Suppose that image is
withdrawn from you for ever,--suppose that it were possible to break the
tie that unites us, and whose vision has entered into the soul of
both.”--“You may suppose it,” said Isidora, with maiden pride and tender
grief blended in her voice; “and if you do, believe that I will try to
suppose it too; the effort will not cost much,--nothing but--my life!”

“As Melmoth beheld this blessed and beautiful being, once so refined
amid nature, and now so natural amid refinement, still possessing all
the soft luxuriance of her first angelic nature, amid the artificial
atmosphere where her sweets were uninhaled, and her brilliant tints
doomed to wither unappreciated,--where her pure and sublime devotedness
of heart was doomed to beat like a wave against a rock,--exhaust its
murmurs,--and expire;--As he felt this, and gazed on her, he cursed
himself; and then, with the selfishness of hopeless misery, he felt that
the curse might, by dividing it, be diminished. “Isidora!” he whispered in the softest tones he could assume,
approaching the casement, at which his pale and beautiful victim stood;
“Isidora! will you then be mine?”--“What shall I say?” said Isidora; “if
love requires the answer, I have said enough; if only vanity, I have
said too much.”--“Vanity! beautiful trifler, you know not what you say;
the accusing angel himself might blot out that article from the
catalogue of my sins. It is one of my prohibited and impossible
offences; it is an earthly feeling, and therefore one which I can
neither participate or enjoy. Certain it is that I feel some share of
human pride at this moment.”--“Pride! at what? Since I have known you, I
have felt no pride but that of supreme devotedness,--that
self-annihilating pride which renders the victim prouder of its wreath,
than the sacrificer of his office.”--“But I feel another pride,”
answered Melmoth, and in a proud tone he spoke it,--“a pride, which,
like that of the storm that visited the ancient cities, whose
destruction you may have read of, while it blasts, withers, and encrusts
paintings, gems, music, and festivity, grasping them in its talons of
annihilation, exclaims, Perish to all the world, perhaps beyond the
period of its existence, but live to me in darkness and in corruption! Preserve all the exquisite modulation of your forms! all the
indestructible brilliancy of your colouring!--but preserve it for me
alone!--me, the single, pulseless, eyeless, heartless embracer of an
unfertile bride,--the brooder over the dark and unproductive nest of
eternal sterility,--the mountain whose lava of internal fire has
stifled, and indurated, and inclosed for ever, all that was the joy of
earth, the felicity of life, and the hope of futurity!”

“As he spoke, his expression was at once so convulsed and so derisive,
so indicative of malignity and levity, so thrilling to the heart, while
it withered every fibre it touched and wrung, that Isidora, with all her
innocent and helpless devotedness, could not avoid shuddering before
this fearful being, while, in trembling and unappeaseable solicitude,
she demanded, “Will you then be mine? Or what am I to understand from
your terrible words? Alas! _my_ heart has never enveloped itself in
mysteries--never has the light of its truth burst forth amid the
thunderings and burnings in which you have issued the law of my
destiny.”--“Will you then be mine, Isidora?”--“Consult my parents. Wed
me by the rites, and in the face of the church, of which I am an
unworthy member, and I will be yours for ever.”--“_For ever!_” repeated
Melmoth; “well-spoken, _my_ bride. You will then be mine _for
ever_?--will you, Isidora?”--“Yes!--yes!--I have said so. But the sun is
about to rise, I feel the increasing perfume of the orange blossoms, and
the coolness of the morning air. Begone--I have staid too long here--the
domestics may be about, and observe you--begone, I implore you.”--“I
go--but one word--for to me the rising of the sun, and the appearance of
your domestics, and every thing in heaven above, and earth beneath, is
equally unimportant. Let the sun stay below the horizon and wait for me. _You are mine!_”--“Yes, I am yours; but you must solicit my
family.”--“Oh, doubtless!--solicitation is so congenial to my
habits.”--“And”---- “Well, what?--you hesitate.”--“I hesitate,” said the
ingenuous and timid Isidora, “because”---- “Well?”--“Because,” she
added, bursting into tears, “those with whom you speak will not utter to
God language like mine. They will speak to you of wealth and dower; they
will inquire about that region where you have told me your rich and wide
possessions are held; and should they ask me of them, how shall I
answer?”

“At these words, Melmoth approached as close as possible to the
casement, and uttered a certain word which Isidora did not at first
appear to hear, or understand--trembling she repeated her request. In a
still lower tone the answer was returned. Incredulous, and hoping that
the answer had deceived her, she again repeated her petition. A
withering monosyllable, not to be told, thundered in her ears,--and she
shrieked as she closed the casement. Alas! the casement only shut out
the form of the stranger--not his image. CHAPTER XXI. He saw the eternal fire that keeps,
    In the unfathomable deeps,
    Its power for ever, and made a sign
    To the morning prince divine;
    Who came across the sulphurous flood,
    Obedient to the master-call,
    And in angel-beauty stood,
    High on his star-lit pedestal. “In this part of the manuscript, which I read in the vault of Adonijah
the Jew,” said Monçada, continuing his narrative, “there were several
pages destroyed, and the contents of many following wholly
obliterated--nor could Adonijah supply the deficiency. From the next
pages that were legible, it appeared that Isidora imprudently continued
to permit her mysterious visitor to frequent the garden at night, and to
converse with him from the casement, though unable to prevail on him to
declare himself to her family, and perhaps conscious that his
declaration would not be too favourably received. Such, at least,
appeared to be the meaning of the next lines I could decypher. “She had renewed, in these nightly conferences, her former visionary
existence. Her whole day was but a long thought of the hour at which she
expected to see him. In the day-time she was silent, pensive,
abstracted, feeding on thought--with the evening her spirits perceptibly
though softly rose, like those of one who has a secret and
incommunicable store of delight; and her mind became like that flower
that unfolds its leaves, and diffuses its odours, only on the approach
of night. “The season favoured this fatal delusion. It was that rage of summer
when we begin to respire only towards evening, and the balmy and
brilliant night is our day. The day itself is passed in a languid and
feverish doze.