the child to a woman has grown and that woman is jealous.
Alfred.
What she! She jealous!-- Matilda!-- of whom, pray-- not me!
Lucile.
My lord, you deceive yourself; no one but you is she jealous of. Trust me. And thank Heaven, too, that so lately this passion within her hath grown or that knowledge perchance-- might have cost you more dear.
Alfred.
Explain! Explain, madam!
Lucile.
How blind are you men! Can you doubt that a woman, young, fair and neglected--
Alfred.
Speak out! Lucile, you mean-- what! Do you doubt her fidelity?
Lucile.
Certainly not. Listen to me, my friend. What I wish to explain is so hard to shape forth. I could almost refrain from touching a subject so fragile. However, bear with me a while if I frankty endeavor to invade for one moment your innermost life. Your honor, Lord Alfred, and that of vour wife, are dear to me-- most dear! And I am convinced that you rashly are risking that honor.
Alfred.
Stay, Lucile! What in truth do you mean by these words, vaguely framed to alarm me? Matilda?-- my wife?-- do you know?--
Lucile.
I know that your wife is as spotless as snow, but I know not how far your continued neglect her nature, as well as her heart, might affect. For jealousy is to a woman, be sure, a disease heal'd too oft by a criminal cure; and the heart left too long to its ravage in time may find weakness in virtue, reprisal in crime.
Alfred.
Such thoughts could have never reach'd the heart of Matilda.
Lucile.
Matilda? oh no! But reflect! When such thoughts do not come of themselves to the heart of a woman neglected, like elves that seek lonely places-- there rarely is wanting some voice at her side, with an evil enchanting, to conjure them to her.
Alfred.
I search everywhere for a clew to your words--
Lucile.
You mistake them. I was putting a mere hypothetical case.
Alfred.
Woe to him-- woe to him that shall feel such a hope! for I swear, if he did but reveal one glimpse-- it should be the last hope of his life!
Lucile.
You forget that you menace yourself. You yourself are the man that is guilty. Alas! must it ever be so? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, and fight our own shadows forever? O think! The trial from which you, the stronger ones, shrink, you ask woman, the weaker one, still to endure; you bid her be true to the laws you abjure; to abide by the ties you yourselves rend asunder, with the force that has fail'd you; and that too, when under the assumption of rights which to her you refuse, the immunity claim'd for yourselves you abuse! Where the contract exists, it involves obligation to both husband and wife, in an equal relation. You unloose, in asserting your own liberty, a knot, which, unloosed, leaves another as free. Then, O Alfred! be juster at heart, and thank Heaven that Heaven to your wife such a nature has given that you have not wherewith to reproach her, albeit you have cause to reproach your own self, could you see it!
Alfred.
Lucile, I both understand and obey you.
Lucile.
Thank Heaven.
Alfred.
One word. I beseech you! I can not forget. We are parting for life. You have shown my pathway to me; but say, what is your own?
Lucile.
Nay. I know not. I follow the way Heaven leads me; I can not foresee to what end. I know only that far, far away it must tend from all places in which we have met, or might meet. Far away-- onward-- upward!
Alfred.
Wheresoever it be, may all gentlest angels attend you! And bear my heart's blessing wherever you are!
Kisses her hand. Exit Lucile and Alfred.
Enters Matilda, who has seen Lord Alfred kiss the hand, of Lucile. Crosses the garden and scats herself on bench. Enters Duke, who approaches her unnoticed.
Duke.
Ah, lady, there are meetings in life which seem like a fate, dare I think like a sympathy too? Yet what else can I bless for this vision of you? Alone with my thoughts, on this starlighted lawn, by an instinct resistless, I felt myself drawn to revisit the memories left in the place where so lately this evening I look'd in your face. And I find-- you, yourself-- my own dream! Can there be in this world one thought common to you and to me? If so-- I, who deem'd but a moment ago my heart uncompanion'd, save only by woe, should indeed be more bless'd than I dare to believe-- Ah, but one word, but one from your lips to receive--
Matilda.
I sought, here, a moment of solitude, silence and thought, which I needed.
Duke.
Lives solitude only for one? Must its charm, by my presence, so soon be undone? Ah, cannot two share it? What needs it for this?-- the same thought in both hearts,-- be it sorrow or bliss; if my heart be the reflex of yours, lady-- you, are not yet alone,-- even though we be two?
Matilda.
For that-- needs were, you should read what I have in my heart--
Duke.
Think vou, lady, indeed, you are yet of that age when a woman conceals in her heart so completely whatever she feels from the heart of the man whom it interests to know and find out what that feeling may be? Ah, not so, Lady Alfred! Forgive me that in it I look, but I read in your heart as I read in a book.
Matilda.
Well, Duke! and what read you within it unless it be, of a truth, a profound weariness, and some sadness?
Duke.
No doubt. To all facts there are laws. The effect has its cause, and I mount to the cause. You are sad, Lady Alfred, because the first need of a young and a beautiful woman is to be beloved, and to love. You are sad: for you see that you are not beloved, as you deem'd that you were: you are sad: for that knowledge hath left you aware that you have not ye.t loved, though you thought that you had. Yes, yes!--you are sad-- because knowledge is sad!
Matilda.
What gave you such strange power?
Duke.
O lady,-- a love, deep, profound-- be it blamed or rejected,-- a love, true, intense-- such, at least, as you, and you only, could wake in my breast!
Matilda.
I beseech you-- hush, hush!-- for pity!
Duke.
For pity?-- for pity! And what is the pity you owe him? His pity for you! He, the lord of a life, fresh as new-fallen dew! The guardian and guide of a woman, young, fair, and matchless! (whose happiness did he not swear to cherish through life?) He neglects her-- for whom? For a fairer than she? No! the rose in the bloom of that beauty which, even when hidd'n, can prevail to keep sleepless with song the aroused nightingale, is not fair; for even in the pure world of flowers her symbol is not, and, this pure world of ours has no second Matilda! For whom? Let that pass! 'Tis not I, 'tis not you, that can name her, alas! and I dare not question or judge her. But why, why cherish the cause of your own misery? Why think of one, lady, who thinks not of you? Why be bound by a chain which himself he breaks through? and why, since you have but to stretch forth your hand, the love which you need and deserve to command, why shrink? Why repel it?
Matilda.
O hush, sir! O hush! Cease, cease, I conjure you, to trouble my life! is not Alfred your friend? and am I not his wife?
Duke.
And have I not, lady-- respected his rights as a friend till himself he neglected your rights as a wife? Do you think 'tis alone for days I have loved you? My love may have grown, I admit, day by day, since I first felt your eyes, in watching their tears, and in sounding your sighs. But, O lady! I loved you before I believed that your eyes ever wept, or your heart ever grieved then I deem'd you were happy-- I deemed you possess'd all the love you deserved,-and I hid in my breast my own love, till this hour-- when I could not but feel your grief gave me the right my own grief to reveal! I knew, years ago, of the singular power which Lucile o'er your husband possess'd. Till the hour in which he reveal'd it himself, did I,-- say!-- by a word, or a look, such a secret betray? No! no! do me justice. I never have spoken of this poor heart of mine, till all ties he had broken which bound your heart to him. And now-- now, that his love for another hath left your own heart free to rove, what is it,-- ever now,-- that I kneel to implore you? only this, Lady Alfred!-- to let me adore you unblamed: to have confidence in me: to spend on me not one thought, save to think me your friend let me speak to you,-- ah, let me speak to you still! hush to silence my words in your heart if you will. I ask no response: I ask only your leave to live yet in your life, and to grieve when you grieve!
Matilda.
Leave me, leave me!-- For pity's sake, Duke, let me go! I feel that to blame we should both of us be, did I linger.
Duke.
To blame? Yes, no doubt, if the love of your husband, in bringing you peace, had forbidden you hope. But he signs your release by the hand of another. One moment! but one! Who knows when, alas! I may see you alone as to-night I have seen you? or when we ma}' meet as to-night we have met? when, entranced at your feet, as in this blessed hour, I may ever avow the thoughts which are pining for utterance now?
Matilda.
Duke! Duke! for Heaven's sake let me go! It is late. In the house they will miss me, I know. We must not be seen here together. The night is advancing. I feel overwhelm'd with affright! It is time to return to my lord.
Duke.
To your lord? to your lord? Do you think he awaits you in truth? Is he anxiously missing your presence, forsooth? Return to your lord!-- his restraint to renew and hinder the glances which are not for you? No, no! At this moment his looks seek the face of another! Another is there in your place! Another consoles him! Another receives the soft speech which from silence your absence relieves!
Lucile has entered unobserved and heard conversation.
Lucile.
You mistake, sir! You mistake, sir! That other is here.
Matilda.
Lucile!
Duke.
Ho, oh! What! Eaves-dropping, madam? And so you were listening?
Lucile.
Say, rather, that I heard, without wishing to hear it, that infamous word. Heard-- and therefore reply.
Duke.
Belle Comtesse, you know that your place is not here.
Lucile.
Duke, my place is wherever my duty is clear; and therefore my place, at this moment, is here. O lady, this morning my place was beside your husband, because I felt that from folly fast growing to crime-- the crime of self-blindness-- Heaven yet spared me time to save for the love of an innocent wife all that such love deserved in the heart and the life of the man to whose heart and whose life you alone can with safety confide the pure trust of your own. 'Tis, O lady, the honor which that man has confided to you, that, in spite of his friend, I now trust I may yet save to-night-- save for both of you, lady, for yours I revere; Duke de Luvois, what say you?-- my place is not here? Now go.
Exit Duke.
Lucile (continuing).
In the name of your husband, dear lady; in the name of your mother, take heart! Lift your head, for those blushes are noble! Alas! do not trust to that maxim of virtue made ashes and dust, that the fault of the husband can cancel the wife's. Take heart and take refuge and strength in your life's pure silence-- there, kneel, pray and hope, weep and wait.
Matilda.
Saved, Lucile! but saved to what fate? Tears, prayers, yes! not hopes.
Lucile.
Hush, your husband will return. Doubt not this. And return for the love you can give; with the love that you yearn to receive, lady. What was it chill'd you both now? Not the absence of love, but the ignorance how love is nourish'd by love. Well, henceforth you will prove your heart worthy of love-- since it knows how to love.
Matilda.
What gives you such power over me that I feel thus drawn to obey you? What are you, Lucile?
Lucile.
The pupil of sorrow, perchance.
Matilda. Of sorrow? O confide to my heart your affliction. In all you made known I should find some instruction, do doubt, for my ownl
Lucile.
And I some consolation, no doubt; for the tears of another have not flow'd for me many years. (Both rising.)
Lucile.
And now to your room.
Matilda.
You have heard this night the happy watchword passed from earth up to Heaven-- all is well! all is well!
Exit both. Enter Lord Alfred from opposite side. Enter John Somerset from center.
Alfred.
Cousin John.
John. Alfred.
Alfred.
What is the matter, Jack? Why do you look so--
John.
What! have you not heard?
Alfred.
Heard what?
John.
This sad business--
Alfred.
I? no, not a word.
John.
You received my last letter?
Alfred.
I think so. If not, what then?
John.
You have acted upon it?
Alfred.
On what?
John.
The advice that I gave you--
Alfred.
Advice?-- let me see? You always are giving advice, Jack, to me. About Parliament, was it?
John.
Hang Parliament! no. The bank, the bank, Alfred!
Alfred.
What bank?
John.
Heavens. I know you are careless;-- but surely you have not forgotten,-- or neglected-- I warn'd you the whole thing was rotten. You have drawn those deposits at least?
Alfred.
No, I meant to have written to-day; but the note shall be sent to-morrow, however.
John.
To-morrow? too late! Too late! oh, what devil bewitch'd you to wait?
Alfred.
Mercy save us! you don't mean to say--
John.
Yes, I do, Sir Ridley McNab.
Alfred.
What! Sir Ridley? Matilda's uncle?
John.
Smash'd, broken, blown up, bolted too!
Alfred. But his own niece!-- In heaven's name, Jack.
John.
Oh, I told you the old hypocritical scoundrel would--
Alfred.
Hold! You surely can'l mean we are ruin'd?
John.
Sit down! A fortnight ago a report about town made me most apprehensive. I at once wrote and warn'd you. A run on the bank about five days ago confirm'd my forebodings too terribly, though. I drove down to the city at once; found the door of the bank closed: the bank had stopp'd payment at four. Next morning the failure was known to be fraud: warrant out for McNab: but McNab was abroad: gone-- we cannot tell where. I endeavor'd to get information: have learn'd nothing certain as yet-- not even the way that old Ridley has gone: or with those securities what he had done: or whether they had been already call'd out: if they-- are not, their fate is, I fear, past a doubt. Twenty families ruin'd, they say: what was left,-- unable to find any clew to the cleft the old fox ran to earth in,-- but join you as fast as I could, my dear Alfred? Courage, courage I-- bear the blow like a man!
Alfred.
I bear it, but Matilda? The blow is to her!
John.
Matilda? Pooh, pooh! I half think I know the girl better than you. She has courage enough-- and to spare. She cares less than most women for luxury, nonsense, and dress.
Alfred.
The fault has been mine.
John.
Be it yours to repair it: If you did not avert it, you may help her to bear it.
Alfred.
I might have averted it.
John.
Perhaps so. But now there is clearly no use in considering how, or whence, came the mischief. The mischief is here. Broken shins are not mended by crying-- that's clear! One has but to rub them, and get up again, and push on-- and not think too much of the pain. And at least it is much that you see that to her you owe too much to think of yourself. You must stir and arouse yourself, Alfred, for her sake. Who knows? Something yet may be saved from this wreck. I suppose we shall make him disgorge all he can, at the least.
Alfred.
O, Jack, I have been a brute idiot! a beast! a fool! I have sinn'd, and to her I have, sinn'd! I have been heedless, blind, inexcusably blind! And now, in a flash, I see all things!
John.
Where is she?
Lord Alfred does not reply.
John.
Where is she?
Alfred.
There, I think. (Pointing to hotel.)
John moves as if to go.
Alfred.
One moment, dear Jack! we have grown up from boyhood together. Our track has been through the same meadows in childhood: in youth through the same silent gateways, to manhood. In truth, there is none that can know me as you do; and none to whom I more wish to believe myself known. Speak the truth; you are not wont to mince it, I know. Nor I, shall I shirk it, or shrink from it now. In despite of a wanton behavior, in spile of vanity, folly, and pride, Jack, which might have turn'd from me many a heart strong and true as your own, I have never turn'd round and miss'd you from my side in one hour of affliction or doubt by my own blind and heedless self-will brought about. Tell me the truth. Do I owe this alone to the sake of those old recollections of boyhood that make in your heart yet some clinging and crying appeal from a judgment more harsh, which I cannot but feel might have sentenced our friendship to death long ago? or is it-- (I would. I could deem it were so!) that, not all overlaid by a listless exterior, your heart has divined in me something superior to that which I seem; from my innermost nature not wholW expell'd by the world's usurpature? Some instinct of earnestness, truth, or desire for truth? Some one spark of the soul's native fire moving under the ashes, and cinders, and dust which life hath heap'd o'er it? Some one fact to trust and to hope in? Or by you alone am I deem'd the mere frivolous fool I so often have seem'd to my own self?
John.
No, Alfred! you will, I believe, be true, at the last, to what now makes you grieve for having belied your true nature so long. Necessity is a stern teacher. Be strong!
Alfred.
Do you think-- what I feel while I speak is no more than a transient emotion, as weak as these weak tears would seem to betoken it?
John.
No!
Alfred.
Thank you, cousin! your hand then. And now I will go alone, Jack. Trust to me.
John.
I do. But 'tis late if she sleeps, you'll not wake her?
Alfred.
No, no! it will wait (poor infant!) too surely, this mission of sorrow; if she sleeps, I will not mar her dreams of to-morrow.
Exit both.
End of Scene 2.
ACT III.
Scene 3.-- Room in old ducal mansion, now used as a summer hotel, being the room of Matilda. Time- Same night as Scene 2. Matilda in white robes, with hair unconfined, kneels at her bedside as if in prayer.
Enters Lord Alfred.
Matilda.
O Alfred, O Alfred! forgive me, forgive me!
Alfred.
Forgive you, my poor child! But I never have blamed you for aught that I know, and I have not one thought that reproaches you now. When a proud man, Matilda, has found out at length, that he is but a child in the midst of his strength, but a fool in his wisdom, to whom can he own the weakness which thus to himself hath been shown? From whom seek the strength which his need of is sore, although in his pride he might perish, before he could plead for the one, or the other avow 'mid his intimate friends? Wife of mine, tell me now, do you join me in feeling, in that darken'd hour, the sole friend that can have the right or the power to be at his side, is the woman that shares his fate, if he falter; the woman that bears the name dear for her sake, and hallows the life she has mingled her own with,-- in short, that man's wife?
Matilda.
Yes, O yes.
Alfred.
Then, this chamber in which we two sit, side by side, is now a confessional; you my confessor.
Matilda.
I?
Alfred.
Yes, but first answer one other question: When a woman once feels that she is not alone; that the heart of another is warm'd by her own; that another feels with her whatever she feel. That a man for her sake will, so long as he lives, live to put forth the strength which the thought of her gives; live to shield her from want and to share with her sorrow; live to solace the day and provide for the morrow: Will that woman feel less than another, O say, the loss of what life, sparing this, takes away? Will she feel, when calamities come, that they brighten the heart though they darken the home.
Matilda.
That woman indeed were thrice blest!
Alfred.
Then courage, true wife of my heart! For the refuge to-night in these arms open'd wide to your heart can be never closed to it again, and this room is for both an asylum! For when I pass'd through that door at the door I left there a calamity sudden and heavy to bear. One step from that threshold, and daity, I fear, we must face it henceforth; but it enters not here, for that door shuts it out, and admits here alone a heart which calamity leaves all your own.
Matilda.
Calamity, Alfred, to you?
Alfred.
To both, my poor child, but 'twill bring with it too the courage, I trust, to subdue it.
Matilda.
O speak! speak!
Alfred.
O yet for a moment, hear me on! Matilda, this morn we went forth in the sun, like those children of sunshine, the bright summer flies, that sport in the sunbeam, and play through the skies while the skies smile, and heed not each other: at last, when their sunbeam is gone, and their sky overcast, who recks in what ruin they fold their wet wings? So indeed the morn found us-- poor frivolous things! Now our sky is o'ercast, and our sunbeam is set, and the night brings its darkness around us. Oh, yet have we weather'd no storm through those twelve cloudless hours? Yes; you, too, have wept!
While the world was yet ours, while its sun was upon us, its incense stream'd to us, and its myriad voices of joy seem'd to woo us, we stray'd from each other, too far, it may be, nor, wantonly wandering, then did I see how deep was my need of thee, dearest, how great was thy claim on my heart and thy share in my fate! But, Matilda, an angel was near us, meanwhile, watching o'er us to warn and to rescue! That smile which you saw with suspicion, that presence you eyed with resentment, an angel's they were at your side and at mine; nor perchance is the day all so far, when we both in our prayers, when most heartfelt they are, may murmur the name of that woman now gone from our sight evermore. Here, this evening, alone, I seek your forgiveness, in opening my heart unto yours.-- from this clasp be it never to part! Matilda, the fortune you brought me is gone, but a prize richer far than that fortune has won it is yours to confer, and I kneel for that prize-- 'tis the heart of my wife!
Matilda.
The fortune I brought you all gone?
Alfred.
The bank has suspended, Sir Ridley has fled.
Matilda.
Gone! All gone, poor Alfred, poor Alfred.
Alfred.
Poor, innocent child. With my heart and my brain and my right hand for you, my Matilda, what may I not do? And know not, I knew not myself till this hour, which so sternly revealed it, my nature's full power.
Matilda.
And I too. I too am no more the mere infant at heart you have known me before. I have suffered since then. I have learned much in life. O take, with the faith I have pledged as a wife, the heart I have learn'd as a woman to feel! For I-- love you, my husband!
End of Scene 3.
ACT III.
Scene 4.- Same as Scene 1. Time- Dawn. Lucile standing absorbed in her thoughts, with face toward east.
Enters Duke.
Duke.
At last, then,-- at last, and alone,-- I and thou, Lucile de Nevers, have we met? Hush! I know not for me was the tryst. Never mind-- it is mine; and whatever led hither those proud steps of thine, they remove not, until we have spoken. My hour is come; and it holds me and thee in its power, as the darkness holds both the horizons. 'Tis well! The timidest maiden that e'er to the spell of her first lover's vows listened, hush'd with delight, when soft stars were brightly uphanging the night, never listened, I swear, more unquestioningly, than thy fate hath compelled thee to listen to me!
Lucile.
Continue, I listen to hear. (Facing the Duke.)
Duke.
Lucile, dost thou dare to look into my face? Is the sight so repugnant? Ha, well! canst thou trace one word of thy writing in this wicked scroll, with thine own name scrawl'd through it, defacing a soul? You shudder to look in my face. Do you feel no reproach when you look in your own heart?
Lucile.
No, Duke, in my conscience I do not deserve your rebuke. Not yours.
Duke.
No? Gentle justice! You first bid Life hope not and then to despair you say: "Act not!"
(After a pause)
Wrecked creatures we are! I and thou-- one and all I Only able to injure each other and fall, soon or late, in that void which ourselves we prepare for the souls that we boast of! O heaven!, and what has become of those instincts of Eden surviving the fall: That glorious faith in inherited things: That sense in the soul: Gone! all gone! and the wail of the night wind sounds human, bewailing those once nightly visitants! Woman, woman, what hast thou done with my youth? Give again, give me back the young heart that I gave thee-- in vain!
Lucile.
Duke!
Duke.
Yes, yes, I was not always thus. What I once was I have not forgot. Woe to him in whose nature, once kindled, the torch of passion burns downward to blacken and scorch! but shame, shame and sorrow, O woman, to thee whose hand sow'd the seed of destruction in me! Whose lip taught the lesson of falsehood to mine! My soul by thy beauty was slain and I said to myself, "I am young yet: too young to have wholby survived my own portion among the great needs of man's life, or exhausted its joy's; what is broken? One only of youth's pleasant toys! Shall I be the less welcome, wherever I go, for one passion survived? No! the roses will blow as of yore, as of yore will the nightingales sing, not less sweetly for one blossom cancell'd from spring! Hast thou loved, O my heart? To thy love yet remains all the wide loving kindness of nature. The plains and the hills with each summer their verdure renew. Wouldst thou be as they are? Do thou then as they do, let the dead sleep in peace. Would the living divine where they slumber? Let only new flowers be the sign! Vain! all vain!-- for when, laughing, the wine I would quaff I remember'd too well all it cost me to laugh. Through the revel it was but the old song I heard, through the crowd the old footsteps behind me they stirr'd, in the night-wind, the starlight, the murmurs of even, in the ardors of earth, and the languors of heaven, I could trace nothing more, nothing more through the spheres, but the sound of old sobs and the track of old tears! It was with me the night long in dreaming or waking, it abided in loathing, when daylight was breaking, the burthen of the bitterness in me! Behold, all my days were become as a tale that is told. And I said to my sight, "No good thing shah thou see. For the noonday is turned to darkness in me. In the house of oblivion my bed I have made." And I said to the grave, "Lo, my father!" and said to the worm, "Lo, my sister!" The dust to the dust, and one end to the wicked shall be with the just!
Lucile.
And say you, and deem you, that I wreck'd your life? alas! Duke de Luvois, had I been your wife by a fraud of the heart which could yield you alone for the love in your nature a lie in my own, should I not, in deceiving, have injured you worse? Yes, I then should have merited justly your curse, for I then should have wrong'd you!
Duke.
Wrong'd! ah, is it so? You could never have loved me?
Lucile.
Duke! Never? oh; no!
Duke.
Yet, lady, you knew that I loved you: you led my love on to lay to its heart, hour by hour, all the pale, cruel, beautiful, passionless power shut up in that cold face of yours! Was this well? But enough! Not on you would I vent the wild hell which has grown in my heart. Oh, that man! First, and last he tramples in triumph my life! He has cast his shadow 'twixt me and the sun-- let it pass! My' hate yet may find him!
Lucile.
Alas! these words, at least, spare me the pain of reply. Enough, Duke de Luvois! farewell. I shall try lo forget every word I have heard, every sight that has grieved and appall'd me in this wretched night which must witness our final farewell. May you, Duke, never know greater cause your own heart to rebuke than mine thus to wrong and afflict you have had! Adieu!
Duke.
Stay, Lucile, stay! I am mad, brutalized, blind with pain! I know not what I said. I mean it not. But forgive me! I-- have I so wrong'd you, Lucile? I-- have I-- forgive me, forgive me!
Lucile.
I feel only sad, very sad, to the soul; far, far too sad for resentment.
Duke.
Yet stand as you are one moment. I think, could I gaze thus awhile on your face, the old innocent days would come back upon me, and this scorching heart free itself in hot tears. Do not, do not depart thus, Lucile; stay one moment. I know why you shrink, why you sudder; I read in your face what you think. Do not speak to me of it. And yet, if you will, whatever you say, my own lips shall be still. I lied. And the truth, now, could justify naught. There are battles, it may be, in which to have fought is more shameful than, simply, to fail. Yet, Lucile, had you help'd me to bear what you forced me to feel--
Lucile.
Could I help you? But what can I say that your life will respond to?
Duke.
My life? Nay, my life halh brought forth only evil, and there the wild wind hath planted the wild weed: yet ere you exclaim, "Fling the weed to the flames," think again why the field is so barren. With all other men first love, though it perish from life, only goes like the primrose that falls to make way for the rose, for a man, at least most men, may love on through life: Love in fame; love in knowledge; in work: earth is rife with labor, and, therefore, with love, for a man. If one love fails, another succeeds, and the plan of man's life includes love, in all objects! But I? All such loves from my life, through its whole destiny, fale excluded. The love that I gave you, alas! was the sole love that life gave to me. Let that pass! It perish'd and all perish'd with it. Ambition? Wealth left nothing to add to my social condition. Fame? But fame in itself presupposes some great field wherein to pursue and attain it. The State? I to cringe to an upstart. The Camp? I to draw from its sheath the old sword of the Dukes of Luvois to defend usurpation? Books, then? Science, Art? But, alas! I was fashion'd for action: my heart, wither'd thing though it be, I should hardly compress 'twixt the leaves of a treatise on Statics: life's stress needs scope, not contraction! what rests? to wear out at some dark northern court an existence, no doubt, in wretched and paltry intrigues for a cause as hopeless as is my own life! By the laws of a fate I can neither Control nor dispute, I am what I am!
Lucile.
We are our own fates. Our own deeds are our doomsmen. Man's life was made not for men's creeds but men's actions. And, Duke de Luvois, I might say that all life attests, that the will makes the way. Is the land of our birth less the land of our birth, or its claim the less strong, or its cause the less worth our upholding, because the white lily no more is as sacred as all that it bloom'd for of yore? yet be that as it may be; I cannot perchance judge this matter. I am but a woman, and France has for me simpler duties. Large hope, though, Eugene de Luvois, should be yours. There is purpose in pain, otherwise it were devilish. I trust in my soul that the great master hand which sweeps over the whole of this deep harp of life, if at moments it stretch to shrill tension some one wailing nerve, means to fetch its response the truest, most stringent, and smart, its pathos the purest, from out the wrung heart, whose faculties, flaccid it may be, if less sharply smitten, had fail'd to express just the one note the great final harmony needs. And what best proves there's life in a heart?-- that it bleeds? Grant a cause to remove, grant an end to attain, grant both to be just, and what mercy in pain! cease the sin with the sorrow ! See morning begin! pain must burn itself out if not fuell'd by sin. There is hope in yon hilltops, and love in yon light. Let hate and despondency die with the night!
Duke.
Lucile, not for me that sun's light which reveals-- not restores- the wild havoc of night. There are some creatures born for the night, not the day. Broken-hearted the nightingale hides in the spray, and the owl's moody mind in his own hollow tower dwells muffled. Be darkness henceforward my dower. Light, be sure, in that darkness there dwells, by which eyes grown familiar with ruins may yet recognize enough desolation.
Lucile.
The pride that claims here on earth to itself God's dread office and right of punishing sin, is a sin in Heaven's sight and against Heaven's service. Eugene de Luvois, leave the judgment to him who alone knows the law. Surely no man can be his own judge, least of all his own doomsman. Vulgar natures alone suffer vainly. Eugene, in life we have met once again and once more life parts us. Yon day-spring for me lifts the veil of a future in which it may be we shall meet nevermore. Grant, oh grant to, me yet the belief that it is not in vain we have met! I plead for the future. A new horoscope I would cast: will you read it? I plead for a hope: I plead for a memory, yours, yours alone, to restore or to spare. Let the hope be your own, be the memory mine. Oh, think not of me, but yourself! for I plead for your own destiny: I plead for your life, with its duties undone, with its claims unappeased and its trophies unwon; and in pleading for life's fair fulfilment, I plead for all that you miss and for all that you need.
Duke.
Lucile de Nevers! O soul to its sources departing away! pray for mine if one soul for another may pray. I to ask have no right, thou to give hast no power, one hope to my heart. But in this parting hour I name not my heart and I speak not to thine. Answer, soul of Lucile, to this dark soul of mine, does not soul owe to soul what to heart heart denies, hope, when hope is salvation? Behold, in yon skies, this wild night is passing away while I speak: lo, above us, the day-spring beginning to break! Something wakens within me and warms to the beam. Is it hope that awakens? or do I but dream? I know not. It may be, perchance, the first spark of a new light within me to solace the dark unto which I return; or perchance it may be the last spark of fires half extinguished in me. I know not. Thou goest thy way: I my own; for good or for evil, I know not. Alone this I know: We are parting. I wish'd to say more, but no matter! 'twill pass. All between us is o'er. Forget the wild words, of to-night. 'Twas the pain for long years hoarded up that rush'd from me again. I was unjust: forgive me. Spare now to reprove other words, other deeds. It was madness, not love, that you thwarted this night. What is done is now done. Death remains to avenge it or life to atone. I was madden'd, delirious! I saw you return to him-- not to me; and I felt my heart burn with a fierce thirst for vengeance-- and thus-- let it pass! Long thoughts these, and so brief the moments, alas! Thou goest thy way and I mine. I suppose 'tis to meet nevermore. Is it not so? Who knows or who heeds where the exhile from Paradise flies? or what altars of his in the desert may rise? Is it not so, Lucile? Well, well! Thus then we part once again, soul from soul, as before heart from heart.
Bells chime the hour.
Lucile.
Our two paths must part us, Eugene; for my own seems no more through that world in which henceforth alone you must work out (as now I believe that you will) the hope which you speak of. That work I shall still (if I live) watch and welcome, and bless far away. Doubt not this. But mistake not the thought, if I say that the great moral combat between human life and each human soul must be single. The strife none can share, though by all its results may be known. When the soul arms for battle, she goes forth alone. I say not, indeed, we shall meet nevermore, for I know not. But meet, as we have met of yore, I know that we cannot.
Perchance we may meet by the death-bed, the tomb, in the crowd in the street, or in solitude even, but never again shall we meet from henceforth as we have met, Eugene. For we know not the way we are going, nor yet where our two ways may meet, or may cross. Life hath set no landmarks before us. But this, this alone, I will promise: whatever your path, or my own, if, for once in the conflict before you, it chance that the dragon prevail, and with cleft shield, and lance lost or shatter'd, borne down by the stress of the war, you falter and hesitate, if from afar I, still watching (unknown to yourself, it may be) o'er the conflict to which I conjure you, should see that my presence could rescue, support you, or guide, in the hour of that need I shall be at your side, to warn, if you will, or incite, or control; and again, once again, Eugene, we shall meet, soul to soul!
Curtain.
End of Act III.
ACT IV.
Scene 1.- Twenty-five years elapse between Acts 3 and 4. Time- A night in November, year 1854. Place- Encampment of the allied armies of England and France on the fields at Inkerman. The tent of a British soldier. John Vargrave laying sick and wounded on a cot. Enter Lucile in the garb of a Sister of Charity. Approaches the cot.
John. (Just awakened from a delirum.)
Say what art thou, blessed dream of a saintly and ministering spirit.
Lucile.
The Soeur Seraphine, a poor Sister of Charity. Shun to inquire aught further, young soldier. The son of thy sire, for the sake of that sire, I reclaim from the grave. Thou didst not shun death: shun not life: 'Tis more brave to live than to die.
John.
If thou be of the living, and not of the dead, sweet minister, pour out yet further the healing of that balmy voice; if it may be, revealing thy mission of mercy; whence art thou?
Lucile.
O son of Matilda and Alfred, it matters not! One who is not of the living nor yet of the dead: to thee, and to others, alive yet-- so long as there liveth the poor gift in me of this ministration; to them, and to thee, dead in all things beside., A French nun, whose vocation is now by this bedside. A nun hath no nation. Wherever man suffers, or woman may soothe, there her land! there her kindred! Yet more than another is thy life dear to me. For thy father, thy mother I know them-- I know them.
John.
Oh, can it be you know my dearest dear mother! my father! You know, you know them? Do they know I am thus?
Lucile.
Hush!
John.
My poor mother-- my father! Has the worst reach'd them!
Lucile.
No, no! They know you are living; they know that meanwhile I am watching beside you. Young soldier, weep not. Day after day I have nursed you. I have heal'd these wounds of the body. Why hast thou conceal'd, young soldier, that yet open wound in the heart? Wilt thou trust no hand near it?
John.
What? lies my heart, then, so bare?
Lucile.
Nay, do you think that these eyes are with sorrow, young man, so all unfamiliar, indeed, as to scan her features yet know them not? Oh, was it spoken, "Go ye forth, heal the sick, lift the low, bind the broken!" Of the body alone? Is our mission, then, done, when we leave the bruised hearts, if we bind the bruised bone? Nay, is not the mission of mercy twofold? Whence twofold, perchance, are the powers that we hold to fulfill it, of Heaven? For Heaven doth still to us sisters, it may be, who seek it, send skill won from long intercourse with affliction, and art, belp'd of Heaven, to bind up the broken of heart. Trust to me! trust to me! I am not so dead in remembrance to all I have died, too, in this world, but what I recall enough . of its sorrow, enough of its trial, to grieve for both-- save from both haply! The dial receives many shades and each points to the sun; the shadows are many, the sunlight is one. Life's sorrows still fluctuate; God's love does not. And His love is unchanged, when it changes our lot. Looking up to this light, which is common to all, and down to these shadows, on each side, that fall in time's silent circle, so various for each, is it nothing to know that they never can reach so far, but what light lies beyond them forever? Trust to me! O if this hour I endeavor to trace the shade creeping across the young life which, in prayer till this hour, I have watch'd through its strife with the shadow of death,'tis with this faith alone that, in tracing the shade, I shall find out the sun. Trust to me!
John.
The story is old. A few years ago, a young girl-- the niece of a French noble, leaving an old Norman pile by the wild northern seas, came to dwell with a lady allied to her race in the Faubourg Saint Germain. From childhood an orphan, an uncle had filled the place of father and mother; she had grown at his side, and under his roof-tree, and in his regard, from childhood to girlhood. She seem'd the sole human creature that lived in the heart of that stern, rigid man. She was the child of a brother whom, dying, the hands of a desolate mother had placed on his bosom. 'Twas rumored-- right or wrong-- that, in the lone mansion, left lenantless long, to which, as a stranger, its lord now return'd, in years yet recall'd, through loud midnights had burn'd the light of wild orgies. Be that false or true, slow and sad was the footstep which now wander'd through those desolate chambers; and calm and severe was the life of their inmate. Men now saw appear every morn at the mass that firm sorrowful face, which seem'd to lock up in a cold iron case, tears harden'd to crystal; yet, harsh if he were, his severity seem'd to be trebly severe in the rule of his own rigid life, which, at least, was benignant to others. The poor parish priest, who lived on his largess, praised his piety; the peasant was fed, and the chapel was raised, and the cottage was built, by his liberal hand; yet he seem'd in the midst of his good deeds to stand alone, and unloved, an unlovable man. That child alone did not fear him, nor shrink from him; smiled to his frown, and dispell'd it. The sweet sportive elf seem'd the type of some joy lost, and miss'd, in himself. Ever welcome he suffer'd her glad face to glide in on hours when to others his door was denied; and many a time with a mute, moody look he would watch her at prattle and play, like a brook whose babble disturbs not the quietest spot, but soothes us because we need answer it not. But few years had pass'd o'er that childhood before a change came among them. A letter, which bore sudden consequence with it, one morning, was placed in the hands of the lord of the chateau. He paced to and fro in his chamber a whole night alone, after reading that letter; at dawn he was gone. Weeks pass'd. When he came back again he return'd with a tall, ancient dame, from whose lips the child learn'd that they were of the same race and name; with a face sad and anxious, to this wither'd stock of the race he confided the orphan, and left them alone in the old lonely house. In a few days 'twas known, to the angry surprise of half Paris, that one of the chiefs of that party which, still clinging on to the banner that bears the white lilies of France, will fight 'neath no other, nor yet for the chance of restoring their own, had renounced the watchword and the creed of his youth in unsheathing his sword, for a fatherland father'd no more (such is fate!) by legitimate parents. And meanwhile, elate and in no wise disturbed by what Paris might say, the new soldier thus wrote to a friend far away-- "To the life of inaction farewell! After all, creeds the oldest may crumble, and dynasties fall, but the sole grand legitimacy will endure, in whatever makes death noble, life strong and pure. Freedom! action-- the desert to breathe in-- the lance of the Arab to follow! I go! Viva la France!" Few and rare were the meetings henceforth, as years fled,'twixt the child and the soldier. The two women led lone lives in the lone house; meanwhile the child grew into girlhood; and, like a sunbeam, sliding through her green, quiet years, changed by gentle degrees to the loveliest vision of youth a youth sees in his loveliest fancies; as pure as a pearl, and as perfect; a noble and innocent girl, with eighteen sweet summers dissolved in the light of her lovely and lovable eyes, soft and bright! Then her guardian wrote to the dame-- "Let Constance go with you to Paris. I trust that in France I may be ere the close of the year. I confide my life's treasure to you. Let her see the world which we live in." To Paris then came Constance to abide with that old stately dame in that old stately Faubourg. 'Twas there our acquaintance began; there it closed; that old miracle, love-at-first-sight, needs no explanations; the heart reads aright its destiny sometimes. I was graciously bidden an habitual guest to that house by the dame. The world-honor'd name of my father (in me not dishonor'd) was fair title to favor; my love, the old lady observed, was returned by Constance, and as the child's uncle prolonged his absence from France, she wrote to him a lengthen'd and moving narration of my love for her, and her love for me; then she awaited with pleasure her uncle's approval of all she had stated. At length from that uncle came an answer brief, stern; such as stunn'd and astonish'd the dame: "Let Constance leave Paris with you on the day you receive this. Until my return she may stay at her convent awhile. If my niece wishes ever to behold me again, understand, she will never wed that man. You have broken faith with me. Farewell!" I need not tell you of the tears of Constance, nor of my grief; the dream we had laid out our lives in was over. I bravely strove to look in the face of a life where invisible hands seemed to trace o'er the threshold these words: "Hope no more!" Had my love been unreturned my heart would have spurn'd that weakness which suffers a woman to lie at the roots of man's life, like a canker, and dry and wither the sap of life's purpose: but there lay the bitterer part of the pain! Could I dare forget I was loved? that I grieved not alone? News reach'd me through a comrade, who brought me a letter to read from the dame who had care of Constance, that Constance, although she never betrayed a murmur of what she suffered, grew paler and seemed visibly drooping and dying away. Then I went into the army. The rest you know.
Lucile.
And the name of the uncle?
John.
The Duke De Luvois! (sinking back on coach as if in a faint).
Lucile.
(As if speaking to herself). Eugene, hath the struggle been so long and yet in vain? Have I done all I can? No! no! I must not falter now; I will meet him face to face, ay, soul to soul. (Kneels as in prayer).
End of Scene 1.
ACT IV.
Scene 2.- The tent of the Duke de Luvois, now a general in command of the French forces at Inkerman. Afternoon of next day. The duke, with one of his aides, is examining some plans for the army hospital service.
Aide.
Has mon General heard of the solicitous cares of the Sisters of Charity? One is known through the camp as a seraph of grace. She is always active, but silent, where suffering is seen. How do they call her-- soeur--soeur?-
Duke.
Ay, truly of her I have heard much, and we owe her already the lives of not a few of our bravest. You mean, ay, how do they call her the Soeur Seraphine? I rarely forget names once heard.
Aide.
Yes; the Soeur Seraphine. Her I meant.
Duke.
On my word, I have much wish'd to see her. I fancy I trace, in some facts traced to her, something more than the grace of an angel; I mean an acute human mind, ingenious, constructive, intelligent. Find, and, if possible, let her come to me. We shall, I think, aid each other.
Aide. Oui, mon General. I believe she has lately obtained the permission to tend some sick man in the Second Division of our Ally: they say a relation.
Duke.
Ay, so? A relation.
Aide.
'Tis said so.
Duke.
The name do you know?
Aide.
Non, mon General.
An orderly enters and salutes.
Orderly.
A Sister of Charity craves, in a case of urgent and serious importance, the grace of brief private speech with the general. Will the general speak with her?
Duke.
Bid her declare her mission.
Orderly.
She will not. She craves to be seen and be heard.
Duke.
Well, her name, then?
Orderly.
The Soeur Seraphine.
Duke.
Clear the tent. She may enter.
Exit all but Duke. Enter Lucile.
Duke.
Sit, holy sister! Your worth is well known to the hearts of our soldiers; nor less to my own. I have much wish'd to see you. I owe you some thanks; in the name of all those you have saved I record them. Sit! Now, then, your mission?
Duke (observing her more closely, mutters):
Strange! Strange any face should so strongly remind me of her! Fool! again the delirium, the dream! does it stir? does it move as of old? Psha! Sit, Sister! I wait your answer. My time halts but hurriedly. State the cause why you seek me.
Lucile.
Eugene de Luvois, the cause which recalls me again to your side, is a promise that rests unfulfill'd, I come to fulfil it.
Duke.
Lucile? Thus we meet then?-- here!-- thus?
Lucile.
Soul to soul, ay Eugene, as I pledged you my word that we should meet again. Dead,--long dead! all that lived in our lives-- thine and mine-- saving that which ev'n life's self survives, the soul! 'Tis my soul seeks thine own. What may reach from my life to thy life (so wide each from each!) save the soul to the soul? To thy soul I would speak. May I do so?
Duke.
Speak!
Lucile.
I come from the solemn bedside of a man that is dying, while we speak, a life is in jeopardy.
Duke.
Quick then! you seek aid or medicine, or what?
Lucile.
'Tis not needed, medicine? yes for the mind! 'Tis a heart that needs aid! you, Eugene de Luvois, you (and you only) can save the life of this man. Will you save it?
Duke.
What man? How?-- where?-- can you ask?
Lucile.
The young son of Matilda and Alfred.
Duke.
The son of Alfred Vargrave?
Lucile. Yes. I found him half dead in his tent. I sought to nurse him back to life. I found my efforts would fail. I was beaten by a love that was stronger than life. I won from him his story of his love for your niece, Constance, and the news that Constance's heart like his was breaking.
Duke.
Hold-- forbear 'tis to him, then, that I owe these last greetings-- for him you are here-- for his sake you seek me-- for him it is clear, you have deign'd at at the last to bethink you again of this long forgotten existence!
Lucile.
Eugene!
Duke. Ha! fool that I was! and just now, while you spoke yet, my heart was beginning to grow almost boyish again, almost sure of one friend! yet this was the meaning of all-- this the end! Be it so! There's a sort of slow justice in this-- that, the word that man's finger hath writ in fire on my heart, I return him at last. Let him learn that word-- never!
Lucile.
Ah, still to the past, must the present be vassal? In the hour we last parted I urged you to put forth the power which I felt to be yours, in the conquest of life. Yours, the promise to strive: mine-- to watch o'er the strife. I foresaw you would conquer; you have conquer'd much, much indeed, that is noble! I hail it as such, and am here to record and applaud it. I saw not the less in your nature, Eugene de Luvois, one peril-- one point where I feared you would fail to subdue that worst foe which a man can assail-- himself: and I promised that, if I should see my champion once falter, that moment would bring me again to his side. That moment is come! for that peril was pride, and you falter. I plead for yourself, for that gentle child without father or mother, to whom you are both. I plead, soldier of France, for your own nobler nature-- and plead for Constance!
Duke. Constance!-- Ay, she enter'd my lone life when its sun was long set; and hung over its night her own starry childhood. I have but that light, in the midst of much darkness! Who names me but she with titles of love? and what rests there for me in the silence of age save the voice of that child? The child of my own better life, undefiled! My creature, carved out of my heart of hearts!
Lucile.
Are you able to lay your hand, as a knight, on your heart, as a man, and swear that, whatever may happen, you can feel assured for the life you thus cherish?
Duke.
How so?
Lucile.
If the boy should die thus?
Duke.
Yes, I know what your look would imply-- this sleek stranger forsooth! Because on his cheek was the red rose of youth the heart of my niece must break for it!
Lucile.
Nay, but hear me yet further! These young things lie safe in our heart just so long as their wings are in growing; and when these are strong they break it, and farewell! the bird flies! The sun is descending, life fleets while we talk thus? oh, yet let this day upon one final victory set, and complete a life's conquest!
Duke.
Understand! If Constance wed the son of this man, by whose hand my heart hath been robb'd, she's lost to my life! Can her home be my home? Can I claim in the wife of that man's son the child of my age? At her side shall he stand on my hearth? Shall I sue to the bride of a Vargrave?
Lucile.
O think not of the son of the man whom unjustly you hate; only think of this young human creature that cries from the brink of a grave to your merecy! Recall your own words how with love may be wreck'd a whole life! then, Eugene, look with me (still those words in our ears!) once again at this young soldier sinking from life here-- dragg'd down by the weight of the love in his heart: no renown, no fame comforts him! nations shout not above the lone grave down to which he is bearing the love which life has rejected! Will you stand apart? You with such a love's memory deep in your heart! You the hero, whose life hath perchance been led on through the deeds it hath wrought to the fame it hath won, by recalling the visions and dreams of a youth, such as lies at your door now: who have but, in truth, to stretch forth a hand, to speak only one word, and by that word you rescue a life!
Duke.
No!-- Constance wed a Vargrave!-- I cannot consent!
Lucile (rising).
Eugene de Luvois, but for you, I might have been now-- not this wandering nun, but a mother, a wife-pleading, not for the son of another, but blessing some child of my own, his-- the man's that I once loved!-- Hush! that which is done I regret not. I breathe no reproaches. That's best which God sends.'Twas his will; it is mine. This only I say: you have not the right to say-- "I am the wrong'd."
Duke.
Have I wrong'd thee?-- wronged thee! Lucile, ah, Lucile!
Lucile.
Nay, not me, but man! The lone nun standing here has no claim upon earth, and is pass'd from the sphere of earth's wrongs and earth's reparations. But she, the dead woman, Lucile, she whose grave is in me, demands from her grave reparation to man, reparation to God. Heed, O heed, while you can, this voice from the grave!
Duke.
Hush! I obey the Soeur Seraphine. There, Lucile! let this pay every debt that's due to that grave. Now lead on, I follow you, Soeur Seraphine!-- to the son of Lord Alfred Vargrave. Let the old tree go down to the earth-- the old tree with the worm at its heart! Lay the axe to the root! Who will miss the old stump, so we save the young shoot? A Vargrave!-- this pays all-- Lead on!-- I follow forth-- forth where you lead.
Curtain.
End of Scene 2.
ACT IV.
Scene 3.- Same as Scene 1. John Vargrave lying on cot. Enter Duke and Lucile, Lucile leading.
Duke (aside, as he approaches the bed).
The smooth brow, the fair Vargrave face and those eyes-- all the mother's. (To the boy) Do not rise; you suffer, young man. (Aside) And so young.
John.
So young? Yes, and yet I have tangled among the fray'd warp and woof of this brief life of mine other lives than my own. Could my death but untwine the vext skein-- but it will not. Yes, Duke, young--so young! And I knew you not? yet I have done you a wrong irreparable-- late, too late to repair. If I knew any means-- but I know none-- I swear, if this broken fraction of time could extend into infinite lives of atonement, no end would seem too remote for my grief. Not too late, however, for me to entreat: is it too late for you to forgive?
Duke.
You wrong-- my forgiveness-- explain.
John.
Could I live! Such a very few hours left to life, yet I shrink, I falter. Yes, Duke, your forgiveness I think, should free my soul hence. I know not what merciful mystery now brings you here, but death is at hand, and the few words I have yet to speak, I must speak them at once. Duke I swear, as I lie here (Death's angel too close not to hear) that I meant not this wrong to you, Duke de Luvois, I loved your niece-- loved? why, I love her! I saw, and, seeing, how could I but love her? I seem'd born to love her. Alas, were that all! Had I dream'd, had anyone hinted: Beware of the curse which is coming! There was not a voice raised to tell, not a hand moved to warn from the'blow ere it fell, and then-- then the blow fell on both! This is why I implore you to pardon that great injury wrought on her, and, through her, wrought on you, Heaven knows, how unwittingly!
Duke.
Ah! and, young soldier, suppose that I came here to seek, not grant, pardon?--
John.
Of whom?
Duke.
Of yourself?
John.
Duke, I bear in my heart to the tomb no boyish resentment; not one lonely thought that honors you not. 'Tis for me to forgive. I believe in Constance, Duke, as she does in you! In this great world around us, wherever we turn, some grief irremediable we discern; and yet-- there sits God, calm in Heaven above? Do we trust one whit less in his justice or love? I judge not.
Duke.
Enough! Hear at last, then, the truth: Your father and I-- foes we were in our youth. It matters not why. Yet thus much understand: The hope of my youth was sign'd out by his hand. I was not of those whom the buffets of fate tame and teach; and my heart buried slain love in hate. But I seek now in the son of my youth's enemy the friend of my age. Let the present release here acquit the past? In the name of my niece, whom for my life in yours as a hostage I give. Are you great enough, boy, to forgive me,-- and live? Yes, boy? thank this guardian angel, I-- you, we owe all to her. Crown her work. Live! be true to your life's fair promise and live for her sake.
John.
Yes, Duke, I will live, I must live-- live to make my whole life the answer you claim, for joy does not kill (falls back on cot).
Lucile bends over and ministers to him and then joins the Duke, who has stepped without the tent. Night is closing down. Other encampments near. In distance Black Sea with English war vessels.
Duke.
Oh, Soeur Seraphine, are you happy.
Lucile.
What is happier than to have hoped not in vain. And you?
Duke.
Yes.
Lucile.
You do not repent?
Duke.
No.
After a pause in which lights on ship are extinguished.
Lucile.
Mark yon ship far away, asleep on the wave, in the last light of day, with all its hush'd thunders shut up! Would you know a thought which came to me a few days ago, whilst watching those ships?-- When the great ship of life surviving, though shatter'd, the tumult and strife of earth's angry element,-- masts broken short, decks drench'd, bulwarks beaten-- drives safe into port; when the Pilot of Galilee, seen on the strand, stretches over the waters a welcoming hand; when, heeding no longer the sea's baffled roar, the mariner turns to his rest evermore; what will then be the answer the helmsman must give? Will it be-- 'Lo our log-book! Thus once did we live in the zones of the South; thus we traversed the seas of the Orient; there dwelt with the Hesperides; thence follow'd the west wind; here, eastward we turn'd; the stars fail'd us there; just here land we discern'd on our lee; there the storm overtook us at last; that day went the bowsprit, the next day the mast; there the merman came round us, and there we saw bask a siren? The captain of port will he ask any one of such questions? I cannot think so! but-- What is the last bill of health you can show? Not-- How fared the soul through the trials she pass'd?-- But-- What is the state of that soul at the last?
Duke.
May it be so. There the sun drops, behold!
Lucile.
Nunc dimittis. O God of the living! whilst yet 'mid the dead and the dying we stand here alive, and thy days returning, admit space for prayer and for praise, in both these confirm us! The helmsman, Eugene, needs the compass to steer by; pray always; again we two part, each to work out Heaven's will; you, I trust, in the world's ample witness; and I, as I must, in secret and silence; you, love, fame, await; me, sorrow and sickness; we meet at one gate, when all's over; the ways they are many and wide, and seldom are two ways the same; side by side may we stand at the same little door when all's done! the ways they are many, the end it is one. He that knocketh shall enter; who asks shall obtain; and who seeketh, he findeth. Remember, Eugene! (Turns to leave).
Duke.
Whither? whither?
Lucile. See yonder vast host, with its manifold heart made as one man's by one hope! the hope 'tis your part to aid towards achievement, to save from reverse; you go to your work, I go to mine; 'tis mission of genius to watch and to wait, to renew, to redeem, and to regenerate; 'tis the mission of woman to give birth to the mercy of Heaven descending on earth; the mission of woman, permitted to bruise the head of the serpent, and sweetly infuse, through the sorrow and sin of earth's registered curse, the blessing which mitigates all; born to nurse, and to soothe, and to solace, to help and to heal the sick world that leans on her. Our life is but love in act, and the dear God above, who knows what His creatures have need of for life, and whose love includes all loves, through much patient strife has led my soul into peace. Love, though love may be given in vain, is yet lovely, but as life's troubled dream wears away, love sighs into rest like a stream that breaks its heart over wild rocks toward the shore of the great sea, which hushes it up evermore with its little wild wailing; no stream from its source flows seaward, how lonely soever its course, but what some land is gladden'd. No star ever rose and set, without influence somewhere. Who knows what earth needs from earth's lowest creature? No life can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife and all life not be purer and stronger thereby. The spirits of just men, made perfect on high, the army of martyrs who stand by the throne and gaze into the face that makes glorious their own, know this, surely, at last. Honest love, honest sorrow, honest work for the day, honest hope for the morrow, are these worth nothing more than the hand they make weary, the heart they have sadden'd, the life they leave dreary? The sevenfold heavens to the voice of the spirit echo: he that o'ercometh shall all things inherit.
Lucile moves in direction of encampment, the Duke stands watching her, and the night closes around them.
Curtain.
Last revised: 15 September 2010