More than language can say! Do not deem, O Lucile, That the love I no longer have strength to conceal Is a passing caprice! It is strange to my nature, It has made me, unknown to myself, a new creature.
I implore you to sanction and save the new life Which I lay at your feet with this prayer--Be my wife Stoop, and raise me!
Lord Alfred could scarcely restrain The sudden, acute pang of anger and pain With which he had heard this. As though to some wind The leaves of the hush'd, windless laurels behind The two thus in converse were suddenly stirr'd.
The sound half betrayed him. They started. He heard The low voice of Lucile; but so faint was its tone That her answer escaped him.
Luvois hurried on, As though in remonstrance with what had been spoken.
"Nay, I know it, Lucile! but your heart was not broken By the trial in which all its fibres were proved.
Love, perchance, you mistrust, yet you need to be loved.
You mistake your own feelings. I fear you mistake What so ill I interpret, those feelings which make Words like these vague and feeble. Whatever your heart May have suffer'd of yore, this can only impart A pity profound to the love which I feel.
Hush! hush! I know all. Tell me nothing, Lucile."
"You know all, Duke?" she said; "well then, know that, in truth, I have learn'd from the rude lesson taught to my youth From my own heart to shelter my life; to mistrust The heart of another. We are what we must, And not what we would be. I know that one hour Assures not another. The will and the power Are diverse."
"O madam!" he answer'd, "you fence With a feeling you know to be true and intense.
'Tis not MY life, Lucile, that I plead for alone:
If your nature I know, 'tis no less for your own.
That nature will prey on itself; it was made To influence others. Consider," he said, "That genius craves power--what scope for it here?
Gifts less noble to ME give command of that sphere In which genius IS power. Such gifts you despise?
But you do not disdain what such gifts realize!
I offer you, Lady, a name not unknown--
A fortune which worthless, without you, is grown--
All my life at your feet I lay down--at your feet A heart which for you, and you only, can beat."
LUCILE.
That heart, Duke, that life--I respect both. The name And position you offer, and all that you claim In behalf of their nobler employment, I feel To deserve what, in turn, I now ask you--
LUVOIS.
Lucile!
LUCILE.
I ask you to leave me--
LUVOIS.
You do not reject?
LUCILE.
I ask you to leave me the time to reflect.
LUVOIS.
You ask me?
LUCILE.
--The time to reflect.
LUVOIS.
Say--One word!
May I hope?
The reply of Lucile was not heard By Lord Alfred; for just then she rose, and moved on.
The Duke bow'd his lips o'er her hand, and was gone.
XX.
Not a sound save the birds in the bushes. And when Alfred Vargrave reel'd forth to the sunlight again, He just saw the white robe of the woman recede As she entered the house.
Scarcely conscious indeed Of his steps, he too follow'd, and enter'd.
XXI.
He enter'd Unnoticed; Lucile never stirr'd: so concentred And wholly absorb'd in her thoughts she appear'd.
Her back to the window was turn'd. As he near'd The sofa, her face from the glass was reflected.
Her dark eyes were fix'd on the ground. Pale, dejected, And lost in profound meditation she seem'd.
Softly, silently, over her droop'd shoulders stream'd The afternoon sunlight. The cry of alarm And surprise which escaped her, as now on her arm Alfred Vargrave let fall a hand icily cold And clammy as death, all too cruelly told How far he had been from her thoughts.
XXII.
All his cheek Was disturb'd with the effort it cost him to speak.
"It was not my fault. I have heard all," he said.
"Now the letters--and farewell, Lucile! When you wed May--"
The sentence broke short, like a weapon that snaps When the weight of a man is upon it.
"Perhaps,"
Said Lucile (her sole answer reveal'd in the flush Of quick color which up to her brow seem'd to rush In reply to those few broken words), "this farewell Is our last, Alfred Vargrave, in life. Who can tell?
Let us part without bitterness. Here are your letters.
Be assured I retain you no more in my fetters!"--
She laughed, as she said this, a little sad laugh, And stretched out her hand with the letters. And half Wroth to feel his wrath rise, and unable to trust His own powers of restraint, in his bosom he thrust The packet she gave, with a short angry sigh, Bow'd his head, and departed without a reply.
XXIII.
And Lucile was alone. And the men of the world Were gone back to the world. And the world's self was furl'd Far away from the heart of the woman. Her hand Droop'd, and from it, unloosed from their frail silken band, Fell those early love-letters, strewn, scatter'd, and shed At her feet--life's lost blossoms! Dejected, her head On her bosom was bow'd. Her gaze vaguely stray'd o'er Those strewn records of passionate moments no more.
From each page to her sight leapt some words that belied The composure with which she that day had denied Every claim on her heart to those poor perish'd years.
They avenged themselves now, and she burst into tears.
