Back Aa

Shadow of a Sin (Dramatic reading)

Close

<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> Hyacinth Vaughan repeated one sentence over and over again to herself—they were always the same words—"Thank Heaven, Adrian does not know what I have done." For, as the days passed on, she learned to care for him with a love that was wonderful in its intensity. It was not his personal beauty that impressed her. By many people Claude Lennox would have been considered the handsomer man of the two. It was the grandeur of Adrian Darcy's character, the loyalty and nobility of his most loyal soul; the beauty of his mind, the stretch and clearness of his intellect, that charmed her. She had never met any one like him—never met so perfect a mixture of chivalry and strength. She learned to have the utmost reliance upon him. His most lightly spoken word was to her as the oath of another. She saw that every thought, every word, every action of his was so perfectly correct that his least judgment was invaluable. If he said a thing was right, the whole world could not have made her think it wrong; if he disapproved of anything, so entire was her reliance upon him, that she could not be brought to consider it right. It seemed so strange that she should have been so ready to run away, so as to escape this Adrian Darcy; and now the brightest heaven of which she could dream was his[Pg 53] friendship—for his love, after she understood him, she could hardly hope. "How can he care for a child like me," she was accustomed to ask herself, "uninformed, inexperienced, ignorant? He is so great and so noble, how can he care for me?" She did not know that her sweet humility, her graceful shyness, her naïveté, her entire freedom from all taint of worldliness, was more precious to him, more charming, than all the accomplishments she could have displayed. "How can I ever have thought that I loved Claude?" she said to herself. "How can I have been so blind? My heart never used to beat more quickly for his coming. If I had had the same liberty, the same amusements and pleasures which other girls have, I should never have cared for him. It was only because he broke the monotony of my life, and gave me something to think of." Then in her own mind she contrasted the two men—Adrian, so calm, so dignified, so noble in thought, word, and deed, and so loyal, so upright; Claude, all impetuosity, fire, recklessness and passion—not to be trusted, not to be relied upon. There was never a greater difference of character surely than between these two men. She learned to look with Adrian's eyes, to think with his mind; and she became a noble woman. Life at Bergheim was very pleasant; there was no monotony, no dreariness now. Her first thought when she woke in the morning, was that she should see Adrian, hear him speak, perhaps go out with him. Quite unconsciously to herself, he became the centre of her thoughts and ideas—the soul of her soul, the life of her life. She did not know that she loved him; what she called her "love" for Claude had been something so different—all made up of gratified vanity and love of change. The beautiful affection rapidly mastering her was so great and reverent, it filled her soul with light, her heart with music, her mind with beauty. She did not know that it was love that kept her awake throughout the night thinking of him, bringing back to her mind every word he had spoken—that made her always anxious to look well. "I always thought," she said to him one day, "that grave and thoughtful people always despised romance." "They despise all affectation and caricature of it," he replied. "Since I have been out in the world and have listened[Pg 54] to people talking, I have heard them say, 'Oh, she is romantic!' as though romance were wrong or foolish." "There is romance and romance," he said; "romance that is noble, beautiful and exalting; and romance that is the overheated sentiment of foolish girls. What so romantic as Shakespeare? What love he paints for us—what passion, what sadness! Who more romantic than Fouque? What wild stories, what graceful, improbable legends he gives us! Yet, who sneers at Shakespeare and Fouque?" "Then why do people apply the word 'romantic' almost as a term of reproach to others?" "Because they misapply the word, and do not understand it. I plead guilty myself to a most passionate love of romance—that is, romance which teaches, elevates, and ennobles—the soul of poetry, the high and noble faculty that teaches one to appreciate the beautiful and true. You know, Hyacinth, there are true romance and false romance, just as there are true poetry and false poetry." "I can understand what you call true romance, but not what you mean by false," she said. "No; you are too much like the flower you are named after to know much of false romance," he rejoined. "Everything that lowers one's standard, that tends to lower one's thoughts, that puts mere sentiment in the place of duty, that makes wrong seem right, that leads to underhand actions, to deceit, to folly—all that is false romance. Pardon my alluding to such things. The lover who would persuade a girl to deceive her friends for his sake, who would persuade her to give him private meetings, to receive secret letters—such a lover starts from a base of the very falsest romance; yet many people think it true." He did not notice that her beautiful face had suddenly grown pale, and that an expression of fear had crept into her blue eyes. "You are always luring me into argument, Hyacinth," he said, with a smile. "Because I like to hear you talk," she explained. She did not see how full of love was the look he bent on her as he plucked a spray of azalea flowers and passed it to her. Through the tears that filled her downcast eyes she saw the flower, and almost mechanically took it from his hand, not daring to look up. But in the silence of her own room she pressed the flowers passionately to her lips and rained tears upon them, as she moaned, "Oh, if he knew, what would he think of me? what would he think?" <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 55] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2