Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/212

 would wed; I thank you for that protection,--though I refuse consent to my kinsman's prayer. Whatever her birth, I must be glad to know that she whom Lionel so loves is safe from a wretch like Losely. More--one word more--wait--it is hard for me to say it--be happy! I cannot pardon, but I can bless you. Farewell for ever!" More overpoweringly crushed by his tenderness than his wrath, before Caroline could recover the vehemence of her sobs, he had ceased--he was gone--lost in the close gloom of a neighbouring thicket, his hurried headlong path betrayed by the rustle of mournful boughs swinging back with their withered leaves.

CHAPTER II.

RETROSPECT.

THERE IS A PLACE AT WHICH THREE ROADS MEET, SACRED TO THAT MYSTERIOUS GODDESS CALLED DIANA ON EARTH, LUNA, OR THE MOON, IN  HEAVEN, OR HECATE IN THE INFERNAL REGIONS. AT THIS PLACE PAUSE THE VIRGINS PERMITTED TO TAKE THEIR CHOICE OF THE THREE ROADS. FEW GIVE THEIR PREFERENCE TO THAT WHICH IS VOWED TO THE GODDESS IN HER NAME OF DIANA: THAT ROAD, COLD AND BARREN, IS CLOTHED BY NO ROSES AND MYRTLES. ROSES AND MYRTLES VEIL THE ENTRANCE TO BOTH THE OTHERS, AND IN BOTH THE OTHERS HYMEN HAS MUCH THE SAME GAY-LOOKING TEMPLES. BUT WHICH OF THOSE TWO LEADS TO THE CELESTIAL LUNA, OR WHICH OF THEM CONDUCTS TO THE INFERNAL HECATE, NOT ONE NYMPH IN FIFTY DIVINES. IF  THY HEART SHOULD MISGIVE THEE, O NYMPH!--IF, THOUGH CLOUD VEIL THE PATH TO THE MOON, AND SUNSHINE GILD THAT TO PALE HECATETHINE INSTINCT RECOILS FROM THE SUNSHINE, WHILE THOU DAREST NOT ADVENTURE THE CLOUD--THOU HAST STILL A CHOICE LEFT--THOU HAST STILL THE SAFE ROAD OF DIANA. HECATE, O NYMPH, IS THE GODDESS OF GHOSTS. IF THOU TAKEST HER PATH, LOOK NOT BACK, FOR THE GHOSTS ARE BEHIND THEE. ..

When we slowly recover from the tumult and passion of some violent distress, a peculiar stillness falls upon the Mind, and the atmosphere around it becomes in that stillness appallingly clear. We knew not, while wrestling with our woe, the extent of its ravages. As a land the day after a flood, as a field the day after a battle, is the sight of our own sorrow, when we no longer have to steer its raging, but to endure the destruction it has made. Distinct before Caroline Montfort's vision stretched the waste of her misery--the Past, the Present, the Future, all seemed to blend in one single Desolation. A strange thing it is how all time will converge itself, as it were, into the burning-glass of a moment! There runs a popular superstition