Zenobia had entirely forgotten me.She fancied herself alone with her great grief.And had it been only a common pity that I felt for her, --the pity that her proud nature would have repelled, as the one worst wrong which the world yet held in reserve,--the sacredness and awfulness of the crisis might have impelled me to steal away silently, so that not a dry leaf should rustle under my feet.I would have left her to struggle, in that solitude, with only the eye of God upon her.But, so it happened, I never once dreamed of questioning my right to be there now, as I had questioned it just before, when I came so suddenly upon Hollingsworth and herself, in the passion of their recent debate.It suits me not to explain what was the analogy that I saw or imagined between Zenobia's situation and mine; nor, I believe, will the reader detect this one secret, hidden beneath many a revelation which perhaps concerned me less.In simple truth, however, as Zenobia leaned her forehead against the rock, shaken with that tearless agony, it seemed to me that the self-same pang, with hardly mitigated torment, leaped thrilling from her heartstrings to my own.Was it wrong, therefore, if Ifelt myself consecrated to the priesthood by sympathy like this, and called upon to minister to this woman's affliction, so far as mortal could?
But, indeed, what could mortal do for her? Nothing! The attempt would be a mockery and an anguish.Time, it is true, would steal away her grief, and bury it and the best of her heart in the same grave.But Destiny itself, methought, in its kindliest mood, could do no better for Zenobia, in the way of quick relief; than to cause the impending rock to impend a little farther, and fall upon her head.So I leaned against a tree, and listened to her sobs, in unbroken silence.She was half prostrate, half kneeling, with her forehead still pressed against the rock.Her sobs were the only sound; she did not groan, nor give any other utterance to her distress.It was all involuntary.
At length she sat up, put back her hair, and stared about her with a bewildered aspect, as if not distinctly recollecting the scene through which she had passed, nor cognizant of the situation in which it left her.
Her face and brow were almost purple with the rush of blood.They whitened, however, by and by, and for some time retained this deathlike hue.She put her hand to her forehead, with a gesture that made me forcibly conscious of an intense and living pain there.
Her glance, wandering wildly to and fro, passed over me several times, without appearing to inform her of my presence.But, finally, a look of recognition gleamed from her eyes into mine.
"Is it you, Miles Coverdale?" said she, smiling."Ah, I perceive what you are about! You are turning this whole affair into a ballad.Pray let me hear as many stanzas as you happen to have ready.""Oh, hush, Zenobia!" I answered."Heaven knows what an ache is in my soul!""It is genuine tragedy, is it not?" rejoined Zenobia, with a sharp, light laugh."And you are willing to allow, perhaps, that I have had hard measure.But it is a woman's doom, and I have deserved it like a woman; so let there be no pity, as, on my part, there shall be no complaint.It is all right, now, or will shortly be so.But, Mr.
Coverdale, by all means write this ballad, and put your soul's ache into it, and turn your sympathy to good account, as other poets do, and as poets must, unless they choose to give us glittering icicles instead of lines of fire.As for the moral, it shall be distilled into the final stanza, in a drop of bitter honey.""What shall it be, Zenobia?" I inquired, endeavoring to fall in with her mood.
"Oh, a very old one will serve the purpose," she replied."There are no new truths, much as we have prided ourselves on finding some.A moral?
Why, this: That, in the battlefield of life, the downright stroke, that would fall only on a man's steel headpiece, is sure to light on a woman's heart, over which she wears no breastplate, and whose wisdom it is, therefore, to keep out of the conflict.Or, this: That the whole universe, her own sex and yours, and Providence, or Destiny, to boot, make common cause against the woman who swerves one hair's-breadth out of the beaten track.Yes; and add (for I may as well own it, now) that, with that one hair's-breadth, she goes all astray, and never sees the world in its true aspect afterwards.""This last is too stern a moral," I observed."Cannot we soften it a little?""Do it if you like, at your own peril, not on my responsibility," she answered.Then, with a sudden change of subject, she went on: "After all, he has flung away what would have served him better than the poor, pale flower he kept.What can Priscilla do for him? Put passionate warmth into his heart, when it shall be chilled with frozen hopes? Strengthen his hands, when they are weary with much doing and no performance? No!
but only tend towards him with a blind, instinctive love, and hang her little, puny weakness for a clog upon his arm! She cannot even give him such sympathy as is worth the name.For will he never, in many an hour of darkness, need that proud intellectual sympathy which he might have had from me?--the sympathy that would flash light along his course, and guide, as well as cheer him? Poor Hollingsworth! Where will he find it now?""Hollingsworth has a heart of ice!" said I bitterly."He is a wretch!""Do him no wrong," interrupted Zenobia, turning haughtily upon me.
"Presume not to estimate a man like Hollingsworth.It was my fault, all along, and none of his.I see it now! He never sought me.Why should he seek me? What had I to offer him? Amiserable, bruised, and battered heart, spoilt long before he met me.A life, too, hopelessly entangled with a villain's! He did well to cast me off.God be praised, he did it! And yet, had he trusted me, and borne with me a little longer, Iwould have saved him all this trouble."
She was silent for a time, and stood with her eyes fixed on the ground.
Again raising them, her look was more mild and calm.
