“Denied her sight, he often crept Beneath the hawthorn’s shade;
To mark the spot in which she wept—
In which she wept and prayed.”—Mallet.
The night was waning fast, and Adela rose to depart as her friend concluded her story; yet it required an effort of resolution to retire. Mrs. Marlowe, however, was too well convinced of the expediency and propriety of this to press her longer stay, though the eyes of Oscar, suddenly turned to her, seemed to entreat she would do so. The night was dark and wet, which prevented Mrs. Marlowe from accompanying Adela to the carriage. Not so Oscar; he took the umbrella from the servant, who held it for his mistress, and bid him hasten on to have the carriage-door opened. “Oscar,” cried Mrs. Marlowe, extremely unwilling to allow even this short tete-??-tete, “Mrs. Belgrave will dispense with your gallantry, for you are really too great an invalid to venture out such a night as this.” Adela attempted to dissuade him from it, but her voice was so low and faltering as scarcely to be articulate. Oscar gently seized her hand, and pulled it under his arm; he felt it tremble as he did so. The touch became contagious; an universal tremor affected his frame, and never, perhaps, had he and Adela experienced a moment of greater unhappiness. Adela at last found herself obliged to speak, conscious that her silence must appear particular, and said, she feared he would be injured by his attentions to her. More fatally injured than he already was, he might have replied, he could not be; but he checked the words ready to burst from his lips, and only answered that he would be unfit for a soldier, if he could not endure the inclemency of the wintry blast. The light from the globes of the carriage gave him a view of her pale lovely cheeks, and he saw she was weeping. Confused at the idea of betraying her distress, she averted her head, and hastily ascended the steps; yet, for a moment, her trembling hand rested upon Oscar’s, as if, in this manner, she would have given the adieu she had not the power of pronouncing. Lost in agony, he remained, like a statue, on the spot where she had left him, till roused by the friendly voice of Mrs. Marlowe, who, alarmed at his long[Pg 134] absence, came to seek him. Soothed by her kind solicitude, he directly returned with her to the house, where his indignation against the perfidious Belgrave again broke forth. He execrated him, not only as the destroyer of his peace, but a peace infinitely more precious than his own—that of the charming Adela.
Mrs. Marlowe essayed every art of consolation, and, by sympathy and mildness, at last subdued the violence of his feelings; she acknowledged the loss he sustained in being deprived of Adela; but, since irrevocable, both virtue and reason required him to struggle against his grief, and conceal it. By their sacred dictates, she entreated him to avoid seeing Adela. He felt she was right in the entreaty, and solemnly promised to comply with it; her friendship was balm to his wounded heart, and her society the only pleasure he was capable of enjoying. Whenever he could absent himself from quarters he retired to her, and frequently spent three or four days at a time in her cottage. By discontinuing his visits in the gay neighborhood of Woodlawn, he avoided all opportunities of seeing Adela, yet often, on a clear frosty night, has he stole from the fireside of Mrs. Marlowe to the beloved and beautiful haunts about the lake, where he and Adela passed so many happy hours together. Here he indulged in all the luxury of woe; and such are the pleasures of virtuous melancholy, that Oscar would not have resigned them for any of the commonplace enjoyments of life.
Often did he wander to the grove from whence he had a view of Adela’s chamber, and if a lucky chance gave him a glimpse of her, as she passed through it, a sudden ecstasy would pervade his bosom; he would pray for her felicity, and return to Mrs. Marlowe, as if his heart was lightened of an oppressive weight. That tender friend flattered herself, from youth and the natural gayety of his disposition, his attachment, no longer fed by hope, would gradually decline; but she was mistaken—the bloom of his youth was faded, and his gayety converted into deep despondency. Had he never been undeceived with regard to the general and Adela, pride, no doubt, would quickly have lessened the poignancy of his feelings; but when he reflected on the generous intentions of the one, on the sincere affection of the other, and the supreme happiness he might have enjoyed, he lost all fortitude. Thus, by perpetually brooding over the blessings once within his reach, losing all relish for those which were yet attainable, his sorrow, instead of being ameliorated, was increased by time. The horror and indigna[Pg 135]tion with which he beheld Belgrave, after the first knowledge of his baseness, could scarcely be restrained. Though painful, he was pleased the effort had proved a successful one, as, exclusive of his sacred promise to Mrs. Marlowe, delicacy on Adela’s account induced him to bear his wrongs in silence. He could not, however, be so great a hypocrite as to profess any longer esteem or respect for the colonel, and when they met, it was with cold politeness on both sides.
The unfortunate Adela pined in secret. Her interview with Oscar had destroyed the small remainder of her peace. His pale and emaciated figure haunted her imagination; in vain, by dwell............