CHAPTER XXXIX.

A REVELATION.

“With wild surprise As if to marble struck, devoid of sense, A stupid moment motionless he stood Pierced by severe amazement, hating life, Speechless and fixed in all the death of woe.” THOMSON’S SEASONS.

“Oh! thou lost And ever gentle victim—whose most fearful Fate darkens earth and heaven—what thou now art I know not, but if thou saw’st what I am, I think thou would’st forgive him—whom his God May ne’er forgive—nor his own soul.” BYRON’S CAIN.

From the time of his sending the letter to Hagar, Raymond Withers had renewed his search after Rosalia Aguilar with augmented hope and zeal. For the result of his proposition to her he scarcely felt a doubt. Over that high and proud nature, which had bowed before no will beneath the Supreme, he had, through the power of her strong affections, ever held despotic sway. Now indeed he had undertaken a more difficult task, to set in antagonism the two strongest, fiercest passions of her soul, to oppose her motherly love to her wifely affection; and though even by her maternal fears he should fail to extinguish her conjugal love, at least to silence the cry of its claims—to subdue the wife by the mother. But Raymond Withers was soon to learn that he had not sounded the depths, measured the extent, or tested the strength of the soul he wished to subdue; and how a few months of peace and stormy struggle and suffering had revolutionized her nature; that the tempest into which he had lashed her strong soul had only revealed from what an abyss the waves rolled up in their mighty power, and then subsided into passionless and profound calm; that the conflagration he had kindled in her high heart had only served to consume the dross and leave it pure and cool.

It was while waiting with great impatience to receive letters from two opposite quarters of the world, namely, from Hagar at the Heath, and from Captain Wilde at Constantinople, and while expecting with extreme anxiety to hear news from that terra incognita, the retreat of Rosalia, that he received in a packet of despatches from the State Department, a letter from Hagar.

“Now then!” exclaimed Raymond Withers, as he hastened to his own chamber, and shutting himself up in its privacy, broke the seal of the letter, running his eyes eagerly over its contents—they were as follows:

“WASHINGTON CITY, Oct. 15th, 182-.

“DEAREST RAYMOND:—Your letter, with all its insanities, is lying before me. I received it two weeks since at Heath Hall, I reply to it from my present residence, Washington City. Yes, I have left Heath Hall for many years’ absence and wanderings perhaps, and this city is only my transient home: passing over the reasons and the objects of this course, I will come at once to the subjects more interesting to your heart than any chance of time or tide that may happen to me can be now, unless indeed such chance should remove me from the world, which would be ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished,’ you think, in your present state of mind. Passing also over all that is false in your letter, through all that is superficial in your nature, I lay my hand upon your naked heart and assert that it does not cherish one single suspicion of my purity, that no man in earth or in hell could infuse there one single doubt of my fidelity, because I am true—that is truth—real in your convictions as in my experience, and that truth will bind us together, that truth will bring you back to me. You once told me that during your long and frequent absences before our marriage, you trusted—to me—the spirit that even in the form of an infant attracted, fascinated, and delighted you—and until passion subverted my reason, and your soul was drowned in voluptuousness, raised us both as one almost to Heaven. How high, how godlike you appeared to me then, Raymond; aye, in very truth the image of God; your tone could still the wildest tumult, your glance subdue the fiercest tempest that ever arose in my stormy bosom.

“You told me that then you had trusted _in_ me, not _out_ of me; _in_ me, for our future union and joy. I quote your own words to assure you that you may _now_ trust _not out_ of me, but _in_ me, for our _final_ _re_union and happiness. Your faith in me will save you, Raymond; will make you whole, will redeem you, will bring you back. Does this seem strange language to you, and wide of the subject of your letter? So must ever the words of truth and soberness seem to one bereft of his reason—as you are now—and how can one reply satisfactorily to the ravings of insanity! _You_ are insane, Raymond, as ever your father was in a different way; his insanity was derangement of the brain, yours a disorder of the heart; his madness was mental aberration, yours is moral illusion. Ah, Raymond! how much more frequent, how much more horrible, how much more dangerous is moral than mental insanity! and how much more heavily visited of man, however it may be met by God! You are insane, Raymond! yes, brainsick, as well as heartsick _now_; and in your delirium you would exact that which I must not give you, and you threaten to visit an awful vengeance on my head if I do not comply with your demands. I am smiling, Raymond! smiling to recall a scene between a slight and fair-haired youth and his father in one of his fits of lunacy; the figure of the lunatic stood up, tall, dark, and threatening; the youth had dispossessed him of a razor, with which he was about to cut his own throat, ‘Give it me! or I will tear your heart out!!’ yelled the madman, stamping and shaking with fury, while flakes of foam started from his lips. The beautiful boy stood before him pale, calm, and resolute; with that spirit of indomitable firmness, of invincible courage, piercing strongly, steadily through the soft fire of his eyes, keeping his gaze fixed upon the lunatic, until the mighty force of his _sane_ soul cast out the devil, and subdued the ‘embodied storm’ before him! Do _you_ remember that scene, Raymond? I was an infant of seven years old then; but, oh! how my soul worshipped that sublime boy! How my spirit, that soared proudly above every other sublunary authority, bowed before that godlike boy! But now that lofty soul is itself struck down, that fine spirit wounded, that great heart inflamed, fevered, delirious, and soars in its phrensy for a weapon of self-destruction, which I will as soon give, Raymond, as you would have yielded to the demands and threats of the madman the razor that you withheld at the imminent peril of your life. Ask me for a divorce a year hence, when you are sane, Raymond, and I will give it to you—for I would not hold an unwilling mate—no, my God! my whole soul recoils from the idea; but I cannot _now_ obey you, Raymond; painful and humiliating as it is to me, as it _must_ be to me to refuse you this! and more than that, disregard your _alleged_ reasons, and addressing myself to your consciousness, reply to your _real_ motives.—You do not wish to be free from your matrimonial engagements for the cause you have expressed; namely, a doubt of my fidelity—no, Raymond! you trust in my honor as you believe in God!—No, Raymond; there was an even stronger motive, if such could be, for your wish. In the whole course of your letter you did not once mention the name of your _compagnon-du-voyage_, Rosalia Aguilar; yet was _she_ the Alpha and Omega of your thoughts? Come! I can think, speak, and write of her very calmly now. You wish to marry Rosalia. Why, Raymond, you will tire of her in a year, even if she lives. She is a sweet and lovable girl, yet you do not love her as you _have_ loved and _will_ love me. You will sicken of her sweetness as a child sickens of a surfeit of honey. You will loathe her very charms and graces, her lovely and artless smiles and tones and gestures—that very melody of motion which entrances you _now_—as only a voluptuary _can_ loathe the poor beauty that he has humbled and grown sick of. And were you married to her then, why then there would be _another_ deserted wife, and where would it stop? Forgive me that I speak to you so, Raymond—it costs me much pain—much more pain than it costs you. To take this tone towards you humbles _me_ in my own estimation, more than it can you. I cannot bear to look at you with any but an upraised glance. Alas! to see you _now_, I have to look down with veiled eyes. Rise, Raymond, rise! I want to see you aloft! my heart _needs_ to worship, as it _must_ always love—_must_, Raymond! annihilate my soul, and the last spark that will go out will be its love.

“I said that you would tire of that poor girl in a year if _she lives_, but she will _not_ live, Raymond; the tempest of passion that you have raised in her tender bosom, the hell of remorse that you have kindled in her gentle soul will destroy her; she will not survive the loss of her purity one year. I do not know what she feels, how she looks now, but I know that she had frightfully changed even before she left the Rialto, before she guessed what I even _then_ knew. But _you_ know how she looks, you, perhaps, see the rose you have plucked and bruised for its fragrance, withering in your hands. You see her dying before you, and you fancy that if you could marry her she would be at peace, get well and live. You think you could cure a conscience-stricken soul by satisfying a conventional law. But such would not be the case, nor can I now obey you in this matter of a divorce. Ask it of me this day twelve months, or any day thereafter, and I will do it. I pledge myself to that. Ask it of me sanely, honestly, dispassionately, and I will do it. Could I then hold you bound, if you wished to go? No! though my heart-strings are your only fetters, I will snap them to free you.

“But you will not ask me to do this _when you come to yourself_. I look for this result, confidently, as I expect the storm now beating against my windows to cease, and the moon to shine out; quietly, as I watch for the night now hanging over the earth to vanish before the rising sun; patiently, as I wait for this cold, dreary winter to pass away and the spring to come back. The storm in _my_ bosom has subsided, the night also of my soul is passed. I have suffered and outlived the greatest sorrow a human heart could feel, the worst is over, and my existence is now a winter day,

“‘Frosty but kindly.’

I am very quiet now; do you wonder at this, and that I write to you so calmly—I who was an embodied whirlwind, so coolly—I whom you called incarnated lightning! Listen, Raymond—the carriage wheels that carried you away, seemed to have rolled over my bosom, crushing it nearly to death. I felt the crush distinctly as any other physical agony—the dividing crush of flesh and muscle, nerve and sinew, while with a sharp cry I rolled over like a divided and quivering worm. I was picked up by Mrs. Collins, who asked me what was the matter. I told her that, lying in your path, an obstruction, your carriage had passed over my body, cutting it in two; that one half, with my heart, was dragged away with the wheels. They put me to bed, and said that I was delirious—sent for a doctor, who bled, blistered, and drugged me. I was ill a very long time. I moaned and laughed, prayed and blasphemed by turns; they said that I was mad, but I was not, not for one moment. Ah! if I had been mad, I should not have raved so! for what in all the imaginings of insanity could equal the horrors of my real experience, my sane consciousness? When my veins seemed running fire—when I burned and burned, and held up my hands to see why they did not fall to pieces in cinders and white ashes, consuming as they were in a dry heat. That ‘lake of fire and brimstone!’ it was within and around me! Often I threw myself out of the bed as out of a pit of coals, and in my strong agony grasped and tore at the floor like one shot through the heart might do. Oh! what a rack existence was then! I wished to take vengeance on all who had a hand in giving me life-God and my parents. Suddenly in the midst of that horrible feeling, I was struck with its awful blasphemy, penetrated with the truth of God’s goodness and mercy—lastly of his omnipotence; and then falling again out of my bed, I rolled upon my face on the carpet and implored God in mercy to take back the life He had given, the life that was consuming fire—to give me the profound repose of non-existence—and if this prayer was sinful, at least to annihilate the _hell_ in my heart. And now, Raymond, for a strange experience. As I prayed all things seemed changing around me—the air seemed stirred with angel wings, I could hear their hushed flapping as they waved a delicious cold dampness that seemed to cool my fevered and burning frame while it solicited sleep; and all this time my heart’s wild hot throbs were subsiding coolly, while it filled and filled as a reservoir with peace; and every influence around me said gently, lovingly, ‘Sleep, sleep,’ and the hot stringency of my eyelids was loosened, and they fell cool and moist over the burning balls. And I slept and dreamed, a dream of infancy—it seemed to me that I lay across grandmother’s dear, soft lap, that it was summer and she was fanning me, while a delicious coolness ran through all my veins, and filtered through all my flesh, exhaling vapor-like from the pores of my skin, as I felt myself luxuriously sleeping, breathing, and growing. Then came unconsciousness—and then I woke up renewed, the fever and the agony were gone, I was so cool, so quiet, that but for an aching, throbbing nerve in the centre of my heart I should have thought that I was happy; some element was gone, the fangs of the serpent seemed to have been withdrawn, the vulture had taken wing and left my heart to grow; this was only a pause in the torture, like an interval of repose in travail. Soon your letter came; and, your letter written just on the eve of departure, and it cast me back into the fire, and the same suffering was undergone again. But the same relief came at last. I was getting well. I was up, though scarcely able to stand or to speak, and quivering all over like the recoiling muscles of a torn off limb, when Gusty May came to see me, and the shock of his arrival threw me back a third time into death and hell, for I saw that _he knew all!_ that killed the last faint lingering hope I had. It was during this third and worst relapse, that the executions were levied on your property. Well, Raymond, I recovered of this attack also! but it was not until I reached Heath Hall, and until after my third child, our boy, was born, that my health was fully re-established. I am in high health, now, Raymond! and cool, composed, cheerful, strong, and mistress of myself. The storm of hail and snow that was raging with fury when I commenced this letter, has passed, and the moon is shining bright, full, and clear as a mammoth diamond, and glistening on the silvery snow, its beams fall on my paper and around my head like a halo, a benediction of God, a promise of happier and holier days. Farewell for the present, Raymond; my home and heart are ever open for your return. I do not love you too fiercely now, Raymond, for I have all eternity to love you in. You are not just now my Raymond, but I am now and ever thy

HAGAR.”

It was curious—the effect of this letter upon Raymond Withers. The first page he had perused with a frowning brow—opening the sheet with a twitch, the second page he read with many a “pish!” and “pshaw!”—the third was conned over with a softening countenance, and at the end of the fourth and last he exclaimed—“What the devil sent that infernal temptation across my path?—poor Hagar!” And then holding the letter behind him, he paced slowly up and down the room, with his head bowed upon his chest, while remorse, tenderness, disappointment, and regret, mingled in the expression of his once serene countenance. This was strange in the fact, but natural in the circumstances. His affection for Hagar had engaged his whole soul. She was one to be loved long, as well as deeply; her unique beauty, brilliant intellect, and high spirit, from her very childhood, had supplied to him an inexhaustible subject of occupation, interest, and amusement—she had met and satisfied every want of his nature. It was impossible, with her strong and ardent temperament and ever-varying emotions, that she could become flat and uninteresting. His passion for Rosalia was another matter, a mere delirium of the senses, a moral insanity, as Hagar had at last understood and described it to be, and as he himself now knew it to have been—to _have been_—for this passion, stimulated and increased as it had at first been by her flight, by her continued absence, was already receding into the past. Raymond Withers was too much of a sensualist, and his love for Rosalia too much an affair of the senses to last long after she was lost to sight and hearing; therefore for many weeks past his passion had been declining, slowly, almost imperceptibly, but it was reserved for Hagar’s letter to reveal to him the true state of his heart. Now he felt that his search for Rosalia had of late been conducted from the habit of looking for her until he should have found her, from a fear that she was lost, had perished by exposure, and from a remorse not to be shaken off while her fate was enveloped in mystery. He was conscious now, especially after reading Hagar’s letter, that he was more anxious to hear of Rosalia’s safety than even to see her—and the more he pondered upon this subject, the more convinced did he feel that he no longer desired her presence. A strongly setting-in tide of returning affection for Hagar filled his bosom to the expulsion of every other love—an affection purified by repentance, softened by pity, and elevated by respect. It was strange how slowly, imperceptibly, but how thoroughly he had come to his senses. He read Hagar’s letter over again, and sighed many times during its perusal, and sometimes paused and held it on his knee while he tried to recollect the atrocities of his letter to her, and endeavored to persuade himself that it was not quite so diabolical as he knew it to have been. He arose and walked up and down the floor, with his hands holding the letter clasped behind him, and his head bowed upon his breast—deeply perplexed; and then he went up to the full length mirror that stood at one end of his luxurious dressing-room, and contemplating his elegant figure and really dazzling style of beauty, wondered impulsively if Hagar would not be very glad to get him back upon any terms; and then feeling ashamed of his thought, he resumed his walk, deeply congratulating himself that they had been preserved from the last degree of guilt, and that at least the door was at all times open for a man’s return to duty, however sternly it might be barred against a repenting woman, and at that thought, again he thanked God that Rosalia Aguilar had been snatched from him, before she had fallen to the lowest stage of crime. But where _was_ Rosalia? Ah! that was the thorn that rankled most; but there were others—how should he write to Hagar until she was found? and in what terms should he write?—how apologize for that “infernal letter,” as he called it, as he tried to recollect that it was not quite so bad as he remembered it to have been, and then, whither should he direct his letter? Where would it be likely to find her? Hagar was on the wing; at this last thought, he experienced a satisfaction in the reflection that here was something at last on her part to find fault with—she had no right to roam up and down the world without having previously informed him of her views and intentions, and obtained his approbation and consent. He tried to convince himself that this was an infringement of his rights, a rebellion against his authority; it was a useless effort—his heart and reason acquitted her of all blame, and he was left to support his own load of guilt, remorse, and shame, unsustained by any counterbalancing sin on her side.

He was conscious of a vague but strong desire that Hagar might fall into some imprudence, misery, or disgrace, from which he might have the honor of rescuing her, so that he might be entitled to her gratitude and respect, and so approach her with some remnant of self-respect. The idea of going to her in any other character than that of protector, benefactor—to receive her love upon any other terms than those of honor, esteem—oh! this was too humiliating, and not to be thought of. He did not want her generosity, magnanimity, forgiveness; oh! nothing of the kind—the idea repulsed, revolted him—he would do nothing of the sort—no, he must have her love, coupled as it had been with the high respect reaching almost to adoration, such as she had yielded him as his due even from her infancy up. He felt that it was no small thing to have held the sovereignty over Hagar’s high spirit, and that it was no small humiliation to have lost it by his folly.

There was now a strong attraction and as strong a repulsion about the idea of Hagar—the most tantalizing that could be conceived, and that chained him to the rack. Her letter had struck away, as by the stroke of a strong arm, all that stood between them, and he saw her in all her beauty, in her fearful but fascinating beauty!—he desired of all things on earth to seek her, and could scarcely restrain his impatience; but he could not go, it seemed impossible. True, she had written, “My heart and home are ever open for your return,” and though no word of _penitence_ might be spoken by him, no tone of _pardon_ breathed by her, yet the _thought_—the _fact_, would exist in the experience of both, and the _humiliation_ for him—he could not dare it, or bear it! The difficulties that obstructed his return to Hagar, all growing out of his own bosom as they did, only provoked by opposition his strong desire to see her. He might now with more truth than formerly have written her down, “Hagar, mine only one;” for now it seemed that there was but “one Hagar in the universe.” After the manner of all awakened sinners, how he deplored his sin!—after the manner of all restored maniacs, how he cursed his folly!—yea, after the manner of all sobered drunkards, how he blushed for his degradation! And could he appear before Hagar in that guise? before Hagar in her recovered and greatly increased strength and pride? Days passed, and the strongly turning stream of feeling was increased in force and volume by every circumstance and every thought. Still he continued uneasy upon the account of Rosalia; still extremely desirous of hearing from Captain Wilde; but, higher, deeper, and broader—covering all these, was the thought of Hagar. Ah, God! the more he contemplated it, the more alarming it became.

Hagar, not quite twenty years old, young, yet strong, high spirited, audacious, proud of _herself_, apart from social position or the estimation of others—of Hagar, beautiful, piquant, and provoking beyond every other woman he ever saw—of Hagar, ardent, enthusiastic, and impulsive—but, no! he could not receive the idea suggested by this last circumstance; he could not conceive that his high-souled Hagar _could_ become the victim of her ardent temperament. No, he believed as she had said, in her honor, as he believed in God. But some other man’s sacrilegious eyes might covet _her_ as he had coveted Rosalia—and she was human and might be tempted. At this thought Raymond sprang up from the sofa, upon which he had been reclining, with a sudden love and anger striving in his heart, as Hagar’s irresistibly charming face, with its crimson cheeks and lips and eyes of splendid fire, flashed in upon his brain, as in the days of her highest glory.

“After all, she is mine—my _own_—I have not given her up _yet_! and never will—_never_! I will resist to the death any effort that may be made to tear her from my possession! Yes, Hagar, I may lose your heart, but I will even _slay_, rather than give you up. What right has she to leave her home and travel over the world exposing herself in this manner? and where does she find the means? I know that she travels with her family, for she would die rather than be severed from one of her children, and above all, what is her object? I should fancy that she were seeking me—God grant it!—I could face her, if she humbled herself to seek me—but no, she will never do that. No, if I ever hope to possess Hagar again, I shall have to _woo_ her again.”

He was interrupted in the midst of his confused thoughts by the entrance of his page, who brought him the post-bag: emptying it, his eye fell upon a letter directed in the hand-writing of Sophie Wilde. The letter bore date two months back; it had evidently been detained on its passage. It was short, nearly illegible, and evidently written in the most excruciating anguish of mind. It ran thus:—

“CONSTANTINOPLE, Oct. 1st, 182-.

“DEAR RAYMOND:—The receipt of your letter, with its most terrible intelligence, made me ill; so ill that for three weeks I have not been able to rise from my bed, and so could not, before this, answer it. Captain Wilde was not with me at the time of its receipt, and is not here now. I had no one but foreigners around me—so that there was none to act as my amanuensis, even had I been capable of dictating. In the name of God, where is Rosalia? I have been looking, and am still looking with anxiety, daily, for another letter from you, telling me that she is found. A thousand fears and anxieties torture my breast. Tell me, did she form any ill-judged attachment on her voyage out?—and was any one else missing when she went? Tell me why did you not write daily to keep me advised of your progress towards the discovery of her fate? Raymond, I can scarcely hold you blameless! I require her at your hands! never face me again without Rosalia’s insured safety! Yet, how cruel in me to write to you thus; to you, who must be severely afflicted at her loss. Oh, Raymond! you do not know how much right you have to be so! You are the nearest, the only relative, she has on earth! I have lately received, and now possess, incontestable proof of what I am about to reveal to you:—_Rosalia Withers is your own sister, Raymond!_—the daughter of both your parents——”

He read no further; the paper fell from his stiffening fingers; a mortal sickness, _nausea_, seized him, horror swam in upon his brain, and barely murmuring—

“Oh, my God! what a sink of crime and infamy I have narrowly escaped!” he fell forward upon his face!