DESCENSUS AVERNI.
MALBONE stood one morning on the pier behind the house. A two days' fog was dispersing. The southwest breeze rippled the deep blue water; sailboats, blue, red, and green, were darting about like white- winged butterflies; sloops passed and repassed, cutting the air with the white and slender points of their gaff-topsails. The liberated sunbeams spread and penetrated everywhere, and even came up to play (reflected from the water) beneath the shadowy, overhanging counters of dark vessels. Beyond, the atmosphere was still busy in rolling away its vapors, brushing the last gray fringes from the low hills, and leaving over them only the thinnest aerial veil. Farther down the bay, the pale tower of the crumbling fort was now shrouded, now revealed, then hung with floating lines of vapor as with banners.
Hope came down on the pier to Malbone, who was looking at the boats. He saw with surprise that her calm brow was a little clouded, her lips compressed, and her eyes full of tears.
"Philip," she said, abruptly, "do you love me?""Do you doubt it?" said he, smiling, a little uneasily.
Fixing her eyes upon him, she said, more seriously: "There is a more important question, Philip. Tell me truly, do you care about Emilia?"He started at the words, and looked eagerly in her face for an explanation. Her expression only showed the most anxious solicitude.
For one moment the wild impulse came up in his mind to put an entire trust in this truthful woman, and tell her all. Then the habit of concealment came back to him, the dull hopelessness of a divided duty, and the impossibility of explanations. How could he justify himself to her when he did not really know himself? So he merely said, "Yes.""She is your sister," he added, in an explanatory tone, after a pause; and despised himself for the subterfuge. It is amazing how long a man may be false in action before he ceases to shrink from being false inwords.
"Philip," said the unsuspecting Hope, "I knew that you cared about her. I have seen you look at her with so much affection; and then again I have seen you look cold and almost stern. She notices it, I am sure she does, this changeableness. But this is not why I ask the question. I think you must have seen something else that I have been observing, and if you care about her, even for my sake, it is enough."Here Philip started, and felt relieved.
"You must be her friend," continued Hope, eagerly. "She has changed her whole manner and habits very fast. Blanche Ingleside and that set seem to have wholly controlled her, and there is something reckless in all her ways. You are the only person who can help her.""How?"
"I do not know how," said Hope, almost impatiently. "You know how. You have wonderful influence. You saved her before, and will do it again. I put her in your hands.""What can I do for her?" asked he, with a strange mingling of terror and delight.
"Everything," said she. "If she has your society, she will not care for those people, so much her inferiors in character. Devote yourself to her for a time.""And leave you?" said Philip, hesitatingly.
"Anything, anything," said she. "If I do not see you for a month, I can bear it. Only promise me two things. First, that you will go to her this very day. She dines with Mrs. Ingleside."Philip agreed.
"Then," said Hope, with saddened tones, "you must not say it was I who sent you. Indeed you must not. That would spoil all. Let her think that your own impulse leads you, and then she will yield. I know Emilia enough for that."Malbone paused, half in ecstasy, half in dismay. Were all the events of life combining to ruin or to save him? This young girl, whom he so passionately loved, was she to be thrust back into his arms, and was he tobe told to clasp her and be silent? And that by Hope, and in the name of duty?
It seemed a strange position, even for him who was so eager for fresh experiences and difficult combinations. At Hope's appeal he was to risk Hope's peace forever; he was to make her sweet sisterly affection its own executioner. In obedience to her love he must revive Emilia's. The tender intercourse which he had been trying to renounce as a crime must be rebaptized as a duty. Was ever a man placed, he thought, in a position so inextricable, so disastrous? What could he offer Emilia? How could he explain to her his position? He could not even tell her that it was at Hope's command he sought her.
He who is summoned to rescue a drowning man, knowing that he himself may go down with that inevitable clutch around his neck, is placed in some such situation as Philip's. Yet Hope had appealed to him so simply, had trusted him so nobly! Suppose that, by any self-control, or wisdom, or unexpected aid of Heaven, he could serve both her and Emilia, was it not his duty? What if it should prove that he was right in loving them both, and had only erred when he cursed himself for tampering with their destinies? Perhaps, after all, the Divine Love had been guiding him, and at some appointed signal all these complications were to be cleared, and he and his various loves were somehow to be ingeniously provided for, and all be made happy ever after.
He really grew quite tender and devout over these meditations. Phil was not a conceited fellow, by any means, but he had been so often told by women that their love for him had been a blessing to their souls, that he quite acquiesced in being a providential agent in that particular direction. Considered as a form of self-sacrifice, it was not without its pleasures.
