Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 11

								

and exclaimed,--
"It is he! it is!  Lumley Ferrers, we meet again!"
Lord Vargrave started and changed colour, as he gazed on the intruder.
"Ferrers," continued Cesarini (for it was he), and he wound his arm
firmly into Lord Vargrave's as he spoke, "you have not changed; your step
is light, your cheek healthful; and yet I--you can scarcely recognize me.
Oh, I have suffered so horribly since we parted!  Why is this?  Why have
I been so heavily visited, and why have you gone free?  Heaven is not
just!"
Castruccio was in one of his lucid intervals; but there was that in his
uncertain eye, and strange unnatural voice, which showed that a breath
might dissolve the avalanche.  Lord Vargrave looked anxiously round; none
were near: but he knew that the more public parts of the garden were
thronged, and through the trees he saw many forms moving in the distance.
He felt that the sound of his voice could summon assistance in an
instant, and his assurance returned to him.
"My poor friend," said he soothingly, as he quickened his pace, "it
grieves me to the heart to see you look ill; do not think so much of what
is past."
"There is no past!" replied Cesarini, gloomily.  "The Past is my Present!
And I have thought and thought, in darkness and in chains, over all that
I have endured, and a light has broken on me in the hours when they told
me I was mad!  Lumley Ferrers, it was not for my sake that you led me,
devil as you are, into the lowest hell!  You had some object of your own
to serve in separating her from Maltravers.  You made me your
instrument.  What was I to you that you should have sinned for my sake?
Answer me, and truly, if those lips can utter truth!"
"Cesarini," returned Vargrave, in his blandest accents, "another time we
will converse on what has been; believe me, my only object was your
happiness, combined, it may be, with my hatred of your rival."
"Liar!" shouted Cesarini, grasping Vargrave's arm with the strength of
growing madness, while his burning eyes were fixed upon his tempter's
changing countenance.  "You, too, loved Florence; you, too, sought her
hand; you were my real rival!"
"Hush! my friend, hush!" said Vargrave, seeking to shake off the grip of
the maniac, and becoming seriously alarmed; "we are approaching the
crowded part of the gardens, we shall be observed."
"And why are men made my foes?  Why is my own sister become my
persecutor?  Why should she give me up to the torturer and the dungeon?
Why are serpents and fiends my comrades?  Why is there fire in my brain
and heart; and why do you go free and enjoy liberty and life?  Observed!
What care you for observation?  All men search for me!"
"Then why so openly expose yourself to their notice; why--"
"Hear me!" interrupted Cesarini.  "When I escaped from the horrible
prison into which I was plunged; when I scented the fresh air, and
bounded over the grass; when I was again free in limbs and spirit,--a