Ch. 13 - The House in the Suburbs - Page 2

difficult to be resolved, Hermanric had deserted the
girl's interests from an infirmity of disposition, rather than from a
determination of will. Now, therefore, when the employments of the day
had ceased to absorb his attention; now when silence and solitude led
his memory back to his morning's abandonment of his helpless charge,
that act of fatal impatience and irresolution inspired him with the
strongest emotions of sorrow and remorse. If during her sojourn under
his care, Antonina had insensibly influenced his heart, her image, now
that he reflected on his guilty share in their parting scene, filled all
his thoughts, at once saddening and shaming him, as he remembered her
banishment from the shelter of his tent.

Every feeling which had animated his reflections on Antonina on the
previous night, was doubled in intensity as he thought on her now.
Again he recalled her eloquent words, and remembered the charm of her
gentle and innocent manner; again he dwelt on the beauties of her
outward form. Each warm expression; each varying intonation of voice
that had accompanied her petition to him for safety and companionship;
every persuasion that she had used to melt him, now revived in his
memory and moved in his heart with steady influence and increasing
power. All the hurried and imperfect pictures of happiness which she
had drawn to allure him, now expanded and brightened, until his mind
began to figure to him visions that had been hitherto unknown to
faculties occupied by no other images than those of rivalry, turbulence,
and strife. Scenes called into being by Antonina's lightest and
hastiest expressions, now rose vague and shadowy before his brooding
spirit. Lovely places of earth that he had visited and forgotten now
returned to his recollection, idealised and refined as he thought of
her. She appeared to his mind in every allurement of action, fulfilling
all the duties and enjoying all the pleasures that she had proposed to
him. He imagined her happy and healthful, journeying gaily by his side
in the fresh morning, with rosy cheek and elastic step; he imagined her
delighting him by her promised songs, enlivening him by her eloquent
words, in the mellow stillness of evening; he imagined her sleeping,
soft and warm and still, in his protecting arms--ever happy and ever
gentle; girl in years, and woman in capacities; at once lover and
companion, teacher and pupil, follower and guide!

Such she might have been once! What was she now?

Was she sinking under her loneliness, perishing from exposure and
fatigue, repulsed by the cruel, or mocked by the unthinking? To all
these perils and miseries had he exposed her; and to what end? To
maintain the uncertain favour, to preserve the unwelcome friendship, of