Late on a dark night in the commencement of November, wind and rain blowing with violence from the mountains, and the streets of Geneva abandoned, we find our young heroines sitting in a comfortable room. They are lounging on easy-chairs before a warm fire; the eldest is reading, and the youngest, although dressed in the pretty uniform of a naval cadet, is working at embroidery with colored wools.
Alvira and Aloysia, at the command of their father, have still preserved their disguise, at first irksome to their habits and delicacy of maidenhood; but necessity and fear toned down their objection, and they gradually accustomed themselves to the change. In girlish simplicity they were pleased with the novelty of their position. They knew each other as Charles and Henry, and by these names we must now call them.
The old clock of the church on the hill sent the mournful tones of the eleventh hour over the silent city. Charles counted the solemn booms of the church bell, and then, as if resuming the conversation with Henry: "Eleven o'clock, and father not come home yet! I am sure I don't know what keeps father out every night so late; if poor mother were alive, she would never stand this."
"But perhaps pa may have important business and can't come home," we hear the amiable Henry suggesting.
"Business! Nothing of the kind. He has got in amongst some old fools who pretend to have more knowledge than their grandfathers, and are deceiving old women of both sexes to such a degree that they actually fancy they are inspired to make new Bibles, new commandments, and new churches."
"But father might be trying to put them right," replied Henry softly, "and perhaps feels as you do. How sad to see them going astray!"
"No," answered the other with greater animation, "he is as bad as any of them. You remember long ago how he used to make poor mother cry when speaking of the great mystery of Redemption; he called it the greatest swindle the world ever saw. You remember what blasphemous and insulting language he addressed to the Sisters of St. Vincent when they asked for alms in honor of the Blessed Virgin; and you know how he is always reading the most impious works.
"He is now shut up in one of those mysterious rooms called Freemason lodges, where, if report be true, the enemies of the Church and state plot the ruin of mankind. Henry, he is not only an infidel and a Freemason, but he is unkind to us."
Saying these last words, Charles rose and paced up and down the room, as if full of passion.
Faith, like anemones that flourish in the depths of the ocean when the surface is tossed with storm, was concealed in the heart of Charles, and inspired those feelings of holy indignation which live in secret in the heart even when passion rages in triumph without.
Henry ventured a reply, but the excited manner of her sister checked her, and, burying her face in her hands, she remained in silence. Well she knew Charles was right, and in the deep sympathy of her innocent, loving heart her feelings crept into prayer for her erring parent, and silent tears suffused her eyes.
Whilst the two girls were thus engaged—the one pacing the room and biting her lips with annoyance, the other wrapt in prayer and tears—the step of Cassier was heard on the stairs.
It was unfortunate for Charles. He had given loose rein to his passion, and it was at this moment beyond control. The scene reminds us of a poor wife, the hapless victim of a drunkard's home, drawing on herself brutal treatment, when, in the lonely hours of midnight and in the pent-up feelings of a breaking heart, she would incautiously reprove the maddened retch who is reeling home to her under the fumes of intoxication; thus Charles gave vent to feelings she had long nursed in her bosom, and spoke in disrespectful language of reproof to her intoxicated father.
Cassier had come from the carousals of the lodge. The fumes of the old wines had reached his brain; the fearless and unexpected reproof of Charles startled him. In an instant the demon of intemperance reigned in his heart; without waiting to answer, he approached the girl, gave her a severe slap on the face, and ordered her to her apartments.
Charles and Henry retired to a sleepless couch, and their pillow was moistened with many bitter tears before the dawn of the morning.
In a small spark commences the conflagration that destroys cities; the broad river that flows with irresistible majesty through our plains commences in a rivulet leaping and sparkling on the green hill-side; the almighty avalanche that sweeps with the roar of thunder through the Alpine ravines commences in a handful of loosened snow. Thus to a thought, a guilty desire uncontrolled, may be traced the greatest moral catastrophes.
A cloud passed over the thoughts of Charles. From the momentous evening she received the rebuke of her father, her heart became the battle-field of contending emotions. She brooded in silence over imaginary wrongs, and thus gave to a latent passion the first impulse that led to disastrous consequences. Diseased fancy lent a charm to thoughts long forgotten, and recalled the pictures of pride and ambition that had so often gilded the horizon of her young hopes. To be free and have wealth, she thought, was worth swimming across a river of blood to gain.
A temptation seized the thoughts of Charles. It clung to her like the bloodsucker drawing fresh streams from young veins. Notwithstanding her efforts to shake off the terrible temptation, and because she did not seek aid in the sacraments of the Church, it lived and haunted her in spite of her will. We tremble to write it—'twas to murder her father.
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