Sybil, or the Two Nations Part 49

"And you were anxious to do so."

"Most anxious; my mind is prophetic only of mischief to him if we remain."

"Mine too. Otherwise I should not have come up today." "You have seen him I hope?" said Sybil.

"I have; I have been hours with him."

"I am glad. At this conference he talked of?"

"Yes; at this headstrong council; and I have seen him since; alone.

Whatever hap to him, my conscience is a.s.soiled."

"You terrify me, Stephen," said Sybil rising from her seat. "What can happen to him? What would he do, what would you resist? Tell me--tell me, dear friend."

"Oh! yes," said Morley, pale and with a slight yet bitter smile. "Oh!

yes; dear friend!"

"I said dear friend for so I deemed you." said Sybil; "and so we have ever found you. Why do you stare at me so strangely, Stephen?"

"So you deem me, and so you have ever found me," said Morley in a slow and measured tone, repeating her words. "Well; what more would you have?

What more should any of us want?" he asked abruptly.

"I want no more," said Sybil innocently.

"I warrant me, you do not. Well, well, nothing matters. And so," he added in his ordinary tone, "you are waiting for your father?"

"Whom you have not long since seen," said Sybil, "and whom you expected to find here?"

"No;" said Morley, shaking his head with the same bitter smile; "no, no.

I didn't. I came to find you."

"You have something to tell me," said Sybil earnestly. "Something has happened to my father. Do not break it to me; tell me at once," and she advanced and laid her hand upon his arm.

Morley trembled; and then in a hurried and agitated voice, said, "No, no, no; nothing has happened. Much may happen, but nothing has happened.

And we may prevent it."

"We! Tell me what may happen; tell me what to do."

"Your father," said Morley, slowly, rising from his seat and pacing the room, and speaking in a low calm voice, "Your father--and my friend--is in this position Sybil: he is conspiring against the State."

"Yes, yes," said Sybil very pale, speaking almost in a whisper and with her gaze fixed intently on her companion. "Tell me all."

"I will. He is conspiring, I say, against the State. Tonight they meet in secret to give the last finish to their plans; and tonight they will be arrested."

"O G.o.d!" said Sybil clasping her hands. "He told me truth."

"Who told you truth?" said Morley, springing to her side, in a hoa.r.s.e voice and with an eye of fire.

"A friend," said Sybil, dropping her arms and bending her head in woe; "a kind good friend. I met him but this morn, and he warned me of all this."

"Hah, hah!" said Morley with a sort of stifled laugh; "Hah, hah; he told you did he; the kind good friend whom you met this morning? Did I not warn you, Sybil, of the traitor? Did I not tell you to beware of taking this false aristocrat to your hearth; to worm out all the secrets of that home that he once polluted by his espionage, and now would desolate by his treason."

"Of whom and what do you speak?" said Sybil, throwing herself into a chair.

"I speak of that base spy Egremont."

"You slander an honourable man," said Sybil with dignity. "Mr Egremont has never entered this house since you met him here for the first time; save once."

"He needed no entrance to this house to worm out its secrets," said Morley maliciously. "That could be more adroitly done by one who had a.s.signations at command with the most charming of its inmates."

"Unmannerly churl!" exclaimed Sybil starting in her chair, her eye flashing lightning, her distended nostril quivering with scorn.

"Oh! yes. I am a churl," said Morley; "I know I am a churl. Were I a n.o.ble the daughter of the people would perhaps condescend to treat me with less contempt."

"The daughter of the people loves truth and manly bearing, Stephen Morley; and will treat with contempt all those who slander women, whether they be n.o.bles or serfs."

"And where is the slanderer?"

"Ask him who told you I held a.s.signations with Mr Egremont or with any one."

"Mine eyes--mine own eyes--were my informant," said Morley. "This morn, the very morn I arrived in London, I learnt how your matins were now spent. Yes!" he added in a tone of mournful anguish, "I pa.s.sed the gate of the gardens; I witnessed your adieus."

"We met by hazard," said Sybil, in a calm tone, and with an expression that denoted she was thinking of other things, "and in all probability we shall never meet again. Talk not of these trifles. Stephen; my father, how can we save him?"

"Are they trifles?" said Morley, slowly and earnestly, walking to her side, and looking her intently in the face. "Are they indeed trifles, Sybil? Oh! make me credit that, and then--" he paused.

Sybil returned his gaze: the deep l.u.s.tre of her dark orb rested on his peering vision; his eye fled from the unequal contest: his heart throbbed, his limbs trembled; he fell upon his knee.

"Pardon me, pardon me," he said, and he took her hand. "Pardon the most miserable and the most devoted of men!"

"What need of pardon, dear Stephen?" said Sybil in a soothing tone. "In the agitated hour wild words escape. If I have used them, I regret; if you, I have forgotten."

The clock of St John's told that the sixth hour was more than half-past.

"Ah!" said Sybil, withdrawing her hand, "you told me how precious was time. What can we do?"

Morley rose from his kneeling position, and again paced the chamber, lost for some moments in deep meditation. Suddenly he seized her arm, and said, "I can endure no longer the anguish of my life: I love you, and if you will not be mine, I care for no one's fate."

"I am not born for love," said Sybil, frightened, yet endeavouring to conceal her alarm.

"We are all born for love," said Morley. "It is the principle of existence, and its only end. And love of you, Sybil," he continued, in a tone of impa.s.sioned pathos, "has been to me for years the h.o.a.rded treasure of my life. For this I have haunted your hearth and hovered round your home; for this I have served your father like a slave, and embarked in a cause with which I have little sympathy, and which can meet with no success. It is your image that has stimulated my ambition, developed my powers, sustained me in the hour of humiliation, and secured me that material prosperity which I can now command. Oh! deign to share it; share it with the impa.s.sioned heart and the devoted life that now bow before you; and do not shrink from them, because they are the feelings and the fortunes of the People."

"You astound, you overwhelm me," said Sybil, agitated. "You came for another purpose, we were speaking of other feelings; it is the hour of exigency you choose for these strange, these startling words."

"I also have my hour of exigency," said Morley, "and its minutes are now numbering. Upon it all depends."

"Another time," said Sybil, in a low and deprecatory voice; "speak of these things another time!"