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Updated: June 19, 2025
Bent and broken by the unanswerable accusations of what seemed a conscience in human shape, Ottila had sunk down before him with an abandonment as native to her as the indomitable will which still refused to relinquish hope even in despair. "Go," she said, "I am not worthy of salvation.
Ottila waits, she writes, she grows too anxious to endure, she comes to look for him. I help her, but we do not find him yet, and meantime I amuse her. My friends are kind, and we enjoy much as we look about us for this truant Adam." If Sylvia could have doubted the unexpected revelation, this last trait was so like Warwick it convinced her at once.
"Ottila, till I knew you I loved no woman but my mother; I wooed no wife, bought no mistress, desired no friend, but led a life austere as any monk's, asking only freedom and my work. Could you not let me keep my independence? Were there not men enough who would find no degradation in a spiritual slavery like this? Would nothing but my subjection satisfy your unconquerable appetite for power?"
I have nothing, for you are not a generous lover." "Generous in deeds, Ottila. I have given you a year's liberty, a dear gift from one who values it more than life. Now I add this." He drew her to him, kissed the red mouth and looked down upon her with a glance that made his man's face as pitiful as any woman's as he let her lean there happy in the hope given at such cost.
As Sylvia looked, her feminine eye took in every gift of face and figure, every grace of attitude or gesture, every daintiness of costume, and found no visible flaw in Ottila, from her haughty head to her handsome foot. Yet when her scrutiny ended, the girl felt a sense of disappointment, and no envy mingled with her admiration.
But Ottila cannot help her beauty, nor the power she has of making all men love her. I wish she could!" "She is gifted and accomplished, as well as lovely?" asked Sylvia, glancing at her companion's gloomy face. "She is everything a woman should be, and I could shoot Adam for his cruel neglect."
In the fewest, kindest words Warwick told her of Ottila, the promise and the parting; then, as if the dearer theme deserved less brevity, he lingered on it as one lingers at a friend's door, enjoying in anticipation the welcome he is sure awaits him.
It was but natural, for Sylvia was a very human girl, and Ottila one whom no woman would love, however much she might admire. Hers was that type of character which every age has reproduced, varying externally with climates and conditions, but materially the same from fabled Circe down to Lola Montes, or some less famous syren whose subjects are not kings.
I had fallen into the net, and was not to leave it till the scourging had been given. So like that other wandering Christian, I cried out, submitted, and was the meeker for it. I had to wait a little before the ship sailed; I would not stay at El Labarinto, Gabriel's home, for Ottila was there; and though the fever raged at Havana, I felt secure in my hitherto unbroken health.
Ottila, with hidden face, watched while she wept, and waited hopefully for the relenting sign. In silence the two, a modern Samson and Delilah, waged the old war that has gone on ever since the strong locks were shorn and the temple fell; a war which fills the world with unmated pairs and the long train of evils arising from marriages made from impulse, and not principle.
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