"Why not fling the girl off," said Westervelt, "and let her go?"
"She clung to me from the first," replied Zenobia. "I neither know nor
care what it is in me that so attaches her. But she loves me, and I
will not fail her."
"She will plague you, then," said he, "in more ways than one."
"The poor child!" exclaimed Zenobia. "She can do me neither good nor
harm. How should she?"
I know not what reply Westervelt whispered; nor did Zenobia's
subsequent exclamation give me any clew, except that it evidently
inspired her with horror and disgust.
"With what kind of a being am I linked?" cried she. "If my Creator
cares aught for my soul, let him release me from this miserable bond!"
"I did not think it weighed so heavily," said her companion..
"Nevertheless," answered Zenobia, "it will strangle me at last!"
And then I heard her utter a helpless sort of moan; a sound which,
struggling out of the heart of a person of her pride and strength,
affected me more than if she had made the wood dolorously vocal with a
thousand shrieks and wails.
Other mysterious words, besides what are above written, they spoke
together; but I understood no more, and even question whether I fairly
understood so much as this. By long brooding over our recollections,
we subtilize them into something akin to imaginary stuff, and hardly
capable of being distinguished from it. In a few moments they were
completely beyond ear-shot. A breeze stirred after them, and awoke the
leafy tongues of the surrounding trees, which forthwith began to
babble, as if innumerable gossips had all at once got wind of Zenobia's
secret. But, as the breeze grew stronger, its voice among the branches
was as if it said, "Hush! Hush!" and I resolved that to no mortal
would I disclose what I had heard. And, though there might be room for
casuistry, such, I conceive, is the most equitable rule in all similar
conjunctures.