"Why so?" I inquired, smothering my horror at his cold comment, in my
eager curiosity to discover some tangible truth as to his relation with
Zenobia. "If any crisis could justify the sad wrong she offered to
herself, it was surely that in which she stood. Everything had failed
her; prosperity in the world's sense, for her opulence was gone,--the
heart's prosperity, in love. And there was a secret burden on her, the
nature of which is best known to you. Young as she was, she had tried
life fully, had no more to hope, and something, perhaps, to fear. Had
Providence taken her away in its own holy hand, I should have thought
it the kindest dispensation that could be awarded to one so wrecked."
"You mistake the matter completely," rejoined Westervelt.
"What, then, is your own view of it?" I asked.
"Her mind was active, and various in its powers," said he. "Her heart
had a manifold adaptation; her constitution an infinite buoyancy, which
(had she possessed only a little patience to await the reflux of her
troubles) would have borne her upward triumphantly for twenty years to
come. Her beauty would not have waned--or scarcely so, and surely not
beyond the reach of art to restore it--in all that time. She had
life's summer all before her, and a hundred varieties of brilliant
success. What an actress Zenobia might have been! It was one of her
least valuable capabilities. How forcibly she might have wrought upon
the world, either directly in her own person, or by her influence upon
some man, or a series of men, of controlling genius! Every prize that
could be worth a woman's having--and many prizes which other women are
too timid to desire--lay within Zenobia's reach."
"In all this," I observed, "there would have been nothing to satisfy
her heart."
"Her heart!" answered Westervelt contemptuously. "That troublesome
organ (as she had hitherto found it) would have been kept in its due
place and degree, and have had all the gratification it could fairly
claim. She would soon have established a control over it. Love had
failed her, you say. Had it never failed her before? Yet she survived
it, and loved again,--possibly not once alone, nor twice either. And
now to drown herself for yonder dreamy philanthropist!"
"Who are you," I exclaimed indignantly, "that dare to speak thus of the
dead? You seem to intend a eulogy, yet leave out whatever was noblest
in her, and blacken while you mean to praise. I have long considered
you as Zenobia's evil fate. Your sentiments confirm me in the idea,
but leave me still ignorant as to the mode in which you have influenced
her life. The connection may have been indissoluble, except by death.
Then, indeed,--always in the hope of God's infinite mercy,--I cannot
deem it a misfortune that she sleeps in yonder grave!"