With but ill-suppressed wrath The Duke answer'd . . . "What, then! he recrosses your path, This man, and you have but to see him, despite Of his troth to another, to take back that light Worthless heart to your own, which he wrong'd years ago!"
Lucile faintly, brokenly murmur'd . . . "No! no!
'Tis not that--but alas!--but I cannot conceal That I have not forgotten the past--but I feel That I cannot accept all these gifts on your part,--
In return for what . . . ah, Duke, what is it? . . . a heart Which is only a ruin!"
With words warm and wild, "Though a ruin it be, trust me yet to rebuild And restore it," Luvois cried; "though ruin'd it be, Since so dear is that ruin, ah, yield it to me!"
He approach'd her. She shrank back. The grief in her eyes Answer'd, "No!"
An emotion more fierce seem'd to rise And to break into flame, as though fired by the light Of that look, in his heart. He exclaim'd, "Am I right?
You reject ME! Accept HIM?"
"I have not done so,"
She said firmly. He hoarsely resumed, "Not yet--no!
But can you with accents as firm promise me That you will not accept him?"
"Accept? Is he free?
Free to offer?" she said.
"You evade me, Lucile,"
He replied; "ah, you will not avow what you feel!
He might make himself free? Oh, you blush--turn away!
Dare you openly look in my face, lady, say!
While you deign to reply to one question from me?
I may hope not, you tell me: but tell me, may he?
What! silent? I alter my question. If quite Freed in faith from this troth, might he hope then?"
He might,"
She said softly.
VI.
Those two whisper'd words, in his breast, As he heard them, in one maddening moment releast All that's evil and fierce in man's nature, to crush And extinguish in man all that's good. In the rush Of wild jealousy, all the fierce passions that waste And darken and devastate intellect, chased From its realm human reason. The wild animal In the bosom of man was set free. And of all Human passions the fiercest, fierce jealousy, fierce As the fire, and more wild than the whirlwind, to pierce And to rend, rush'd upon him; fierce jealousy, swell'd By all passions bred from it, and ever impell'd To involve all things else in the anguish within it, And on others inflict its own pangs!
At that minute What pass'd through his mind, who shall say? who may tell The dark thoughts of man's heart, which the red glare of hell Can illumine alone?
He stared wildly around That lone place, so lonely! That silence! no sound Reach'd that room, through the dark evening air, save drear Drip and roar of the cataract ceaseless and near!
It was midnight all round on the weird silent weather;
Deep midnight in him! They two,--alone and together, Himself and that woman defenceless before him!
The triumph and bliss of his rival flash'd o'er him.
The abyss of his own black despair seem'd to ope At his feet, with that awful exclusion of hope Which Dante read over the city of doom.
All the Tarquin pass'd into his soul in the gloom, And uttering words he dared never recall, Words of insult and menace, he thunder'd down all The brew'd storm-cloud within him: its flashes scorch'd blind His own senses. His spirit was driven on the wind Of a reckless emotion beyond his control;
A torrent seem'd loosen'd within him. His soul Surged up from that caldron of passion that hiss'd And seeth'd in his heart.
VII.
He had thrown, and had miss'd His last stake.
VIII.
For, transfigured, she rose from the place Where he rested o'erawed: a saint's scorn on her face;
Such a dread vade retro was written in light On her forehead, the fiend would himself, at that sight, Have sunk back abash'd to perdition. I know If Lucretia at Tarquin but once had looked so, She had needed no dagger next morning.
She rose And swept to the door, like that phantom the snows Feel at nightfall sweep o'er them, when daylight is gone, And Caucasus is with the moon all alone.
There she paused; and, as though from immeasurable, Insurpassable distance, she murmur'd--
"Farewell!
We, alas! have mistaken each other. Once more Illusion, to-night, in my lifetime is o'er.
Duc de Luvois, adieu!"
From the heart-breaking gloom Of that vacant, reproachful, and desolate room, He felt she was gone--gone forever!
IX.
No word, The sharpest that ever was edged like a sword, Could have pierced to his heart with such keen accusation As the silence, the sudden profound isolation, In which he remain'd.
"O return; I repent!"
He exclaimed; but no sound through the stillness was sent, Save the roar of the water, in answer to him, And the beetle that, sleeping, yet humm'd her night-hymn:
An indistinct anthem, that troubled the air With a searching, and wistful, and questioning prayer.
"Return," sung the wandering insect. The roar Of the waters replied, "Nevermore! nevermore!"
He walked to the window . The spray on his brow Was flung cold from the whirlpools of water below;
The frail wooden balcony shook in the sound Of the torrent. The mountains gloom'd sullenly round.
A candle one ray from a closed casement flung.
O'er the dim balustrade all bewilder'd he hung, Vaguely watching the broken and shimmering blink Of the stars on the veering and vitreous brink Of that snake-like prone column of water; and listing Aloof o'er the languors of air the persisting Sharp horn of the gray gnat. Before he relinquish'd His unconscious employment, that light was extinguish'd.
Wheels at last, from the inn door aroused him. He ran Down the stairs; reached the door--just to see her depart.
Down the mountain the carriage was speeding.
X.
His heart Peal'd the knell of its last hope. He rush'd on; but whither He knew not--on, into the dark cloudy weather--
The midnight--the mountains--on, over the shelf Of the precipice--on, still--away from himself!
Till exhausted, he sank 'mid the dead leaves and moss At the mouth of the forest. A glimmering cross Of gray stone stood for prayer by the woodside. He sank Prayerless, powerless, down at its base, 'mid the dank Weeds and grasses; his face hid amongst them. He knew That the night had divided his whole life in two.
