The Blithedale Romance - Page 155/170

"Hollingsworth has a heart of ice!" said I bitterly. "He is a wretch!"

"Do him no wrong," interrupted Zenobia, turning haughtily upon me.

"Presume not to estimate a man like Hollingsworth. It was my fault,

all along, and none of his. I see it now! He never sought me. Why

should he seek me? What had I to offer him? A miserable, bruised, and

battered heart, spoilt long before he met me. A life, too, hopelessly

entangled with a villain's! He did well to cast me off. God be

praised, he did it! And yet, had he trusted me, and borne with me a

little longer, I would have saved him all this trouble."

She was silent for a time, and stood with her eyes fixed on the ground.

Again raising them, her look was more mild and calm.

"Miles Coverdale!" said she.

"Well, Zenobia," I responded. "Can I do you any service?"

"Very little," she replied. "But it is my purpose, as you may well

imagine, to remove from Blithedale; and, most likely, I may not see

Hollingsworth again. A woman in my position, you understand, feels

scarcely at her ease among former friends. New faces,--unaccustomed

looks,--those only can she tolerate. She would pine among familiar

scenes; she would be apt to blush, too, under the eyes that knew her

secret; her heart might throb uncomfortably; she would mortify herself,

I suppose, with foolish notions of having sacrificed the honor of her

sex at the foot of proud, contumacious man. Poor womanhood, with its

rights and wrongs! Here will be new matter for my course of lectures,

at the idea of which you smiled, Mr. Coverdale, a month or two ago.

But, as you have really a heart and sympathies, as far as they go, and

as I shall depart without seeing Hollingsworth, I must entreat you to

be a messenger between him and me."

"Willingly," said I, wondering at the strange way in which her mind

seemed to vibrate from the deepest earnest to mere levity. "What is

the message?"

"True,--what is it?" exclaimed Zenobia. "After all, I hardly know. On

better consideration, I have no message. Tell him,--tell him something

pretty and pathetic, that will come nicely and sweetly into your

ballad,--anything you please, so it be tender and submissive enough.

Tell him he has murdered me! Tell him that I'll haunt him! "--She

spoke these words with the wildest energy.--"And give him--no, give

Priscilla--this!"