Scene I.--A room in an inn.

Sir William Sampson, Waitwell.

SIR WILLIAM.

My daughter, here? Here in this wretched inn?

WAITWELL.

No doubt, Mellefont has purposely selected the most wretched one in the town. The wicked always seek the darkness, because they are wicked. But what would it help them, could they even hide themselves from the whole world? Conscience after all is more powerful than the accusations of a world. Ah, you are weeping again, again, Sir!--Sir!

SIR WILLIAM.

Let me weep, my honest old servant! Or does she not, do you think, deserve my tears?

WAITWELL.

Alas! She deserves them, were they tears of blood.

SIR WILLIAM.

Well, let me weep!

WAITWELL.

The best, the loveliest, the most innocent child that ever lived beneath the sun, must thus be led astray! Oh, my Sara, my little Sara! I have watched thee grow; a hundred times have I carried thee as a child in these arms, have I admired thy smiles, thy lispings. From every childish look beamed forth the dawn of an intelligence, a kindliness, a----

SIR WILLIAM.

Oh, be silent! Does not the present rend my heart enough? Will you make my tortures more infernal still by recalling past happiness? Change your tone, if you will do me a service. Reproach me, make of my tenderness a crime, magnify my daughter's fault; fill me with abhorrence of her, if you can; stir up anew my revenge against her cursed seducer; say, that Sara never was virtuous, since she so lightly ceased to be so; say that she never loved me, since she clandestinely forsook me!

WAITWELL.

If I said that, I should utter a lie, a shameless, wicked lie. It might come to me again on my death-bed, and I, old wretch, would die in despair. No, little Sara has loved her father; and doubtless, doubtless she loves him yet. If you will only be convinced of this, I shall see her again in your arms this very day.

SIR WILLIAM.

Yes, Waitwell, of this alone I ask to be convinced. I cannot any longer live without her; she is the support of my age, and if she does not help to sweeten the sad remaining days of my life, who shall do it? If she loves me still, her error is forgotten. It was the error of a tender-hearted maiden, and her flight was the result of her remorse. Such errors are better than forced virtues. Yet I feel, Waitwell, I feel it, even were these errors real crimes, premeditated vices--even then I should forgive her. I would rather be loved by a wicked daughter, than by none at all.

WAITWELL.

Dry your tears, dear sir! I hear some one. It will be the landlord coming to welcome us.

Scene II.

The Landlord, Sir William Sampson, Waitwell.

LANDLORD.

So early, gentlemen, so early? You are welcome; welcome, Waitwell! You have doubtless been travelling all night! Is that the gentleman, of whom you spoke to me yesterday?

WAITWELL.

Yes, it is he, and I hope that in accordance with what we settled----

LANDLORD.

I am entirely at your service, my lord. What is it to me, whether I know or not, what cause has brought you hither, and why you wish to live in seclusion in my house? A landlord takes his money and lets his guests do as they think best. Waitwell, it is true, has told me that you wish to observe the stranger a little, who has been staying here for a few weeks with his young wife, but I hope that you will not cause him any annoyance. You would bring my house into ill repute and certain people would fear to stop here. Men like us must live on people of all kinds.

SIR WILLIAM.

Do not fear; only conduct me to the room which Waitwell has ordered for me; I come here for an honourable purpose.

LANDLORD.

I have no wish to know your secrets, my lord! Curiosity is by no means a fault of mine. I might for instance have known long ago, who the stranger is, on whom you want to keep a watch, but I have no wish to know. This much however I have discovered, that he must have eloped with the young lady. The poor little wife--or whatever she may be!--remains the whole day long locked up in her room, and cries.

SIR WILLIAM.

And cries?

LANDLORD.

Yes, and cries; but, my lord, why do your tears fall? The young lady must interest you deeply. Surely you are not----

WAITWELL.

Do not detain him any longer!

LANDLORD.

Come, come! One wall only will separate you from the lady in whom you are so much interested, and who may be----

WAITWELL.

You mean then at any cost to know, who----

LANDLORD.

No, Waitwell! I have no wish to know anything.

WAITWELL.

Make haste, then, and take us to our rooms, before the whole house begins to stir.

LANDLORD.

Will you please follow me, then, my lord? (Exeunt.)

Scene III.--Mellefont's room.

Mellefont, Norton.

MELLEFONT (in dressing-gown, sitting in an easy chair).

Another night, which I could not have spent more cruelly on the rack!--(calls) Norton!--I must make haste to get sight of a face or two. If I remained alone with my thoughts any longer, they might carry me too far. Hey, Norton! He is still asleep. But is not it cruel of me, not to let the poor devil sleep? How happy he is! However, I do not wish any one about me to be happy! Norton!

NORTON (coming).

Sir!

MELLEFONT.

Dress me!--Oh, no sour looks please! When I shall be able to sleep longer myself I will let you do the same. If you wish to do your duty, at least have pity on me.

NORTON.

Pity, sir! Pity on you? I know better where pity is due.

MELLEFONT.

And where then?

NORTON.

Ah, let me dress you and don't ask.

MELLEFONT.

Confound it! Are your reproofs then to awaken together with my conscience? I understand you; I know on whom you expend your pity. But I will do justice to her and to myself. Quite right, do not have any pity on me! Curse me in your heart; but--curse yourself also!

NORTON.

Myself also?

MELLEFONT.

Yes, because you serve a miserable wretch, whom earth ought not to bear, and because you have made yourself a partaker in his crimes.

NORTON.

I made myself a partaker in your crimes? In what way?

MELLEFONT.

By keeping silent about them.

NORTON.

Well, that is good! A word would have cost me my neck in the heat of your passions. And, besides, did I not find you already so bad, when I made your acquaintance, that all hope of amendment was vain? What a life I have seen you leading from the first moment! In the lowest society of gamblers and vagrants--I call them what they were without regard to their knightly titles and such like--in this society you squandered a fortune which might have made a way for you to an honourable position. And your culpable intercourse with all sorts of women, especially with the wicked Marwood----

MELLEFONT.

Restore me--restore me to that life. It was virtue compared with the present one. I spent my fortune; well! The punishment follows, and I shall soon enough feel all the severity and humiliation of want. I associated with vicious women; that may be. I was myself seduced more often than I seduced others; and those whom I did seduce wished it. But--I still had no ruined virtue upon my conscience. I had carried off no Sara from the house of a beloved father and forced her to follow a scoundrel, who was no longer free. I had----who comes so early to me?

Scene IV.

Betty, Mellefont, Norton.

NORTON.

It is Betty.

MELLEFONT.

Up already, Betty? How is your mistress?

BETTY.

How is she? (sobbing.) It was long after midnight before I could persuade her to go to bed. She slept a few moments; but God, what a sleep that must have been! She started suddenly, sprang up and fell into my arms, like one pursued by a murderer. She trembled, and a cold perspiration started on her pale face. I did all I could to calm her, but up to this morning she has only answered me with silent tears. At length she sent me several times to your door to listen whether you were up. She wishes to speak to you. You alone can comfort her. O do so, dearest sir, do so! My heart will break, if she continues to fret like this.

MELLEFONT.

Go, Betty! Tell her, I shall be with her in a moment,

BETTY.

No, she wishes to come to you herself.

MELLEFONT.

Well, tell her, then, that I am awaiting her----

(Exit Betty.)

Scene V.

Mellefont, Norton.

NORTON.

O God, the poor young lady!

MELLEFONT.

Whose feelings is this exclamation of yours meant to rouse? See, the first tear which I have shed since my childhood is running down my cheek. A bad preparation for receiving one who seeks comfort. But why does she seek it from me? Yet where else shall she seek it? I must collect myself (drying his eyes). Where is the old firmness with which I could see a beautiful eye in tears? Where is the gift of dissimulation gone by which I could be and could say whatsoever I wished? She will come now and weep tears that brook no resistance. Confused and ashamed I shall stand before her; like a convicted criminal I shall stand before her. Counsel me, what shall I do? What shall I say?

NORTON.

You shall do what she asks of you!

MELLEFONT.

I shall then perpetrate a fresh act of cruelty against her. She is wrong to blame me for delaying a ceremony which cannot be performed in this country without the greatest injury to us.

NORTON.

Well, leave it, then. Why do we delay? Why do you let one day after the other pass, and one week after the other? Just give me the order, and you will be safe on board to-morrow! Perhaps her grief will not follow her over the ocean; she may leave part of it behind, and in another land may----

MELLEFONT.

I hope that myself. Silence! She is coming! How my heart throbs!

Scene VI.

Sara, Mellefont, Norton.

MELLEFONT (advancing towards her).

You have had a restless night, dearest Sara.

SARA.

Alas, Mellefont, if it were nothing but a restless night.

MELLEFONT (to his servant).

Leave us!

NORTON (aside, in going).

I would not stay if I was paid in gold for every moment.

Scene VII.

Sara, Mellefont.

MELLEFONT.

You are faint, dearest Sara! You must sit down!

SARA (sits down).

I trouble you very early! Will you forgive me that with the morning I again begin my complaints?

MELLEFONT.

Dearest Sara, you mean to say that you cannot forgive me, because another morning has dawned, and I have not yet put an end to your complaints?

SARA.

What is there that I would not forgive you? You know what I have already forgiven you. But the ninth week, Mellefont! the ninth week begins to-day, and this miserable house still sees me in just the same position as on the first day.

MELLEFONT.

You doubt my love?

SARA.

I doubt your love? No, I feel my misery too much, too much to wish to deprive myself of this last and only solace.

MELLEFONT.

How, then, can you be uneasy about the delay of a ceremony?

SARA.

Ah, Mellefont! Why is it that we think so differently about this ceremony! Yield a little to the woman's way of thinking! I imagine in it a more direct consent from Heaven. In vain did I try again, only yesterday, in the long tedious evening, to adopt your ideas, and to banish from my breast the doubt which just now--not for the first time, you have deemed the result of my distrust. I struggled with myself; I was clever enough to deafen my understanding; but my heart and my feeling quickly overthrew this toilsome structure of reason. Reproachful voices roused me from my sleep, and my imagination united with them to torment me. What pictures, what dreadful pictures hovered about me! I would willingly believe them to be dreams----

MELLEFONT.

What? Could my sensible Sara believe them to be anything else? Dreams, my dearest, dreams!--How unhappy is man!--Did not his Creator find tortures enough for him in the realm of reality? Had he also to create in him the still more spacious realm of imagination in order to increase them?

SARA.

Do not accuse Heaven! It has left the imagination in our power. She is guided by our acts; and when these are in accordance with our duties and with virtue the imagination serves only to increase our peace and happiness. A single act, Mellefont, a single blessing bestowed upon us by a messenger of peace, in the name of the Eternal One, can restore my shattered imagination again. Do you still hesitate to do a few days sooner for love of me, what in any case you mean to do at some future time? Have pity on me, and consider that, although by this you may be freeing me only from torments of the imagination, yet these imagined torments are torments, and are real torments for her who feels them. Ah! could I but tell you the terrors of the last night half as vividly as I have felt them. Wearied with crying and grieving--my only occupations--I sank down on my bed with half-closed eyes. Sly nature wished to recover itself a moment, to collect new tears. But hardly asleep yet, I suddenly saw myself on the steepest peak of a terrible rock. You went on before, and I followed with tottering, anxious steps, strengthened now and then by a glance which you threw back upon me. Suddenly I heard behind me a gentle call, which bade me stop. It was my father's voice--I unhappy one, can I forget nothing which is his? Alas if his memory renders him equally cruel service; if he too cannot forget me!--But he has forgotten me. Comfort! cruel comfort for his Sara!--But, listen, Mellefont! In turning round to this well-known voice, my foot slipped; I reeled, and was on the point of falling down the precipice, when just in time, I felt myself held back by one who resembled myself. I was just returning her my passionate thanks, when she drew a dagger from her bosom. "I saved you," she cried, "to ruin you!" She lifted her armed hand--and--! I awoke with the blow. Awake, I still felt all the pain which a mortal stab must give, without the pleasure which it brings--the hope for the end of grief in the end of life.

MELLEFONT.

Ah! dearest Sara, I promise you the end of your grief, without the end of your life, which would certainly be the end of mine also. Forget the terrible tissue of a meaningless dream!

SARA.

I look to you for the strength to be able to forget it. Be it love or seduction, happiness or unhappiness which threw me into your arms, I am yours in my heart and will remain so for ever. But I am not yet yours in the eyes of that Judge, who has threatened to punish the smallest transgressions of His law----

MELLEFONT.

Then may all the punishment fall upon me alone!

SARA.

What can fall upon you, without touching me too? But do not misinterpret my urgent request! Another woman, after having forfeited her honour by an error like mine, might perhaps only seek to regain a part of it by a legal union. I do not think of that, Mellefont, because I do not wish to know of any other honour in this world than that of loving you. I do not wish to be united to you for the world's sake but for my own. And I will willingly bear the shame of not appearing to be so, when I am united to you. You need not then, if you do not wish, acknowledge me to be your wife, you may call me what you will! I will not bear your name; you shall keep our union as secret as you think good, and may I always be unworthy of it, if I ever harbour the thought of drawing any other advantage from it than the appeasing of my conscience.

MELLEFONT.

Stop, Sara, or I shall die before your eyes. How wretched I am, that I have not the courage to make you more wretched still! Consider that you have given yourself up to my guidance; consider that it is my duty to look to our future, and that I must at present be deaf to your complaints, if I will not hear you utter more grievous complaints throughout the rest of your life. Have you then forgotten what I have so often represented to you in justification of my conduct?

SARA.

I have not forgotten it, Mellefont! You wish first to secure a certain bequest. You wish first to secure temporal goods, and you let me forfeit eternal ones, perhaps, through it.

MELLEFONT.

Ah, Sara! If you were as certain of all temporal goods as your virtue is of the eternal ones----

SARA.

My virtue? Do not say that word! Once it sounded sweet to me, but now a terrible thunder rolls in it!

MELLEFONT.

What? Must he who is to be virtuous, never have committed a trespass? Has a single error such fatal effect that it can annihilate a whole course of blameless years? If so, no one is virtuous; virtue is then a chimera, which disperses in the air, when one thinks that one grasps it most firmly; if so, there is no Wise Being who suits our duties to our strength; if so, there is----I am frightened at the terrible conclusions in which your despondency must involve you. No, Sara, you are still the virtuous Sara that you were before your unfortunate acquaintance with me. If you look upon yourself with such cruel eyes, with what eyes must you regard me!

SARA.

With the eyes of love, Mellefont!

MELLEFONT.

I implore you, then, on my knees I implore you for the sake of this love, this generous love which overlooks all my unworthiness, to calm yourself! Have patience for a few days longer!

SARA.

A few days! How long even a single day is!

MELLEFONT.

Cursed bequest! Cursed nonsense of a dying cousin, who would only leave me his fortune on the condition that I should give my hand to a relation who hates me as much as I hate her! To you, inhuman tyrants of our freedom, be imputed all the misfortune, all the sin, into which your compulsion forces us. Could I but dispense with this degrading inheritance. As long as my father's fortune sufficed for my maintenance, I always scorned it, and did not even think it worthy of mentioning. But now, now, when I should like to possess all the treasures of the world only to lay them at the feet of my Sara, now, when I must contrive at least to let her appear in the world as befits her station, now I must have recourse to it.

SARA.

Which probably will not be successful after all.

MELLEFONT.

You always forbode the worst. No, the lady whom this also concerns is not disinclined to enter into a sort of agreement with me. The fortune is to be divided, and as she cannot enjoy the whole with me, she is willing to let me buy my liberty with half of it. I am every hour expecting the final intelligence, the delay of which alone has so prolonged our sojourn here. As soon as I receive it, we shall not remain here one moment longer. We will immediately cross to France, dearest Sara, where you shall find new friends, who already look forward to the pleasure of seeing and loving you. And these new friends shall be the witnesses of our union----

SARA.

They shall be the witnesses of our union? Cruel man, our union, then, is not to be in my native land? I shall leave my country as a criminal? And as such, you think, I should have the courage to trust myself to the ocean. The heart of him must be calmer or more impious than mine, who, only for a moment, can see with indifference between himself and destruction, nothing but a quivering plank. Death would roar at me in every wave that struck against the vessel, every wind would howl its curses after me from my native shore, and the slightest storm would seem a sentence of death pronounced upon me. No, Mellefont, you cannot be so cruel to me! If I live to see the completion of this agreement, you must not grudge another day, to be spent here. This must be the day, on which you shall teach me to forget the tortures of all these tearful days. This must be the sacred day--alas! which day will it be?

MELLEFONT.

But do you consider, Sara, that our marriage here would lack those ceremonies which are due to it?

SARA.

A sacred act does not acquire more force through ceremonies.

MELLEFONT.

But----

SARA.

I am astonished. You surely will not insist on such a trivial pretext? O Mellefont, Mellefont! had I not made for myself an inviolable law, never to doubt the sincerity of your love, this circumstance might----But too much of this already, it might seem as if I had been doubting it even now.

MELLEFONT.

The first moment of your doubt would be the last moment of my life! Alas, Sara, what have I done, that you should remind me even of the possibility of it? It is true the confessions, which I have made to you without fear, of my early excesses cannot do me honour, but they should at least awaken confidence. A coquettish Marwood held me in her meshes, because I felt for her that which is so often taken for love which it so rarely is. I should still bear her shameful fetters, had not Heaven, which perhaps did not think my heart quite unworthy to bum with better flames, taken pity on me. To see you, dearest Sara, was to forget all Marwoods! But how dearly have you paid for taking me out of such hands! I had grown too familiar with vice, and you know it too little----

SARA.

Let us think no more of it.

Scene VIII.

Norton, Mellefont, Sara.

MELLEFONT.

What do you want?

NORTON.

While I was standing before the house, a servant gave me this letter. It is directed to you, sir!

MELLEFONT.

To me? Who knows my name here? (looking at the letter). Good heavens!

SARA.

You are startled.

MELLEFONT.

But without cause, Sara, as I now perceive. I was mistaken in the handwriting.

SARA.

May the contents be as agreeable to you as you can wish.

MELLEFONT.

I suspect that they will be of very little importance.

SARA.

One is less constrained when one is alone, so allow me to retire to my room again.

MELLEFONT.

You entertain suspicions, then, about it?

SARA.

Not at all, Mellefont.

MELLEFONT (going with her to the back of the stage).

I shall be with you in a moment, dearest Sara.

Scene IX.

Mellefont, Norton.

MELLEFONT (still looking at the letter).

Just Heaven!

NORTON.

Woe to you, if it is only just!

MELLEFONT.

Is it possible? I see this cursed handwriting again and am not chilled with terror? Is it she? Is it not she? Why do I still doubt? It is she! Alas, friend, a letter from Marwood! What fury, what demon has betrayed my abode to her? What does she still want from me? Go, make preparations immediately that we may get away from here. Yet stop! Perhaps it is unnecessary; perhaps the contempt of my farewell letters has only caused Marwood to reply with equal contempt. There, open the letter; read it! I am afraid to do it myself.

NORTON (reads).

"If you will deign, Mellefont, to glance at the name which you will find at the bottom of the page, it will be to me as though I had written you the longest of letters."

MELLEFONT.

Curse the name! Would I had never heard it! Would it could be erased from the book of the living!

NORTON (reads on).

"The labour of finding you out has been sweetened by the love which helped me in my search."

MELLEFONT.

Love? Wanton creature! You profane the words which belong to virtue alone.

NORTON (continues).

"Love has done more still"----

MELLEFONT.

I tremble----

NORTON.

"It has brought me to you"----

MELLEFONT.

Traitor, what are you reading? (snatches the letter from his hand and reads himself). "I am here; and it rests with you, whether you will await a visit from me, or whether you will anticipate mine by one from you. Marwood." What a thunderbolt! She is here! Where is she? She shall atone for this audacity with her life!

NORTON.

With her life? One glance from her and you will be again at her feet. Take care what you do! You must not speak with her, or the misfortunes of your poor young lady will be complete.

MELLEFONT.

O, wretched man that I am! No, I must speak with her! She would go even into Sara's room in search of me, and would vent all her rage on the innocent girl.

NORTON.

But, sir----

MELLEFONT.

Not a word! Let me see (looking at the letter) whether she has given the address. Here it is! Come, show me the way! (Exeunt).