CHAPTER XXIX.

JEALOUSY.

“Foul jealousy! thou turnest love divine To joyless dread, and mak’st the loving heart With hateful thoughts to languish and to pine, And feed itself with self consuming smart: Of all the passions of the soul thou vilest art. SPENSER’S FAIRY QUEEN.

From a strong reluctance to take you into the deep caves of the soul, where evil is forged, I have paused with my pen for hours. One can scarcely descend into the deep hell of passion and guilt without becoming saturated with the brimstone, scorched in the flames. As we enter the mystery of iniquity let us invoke the angels to guard us.

* * * * *

There is no meaner passion than jealousy. Exclusive, concentrated, intense love does not always and necessarily include jealousy, and very ill does that base emotion accord with the high spirit, dashing pride—the pride of strength that distinguished Hagar. Yet, reader, have you never seen a fine man or woman with one physical deformity, infirmity? and have you never been told that such a blemish on God’s perfect work was the effect of injury sustained in infancy. I have seen a man—a Hercules in strength, an Apollo in beauty and grace—_crippled_—from an injury sustained in infancy through the thoughtlessness of parents. I have seen a woman beautiful as Venus, graceful as Euphrosyne—_blind_—from an injury sustained in infancy through the carelessness of nurses. How ill the shrunk and halting limb accorded with the handsome and manly figure! how ill the extinguished eye harmonized with the beautiful face! These misfortunes were not the faults of the sufferers, yet the effects of these wounds were felt through life, their scars were carried to the grave.

And, reader, there are mental and moral deformities, infirmities—_the effects of injuries sustained in infancy!_ more baleful than any physical calamity can be, for they are the cause not only of much sorrow and suffering—as physical ills _may_ be—but of much _sin_, as moral and mental wounds and scars _must_ be, whose fatal influence pursues through life unto death and beyond the grave. Thus a spark of jealousy is dropped into an infant’s heart, it smoulders through long years, and finally bursts out into a destructive flame in the woman’s bosom.

A little, dark, wild, shy child, whose peculiar organization demanded that her shyness should be conquered by kindness, her wildness tamed by gentleness, her self-distrust reassured by confidence, is disparaged and neglected, while her more beautiful companion and playmate, whose extreme tenderness and sensibility required the bracing process of a sterner training, is flattered and caressed; until wounded by the loss of love, the slighted child grows doubtful of herself, distrustful of others, and jealous of her more attractive rival, hard, proud and defiant to all she did _not_ love, suspicious and exacting towards the only one she adored; and the favored child, enervated by indulgence, grows more and more dependent on the love of those about her, more and more incapable of resisting any temptation that appeals to her through her affections; and these evils have grown with the growth, and strengthened with the strength of the children, of the girls, of the women. Alas! who can see the end of the interminable evil resulting from one small mistake in education; and from what wanton carelessness, even in well meaning parents and teachers, these mistakes are made; and sometimes how intentionally and in what good faith they are committed! Heaven knows there would seem to be enough to do to eradicate _hereditary_ evil, the roots of sin indigenous in the hearts of children, without laboring to sow there the seeds of errors foreign to the soil. The low vice of jealousy was foreign to the high temperament of our Hagar; yet how it had been planted, sunk, trodden deep, and stamped into the bottom of her heart. The mean sins of indolence, selfishness, and vanity were not native to the pure soil of our Rosalia’s bosom, yet how sedulously they had been cultivated there!

Rosalia, the petted favorite, whose soft nature, while it pleaded for indulgence, really needed the hardening process of a strict training—Rosalia, still further enfeebled by fondness, has grown softer and weaker year by year; softer and weaker, until from very tenderness she is rendered incapable of resisting the solicitations of any evil that may tempt her through her sympathies. Rosalia has grown up gentle, tender, lovely, but vain, infirm, and unprincipled. Hagar, whose wild and shy temper needed to be wooed and won, and ameliorated by tenderness—Hagar still further repulsed, hardened, and alienated by neglect, harshness, and caprice—Hagar is still high spirited and faithful, but inclined to entertain envy, suspicion, and jealousy; foul blots on a fine character.

Her jealousy of Rosalia was especially natural, and logical—I had nearly said inevitable—not only from the fascinating beauty of her rival from infancy up to womanhood, but from the very character of her ONE affection.

Rosalia, then, the beauty, the pet, and the rival, is domesticated with Hagar, the jealous and the slighted girl—and with Raymond, the poetic and the artistic epicurean—Rosalia equally fascinating in her extreme beauty, in her artless grace, and in the affectionate tenderness of her manner and her tone, soon won the warm friendship of Raymond Withers as she had won the affection of every man, woman, child, and beast, that fell in her way. She would have been a delightful addition to the circle at the Rialto, a delightful fireside companion in the autumn evenings, could Hagar have rid herself of the vulture of jealousy gnawing in the bottom of her heart. Yet do not mistake Hagar, do not think more meanly of her than she deserves—she was not _generally_, but only _particularly_ envious of Rosalia; thus, had they both been in general society together, Hagar could have sympathized with, could have rejoiced in the highest success of her lifelong rival, could have been contented to be obscured by, to be lost under the glory of Rosalia’s charms and conquests; but here in her own domestic circle, here where she had “garnered up her heart,” she could brook no intrusion, no partnership, no rival; and as in this boundless universe, there _was_ but ONE, there ever _had been_ but ONE whom her whole soul worshipped—GOD—so on this wide earth there was but _one_, there had been but _one_ whom her whole heart adored—her _husband_. This was Hagar’s religion and her love. In almost every respect she was as opposite to Rosalia in mind and heart as she was in person and appearance. Rosalia, with a generous benevolence, radiating from her heart as the beams from the sun, knew no exclusive affection, was “innocent of the knowledge” of any particular love. Hagar’s soul, nearly destitute of general benevolence, was absorbed in one intense passion. Had a city been swallowed by an earthquake, overflowed by the boiling lava thrown from the crater of a burning volcano, carried away by an inundation of the sea, or reduced to ashes by a general conflagration; had a nation been exterminated by war, pestilence, or famine, the news would have impressed Hagar very slightly. _But!_ had the lightest sabre cut but marked the fair and regal brow of her loved one, her very heart would have dropped blood. Yet much as she desired his _happiness_, much she desired his _affections_ more! she could have borne his _death_ better than the _loss of his love_! she wished to be all in all to the man who was everything to her. Her jealousy was morbid as her love was extravagant. For her, his broad and high white forehead, in its superb amplitude and repose, expressed more majesty than the wild expanse of heaven itself—for her, his soft and deep blue eyes revealed more spiritual life than the purest dreams of her own soul—for her every expression of the face, every gesture of the figure, every tone of the voice revealed more poetry, religion, love, than the whole universe besides. Often when he would be writing or reading, or in any other manner occupied so as to prevent conversation, she would sit upon the corner of the sofa, and veiling the splendid fire of her eyes under their long lashes, gaze upon his form or face, watching its varying expression with all the enthusiasm of an artist, with all the inspiration of a poet, with all the adoration of a devotee, with all the love of a woman, a silent and unnoticed but enraptured worshipper! At such times, carried away, she would not think of herself at all—at other times a painful feeling or fancy of self-deficiency would torture her. All who love, who worship, think more or less humbly of themselves—this feeling is often morbid in excess or irrationality, and often itself engenders jealousy. In Hagar this was natural—she was not in her own estimation a tithe so handsome or _accomplished_ as Raymond, and in the same proportion that she adored his perfections she depreciated her own attractions. For him she desired to possess all the gifts of beauty and genius, that she might meet and supply the wants of his being at every avenue, that she might be the whole world to him, as he undoubtedly was the whole universe to her. To her every face looked mean, expressionless, or sensual, compared to his glorious countenance, in which every passion, malign or benign, became godlike! to her every tone was harsh and rough, or flat and dull, compared to his love-tuned voice—he was her music, her poetry, her love, her religion, her life, soul, and final destiny—her spirit sought unison with his spirit, ardently, impetuously; she knew in heaven, their redeemed souls would blend in one—in heaven they would be—_one angel_. Call this morbid, call this extravagant, reader, yet acknowledge that it was no _sudden_ passion, that this intense love of one ardent soul had been growing from the moment that the beautiful youth had lifted the little ugly infant to his knee, and thenceforth become her adoration, her idol, her dream of heaven. This passion had increased with years, every circumstance had only served to augment it, association and absence, meeting and parting, until their marriage, and then all the requirements of his regal will, all the sacrifices of her own wishes, all the struggles of her independence before it was subdued, all the death throes of her mighty pride before it was annihilated, served but to draw tighter, to rivet faster the chains that bound her heart to _his_; her separate soul, will, individuality of which she had boasted in her haughtiness, fled to him, cleaved to him, seemed blissfully, divinely lost in him—in heaven they would be one angel, that was her love, hope, faith, religion, her conception of heaven. Call it insanity, reader! many minds that pass for sane have in a greater or a less degree their insanity, in other words their master passion, or their besetting sin, or both in one.

Her conjugal love was her master passion—jealousy her besetting sin—and her jealousy was morbid as her love was extravagant. In losing her very soul in his heart, she wished to FILL that heart to the exclusion of every other object. I repeat it here, she wished to be everything to the being who was everything to her—she wished for matchless beauty, peerless genius, not that she might be generally admired, but that she might meet and supply every demand of his soul. But now! but now! here was one more richly and rarely endowed by nature with the power of pleasing than herself, one who charmed all the world, and who must, she fancied, charm _her_ world, her universe away from her life. She wished to be—oh! _not_ from vanity, but from love to please _his_ poet-mind—she wished to be the fairest in her husband’s sight—but here was one fairer, oh, how much fairer than herself—she wished to be the most graceful, yet here was one whose every movement was the very “poetry of motion”—she wished that _her_ voice in household cadences, or in song, might fall the sweetest on his ears; yet here was one, whose artless tones were melodious as the fall of waters or the notes of birds.

Their evenings!

Rosalia would sit at the piano singing the low, sweet melodies he loved, while he stood at the back of her chair, turning over the music, bending above her, smiling benignly on her, forgetful of everything but of her and her song, sometimes joining his voice to hers—and she! how often at the end of a song she would turn around and give him a soft, beaming smile of affectionate pleasure, when she felt that she had pleased him. How little the innocent girl dreamed of the mischief she was doing—how indeed should she have suspected it? Had she not played and sung for Captain Wilde every evening on the Rainbow, and had she not always been rewarded by smiles, praises, caresses, and kisses, from Sophie and from Captain Wilde, too? No, she did not guess the evil she was causing—she did not guess it even when she saw, evening after evening, that Hagar withdrew herself from the instrument and buried herself in a distant deep arm-chair, or left the room. There _was one_ who observed and defied her displeasure—Raymond, who occasionally raising himself from his recumbent posture over Rosalia’s chair, would turn, and darting his eyes fiercely into the obscurity of Hagar’s retreat, and fixing them sternly upon her, would bring her by a look back to his side, sighing, trembling, dejected—then smiling sweetly on her, and passing his arm around her little waist, would hold her there, and look supremely blessed while thus caressing _her_ and listening to Rosalia’s music.

Alas! that Hagar was not wise! Alas! for the mental cripple, for the moral blind, for the injury received in infancy, for the faith crushed out! Hagar was not wise, did not understand—she continued, whenever she was permitted, sullenly to withdraw herself from the group, making the trio a couple, and oh! fatal sign, at last she was more and more frequently _allowed_ to absent herself. Hagar was insane—yes, reader, in recalling the circumstances of this period of her life, in trying to understand them, I am constrained to say that Hagar was insane, not to have seen that _her_ presence, _her_ sympathy, together with Rosalia’s perfect innocence and artlessness, would have been the immediate antidote to any poison that _might_ have crept into the intercourse of these two friends—the antidote! it would have prevented the most distant approach of an evil thought.

Jealousy seldom or never prevents, frequently suggests and causes, the very infidelity it fears. No evil passion is stationary, it must increase or decrease. Hagar’s disease was growing. At first she had only been jealous of his admiration, of his affection—_now_ she was growing doubtful of his faith. Now, because wearied out by her sullenness, indignant at her unjust suspicions, even while obstinate in the pursuit of the pleasures and gratification of the tastes that excited her envy, he permitted her to withdraw from his side and isolate herself in a distant corner. As yet Rosalia’s bosom was at perfect peace—the slight shadow of the evil thought, the thought now ever gnawing at Hagar’s heart, ever by her insane jealousy _kept before Raymond’s mind_, had not darkened its brightness, had not breathed on its purity. Will the evil retrograde, or will it advance until it shall overwhelm the gentle girl? Hagar, deeply as she cherished this envy, this jealousy, was yet too proud to breathe it to her rival; besides, it was Raymond upon whom her doubts fastened, not as yet upon Rosalia. The perfect simplicity, the maidenly frankness, the childlike affection of Rosalia, was too apparent and _transparent_ to expose _her_ to doubt or suspicion.

Reader, how I loathe this part of my work! this analisation of an evil passion is as detestable a task as I should judge the dissection and anatomy of a putrid heart to be. If you dislike to read it as I to write it, you will skip it all.

Sometimes Hagar would arouse herself, and throwing off at least all manifestation of gloom or sullenness, would make an effort to regain her fast ebbing power of pleasing; she also cultivated her rare talent for music; but she could seldom succeed in giving Raymond pleasure. He loved melody, and her forte was grand harmony. The grand anthems of Haydn, Handel, and Beethoven, lost none of their grandeur in her apprehension and expression. But her soul was strung upon too high a key, to give out sweetly the low breathing music of the melodies he loved. Thus he luxuriated in the bright, soft shower of Rosalia, full of melody, and writhed when the sublime storm of Hagar’s grand harmony flashed and thundered around him. Hagar saw this with anguish, oh! and this very anguish gave inspiration, gave additional force and expression to her passionate, to her gorgeous, to her awful conceptions of music! At last, however, she gave up the hope of ever inspiring him with admiration of her fierce tempests of harmony, and tried her voice and her touch upon the airs he loved, but here she failed—failed entirely. This was not her proper forte, and she had, as yet, too little control over her voice to manage it mechanically—to reduce it to the minor keys—she depended for much of her grand performance upon inspiration, and she had no inspiration for those low breathing melodies. Even suffering did not give it her; for in her hours of anguish her soul found its only expression in the sharp cry, the deep roar, the thunder of the grand harmony,—not in the sob and wail of melody. So Hagar abandoned the seemingly vain attempt to make her music agreeable in the drawing. She cultivated the art—_her_ art now by vocation and adoption—with all the passionate enthusiasm of her ardent nature; it became her solace, her soul’s expression. Her days were divided between her music and her children. At length, not being able to find sufficient expression, her soul began to struggle for freer, fuller utterance—for the revelation of its _own_ individual life and love, poetry and music—and Hagar became a poet and a musician by these steps; first she set the finest passages of her best loved poets to the sublimest strains of her most admired composers wherever they could be adapted; where they could not, she essayed to set the poetry to music of her own composition, as in the instance of Smart’s song; and then to compose words to her favorite strains of harmony. At last she attained the power of revealing her _own_ poetry—breathing her _own_ music. She was but nineteen. Her music and her poetry were all impromptus of sudden, irresistible inspiration—the expression of her life at the moment—the electric flash of soul, bright and gone in an instant—they were unwritten, inspired, expressed, and forgotten. They would come, these spasms of inspiration, as the blast comes, and go as it subsides; come as the tide comes, and go as it ebbs; come, waking the stillness of her soul as the thunder comes, and go as it rolls into silence; come, lighting up the blindness of her mind as the lightning comes, and go as it flashes out into darkness; come as the storm comes, and pass as it passes. They would come at first unexpected, unbidden, impetuous, and irresistible,—nor could she send them away till a more convenient season, nor could she at will summon them. At length she found the spell to call these

“Spirits from the vasty deep.”

She found her power, though now she played with it only for her pleasure. The pent-up fire of her soul—that burned in her bosom, rocking to and fro, lashing its shores as a sea of flame in storm—the soul that blazed in and out upon her cheek, and flamed through her eyes until their gaze seemed to scorch you; the soul found vent in poetry and in music.

And she would have been happy, _but_

in the grand diapason of her life was one broken chord, that left a blank, or gave out discord—her jealousy.

One evening, as usual, Rosalia was seated at the piano, playing and singing one of Moore’s melodies. Raymond was seated near her, and his very soul seemed floating out upon the waves of the music; presently he arose and went to the back of her chair where he stood bending over her, unconsciously half embracing her. She raised her eyes and welcomed him by a beaming smile, without pausing in her music. Soon, however, he turned and looked for Hagar; she was sitting in a distant part of the room, buried in the shades of a deep arm-chair—her head bent forward and resting on her hand, while her profile was concealed by the veil of her ringlets. She did not look up or notice his glance. He spoke to her; she raised her eyes—he beckoned her to come, but with a bitter smile, she shook her head in refusal; then his eyes fastened on her with a fierce anger, piercing through their tenderness, which now for the first time she did not heed; then with a quick and threatening nod, he turned away and gave his attention up to the music. Not one whit of this dumb show had Rosalia noticed. At last her song was over, and rising she left the piano.

An hour after, Raymond Withers entered the dressing-room of his wife. She had thrown herself upon the lounge, and her head was drooped over one end, while all her ringlets falling down shaded her face. He approached—and standing over her with folded arms, he said—

“Hagar!”

She did not speak or move.

“_Hagar!_”

She looked up, silently.

“_Hagar!_ I say.”

“Well?”

“What is the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“_Nothing!_—do not speak falsely, Hagar! tell me at once, what is the matter?”

She smiled a haggard smile, and rising, went to her dressing-glass and began to unclasp her bracelets. He followed, and taking her hand, led her back to the sofa, seated her, and stood before her, folded his arms, and looking steadily at her, said, sternly,

“This folly must be ended just at this point; and when I ask you a question, Hagar, you are to reply, and not evade it. Tell me, now, the cause of your gloom—tell me at once, without prevarication, for I will know it.”

“You _do_ know it,” said she, looking up through her anguished eyes at his calm, stern, yet beautiful face. “You do know it.”

“I do _not_ know it, and I wait your answer.”

“You _suspect_ it, then?”

“I am not given to _suspicion_,” sneered Raymond, “and I want to hear the cause of your sullenness from your own lips. Come, reply!”

She relapsed into silence.

“Am I to have an answer from you, Hagar?”

“Alas! why do you press the question? I am gloomy, I cannot conceal it, but I do not complain—do not _wish_ to complain.”

“Of _what_ have you to ‘complain?’”

“Nothing.”

“‘_Nothing!_’—false, again! for though it is true, in fact, that you _have_ nothing of which to complain, it is false on your lips.”

She did not repel this charge, but sat with head bowed, with chin rested on her breast, with clasped hands on her lap, he still standing before her with folded arms.

“Why did you not come up to the piano when I beckoned you?”

“Because I did not wish to come.”

“_You ‘did not wish to come’_—insolent! but passing over the impertinence of your reply, Hagar, _why_ did you ‘not wish to come?’”

“I was not wanted.”

“I called you.”

“Yet I was not needed.”

“That was no business of yours; I beckoned you!”

“And I am not a slave, to come at your beck!” flashed Hagar, suddenly raising her eyes, blazing with defiance, to meet his steady gaze.

“No, you are not a slave, Hagar; you are a proud, fierce woman—yet Hagar, to-morrow, when I call you to my side, _you will come_!” and his hand dropped heavily upon her shoulder.

We will drop the curtain here; these scenes are disgraceful, disgusting.

* * * * *

The next evening they were grouped around the piano again, Rosalia was singing her evening song, Raymond Withers standing at the back of her chair, a little on the right, and Hagar stood on the other side, leaning with her elbow on the end of the piano, her forehead bowed upon the palm of her hand. Rosalia, without raising her eyes from her music, moved the light so that its beams fell more directly upon her notes—its beams fell also upon the countenance of Hagar, exposing a face so ghastly in its pallor, eyes so fierce in their anguish, that Raymond, evidently fearing lest Rosalia should notice her agony of expression, brought her, by a look and gesture, out of the light and into the shade of the background by his side; and passing his arm around her waist, drew her up to him, smiling down in her face, as he whispered, quickly, under his breath—

“Be gentle, tender, complying, Hagar, and you shall be happy; be the reverse, be rude, angry, rebellious, and you shall be wretched. Yet I love you, Hagar, and would prefer to make you happy; do not, while I love you, constrain me to deeds of hate.”

She did not reply; she stood still and pale within the embrace of his arm, and remained there all the remainder of the evening, until Rosalia had finished her songs.

As the girl shut down the lid of the instrument, arose and turned towards them, she noticed Hagar, and starting, exclaimed,

“Why, Hagar! how frightfully pale you are! Are you ill?”

“No”—began Hagar, but Raymond, by a tight pressure of her arm, arrested her speech, and answered for her.

“_Yes_—she is indisposed, but a night’s rest will restore her; go to your chamber, love,” and taking a lamp from a side-table he gave it to her, and opening the door, held it for her to pass out. She went. Rosalia, springing up at the same moment, exclaimed,

“Let me go with you to your room, dear Hagar, if you are not well!”

“_No!_ I am going with her. Good-night, dear Rosalia,” said Raymond, suddenly starting up to follow his wife. Rosalia looked distressed, perplexed, and finally paced slowly and thoughtfully away to the chamber next the nursery, where she slept.

“Hagar,” said Raymond, as soon as he reached her chamber.

“Well!”

“How did you spend the day after I left the house this morning?”

“I kept my room with a headache, with a _real_ headache, the first I ever had in my life.”

“Is that an intended reproach?”

“No, I only mentioned it as a fact.”

“Where was your cousin?”

“She went to town shopping with Mrs. Collins in the forenoon, and drove out with the children in the afternoon.”

“Then she was not with you all day?”

“No.”

“Had no opportunity of questioning you about your ill looks?”

“No; I said I had the headache, and so I really had; and when I kept my room she understood it to be from a slight indisposition.”

“But now her suspicions are excited—she sees that your misery rises from a deeper source than a slight physical indisposition—take care, Hagar, that she does not see the _cause_. She sees that there is trouble between us; be sure that you do not betray the reason, or, rather, the _un_reason of this trouble, my lady.”

Hagar did not reply to this covert threat. She was not herself; a heaviness, a stupor, weighed down her spirit; a reaction of the excitement of her ardent temperament, an ebb in the high tide of her life, left her weak and powerless. She lay there upon the lounge in her dressing-room; it was yet too early to think of retiring, and Raymond, taking advantage of the temporary torpor of her faculties, perhaps mistaking her apathy for utter submission, sat down by her side, and said,

“Hagar, I am very tired of this, very thoroughly worn out with this; we have been beating the air long enough, let us come to something substantial. I will probe this wound of yours—extract the bullet that is festering in your bosom; tell me now, in so many words, of what have you to complain?”

“I do not complain.”

“You _do_; not in words, certainly, but in manner; now what is it all about—why are you growing more sullen, ugly, and repulsive every day?”

“_Do_ not ask me! Alas! have I not tried to be patient? _I_ have kept my thoughts and feelings down, like wronged, suffering, and desperate captives in the hold of a slave ship, fearing to lift the hatches even, lest they should break forth, spreading pestilence and death!”

She looked so _unutterably wretched_ as she lay there, with her small hands pressed tightly upon her brow, and as her lips, quivering, sprang apart and closed; that Raymond, pitying her, stooped, and placing his hands under her arms, raised her up, and laid her head upon his bosom, looking kindly in her face all the while, as he said,

“Hagar, I _do_ love you—always shall, always _did_, Hagar, from the first instant that my eye fell upon you and caught yours—from the first moment that I, a youth, singled you, an infant, out from all the world as my own—for life, past death, and through eternity, recognising you for my own, knowing you for my own—_claiming_ you for my own, preferring you, a little, ugly, perverse infant, to all the fair and gentle maidens of my own age, because I knew that into your little bit of a body was crowded and pressed the soul and life, the fire and spirit of twenty women—_claiming_ you for my own, and waiting until you should grow up to womanhood, and never fearing or dreaming that any one would ever cleave my life down through the middle, and bear off the other half of it—_my Hagar_—for when was ever _I_ jealous, Hagar?”

She clasped her arms tightly around his neck, and buried her face in his bosom as she answered,

“But my own, _own_—you know that I was not attractive,—that no one would wish to dispute your claim to me.”

“On the contrary, I knew that you _were_ attractive, and that Gusty May set up a very clamorous claim to you, and that you only needed to be further known, to raise many aspirants to your hand among superficial and impetuous young men like Gusty, who, if their eye is pleased and fancy tickled, believe themselves in love. No, Hagar! I trusted _in you_—not out of you—IN YOU, for the security of our love and life.”

“My own! my own! you _might_ well have trusted in me—_may_ well trust in me.”

“I did, and shall _always_. I married the little infant when I raised her on my knee at that wedding party given to Sophie and my father; I found my little wife then, and knew that she acknowledged my claim, saw in her splendid eyes, fascinated to my own, that she felt and acknowledged me.”

“Oh, I did! I did! Looking up into your face I saw a soul radiating there that seemed to draw my spirit up to meet it! and I felt, Raymond, I felt that I had for the first time met a spirit that I had neither the power nor the will to resist in anything _long_; for see, Raymond! I, who defied Sophie and your father, told _you_ the same moment, with my face in your bosom, that I would do anything in the world you wished me to do. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes, love, I remember every single item.”

“And I, who laughed and shouted defiance to society in following my wild tastes,—I, who so desperately resisted the growing and surrounding influence of your will, how I permitted it to close upon me at last.”

“You did _not_ permit it: you had no choice of permitting. You could not help it, love; _that_ makes you my own, and my own for ever, Hagar!”

“Yes, but are you _mine_! as surely, oh! Raymond?”

“I love you, Hagar.”

“You love me—you say so—will you tell, then, since this is an hour of tender reminiscences, of confidences, and explanation—will you tell me why, since you love me, you torture me so much; tell me why, when loving me, you make me suffer so much, and I will forgive it—indeed, I _have_ forgiven it—could not help forgiving it!”

“You have nothing to forgive, love, and you must not use the word in reference to me. Yes, I will tell you, Hagar, for just now I am loving you very much, my own especial Hagar, and perhaps I may never be in a mood to tell you again. Listen, then: I believe I am naturally, or rather apparently, very gentle and tender, am I not?”

“Yes, very; but—”

“At least! I have very keen and sensitive nerves, delicate features, fair complexion, and all that go to make up the idea of softness and sensibility?”

“Yes.”

“That I got from my mother.”

“Your mother! Ah! you never mentioned her to me before!”

“And shall never mention her again—hush! let us resume—I _have_ sensibility, sensitiveness—_but!_ away down in the deeps of my soul have a perverse spirit of great strength, power, and malice—where it came from I do not know; how it got there I do not know—but, Hagar, you are rather apt to arouse it—this spirit aroused, oppresses, seeks to subdue even those I love, when they resist me—this spirit in its awakened strength takes pleasure in its calm force of resistance, of overbearing and bearing down opposition, and the stronger and fiercer the opposition the greater the pleasure of the victory. It was that spirit that incited me last night, but it is not always in the ascendant—there, Hagar! that is the secret of the attraction your strong, fierce, proud nature had for me! it gives me plenty of employment, life, you see. Yet, Hagar, I love you.”

While he spoke, Hagar’s face had changed—one might say she was transfigured before him! her countenance grew radiant in inspiration as an angel’s, and her voice was softer, sweeter than you ever heard it, as she said,

“I am glad you told me, Raymond, it has saved me and you—it is well you have told me. That spirit! it is, as you say, a _perverse_ spirit, an _evil_ spirit, a spirit from hell; and I will give it no further employment, no further life, Raymond—no more food; I will not nurture it by pride or anger. It is a spirit of hate; I will meet it by a spirit of love; when it comes to war with me it shall find so little resistance, so little to do, that it shall fall into death from inactivity.”

“You, too, have your bosom’s foe, Hagar—but it is not now, as you would say, ‘in the ascendant.’ Yes! you are jealous! jealous of Rosalia! Oh! _shameful_, Hagar!”

“Alas! it is true; I wish it were not; how can I help it?” said she, as the cloud came over her face, obscuring its glory—“_how_ can I help it? It is gone now, the jealousy—but it will come back again, and nearly madden me! I know it will; and how can I help it, when I see that I cannot give you any pleasure, by all my efforts; you do not like my singing nor my playing—you hang over Rosalia’s chair all the evening, and forget my very existence.”

“I do not, Hagar! I never forget you for a single instant; how _can_ I ever forget you, when your spirit clings so closely about me always?”

“Does it?” smiled Hagar. “_I_ know it does, and I am glad you feel it, Raymond—glad you feel it, even at her side.”

“Nonsense, Hagar! I love Rosalia—or rather I should say I _like_ Rosalia, the fair, gentle girl, as I like her soft music, as I like a summer prospect, as I like the fragrance of growing flowers—as _she_ loves her pet doves. I like her because, like all other fair, sweet, and melodious things, her presence gives me pleasure—a pleasure that I do not choose to give up for your jealousy, Hagar! So I charge you, love, if you cannot exterminate the ‘green-eyed monster,’ do not let him appear before Rosalia, and frighten the poor girl away from me. God! Hagar, if it comes to that, you will exasperate me to phrensy.” He spoke with unwonted energy, but quickly controlling himself, he said in a more gentle tone, “Be on your guard, love—be on your guard; this is extremely absurd, very ridiculous, not to say unjust to me; how you worry yourself and me! Kiss me, my Hagar.”

“‘Kiss’ you, Raymond! a thousand, thousand times!” exclaimed she; all her natural wildness rebounding in the spring of her spirits, “a thousand times, dear Raymond; and I will try never to doubt you again,” and she clasped her arms about his neck, and drawing down his head, caressed him freely and gladly as a joyous child might. Her jealousy seemed gone for the time—a weight was lifted off, and that evening and the next day she went about with dancing eyes and with an exultant step, as if the spring of her little foot impelled the earth forward in its orbit! It was the first time Raymond had fully opened his heart to her, and she felt grateful for the confidence; she understood many things that had before been dark to her, she _thought_ she understood _all_.

_Had_ he indeed opened and revealed his _whole_ heart? and if so, what had induced him, with his proud reserve, to be so communicative? Reader, had Raymond Withers spoken what we have heard him speak, _two weeks before_, it would have been “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing _but_ the truth;” _now_, however, in the recesses of his bosom lurked a sentiment as yet revealed in words to no one, as yet unrecognised by himself; _but_ yet a sentiment that was growing stronger day by day, that was already beginning to betray itself in unguarded moments.

I repeat it, jealousy seldom prevents, frequently suggests the very infidelity it fears. It has been said that “Unjust suspicion is apt to lead to that which is well founded. It is often very dangerous to hint an evil, though to warn against it: for constant suspicion of harm puts an idea into the head that otherwise might never have occurred; and this idea once fairly in is not so easily got out. Thus it is that unjust jealousy gives rise to real unfaithfulness. Can there be a stronger argument against too ready suspicion?”[7]

Footnote 7:

Ramsay on Human Happiness.

Poor Hagar! through her besetting sin, through her unjust suspicion, she had kept the evil before his eyes until he had grown familiar with it. This was the more dangerous, not only from his peculiar temperament, and from the extreme beauty, grace, tenderness, and artlessness of the rival she dreaded; but also from the fact of their isolation from the moderating and correcting influence of general society. But incited by a vague consciousness of this scarcely acknowledged sentiment, he had opened his heart to Hagar, exposing “almost” _all_ its secrets, and now could she have continued to trust him, _her_ faith might have saved his fidelity—could she have _continued_ to trust him! but she could not—her waylaying sin could not be so promptly driven away for ever. Could an evil thought be dismissed, a guilty wish repressed, or a sinful passion crushed by one effort of the will, by one fell blow, many a moral victory we should see, many a moral hero hail, and the road to perdition be no longer paved with good intentions; but when blow after blow has been struck upon the waylaying foe, when after each repulsion it has retired only to rest, to gather force, to renew the attack, nothing but the highest moral courage and perseverance can keep up the warfare, can insure the victory. Hagar’s waylaying foe had only been beaten back for a time; a few days passed and it returned in power, in ferocity, with violence; for _now_ Hagar’s doubts of her husband’s fidelity of heart were becoming but too reasonable!

Reader, shall I shock _you_, and distress myself, by a recital of some of the scenes that disgraced the next two or three weeks? Hagar’s confirmed suspicions, anguish, and terror? Raymond’s stern, calm, implacable repression of her passion? The death throes of her suppressed and smothered rage? The indomitable strength of will by which he held her down—so that through all this, for many weeks, the innocent and artless Rosalia had no suspicion of _his_ guilty passion, or of _her_ racking jealousy! The poor girl wandered distressed and perplexed over the house, wondering in vain at a sorrow and an anger of which she could see no reasonable cause. If she inquired of Raymond, he would smile gaily and give her a light or an indifferent answer, and ask her for a song. If she inquired of Hagar, she would turn from her with a burning cheek and heaving bosom, without reply; if she pressed the question, Hagar would exclaim, in an agony,

“Nothing! nothing! don’t ask me, Rosalia,” and leave the room; for Raymond had said to his wife, while his hand, talon-like, grasped her little shoulder, and his eye struck fiercely into hers,

“Alarm this girl, give her one single inkling of the diabolical suspicions you cherish, and, as Heaven hears me, I will never see or speak to you thenceforth!” and she saw and felt that he would have kept his word. Yet, though she concealed the cause of her sorrow from Rosalia, she could not act the part of a hypocrite; she could not bring herself to feel kindly, or to act kindly, towards the girl who, however unconsciously, was wiling away her husband’s affections.

Rosalia grew daily more dejected—pining for the love, the tenderness, the sympathy and confidence, the free and affectionate intercourse with her friends, to which she had been accustomed; which was the great necessity of her life; without which she could not exist. She confined herself as much as possible to the nursery, and to Hagar’s two children, who were just beginning to notice and to love her. She longed for Sophie and Captain Wilde, and for the sweet home like feeling she enjoyed with them. She was beginning to dream of them frequently, and to wake weeping for them. She was beginning to regret the tears that prevented her accompanying them, to wonder whether it were possible now to go to them. She was very unhappy here. She felt herself in an atmosphere of coldness and vague censure, that chilled and depressed her. She felt strange and lonesome now, yet she tried to make herself agreeable to all, exerted herself to cheer Hagar when she saw her depressed, to amuse Raymond when he was grave.

One evening, after a particularly unsuccessful attempt to disperse the gloom of the drawing-room by her sweet music, she had sought her own chamber in despair; finding Mrs. Collins there engaged in sorting linen, she fell weeping bitterly upon the bed, and exclaiming through her sobs,

“Mrs. Collins! what _is_ the matter in this house, can you tell me?”

“It is not my place to tell you, Miss Aguilar, and perhaps I even do not know.”

“But what do you _think_, then, Mrs. Collins? oh! please tell me, it is not from idle curiosity, but because, because I do love Hagar and Raymond _so_ much, and they are both _so_ unhappy, especially Hagar, and they will not either of them give me a bit of satisfaction, and I want so much to know if I can do anything to mend it; tell me what is the matter, Mrs. Collins?”

“Young ladies should be very particular, Miss Aguilar; they may give trouble where they little think it.”

“‘Particular,’ why, I _am_ particular, am I not? I dress myself carefully and practise my music every day, and that is all Sophie and Captain Wilde required of me; and, lo! if I were _ever_ so slovenly and idle, I should not think _that_ would make so much trouble; and even if it did, I should think that they would tell me of it—but it can never be _that_.”

“You do not understand me, Miss Aguilar.”

“What is it then you mean, Mrs. Collins?”

“I mean young ladies should not make too free,” said the old lady, looking solemnly through her spectacles at the girl. “No, they should not make too free.”

“‘Too free,’ ‘too free,’ _how_ too free?”

“Too free—_with gentlemen_.”

“Too free with gentlemen! who is too free with gentlemen? You don’t mean _me_, do you, Mrs. Collins; oh! no, you can’t mean me, because I do not see any gentlemen to be free with, you know! No, of course you don’t mean _me_; what do you mean, Mrs. Collins?”

“I mean _you_, Miss Aguilar; I mean that _you_ must not be too free with gentlemen.”

“But I don’t _see_ any.”

“_None?_”

“No, indeed! to be sure none—oh! except Raymond, but then I love _him_ because he is dear Hagar’s husband and my relative, and because _he_ is _always_ good to me; so good! so gentle! so tender _always_! but of course you do not mean _him_, oh no! and I should like to know what you _do_ mean, dear Mrs. Collins?”

“Have I not heard you speak of a lady, the mother of your betrothed?”

“Yes, Mrs. Buncombe; why?”

“You had better write to Mrs. Buncombe to come for you, and you had better return and remain with her until your people come back from foreign parts.”

“Oh! I should like that, if Hagar would let me go.”

“She will let you go, depend upon it.”

“But now that I come to think of it, I cannot leave Hagar either; poor Hagar! while she is so sad, it would be a sin.”

“Miss Aguilar, your cousin would prefer you to go, I am sure, and you had better take my advice.”

“I am sure I should be glad to go if I thought Hagar could spare me, and I will see about it.”

“_Do_, my dear child—and—do not mention that _I_ suggested it to you.”

“Why not, Mrs. Collins, why must I not? I don’t love secrets, I never keep secrets—now why must I not say that you told me?”

“Well! say so then, my dear, and say at the same time that I think you sickly and _weak_, _very_ weak, and that I think a visit South would benefit your health.”

The old lady had finished folding and packing away her bed and table linen, and locking the clothes press she took up her candle and bidding Rosalia good night, left the room.

Poor Rosalia! by the miserable failure of her education she had been sent into the world, into life, beautiful, fragrant, tempting, and defenceless as the conservatory exotic. Nurtured in the warm atmosphere of an enervating tenderness, she lived only in the love of those around her, and pined when it was withdrawn as the flowers languish in the cold. Rosalia was drooping—winter was approaching, yet the face of nature was not fading, withering from the withdrawal of the sun’s direct rays, faster than was Rosalia’s heart in the surrounding atmosphere of coldness. The whole house was a chill clime, in which there was but one spot of warmth, the crib of Hagar’s children. The whole day was a dreary blank, until the evening hour of music came, when she would try to please and cheer by her little songs. The whole family seemed strange, cold, or indifferent to her with one exception, Raymond Withers. _His_ manner was always affectionate, his glance always fell gently on her eye, his tones smoothly, softly on her ear, his hand tenderly on her arm, and the doomed girl began, if not to love him only of all the family, at least to find return only in his love. As yet this affection of Rosalia was as pure as the maiden’s love for all others.

Had Rosalia’s intellect and conscience, her moral accountability for the use of time and talent, been cultivated in the same proportion as her sensibilities and affections, she would not have been thrown thus helpless upon the tenderness and sympathy of others; she would have possessed a self-sustaining principle, would have found occupation in mental resources. But this was not so; she had been fondled, praised, and spoiled, until intellect was half drowned in sensibility, mind enervated nearly to fatuity.

Days passed. Raymond Withers now too surely, terribly felt that his love for Rosalia was no longer pure brotherly affection. It was an intense and an absorbing passion. He began to struggle against its nearly overwhelming power—he began to avoid the charming girl. _Now_ could Hagar have trusted him; could she have believed in the _power_ of redeeming qualities that really existed in his heart; the solid substratum of good that lay beneath all this superficial alluvion of wilfulness and effeminacy; her faith might yet have saved him; saved herself from much anguish. As it was, Raymond Withers struggled on alone against the advancing power of his great temptation. He might have struggled longer, he might have struggled successfully, but that the very means he took accelerated the crisis, the catastrophe. He began to avoid Rosalia; declined her music; evaded her questions; repulsed her gentle attentions, until the guileless girl, utterly unable to comprehend her position, grew wretched, more wretched every day, in the thought that her _last friend, her only present friend_, as in her heart she began to style Raymond, had fallen from her; and by the fatality that makes us set a higher value upon a possession that is passing away, Rosalia began to prize his affection exceedingly—to desire its continuance more than all things—to lament its seeming loss passionately—to strive to win it back. “The clouds came on slow—slower;” the clouds whose vapors had been collected in, and evolved from their own bosoms, and raised to gather black and heavy in their sky, to break in thunder on their heads!

Three circumstances combined to bring on the catastrophe of this household wreck, three circumstances, reader, that I wish you to notice, as I desire particularly to call attention here, and now, to the great importance of the formation of character in childhood and youth, and to the awful truth that the blackest treachery, the deepest guilt, the direst misery, the utmost perdition of men and women may sometimes be traced to the smallest, seemingly the most harmless mistakes in the education of boys and girls. Perhaps I have already been tedious upon this subject; perhaps I have dealt “in vain repetitions;” yet, in tracing the rise and progress of a guilty passion, can I be too emphatic in forcing the causes that produced this upon attention? These causes, then, I said there were three that conspired to bring down this impending thunderbolt.

First, Hagar’s jealousy. We have seen how inevitably that jealousy sprang from a want of the faith that had been chilled to death in her heart by the coldness and neglect of her guardians in infancy. We have seen how that jealousy, by its violence, exasperated the anger of her husband; by its injustice (for in its commencement it was unjust), alienated his affections; by its pertinacity, suggested and kept before him the evil thought until it grew familiar. So much for the baleful effect of her jealousy upon Raymond. Its influence upon Rosalia may be summed up in a very few words—by manifesting itself in coldness and aversion, it threw the tender-hearted and guileless girl upon the ready sympathy and affection of Raymond for consolation. Do you now see the madness of this jealousy, and its powerful agency in bringing on the desolation of heart and home it feared and dreaded?

Second, Rosalia’s tenderness—tenderness unsupported by strength of principle, heart unprotected by mind. We have seen that this softness was no more nor less than the feebleness of a character enervated by fond and foolish indulgence in her infancy. We have seen that this weakness made her dependent upon the love of those around her as the very breath of life; we have seen that when repulsed by Hagar’s coldness, it threw her for sympathy upon the affections of the only friend at hand; one whom, of all others, just at this crisis she should have been guarded against.

Third, the self-indulgence of Raymond. A delicacy cultivated and refined for years into an effeminacy that _seemed_ harmless enough, yet that, as time passed, insidiously undermined his moral strength, rendering him daily more averse to self-denial, until he became incapable of self-resistance.

Could either of several good principles now have been brought into exercise, it would have, even _now_, arrested the impending catastrophe; could Hagar, by prayer, by effort, have thrown off her jealousy, have practised faith, candor, charity—could she have shown kindness to Rosalia, who was, as yet, entirely innocent in thought, word, and deed—could she have pitied and forgiven Raymond, who, as yet, was guiltless in act or intention. Or, could Rosalia have sought aid from heaven, and balanced her gentleness by self-sustaining strength upon its feet. Or, lastly, could Raymond have awakened and aroused his great latent moral strength from the bathos of luxury in which it was half drowned; could he have risen and shaken himself like a lion in his strength, throwing off the moral lethargy stealing upon him; could he have risen as Samson arose in his might, breaking the fetters that bound him, they might yet have been saved.

Alas! They seemed all under a spell, while the cloud of destiny came on, and on. A gloom settled on their hearth that nothing could dispel, a deep darkness stole through the house that neither sunlight nor firelight could brighten, a coldness gathered in their home that neither sun heat nor fire heat could warm, a silence fell around them that music itself could not break—moral gloom, moral darkness, moral cold, moral silence. The darkness, the shadow of the overhanging cloud of impending fate; the silence, the stillness that precedes the earthquake, while the fires rage and leap beneath; the awful stillness of the coming typhoon.