trembling with earnestness, he added. "and permit me to ask if your command this evening was merely an exercise of power, or did a deeper meaning lie therein?"
"I did mean to warn you," said Emma, gently, "that there was poison in the glass – slow, perchance, but sure."
"And do you think me in danger, Miss Leslie?"
"I think all in danger who do not adopt the rule of total abstinance; and, pardon me, if I say that with your excitable temperament, I imagine you to be in more than ordinary peril."
There was a long pause. When he spoke again his tones were calmer.
"I did not imagine I could ever become a slave to appetite. Often, while suffering from the fatigue induced by writing, I have taken brandy, and been revived by it. Sometimes before going to speak in public I have felt the need of artificial stimulus to invigorate my shattered nerves. Do you think that improper indulgence?"
"Do you not find," said Emma, "that this lassitude returns more frequently, and requires more stimulus to overcome it than formerly?"
"It is true," said he, thoughtfully; "yet I often speak with more fluency when under such excitement than I can possibly do at other times."
"Once it was not so," said Emma, kindly.
"Very true, but this kind of life wears on my system. I cannot get though with my public duties without help of this kind."
"Does not this show," replied Emma, that you have already somewhat impaired those noble powers with which you are endowed. Would it not be far nobler as well as safer to trust solely to yourself than to depend on the wild excitement thus induced?"
"It does, indeed; fool that I have been to think myself secure. But, thank heaven! I am yet master. I can control myself if I choose."
By this time they had arrived at the door of Miss Leslie's mansion.
"Let me detain you one moment," said Saville, as they stood upon the steps, "to ask you if you have heard others speak of this. Tell me truly," he added, as she hesitated. "Do the public know that I am not always master of myself?"
"I have heard it intimated you were injuring yourself in this way," replied Emma, in a low voice, doubtful how the intelligence would be received.
"And you," said the young man, fervently, "you were the kind angel who interposed to save me from the precipice over which I have well-nigh fallen. Be assured the warning shall not be in vain. A thousand thanks for this well-timed caution," he added, more cheerfully, as they parted, "the Knight of the Ringlet will not forget his vow."
For a few moments the joyous excitement of his spirit continued, as he thought of the interest in him which her conversation and actions had that evening evinced. But when the door closed and shut her fairy form from his sight, a shadow fell over his heart. Other feelings arose and whispered that after all it was but pity that actuated her. Love – would she not rather despise his weakness that had need of such a caution? Then came a sense of wounded pride, an idea that his confession had humbled him before her, and ere he reached his home he had become so deeply desponding that he was meditating taking passage for England, and doing a thousand other desperate things, so that he never again might see the gentle monitress who, he had persuaded himself, regarded him with pity that was more akin to disgust than love.
A letter received the next morning calling him into the country for a week, prevented his executing his rash designs; but a feeling, unaccountable even to himself, made him shun the places where he was accustomed to meet Emma, and made him miserable, till three or four weeks afterward, merely by accident, he found himself seated opposite to her at a concert. Was it fancy, or did she look sad and thoughtful; and why did her eye roam over the crowd, as if seeking some one it found not. So he thought to himself, till suddenly, in their gazing, his eyes met hers. Instantly she turned away, and then in a moment after, gave him an earnest, inquiring glance, full of troubled thought. At that look the demon which tormented him vanished, and a flood of inexpressible love filled his soul. He could not go to her, hemmed in as he was by the audience; but he did not cease looking at her through the evening. In vain; she gave no second look or sign of consciousness of his presence.
"She is offended with me," he soliloquized, as he went homeward; "and no wonder. How like a fool I have acted. I will go to her to-morrow and tell her all."
In the morning he called, but others had been before him, and the drawing-room was well supplied with loungers. He staid as long as decency would permit; but Miss Leslie was not at all cordial in her manner toward him, and the "dear five hundred friends" kept coming and going, so that no opportunity offered for the explanation. "I will go again this evening," said he to himself; and so he did. Emma stood at the window, beside a stand of magnificent plants, whose blossoms filled the room with fragrance. The lamps had not been lighted, and the moonlight fell like a halo of glory around her, as she stood in sad reverie that cast a pensive shade over her face, usually so brilliant in its beauty. So absorbed was she, that she did not hear the door open, and was unconscious of Saville's presence till he was at her side.
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