The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 15, January, 1859

"Not at all,—it is a very rational work; though I presume you will laugh at it, because it contains a little sentiment,—you are grown so hard and cold, of late."

"Do you think so?" he asked, with a look that belied the charge.

He took up the volume, and, glancing through it, read now and then a sentence.

"What say you to this, Juanita? 'If we are still able to love one who has made us suffer, we love him more than ever.' Is that true to your experience?"

"No," I answered, for I liked at times to approach the topic which was always uppermost in my mind, and to see his perfect unconsciousness of it. "If any one had made me suffer, I should not stop to inquire whether I were able to love him still or not; I should have but one thought left,—revenge!"

"How very fierce!" he said, laughing. "And your idea of revenge is—what? To stab him with your own white hand?"

"No!" I said, scornfully. "To kill a person you hate is, to my mind, the most pitiful idea of vengeance. What! put him out of the world at once? Not so! He should live," I said, fixing my eyes upon him,—"and live to suffer,—and to remember, in his anguish, why he suffered, and to whose hand he owed it!"

It was a hateful speech, and would have repelled most men; for my life I dared not have made it before John. But I knew to whom I was talking, and that he had no objection to a slight spice of diablerie.

"What curious glimpses of character you open to me now and then," he said, thoughtfully. "Not very womanly, however."

"Womanly!" I cried. "I wonder what a man's notion of woman is! Some soft, pulpy thing that thrives all the better for abuse? a spaniel that loves you more, the more you beat it? a worm that grows and grows in new rings as often as you cut it asunder? I wonder history has never taught you better. Look at Judith with Holofernes,—Jael with Sisera,—or if you want profane examples, Catherine de Medicis, Mademoiselle de Brinvilliers, Charlotte Corday. There are women who have formed a purpose, and gone on steadily toward its accomplishment, even though, like that Roman girl,—Tullia was her name?—they had to drive over a father's corpse to do it."

"You have known such, perhaps," said Richard.

"Yes," I answered, with, a gentle smile, "I have. They wished no harm, it might be, to any one, but people stood in their way. It is as if you were going to the arbor after grapes, and there were a swarm of ants in the path. You have no malice against the ants, but you want the grapes,—so you walk on, and they are crushed."

I was thinking of John and of his love, but William did not know that. "You are a strange being!" he said, looking at me with a mixture of admiration and distrust.

"Ah! Well, you see my race is somewhat anomalous,—a blending of the Spaniard and the Yankee. Come, I will be all Spanish for a time; bring me the guitar. Now let me sing you a romance."

I struck the tinkling chords, and began a sweet love-ditty. Fixing my eyes on his, I made every word speak to his heart from mine. I saw his color change, his eyes melt;—when the song ended, he was at my feet.

I know not what he said; I only know it was passion, burning and intense. Oh, but it was balm both to my love and hate to hear him! I let him go on as long as he would,—then I said, gently caressing his bright hair,—

"You forget, dear William, all those lessons of prudence you taught me not so very long ago."

He poured forth the most ardent protestations; he begged me to forget all that cold and selfish reasoning. Long since he had wished to offer me his hand, but feared lest I should repel him with scorn. Would I not pardon his former ingratitude, and return his love?

"But you forget, my friend," I said, "that circumstances have not altered, but only your way of viewing them; we must still be poor and humble. Don't you remember all your eloquent picturings of the life we should be obliged to lead? Don't you recollect the dull, dingy house, the tired, worn-out wife in shabby clothing"–

"Oh, hush, Juanita! Do not recall those wretched follies! Besides, circumstances have somewhat changed; I am not so very poor. My income, though small, will be sufficient, if well-managed, to maintain us in comfort and respectability."

"Comfort and respectability!" I exclaimed, with a shudder. "Oh, William, can you imagine that such words apply to me? The indulgences of wealth are necessary to me as the air I breathe. I suppose you would be able to shield me from absolute suffering; but that is not enough. Do not speak of this again, for both our sakes. And now, good friend," I added, in a lighter tone, "I advise you to get up as soon as may be; we are liable to interruption at any time; and your position, though admirable for a tableau, would be a trifle embarrassing for ordinary life."

He started to his feet, and would have left me in anger, but I recalled him with a word. It was good to feel my power over this man who had slighted and rejected me. Before we parted that day he had quite forgiven me for refusing him and making him ridiculous; I thought a little of the spaniel was transferred to him. I saw, too, he had a hope, which I carefully forbore to contradict, that I preferred him to any other, and would accept him, could he but win a fortune for me. And so I sent him out into the world again, full of vain, feverish desires after the impossible. I gave him all the pains of love without its consolations. It was good, as far as it went.

John and I, meanwhile, got on very peacefully together. He was not demonstrative, nor did he exact demonstration from me. I had promised to marry him, and he trusted implicitly to my faith; while his love was so reverent, his ideal of maiden delicacy so exalted, that I should have suffered in his esteem, I verily believe, had my regard been shown other than by a quiet tenderness of manner.

About this time my uncle's family went abroad. They wished me to accompany them, but I steadily declined. When they pressed me for a reason, I told them of my engagement to John, and that I was unwilling to leave him for so long a time. The excuse was natural enough, and they believed me; and it was arranged that during the period of their absence I should remain with a sister of Mrs. Heywood.

The time passed on. I saw William frequently. Often he spoke to me of his love, and I scarcely checked him; I liked to feed him with false hopes, as once he had done to me. He did not speak again of marriage; I knew his pride forbade it. I also knew that he believed I loved him, and would wait for him.

I heard often from our travellers, and always in terms of kindness and affection. At last their speedy return was announced; they were to sail in the "Arctic," and we looked joyfully forward to the hour of their arrival. Too soon came the news of the terrible disaster; a little while of suspense, and the awful certainty became apparent. My kind, indulgent uncle and all his family, whom I loved as I would my own parents and sisters, were buried in the depths of the Atlantic.

I will not attempt to describe my grief; it has nothing to do with the story that is written here. When, after a time, I came back to life and its interests, a startling intelligence awaited me. My uncle had died intestate; his wife and children had perished with him; as next of kin, I was sole heir to his immense estate. When my mind fully took in the meaning of all this I felt that a crisis was at hand. Day by day I looked for William.

I had not long to wait. I was sitting by my window on a bright October day, reading a book I loved well,—"Shirley," one of the three immortal works of a genius fled too soon. As I read, I traced a likeness to my own experience; Caroline was a curious study to me. I marvelled at her meek, forgiving spirit; if I would not imitate, I did not condemn her.

Then I heard the gate-latch click; I looked out through the vine-leaves, all scarlet with the glory of the season, and saw William coming up the walk. I knew why he was there, and, still retaining the volume in my hand, went down to meet him.

We walked out in the grounds; it was a perfect afternoon; all the splendor of autumn, without a trace of its swift-coming decay. Gold, crimson, and purple shone the forests through their softening haze; and the royal hues were repeated on the mountain, reflected in the river. The sky was cloudless and intensely blue; the sunlight fell, with red glow, on the fading grass. A few late flowers of gorgeous hues yet lingered in the beds and borders; and a sweet wind, that might have come direct from paradise, sighed over all. William and I walked on, conversing.

At first we spoke of the terrible disaster and my loss; he could be gentle when he chose, and now his tenderness and sympathy were like a woman's. I almost forgot, in listening, what he was and had been to me. I was reminded when he began to speak of ourselves; I recalled it fully, when again, with all the power that passion and eloquence could impart, he declared his love, and begged me to be his.

I looked at him; to my eye he seemed happy, hopeful, triumphant; handsomer he could not be, and to me there was a strange fascination in his lofty, masculine beauty. I felt then, what I had always known, that I loved him even while I hated him, and for an instant I wavered. Life with him! It looked above all things dear, desirable! But what! Show such a weak, such a womanish spirit? Give up my revenge at the very moment that it was within my grasp,—the revenge I had lived for through so many years? Never!—I recalled the night under the lindens, and was myself again.

"Dear William," I said, gently, "you amaze and distress me. Such love as a sister may give to an only brother you have long had from me. Why ask for any other?"

"'A sister's love!'" he cried, impatiently. "I thought, Juanita, you were above such paltry subterfuges! Is it as a brother I have loved you all these long and weary years?"

"Perhaps not,—I cannot say. At any rate," I continued, gravely, "a sisterly affection is all I can give you now."

"You are trifling with me, Juanita! Cease! It is unworthy of you."

He seized my hand, and clasped it to his breast. How wildly his heart beat under my touch! I trembled from head to foot,—but I said, in a cold voice, "You are a good actor, William!"

"You cannot look in my eyes and say you believe that charge," he answered.

I essayed to do it,—but my glance fell before his, so ardent, so tender. Spite of myself, my cheeks burned with blushes. Quietly I withdrew my hand and said, "I am to be married to John in December."

Ah, but there was a change then! The flush and the triumph died out of his face, as when a lamp is suddenly extinguished. Yet there was as much indignation as grief in his voice when he said,—

"Heaven forgive you, Juanita! You have wilfully, cruelly deceived me!"

"Deceived you!" I replied, rising with dignity. "Make no accusation. If deceived you were, you have simply your own vanity, your own folly, to blame for whatever you may suffer."

"You have listened to my love, and encouraged me to hope"–

"Silence! I did love you once,—your cold heart can never guess how well, how warmly. I would have loved on through trial and suffering forever; no one could have made me believe anything against you; nothing could have shaken my fidelity, or my faith in yours. It was reserved for yourself to work my cure,—for your own lips to pronounce the words that changed my love to cool contempt."

"Oh, Juanita," he cried, passionately, "will you always be so vindictive? Will you forever remind me of that piece of insane folly? Let it go,—it was a boy's whim, too silly to remember."

"You were no boy then," I answered. "You had a mature prudence,—a careful thoughtfulness for self. Or if otherwise, in your case the child was indeed father to the man."

"Your love is dead, then, I suppose?" he questioned, with a bitter smile.

I handed him the book I had been reading. It was marked at these words: "Love can excuse anything except meanness; but meanness kills love, cripples even natural affection; without esteem, true love cannot exist."

William raised his head with an air of proud defiance. "And in what sense," he asked, "do such words apply to me?"

"You are strangely obtuse," I said. "You see no trace of yourself in that passage—no trace of meanness in the man who cast off the penniless orphan, with her whole heart full of love for him, yet pleads so warmly with the rich heiress, when he knows she is pledged to another?"