CHAPTER XXXVII.

REMORSE.

“Pangs more corrosive and severe, More fierce, more poignant and intense Than ever hostile sword or spear Waked in the breast of innocence.” MARGARET OF ANJOU.

Rosalia Aguilar was not one to enjoy an hour’s impunity in sinning. From the time of her passing Churchill’s Point—through all the days of her passage down the bay to Norfolk—up to the time of her embarkation—and through all the weeks of her long sea voyage, she had remained in a sort of horrid waking dream—with her life broken off in the middle, and its innocence and happiness wafted away—receding with the receding shores of her native country. Raymond vainly waited for the struggle to cease, when she might repose calmly in his power. The struggle _had_ ceased, but the issue had not been what he hoped and expected. The struggle had ceased—passion was conquered, and remorse was the victor, the judge, and the executioner. Her health declined daily; her features grew sharp, and her complexion of a blue transparent paleness. She became so feeble at last as to be almost unable to go upon deck. Every day she expressed an earnest wish to reach the end of her voyage. Every hour she besought Raymond when he should land, to place her in some quiet, obscure retreat, and leave her for ever—leave her to die alone—to die in peace. And Raymond would endeavour to soothe her, while evading her despairing entreaties. At last Rosalia ceased to make them, and seemed resigned to her destiny. And Raymond deceived himself with the fond belief that she was content, and pleased himself with the hope that once upon the shores of sunny Italy her health and spirits would return, especially when towards the end of the voyage, and after they had entered the Mediterranean, she revived so much as to be able to come on deck every morning and evening. In this seemingly promising state of affairs, they arrived at Genoa—the post of Raymond Withers’s consulship. On the voyage out Miss Aguilar had passed for what she really was—the ward of Captain and Mrs. Wilde—going out under the protection of the new Consul, to rejoin them. It had been the design of Raymond Withers, on reaching the shores of Italy, to find some convenient and obscure, but beautiful palazzo, buried in some fragrant grove by the side of some lovely stream—furnish and adorn it to please his own luxurious taste, and enshrine his idol there, where the privacy of the retreat would prevent exposure for some time. How he expected to meet the further difficulties that make “the way of the transgressors so hard” does not appear.

They landed at Genoa. Raymond Withers took his ward at once to a hotel, saw her comfortably ensconced in her own apartment, and promising to meet her at dinner, left her for the purpose of presenting his credentials in the proper quarter.

It was about three o’clock when he left the hotel—it was five when he returned, sought his own chamber, changed his dress, and sent a waiter to the apartment of Miss Aguilar, to know if she were ready for dinner. The man returned after some time, saying that he supposed the young lady was sleeping, as he had knocked loudly but received no answer. Raymond settled it in his own mind that she was taking an afternoon’s nap, and waited patiently for an hour, then touching the bell, he sent the waiter that answered it again to the chamber of Rosalia, and again the man returned in a few minutes, with the information that the young lady was still sleeping. Raymond thought that Rosalia was taking a very long sleep, and hoped she might awake refreshed and cheerful, and be able to spend the evening pleasantly with him. He ordered dinner and ate it alone. Then selecting a delightful little private parlor, which contained, among other luxuries, a grand piano, he took possession of it, giving directions that an elegant little supper should be prepared and set on the table there at ten o’clock.

And there he sat waiting, promising himself an evening of delight, with Rosalia’s society, and his long lost luxury—music. At nine o’clock he sent a third time to the chamber-door, and a third time the waiter returned to say that no answer was given to his knock. Now, for the first time, a feeling of uneasiness arose in Raymond Withers’s bosom; and reluctant as he was to violate any of the external proprieties of life, whatever he might do with its moralities, he determined to go to her room and see what was the matter. He went, rapped at her door, received no answer—rapped a second time and louder, and waited, listening with his ear to the lock; _all was silent as death!_ Then he tried the lock and found it fast. In real alarm now he knocked loudly, beating and shaking the door, and calling on the name of Rosalia—then suddenly stopping while the sounds died away in silence, he put his ear to the key-hole and listened—_the stillness of the grave was within!_ Terrified now, he hastened from the door to the nearest bell-rope, jerked it down, and broke the wires with his energetic pull, sending peals of alarm through the house that brought the landlord and half the servants in the establishment to his presence.

“Are you sure that this is the room in which the young American lady was placed?” he inquired of the host.

“Si, Signore.”

“Are you _certain_?” he again asked in Italian.

“Si, Signore, _certainly_,” replied the landlord in the same language.

“Then I must have the door forced—the young lady entered this chamber at three o’clock, and though summoned both to dinner and to supper, has not made her appearance or replied to the call, or given, in fact, the slightest sign of her presence, or even of her existence! and it is now ten o’clock. I am extremely anxious concerning her, and must have the door forced. Clear away all these people, signor landlord; I did not want the whole establishment about my ears—and bring an instrument to force this lock. I tell you that I am consumed with anxiety!”

“Si, Signore; what does Signore think may be the matter?” inquired the host, as with a wave of his hand he dismissed all his attendants and took a master key from his girdle.

“Matter! how can I tell? the lady may be ill, dead, in a lethargy; open the door; _do!_ without more delay.”

The landlord placed the key in the door, turned it, and throwing open the door, bowed, and was about to withdraw, when Raymond Withers recalled him by a gesture, and both entered the chamber. The room was unoccupied, the bed empty, and its perfectly smooth and neat appearance proved that it had not been slept in. Yet Rosalia’s trunks were on the floor; her pet doves, released from their cage, were perched upon the top of the dressing-glass; and even her dark blue velvet travelling dress and close beaver bonnet, lay upon the white Marseilles counterpane that covered the bed. Raymond gazed around in perplexity and distress. There was no other mode of exit from the room except the door by which they had entered, and the windows; he went to one and raised it; pshaw! the fall to the ground was fifty feet; a bird would have risked its neck in taking the flight; and Raymond turned away from the window in despair, to detect the landlord’s smile, which was quickly drawn in as he met his guest’s anxious gaze of inquiry, and replied to it by saying—

“The young lady could only have left the room by the door at which we entered, sir—and she must have locked her door, and taken the key with her; and to prove it, see—there is no other means of exit from the room; and when we came we found the door fastened, the room vacant, and the key gone,” said he, pointing to the lock. Raymond Withers was half stupified with astonishment at her absence, and alarm for her fate.

“Had she any acquaintance in the city?” inquired the host.

“Oh, of course not—_not one_—she was a perfect stranger.”

“She _may_ be in the house; I will inquire,” said the landlord.

“_Do_, and be quick, will you?” said Raymond Withers, lifting the lamp from the dressing-table, where he had set it at first entering the room. As he raised up the light, his eyes fell on a small white note that, lying upon the white cover of the table, had escaped his first glance, so that he had set the lamp down upon it and concealed it until this instant. Snatching it up now, he saw that it was directed to himself in the hand-writing of Rosalia; he tore it open and read—

“Good-bye, Raymond—I am gone. Forgive me, Raymond, all the sin I have caused you to commit—all the suffering I have made you undergo—and when I dare to pray, I will implore the God of Mercy to bless and heal you. I have left you in this abrupt manner, Raymond, because I knew that you would not have suffered me to depart had you suspected my intentions; nor, to tell the truth, had I the courage to brave the anguish of a parting scene. I had long resolved on this. Indeed, had it not been for this resolution, I should never have lived to reach the land, Raymond. This resolution was the secret of my recovery at sea; a temporary recovery only, I begin now to think it was, Raymond, for to-night a mortal languor overpowers me; I can scarcely raise myself from my chair, or draw one weary foot after the other; yet must their last strength be spent in bearing me away from you, as surely as my last breath shall be spent in praying for you, Raymond. I do not know where I am going—towards what point of the compass my failing steps will stray—to some quiet spot where I can lie down and go to sleep—I have not been to sleep since _that day_!—that day when I kneeled down by the side of your lounge, and, with my head upon your cushion, sobbed myself to sleep, while you looked gently in my face and stroked my hair, soothing into stillness the tempest in my bosom. Ah, that day, when waking up, I, unfortunate! became your Eve, tempting you to sin! No more, alas! I have not slept since then; for though I have laid down and shut my eyes, I have never lost myself—never lost consciousness of my sin—my remorse—and never lost sight of one image—the image of Hagar! oh! I feel it sacrilege for me to trace the letters that form her name!—of Hagar, as she stood pale in the grey morning light, with her black hair streaming down her wan cheeks. In that form her spirit always stands before me night and day, and I cannot shut it out and sleep. I shall escape this image in leaving you, Raymond, and so I shall be permitted to go to sleep and die; for it was you she followed, cleaved to, not me; and this is the reason, I know it, she never looks indignant and reproachful as she used to look at me, even when I did not understand her look—but deprecating, loving, imploring, and most wretched as she used to look at you when in her anguish she forgot that other eyes than yours were on her. Good-bye, Raymond! my tears are falling fast—thank God, they can flow once more! they have been scorching up in their fountains so long! Ah, now I understand poor Hagar’s dry sobs! and the untold agony breaking forth through them! as much more awful than the grief of tears as the burning sirocco of the desert is more terrible than the April shower. Well, I can weep now, thank God! Come, I shall be able to sleep soon; perhaps I shall even grow calm enough to die. Good-bye—take care of my doves; I would like to take them with me, but they would perish where I shall go to sleep. Give them to Hagar’s children—there! now the tears are raining from my eyes again. Oh, Raymond, I would lose my soul to save, to redeem yours! would descend into hell to purchase you a place among the archangels! Good-bye! good-bye! Alas! I shall write all night; I cannot tear myself from the paper that yet connects me with you. Good-night, Raymond! I pour my whole heart and soul, my life and immortality in one blessing, and breathe it in the words, _Good-Night_!

“Why has a revolution passed through my soul within the last minute, and since writing the last good night? Why do I feel now as though it were a sin to leave you? Am I going crazy again? Oh, my God! Let me escape while a ray of reason is left to light my path! Good-night, again, and yet again! Bless, _bless_ you, Raymond! Oh, if I could dissolve my being into a fragrance of blessing, and envelope you in it!—into a halo of blessing, and crown you with it!—that I could do what I please with my own soul, and lose it in your heart to give you fuller life! Yes, I would annihilate myself and give my spirit to enlarge your life; and yet I cannot do a _less_ thing—I cannot, _cannot_ break the heart of a sister woman—of Hagar—even for _you_. Raymond! CANNOT! do you hear and understand, Raymond? For though I would give my body to be burned, and my soul to perdition for your sake, I have NO RIGHT TO SACRIFICE ANOTHER! and that truth has been thundered in my ears until my very brain is stunned. My senses are reeling, whirling. I scarcely know where I am, what I write, where I go; I only feel, oh God! that I leave you for ever—that my whole soul sobs forth in bitterest anguish its wail—_Good-Night_!”

The first part of this passionate and incoherent letter was nearly illegible with the marks of tears; the last sentences were traced wildly and scrawlingly.

Seeing the excitement, the insanity under which this letter must have been written, and in the deepest grief for her loss, and the utmost alarm for her safety, he hastened from the room, and caused the strictest inquiries to be set on foot, that resulted, however, in nothing satisfactory. The chambermaid who had attended her on her first arrival was questioned, but could only say that just as soon as she had assisted the young lady in removing her travelling dress, she had been dismissed by her. The porter was examined, but had seen no one pass answering to the description of the young American lady. So all the people about the establishment were interrogated without any information being elicited. A fruitless search was kept up through all the night—no trace of the fugitive could be discovered. This was perhaps the very first night’s rest that Raymond Withers, the systematic voluptuary, had ever lost. Towards sunrise, after having given directions for the search to be kept up, he threw himself upon his bed, and overcome by anxiety, watching, and fatigue, slept the sleep of exhaustion. Late in the day he awoke, with that dreary sense of vague weight that oppresses the head and brain at the first awakening after a great sorrow. It was some minutes before the fact was clear before his eyes. Rosalia fled—Rosalia lost—wandering, and exposed, in all her tenderness and delicacy, to all the horrors of unsheltered life. This was the first time that the benevolence of Raymond Withers had been awakened for his victim. Her mental and moral throes and struggles he had not pitied, because he had not understood them; but the epicurean fully comprehended and greatly exaggerated the importance of the physical sufferings she might have to endure. He dressed in haste, and going out inquired anxiously if news had been received of Miss Aguilar. He was told that no clue had been found by which to trace her course. All that day was spent in a vain search through the city and its suburbs—all that week was devoted to sending messengers down all the public roads, and to the neighboring villages seeking the lost one; but the end of the week—the end of the month, found them as far from the attainment of their object as they were at its commencement. Once or twice it had occurred to Raymond Withers that she might have fled to Captain Wilde and Sophie, “her young heart’s cynosure,” but then he quickly recollected that Captain and Mrs. Wilde were a thousand miles off, at Constantinople. At last he determined on sending off the letters and packets that had been intrusted to Rosalia for Sophie, to write to Captain Wilde, and to mention merely the facts that Miss Aguilar had come out under his protection with the purpose of joining them at Constantinople—that immediately upon landing at Genoa she had mysteriously disappeared, and that though the most vigilant search had been instituted, and kept up even to the present moment, no clue to her retreat had been found.

It has been said by some philosopher that “Without disease and pain, we should never know that we have a body—and without sin and remorse, never feel that we have a spirit.” Raymond Withers could have controverted the first part of this proposition by his own experiences—he was deliciously conscious of his bodily existence through its perfect health and keen enjoyments; but he could have endorsed the latter clause with a pen dipped in tears of blood. Through all its downy coverings of soft voluptuousness, his spirit had been reached and wounded to the very quick; and the method of his remorse was quite characteristic.

By his own agony at the loss of Rosalia, he was enabled for the first time to understand and sympathize with the just and the greater anguish of Hagar at his desertion, and to comprehend in a word, the enormity of his offence. He might have gone on in his luxurious self-indulgence and self-enjoyment for years, had he not yielded to a strong temptation, and wounded his spirit with sin. Now all luxury palled upon his senses—he turned, sickened, from the choicest viands of his table—despairing from the most delightful prospects of nature, and from the most beautiful specimens of art—music was torture, and even in the deepest repose of his body the wounds of his spirit were most keenly felt, until the sensitive epicurean, who would have shrunk from the slightest abrasion of his delicate skin—invoked bodily pain as a relief from spiritual anguish.

Was this illicit love cured, then? Ah, no! not when just as the cup of guilty pleasure had been raised to his lips, it had been dashed untasted to the ground—not when just as the prize was within his grasp it had been snatched away. Nay, that very disappointment of his hopes at the moment of their expected realization sharpened and intensified his desire, while the sin—the sin, as well as the remorse he suffered, gave power and depth to his passion! The boon for which he had bartered his soul, defied God, and lost Heaven, became by the costly purchase a priceless treasure.

There is a crisis in the rise and progress of an evil passion, when its victim becomes morally insane, I had nearly written morally irresponsible.

It is the period described in the beautiful language of Scripture, as the time when the Spirit of God ceases to strive with the heart of man—when he is given over to reprobacy of mind—when Ephraim, joined to his idols, is left alone—when the prodigal son receives his portion and is suffered to go forth and seek the desire of his heart, and find by bitter experience, that forbidden things may be bright to the vision but scorching to the touch—as the restless and eager infant permitted at last to catch at the coveted flame of the candle, learns by its own suffering that pain follows the contact of fire—in a word, when the unbeliever is suffered to prove for himself the bitterness of sin. Is this utter abandonment then? Ah, no! The heart that has sinned, suffered, and repents, is forgiven. The babe has burned its fingers, and learned that the flame is not to be touched with impunity, and we may be sure it will not be touched again. The returning prodigal is received half way without a single reproach for the past, without the exaction of a single pledge for the future; is received upon his experience and his penitence. Ephraim turning from his idols, is accepted; and the Spirit of God comes again to dwell in the heart that is opened to receive him. I say again, when a violator of the moral law suffers, it is not by the vengeance of a God of infinite love and mercy—but it is by a pain he finds in the sin itself. But this by the way.

The downward progress of evil has been aptly called a gently inclined plane, of so gradual a descent that the sinner believes himself to be walking on level ground all the while. “Easy is the descent to hell,” said Horace, and doubtless such is most frequently the case; but there are instances in which the downward course is very rapid; where the sinner has started in a run, and after a while—and this answers to the crisis, the insanity of passion—_gets an impetus_ that makes a pause _impossible_, until he falls prostrate at the bottom of the abyss.

Such was the case with Raymond Withers—he had reached the crisis of his moral disorder—the insanity of passion—when he was scarcely responsible for his acts; yet not upon this account shall he enjoy impunity for he could, by a little timely self-discipline, have saved himself from moral mania.

He is answerable for the loss of his moral sanity, if not for acts of his phrensy. But to those acts: With the fatuity of passion, he fancied that were he free to seek the hand of Rosalia, her conscience would be quieted, her reluctance overcome, and that she would give a cheerful response to his love. He brooded over this idea of freedom from his matrimonial bonds with the pertinacity of monomania, until it seemed possible—next probable—then every way natural, proper, and desirable—finally inevitable. A savage resolution, by fair means or foul, to divorce his wife,—or, what was more feasible in his apprehension, to compel her to divorce him—a morose determination to recover and marry Rosalia, at any cost of his own integrity and peace, and others’ rights and happiness, occupied his whole thoughts. It was just at this crisis that he received a letter from Hagar. It was dated from Heath Hall, just after the birth of her son. It announced that fact, and gave a short but full account of all that happened since he left home, as well as of all her plans for the future, as far as she had laid them out. Could you have seen the succession of quick, short, self-congratulatory nods with which he read this letter, the smile of fiendish inspiration with which he folded it up and placed it in his desk, you would have given him up for lost, though you had been his very guardian angel!

With this diabolical grimace still upon his face, Raymond Withers took pen and paper, sat down and wrote a reply, sealed and sent it off that same day by a homeward-bound vessel.