Chapter VIII: Part V

The convent-bell struck midnight, and there was a foot-fall in the cloister. I was startled by it out of an entire forgetfulness of all around me, for I was lying on my bed in the monastery cell, with my hands clasped over my eyes, as I had thrown myself down on coming in; and, with a strange contrariety, my mind, broken rudely from its hope, had flown to my far away home, oblivious of the benumbed links that lay between. A knock at my door completed the return to my despair, for with a look at the walls of my little chamber, in the bright beam of moonlight that streamed in at the narrow window, I was, by recognition, again at Vallambrosa, and Stephania, with an accepted lover's voice in her ear, was again near me, her moistened eyes steeped with Palgray's in the same beam of the all-visiting and unbetraying moon.

Father Ludovic entered. The gentle tone of his _benedicite_, told me that he had come on an errand of sympathy. There was little need of preliminary between two who read the inner countenance as habitually as did both of us; and as briefly as the knowledge and present feeling of each could be re-expressed in words, we confirmed the spirit-mingling that had brought him there, and were presently as one. He had read truly the drama of love, enacting in the party of visiters to his convent, but his judgment of the possible termination of it was different from mine.

* * * * *

Palgray's dormitory was at the extremity of the cloister, and we presently heard him pass.

"She is alone, now," said Father Ludovic, "I will send you to her."

My mind had strained to Stephania's presence with the first footsteps that told me of their separation; and it needed but a wave of his hand to unlink the spirit-wings from my weary frame. I was present with her.

I struggled for a moment, but in vain, to see her face. Its expression was as visible as my hand in the sun, but no feature. The mind I had read was close to me, in a presence of consciousness; and, in points, here and there, brighter, bolder, and further-reaching than I had altogether believed. She was unutterably pure--a spirit without a spot--and I remained near her with a feeling as if my forehead were pressed down to the palms of my hands, in homage mixed with sorrow, for I should have more recognized this in my waking study of her nature.

A moment more--a trembling effort, as if to read what were written to record my companionship for eternity--and a vague image of myself came out in shadow--clearer now, and still clearer, enlarging to the fullness of her mind. She thought wholly and only of that image I then saw, yet with a faint coloring playing to and from it, as influences came in from the outer world. Her eyes were turned in upon it in lost contemplation. But suddenly a new thought broke upon me. I saw my image, but it was not I, as I looked to myself. The type of my countenance was there; but, oh, transformed to an ideal, such as I now, for the first time, saw possible--ennobled in every defective line--purified of its taint from worldliness--inspired with high aspirations--cleared of what it had become cankered with, in its transmission through countless generations since first sent into the world, and restored to a likeness of the angel of whose illuminated lineaments it was first a copy. So thought Stephania of me. Thus did she believe I truly was. Oh! blessed, and yet humiliating, trust of woman! Oh! comparison of true and ideal, at which spirits must look out of heaven, and of which they must long, with aching pity, to make us thus rebukingly aware!

* * * * *

I felt myself withdrawing from Stephania's presence. There were tears between us, which I could not see. I strove to remain, but a stronger power than my will was at work within me. I felt my heart swell with a gasp, as if death were bearing out of it the principle of life; and my head dropped on the pillow of my bed.

"Good night, my son," said the low voice of Father Ludovic, "I have willed that you should remember what you have seen. Be worthy of her love, for there are few like her."

He closed the door, and as the glide of his sandals died away in the echoing cloisters, I leaned forth to spread my expanding heart in the upward and boundless light of the moon--for I seemed to wish never again to lose in the wasteful forgetfulness of sleep, the consciousness that I was loved by Stephania.

* * * * *

I was journeying the next day, alone, toward Venice. I had left written adieux for the party at Vallambrosa, pleading to my friends an unwillingness to bear the pain of a formal separation. Betwixt midnight and morning, however, I had written a parting letter for Stephania, which I had committed to the kind envoying of Father Ludovic, and thus it ran:--

"When you read this, Stephania, I shall be alone
with the thought of you, traveling a reluctant
road, but still with a burthen in my heart which
will bring me to you again, and which even now
envelopes my pang of separation in a veil of
happiness. I have been blessed by Heaven's mercy
with the power to know that you love me. Were you
not what you are, I could not venture to startle
you thus with a truth which, perhaps, you have
hardly confessed in waking reality to yourself; but
you are one of those who are coy of no truth that
could be found to have lain without alarm in your
own bosom, and, with those beloved hands pressed
together with the earnestness of the clasp of
prayer, you will say, 'yes! I love him!'

"I leave you, now, not to put our love to trial,
and still less in the ordinary meaning of the
phrase, to prepare to wed you. The first is little
needed, angels in heaven well know. The second is a
thought which will be in time, when I have done the
work on which I am newly bent by the inspiration of
love--_the making myself what you think me to be_.
Oh, Stephania! to feel encouraged, as God has given
me strength to feel, that I may yet be this--that I
may yet bring you a soul brought up to the standard
you have raised, and achieve it by effort in
self-denial, and by the works of honor and goodness
that are as possible to a man in obscurity and
poverty as to his brother in wealth and
distinction--this is to me new life, boundless
enlargement of sphere, food for a love of which,
alas! I was not before worthy.

"I have told you unreservedly what my station in
life is--what my hopes are, and what career I had
marked out for struggle. I shall go on with the
career, though the prizes I then mentally saw have
since faded in value almost as much as my purpose
is strengthened. Fame and wealth, my pure,
Stephania, are to you as they now can only be to
me, larger trusts of service and duty; and if I
hope they will come while other aims are sought, it
is because they will confer happiness on parents
and friends who mistakenly suppose them necessary
to the winner of your heart. I hope to bring them
to you. I know that I shall come as welcome without
them.

"While I write--while my courage and hope throb
loud in the pulses of my bosom--I can think even
happily of separation. To leave you, the better to
return, is bearable--even pleasurable--to the
heart's noonday mood. But I have been steeped for a
summer, now, in a presence of visible and breathing
loveliness, (that you cannot forbid me to speak of,
since language is too poor to out-color truth,) and
there will come moments of depression--twilights of
deepening and undivided loneliness--hours of
illness, perhaps--and times of discouragement and
adverse cloudings over of Providence--when I shall
need to be remembered with sympathy, and to know
that I am so remembered. I do not ask you to write
to me. It would entail difficulties upon you, and
put between us an interchange of uncertainties and
possible misunderstandings. But I can communicate
with you by a surer medium, if you will grant a
request. The habits of your family are such that
you can, for the first hour after midnight, be
always alone. Waking or sleeping, there will then
be a thought of me occupying your heart, and--call
it a fancy if you will--I can come and read it on
the viewless wings of the soul.

"I commend your inexpressible earthly beauty, dear
Stephania, and your still brighter loveliness of
soul, to God's angel, who has never left you.
Farewell! You will see me when I am worthy of
you--if it be necessary that it should be first in
heaven, made so by forgiveness there.

* * * * *

_Cell of St. Eusebius, Vallambrosa--day-breaking_."

A BUTTERFLY IN THE CITY.

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.

Dear transient spirit of the fields,
Thou com'st, without distrust,
To fan the sunshine of our streets
Among the noise and dust.

Thou leadest in thy wavering flight
My footsteps unaware,
Until I seem to walk the vales
And breathe thy native air.

And thou hast fed upon the flowers,
And drained their honied springs,
Till every tender hue they wore
Is blooming on thy wings.

I bless the fresh and flowery light
Thou bringest to the town,
But tremble lest the hot turmoil
Have power to weigh thee down;

For thou art like the poet's song,
Arrayed in holiest dyes,
Though it hath drained the honied wells
Of flowers of Paradise;

Though it hath brought celestial hues
To light the ways of life,
The dust shall weigh its pinions down
Amid the noisy strife.

And yet, perchance, some kindred soul
Shall see its glory shine,
And feel its wings within his heart
As bright as I do thine.

THE RIVAL SISTERS.

AN ENGLISH TRAGEDY OF REAL LIFE.

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF "THE ROMAN TRAITOR," "MARMADUKE WYVIL," ETC.

(_Concluded from page 22_.)