第32章 ALICIA'S DIARY(7)

I said I could not hear such words from him,and begged him in tears to go away;he obeyed,and I heard the garden door shut behind him.

What is to be the end of the announcement,and the fate of Caroline?

May 20.--I put a good deal on paper yesterday,and yet not all.Iwas,in truth,hoping against hope,against conviction,against too conscious self-judgment.I scarcely dare own the truth now,yet it relieves my aching heart to set it down.Yes,I love him--that is the dreadful fact,and I can no longer parry,evade,or deny it to myself though to the rest of the world it can never be owned.I love Caroline's betrothed,and he loves me.It is no yesterday's passion,cultivated by our converse;it came at first sight,independently of my will;and my talk with him yesterday made rather against it than for it,but,alas,did not quench it.God forgive us both for this terrible treachery.

May 25.--All is vague;our courses shapeless.He comes and goes,being occupied,ostensibly at least,with sketching in his tent in the wood.Whether he and she see each other privately I cannot tell,but I rather think they do not;that she sadly awaits him,and he does not appear.Not a sign from him that my repulse has done him any good,or that he will endeavour to keep faith with her.O,if Ionly had the compulsion of a god,and the self-sacrifice of a martyr!

May 31.--It has all ended--or rather this act of the sad drama has ended--in nothing.He has left us.No day for the fulfilment of the engagement with Caroline is named,my father not being the man to press any one on such a matter,or,indeed,to interfere in any way.

We two girls are,in fact,quite defenceless in a case of this kind;lovers may come when they choose,and desert when they choose;poor father is too urbane to utter a word of remonstrance or inquiry.

Moreover,as the approved of my dead mother,M.de la Feste has a sort of autocratic power with my father,who holds it unkind to her memory to have an opinion about him.I,feeling it my duty,asked M.

de la Feste at the last moment about the engagement,in a voice Icould not keep firm.

'Since the death of your mother all has been indefinite--all!'he said gloomily.That was the whole.Possibly,Wherryborne Rectory may see him no more.

June 7.--M.de la Feste has written--one letter to her,one to me.

Hers could not have been very warm,for she did not brighten on reading it.Mine was an ordinary note of friendship,filling an ordinary sheet of paper,which I handed over to Caroline when I had finished looking it through.But there was a scrap of paper in the bottom of the envelope,which I dared not show any one.This scrap is his real letter:I scanned it alone in my room,trembling,hot and cold by turns.He tells me he is very wretched;that he deplores what has happened,but was helpless.Why did I let him see me,if only to make him faithless.Alas,alas!

June 21.--My dear Caroline has lost appetite,spirits,health.Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.His letters to her grow colder--if indeed he has written more than one.He has refrained from writing again to me--he knows it is no use.Altogether the situation that he and she and I are in is melancholy in the extreme.Why are human hearts so perverse?

CHAPTER VI.--HER INGENUITY INSTIGATES HERSeptember 19.--Three months of anxious care--till at length I have taken the extreme step of writing to him.Our chief distress has been caused by the state of poor Caroline,who,after sinking by degrees into such extreme weakness as to make it doubtful if she can ever recover full vigour,has to-day been taken much worse.Her position is very critical.The doctor says plainly that she is dying of a broken heart--and that even the removal of the cause may not now restore her.Ought I to have written to Charles sooner?But how could I when she forbade me?It was her pride only which instigated her,and I should not have obeyed.

Sept.26.--Charles has arrived and has seen her.He is shocked,conscience-stricken,remorseful.I have told him that he can do no good beyond cheering her by his presence.I do not know what he thinks of proposing to her if she gets better,but he says little to her at present:indeed he dares not:his words agitate her dangerously.

Sept.28.--After a struggle between duty and selfishness,such as Ipray to Heaven I may never have to undergo again,I have asked him for pity's sake to make her his wife,here and now,as she lies.Isaid to him that the poor child would not trouble him long;and such a solemnization would soothe her last hours as nothing else could do.

He said that he would willingly do so,and had thought of it himself;but for one forbidding reason:in the event of her death as his wife he can never marry me,her sister,according to our laws.I started at his words.He went on:'On the other hand,if I were sure that immediate marriage with me would save her life,I would not refuse,for possibly I might after a while,and out of sight of you,make myself fairly content with one of so sweet a disposition as hers;but if,as is probable,neither my marrying her nor any other act can avail to save her life,by so doing I lose both her and you.'Icould not answer him.

Sept.29.--He continued firm in his reasons for refusal till this morning,and then I became possessed with an idea,which I at once propounded to him.It was that he should at least consent to a FORMof marriage with Caroline,in consideration of her love;a form which need not be a legal union,but one which would satisfy her sick and enfeebled soul.Such things have been done,and the sentiment of feeling herself his would inexpressibly comfort her mind,I am sure.