The remainder of the day, so far as I was concerned, was spent in
meditating on these recent incidents. I contrived, and alternately
rejected, innumerable methods of accounting for the presence of Zenobia
and Priscilla, and the connection of Westervelt with both. It must be
owned, too, that I had a keen, revengeful sense of the insult inflicted
by Zenobia's scornful recognition, and more particularly by her letting
down the curtain; as if such were the proper barrier to be interposed
between a character like hers and a perceptive faculty like mine.
For, was mine a mere vulgar curiosity? Zenobia should have known me better
than to suppose it. She should have been able to appreciate that
quality of the intellect and the heart which impelled me (often against
my own will, and to the detriment of my own comfort) to live in other
lives, and to endeavor--by generous sympathies, by delicate intuitions,
by taking note of things too slight for record, and by bringing my
human spirit into manifold accordance with the companions whom God
assigned me--to learn the secret which was hidden even from themselves.
Of all possible observers, methought a woman like Zenobia and a man
like Hollingsworth should have selected me. And now when the event has
long been past, I retain the same opinion of my fitness for the office.
True, I might have condemned them. Had I been judge as well as
witness, my sentence might have been stern as that of destiny itself.
But, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no struggle
against temptation,--no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, nor
extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion and despair, on the
other,--no remorse that might coexist with error, even if powerless to
prevent it,--no proud repentance that should claim retribution as a
meed,--would go unappreciated. True, again, I might give my full
assent to the punishment which was sure to follow. But it would be
given mournfully, and with undiminished love. And, after all was
finished, I would come as if to gather up the white ashes of those who
had perished at the stake, and to tell the world--the wrong being now
atoned for--how much had perished there which it had never yet known
how to praise.
I sat in my rocking-chair, too far withdrawn from the window to expose
myself to another rebuke like that already inflicted. My eyes still
wandered towards the opposite house, but without effecting any new
discoveries. Late in the afternoon, the weathercock on the church
spire indicated a change of wind; the sun shone dimly out, as if the
golden wine of its beams were mingled half-and-half with water.
Nevertheless, they kindled up the whole range of edifices, threw a glow
over the windows, glistened on the wet roofs, and, slowly withdrawing
upward, perched upon the chimney-tops; thence they took a higher
flight, and lingered an instant on the tip of the spire, making it the
final point of more cheerful light in the whole sombre scene. The next
moment, it was all gone. The twilight fell into the area like a shower
of dusky snow, and before it was quite dark, the gong of the hotel
summoned me to tea.