“Aye!” returned Father Morris, “where is Cheops? It is that accursed fiend that has led us on to destruction? His counsels have destroyed us; for, though plausible in appearance, they have been as deceitful as the oracles of old.”
“Yet you trusted him!” said Rosabella, “I hated him from the first; but you trusted him. You thought him all perfection: he flattered your vanity, and you weakly believed everything he asserted.”
“Weakly!” cried Father Morris, his lips quivering with rage.
“Yes, weakly!” returned Rosabella; “for a child would have seen through his artifices; but you were deceived by them, and have been his dupe, his tool, his plaything.”
“This to me!” cried Father Morris, gnashing his teeth together with passion.
“Yes, to you,” returned Rosabella coolly; “for why should I longer conceal my sentiments? I will no longer be your slave. You have made me deserted by my husband—hated by my subjects—and detested by myself. I will, therefore, no longer follow your councils; from henceforward I will act for myself. Adieu, we meet no more as friends!”
And as she spoke, she walked out of the room, leaving the priest motionless with astonishment.—“This to me!” cried he to Marianne, as soon as he recovered himself sufficiently to speak—“to me, who have sacrificed everything for her! Did I not place her on the throne? Have I scrupled even to imbrue my hands in blood for her sake? Have I not committed crimes for her that weigh heavily upon my soul? Did I not poison Claudia? and should I not also have destroyed Elvira, if Cheops had not saved her? Oh, Marianne, am I awake? Is it not a cruel dream? Is it possible it can be Rosabella! Rosabella! my Rosabella! my child! my own Rosabella! that uses me thus?”
“Hush! hush!” cried Marianne; “ ’tis but the passion of a moment. Be composed. Rosabella still loves you; but, irritated by the desertion of Edmund, and the news she has just heard—”
“Oh, Marianne!” interrupted the friar in agony, “you may easily reason, for you never had a child; but if Heaven had blessed us with one, you might have felt for my anguish.”
“I do feel for you,” returned Marianne; “but does she not treat me with equal scorn? Since the absence of Edmund she has become distracted, and I, who know the agonies a woman endures when she finds herself deserted by the man she adores, can feel for her.”
“And who first gained her Edmund? Would he ever have become her husband, had not I induced him?”
“I believe not; neither would she have been Queen but for you.”
“No—no. Oh! how I have toiled for that ungrateful girl! How I have adored her!”
“You have been a devoted father.”
“Have I not, Marianne? I have at least endeavoured to expiate my sin. I have done penance—I have spent nights unnumbered in painful vigils. I have scourged my body, till the feeble flesh has sunk beneath the torture; yet still my mind remains unappeased. Remorse still gnaws my vitals! Oh, Marianne! how poor is earthly grandeur to a mind diseased!”
In this manner did these companions in iniquity confer; till at length, hating each other and themselves, they gave vent to mutual upbraiding, and parted with undisguised hatred and contempt. Such, indeed, is the disgusting nature of sin, that though a man may shut his eyes to his own defects, or rather, see them through the magic prism of self-love; yet he almost always abhors them when he sees them reflected in another.
Thus it was with Father Morris.—Marianne had been his associate in many scenes of vice; he had, in fact, first led her from the paths of virtue, and, as is usual in such cases, he now hated the creature he had made.
Father Morris was indeed that brother of the Duke of Cornwall, whose crimes and punishment have been before slightly hinted at. He had married in early life a beautiful and accomplished woman; but, instigated by the machinations of Marianne, whom he had previously seduced and abandoned, he had become jealous of her, and, in a paroxysm of rage, had deprived her of life. This was the crime he had since endeavoured to expiate by the penance of his whole life. Vain, however, had been his endeavour! The mortification of the body avails little, where the humiliation of the spirit is wanting; and Father Morris, notwithstanding his apparent repentance, was proud, envious, and intolerant.
In a fit of remorse, after the death of his wife, he had embraced a monastic life, and in order to subject himself to a perpetual penance, had placed himself as father confessor to his brother. No situation, in fact, could have been more painful to a proud spirit than this; yet this daily misery Father Morris felt a pride in supporting without murmuring.
It is strange, but true, that haughty spirits sometimes feel almost pleasure in trying their powers of endurance to the utmost: for there is a self-satisfaction in thinking we have borne what seems almost too much for mortals, that often consoles a man under the acutest agonies.
This was the case with Father Morris, and the daily tortures which he endured without shrinking, almost reconciled him to himself. Ambition, however, was still his master-passion, and as his monastic vows prevented its indulgence in his own person, he devoted himself to the advancement of his child. How he succeeded, and how he was rewarded, has been already shown.
XXXII
“Have you heard the news?” asked Lord Maysworth one morning, bustling into the breakfast-room of Lord Gustavus de Montfort.
“What is it?” demanded that noble lord, who was sitting at breakfast with his usual satellites.
“The King of Ireland has arrived at Oxford with an immense army, intending to reestablish Elvira.”
“Impossible!” cried Lord Gustavus.
“Impossible!” echoed the satellites.
“Something must be done,” said Lord Maysworth.
“Thinking as I think, and as I am confident everyone who hears me must think, or at
