Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864. Various

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      Sergius hesitated. Never before had he been so tempted to utter an untruth. If he now did so, he knew that he would be believed, and that not only would she be made once more happy, but he would be left unwatched and unsuspected to carry on his own devices. But, on the other hand, he had been appealed to upon his honor, and, whatever his other faults, he had too much nobility of soul to lie. And so, not daring to confess the truth, he chose the middle path of refusing any direct response at all.

      'Now is not this a singular thing,' he exclaimed, 'that no man can ever let his eyes rest upon a pretty face without being accused of love for it? While, if a woman does the same, no tongue can describe the clamor with which she repels the insinuation of aught but friendly interest. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that mine is the only voice you ever listened to with love?'

      'Can you dare hint to me that I have ever been unfaithful to you, even in thought or word?' cried Ænone, stung with sudden anger by the imputation, and rendered desperate by her acute perception of the evasiveness of his answer. 'Do you not know that during the months which you so lately passed far away from me, there was not one person admitted here into society with me who would not have had your firm approval—and that I kept your image so lovingly before my eyes, and your memory so constant in my heart, as to become almost a reproach and a sarcasm to half who knew me?'

      'But before that—before I came to you—can you say that no other eyes had ever looked lovingly into yours, and there met kindred response?'

      'Have you the right to inquire into what may have happened before you met me? What young girl is there who, some time or other, has not modestly let her thoughts dwell upon innocent love? Is there wrong in this? Should there have been a spirit of prescience in my mind to forewarn me that I must keep my heart free and in vacant loneliness, because that, after many years, you were to come and lift me from my obscurity?'

      'Then, upon your own showing, you acknowledge that there was once another upon whom your eyes loved to look?' he cried, half gladdened that he had found even this poor excuse to transfer the charge of blame from himself. 'And how can I tell but that you have met with him since?'

      'I have met him since,' she quietly answered, driven to desperation by the cruel insinuation.

      In his heart attaching but little importance to such childish affections as she might once have cherished, and having had no other purpose in his suggestion than that of shielding himself from further inquiry by inflicting some trifling wound upon her, Sergius had spoken hesitatingly, and with a shamefaced consciousness of meanness and self-contempt. But when he listened to her frank admission—fraught, as it seemed to him, with more meaning than the mere naked words would, of themselves, imply, an angry flush of new-born jealousy overspread his features.

      'Ha! You have met him since?' he exclaimed. 'And when, and where? And who, then, is this fortunate one?'

      Ænone hesitated. Now, still more bitterly than ever before, she felt the sad consciousness of being unable to pour out to her husband her more secret thoughts and feelings. If she could have told, with perfect assurance of being believed, that in so lately meeting the man whom she had once imagined she loved, she had looked upon him with no other feeling than the dread of recognition, joined to a friendly and sisterly desire to procure his release from captivity and his restoration to his own home, she would have done so. But she felt too well that the once-aroused jealousy of her lord might now prevent him from reposing full and generous trust and confidence in her—that he would be far more likely to interpret all her most innocent actions wrongly, and to surround her with degrading espionage—and that, in the end, the innocent captive would probably be subjected to the bitterest persecutions which spite and hatred could invent.

      'I have met him,' she said at length, 'but only by chance, and without being recognized or spoken to by him. Nor do I know whether I shall ever chance to meet him again. Is this a crime? Oh, my lord, what have I done that you should thus strive to set your face against me? Do you not, in your secret soul, know and believe that there is no other smile than yours for which I live, and that, without the love with which you once gladdened me, there can be no rest or peace for me on earth? Tell me, then, that all this is but a cruel pleasantry to prove my heart, and that there has nothing come between us—or else let me know the worst, in order that I may die.'

      Sliding down, until her knees touched the floor, and then winding one arm slowly about his neck, she hid her face in his breast, and, bursting into tears, sobbed aloud. It was not merely the reactionary breaking down of a nervous system strung to the highest point of undue excitement. It was the half consciousness of a terrible fear lest the day might come in which, goaded by injustice and neglect, she might learn no longer to love the man before her—the wail of a stricken soul pleading that the one to whom her heart had bound her might not fail in his duty to her, but, by a resumption of his former kindness and affection, might retain her steadfastly in the path of love.

      Touched by the spectacle of her strong agony—aroused for the moment to the true realization of all the bitterness and baseness of his unkindness toward her—moved, perhaps, by memories of that time when between them there was pleasant and endearing confidence, and when it was not she who was obliged to plead for love—Sergius drew his arm more closely about her, and, bending over, pressed his lips upon her forehead. If at that moment the opportunity had not failed, who can tell what open and generous confessions might not have been uttered, unrestrained forgiveness sealed, and future miseries prevented? But at the very moment when the words seemed trembling upon his lips, the door softly opened, and Leta entered.

      THE DOVE