Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 10

								

patient, unsubdued affection; to convince him that the sole hope left to
her in life was that of one day or other beholding him once again.  You
know Maltravers,--his high-wrought, sensitive, noble character; he
recoiled in terror from the thought of making his love to the daughter
the last and bitterest affliction to the mother he had so loved; knowing
too how completely that mother had entwined herself round your
affections, he shuddered at the pain and self-reproach that would be
yours when you should discover to whom you had been the rival, and whose
the fond hopes and dreams that your fatal beauty had destroyed.
Tortured, despairing, and half beside himself, he has fled from this
ill-omened passion, and in solitude he now seeks to subdue that passion.
Touched by the woe, the grief, of the Alice of his youth, it is his
intention, as soon as he can know you restored to happiness and content,
to hasten to your mother, and offer his future devotion as the fulfilment
of former vows.  On you, and you alone, it depends to restore Maltravers
to the world,--on you alone it depends to bless the remaining years of
the mother who so dearly loves you!"
It may be easily conceived with what sensations of wonder, compassion,
and dismay, Evelyn listened to this tale, the progress of which her
exclamations, her sobs, often interrupted.  She would write instantly to
her mother, to Maltravers.  Oh, how gladly she would relinquish his suit:
How cheerfully promise to rejoice in that desertion which brought
happiness to the mother she had so loved!
"Nay," said Vargrave, "your mother must not know, till the intelligence
can be breathed by his lips, and softened by his protestations of
returning affection, that the mysterious object of her early romance is
that Maltravers whose vows have been so lately offered to her own child.
Would not such intelligence shock all pride, and destroy all hope?  How
could she then consent to the sacrifice which Maltravers is prepared to
make?  No! not till you are another's--not (to use the words of
Maltravers) till you are a happy and beloved wife--must your mother
receive the returning homage of Maltravers; not till then can she know
where that homage has been recently rendered; not till then can
Maltravers feel justified in the atonement he meditates.  He is willing
to sacrifice himself; he trembles at the thought of sacrificing you!  Say
nothing to your mother, till from her own lips she tells you that she has
learned all."
Could Evelyn hesitate; could Evelyn doubt?  To allay the fears, to fulfil
the prayers of the man whose conduct appeared so generous, to restore him
to peace and the world; above all, to pluck from the heart of that
beloved and gentle mother the rankling dart, to shed happiness over her
fate, to reunite her with the loved and lost,--what sacrifice too great
for this?
Ah, why was Legard absent?  Why did she believe him capricious, light,