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- 13891
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:52.924Z
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- start_line
- 13807
- text
- him, that made him as heartless. But still all that she had said thus
far was ambiguous.
"Had I known--had I but known it before! Oh bitterly cruel to reveal it
now. That _she_! That _she_!"
She raised herself suddenly, and almost fiercely confronted him.
"Either thou hast told thy secret, or she is not worthy the commonest
love of man! Speak Pierre,--which?"
"The secret is still a secret, Isabel."
"Then is she worthless, Pierre, whoever she be--foolishly, madly
fond!--Doth not the world know me for thy wife?--She shall not come!
'Twere a foul blot on thee and me. She shall not come! One look from me
shall murder her, Pierre!"
"This is madness, Isabel. Look: now reason with me. Did I not before
opening the letter, say to thee, that doubtless it was from some pretty
young aunt or cousin?"
"Speak quick!--a cousin?"
"A cousin, Isabel."
"Yet, yet, that is not wholly out of the degree, I have heard. Tell me
more, and quicker! more! more!"
"A very strange cousin, Isabel; almost a nun in her notions. Hearing of
our mysterious exile, she, without knowing the cause, hath yet as
mysteriously vowed herself ours--not so much mine, Isabel, as ours,
_ours_--to serve _us_; and by some sweet heavenly fancying, to guide us
and guard us here."
"Then, possibly, it may be all very well, Pierre, my brother--my
_brother_--I can say that now?"
"Any,--all words are thine, Isabel; words and worlds with all their
containings, shall be slaves to thee, Isabel."
She looked eagerly and inquiringly at him; then dropped her eyes, and
touched his hand; then gazed again. "Speak so more to me, Pierre! Thou
art my brother; art thou not my brother?--But tell me now more of--her;
it is all newness, and utter strangeness to me, Pierre."
"I have said, my sweetest sister, that she has this wild, nun-like
notion in her. She is willful in it; in this letter she vows she must
and will come, and nothing on earth shall stay her. Do not have any
sisterly jealousy, then, my sister. Thou wilt find her a most gentle,
unobtrusive, ministering girl, Isabel. She will never name the
not-to-be-named things to thee; nor hint of them; because she knows them
not. Still, without knowing the secret, she yet hath the vague,
unspecializing sensation of the secret--the mystical presentiment,
somehow, of the secret. And her divineness hath drowned all womanly
curiosity in her; so that she desires not, in any way, to verify the
presentiment; content with the vague presentiment only; for in that, she
thinks, the heavenly summons to come to us, lies;--even there, in that,
Isabel. Dost thou now comprehend me?"
"I comprehend nothing, Pierre; there is nothing these eyes have ever
looked upon, Pierre, that this soul comprehended. Ever, as now, do I go
all a-grope amid the wide mysteriousness of things. Yes, she shall come;
it is only one mystery the more. Doth she talk in her sleep, Pierre?
Would it be well, if I slept with her, my brother?"
"On thy account; wishful for thy sake; to leave thee incommoded;
and--and--not knowing precisely how things really are;--she probably
anticipates and desires otherwise, my sister."
She gazed steadfastly at his outwardly firm, but not interiorly
unfaltering aspect; and then dropped her glance in silence.
"Yes, she shall come, my brother; she shall come. But it weaves its
thread into the general riddle, my brother.--Hath she that which they
call the memory, Pierre; the memory? Hath she that?"
"We all have the memory, my sister."
"Not all! not all!--poor Bell hath but very little. Pierre! I have seen
her in some dream. She is fair-haired--blue eyes--she is not quite so
tall as I, yet a very little slighter."
Pierre started. "Thou hast seen Lucy Tartan, at Saddle Meadows?"
- title
- Chunk 2