CHAPTER XII. A SINFUL LOVE.

So closely love and passion blend—
Their limits we can not define—
One hardly knows they've reached the end
Until they've passed beyond the line.

To Mrs. Sinclair, Stella was lost indeed. Almost insane with grief, the good woman placed the matter in the competent hands of Scotland Yard, and closing her house to all visitors, gave herself up to a grief more bitter far than that which would be felt at death itself. She had at last discovered beyond dispute that her son had frequented the clubs and theatres of London for a year past, under different names and often in the company of a young girl, who, although evidently from the middle classes, was still sufficiently¹ beautiful to attract the attention of casual observers and win the attention and preference of one so (presumably) fastidious as Maurice Sinclair.
 
This girl, she also learned, lived quietly with her grandparents on G—St., and was in all respects a most estimable young woman. Obtaining this information some two months after the disappearance² of Maurice and Stella, Mrs. Sinclair went in person to the address given to ascertain³, if possible, some further facts regarding her son's unrighteous past.

The house in G—St. looked deserted⁴ when Mrs. Sinclair's carriage stopped before its unpretending portals, but she was promptly⁵ admitted by a neat maid servant, to the presence of Elizabeth's aged⁶ grandparents. She found them mourning in pitiful grief the loss of their idolized grandchild, who they said had, according to newspaper accounts, committed suicide by jumping from the London Bridge on the very date corresponding to Maurice's appearance at his mother's home. They had identified the shawl which she had dropped from her shoulders, before taking the awful plunge⁸ into the river, and that was the only proof they had ever received, that their dear one's fate was the sleep that knows no waking.

Finding in Mrs. Sinclair a tearful, sympathetic[Pg 79] listener, they gladly told her of Elizabeth's quiet, happy life with them; of her beauty and virtue⁹, and from this emanated¹⁰ the story of Lawrence Maynard, the young lodger¹¹, and their belief that it was her unrequited love for him that drove her to the fatal act.

The young man was clever and handsome, the aged woman said. He wore a close cropped auburn beard, but his hair grew long, and lay in large, loose curls upon his forehead. He seemed quiet and steady, and seldom remained away from his rooms at night, particularly, after his apparent fondness for Elizabeth had been observed by them. No one had ever called upon him except a queer Chinese peddler who, he said, brought him rare and expensive substances for his chemical experiments. Between this man and himself, there was evidently a most satisfactory understanding. They had met first in China, and Elizabeth frequently stood and listened to their comical gibberish, while the Mongolian's beady eyes watched her with never failing interest.

There were times even when she fancied he looked anxiously at her, and once, when Mr. Maynard[Pg 80] was absent, he tried with poor success to tell her something, but what that mysterious something was she could never ascertain.

Mr. Maynard had frequently warned them all against touching¹² any of the test tubes, flasks¹³, retorts and crucibles¹⁴ in his room, but evening after evening he called Elizabeth to watch the changing colors in the delicate fluids, or the crystillization of rare substances while he instructed her, so they honestly supposed, by many scientific and wonderful experiments.

This was all Mrs. Sinclair could learn from the aged mourners, and weary at heart she returned once more to her now cheerless home. She felt certain that this Lawrence Maynard and her son were one and the same person, but little did she dream of the actual facts that remained untold¹⁵ in the aged woman's innocent recital¹⁶.

It was in this cleverly improvised¹⁷ laboratory that Elizabeth Merril, unknown to her feeble grandparents, passed the few deliriously¹⁸ happy hours of her otherwise unromantic life. She had entered in the full possession of her womanly dignity and virtue, only to become faint from the exhalations[Pg 81] of tempting¹⁹ perfumes and intoxicated²⁰ by the fascinations²¹ of the tempter's smile and passionate²² pleadings. Long and fiercely she struggled with her new born passion, but her lover's first, warm kiss drew her very heart from her bosom²³ and almost insane with love and fear she twined her white arms around his neck and pleaded for his dear protection.

At last, in a moment of reckless passion, he consented to a private marriage only insisting on concealment²⁴ of the same until he should give her permission to announce it.

A private marriage is but a compromise with virtue in every instance, but Elizabeth was young and inexperienced.

She trusted her lover implicitly²⁵, and although the affair was not as she in her girlish fancies desired, still it was a bondage²⁶ of love and she would willingly have submitted to its chains until death if her lover had so commanded.

It was only the insurmountable difficulty of her condition that at last counteracted²⁷ the mental and moral poison of his presence and broke completely the spell that his impassioned caresses²⁸ had thrown so fatally about her.

[Pg 82]

When the truth burst upon her that concealment was no longer possible, she fled to his apartments and fell on her knees before him.

"Oh, Lawrie, Lawrie," she sobbed²⁹, "You must tell Grandma of our marriage, you must, or I am ruined!" and she wept as if her heart would break.

Then an awful fear seized upon her as she noticed the stern, defiant³⁰ look that crept into his face at her words.

"Get up Lizzie" he answered, brutally³¹. "You should have thought of this before. There," he exclaimed, throwing a paper at her feet, "there is your Marriage Certificate. It is false every word of it; our marriage was a mockery from beginning to end. Show the paper to your grandparents and clear yourself if you can,—I can do nothing for you."

White as death, Elizabeth staggered slowly to her feet, but no word escaped her lips.

For a moment man and woman looked into each other's eyes, then with a mocking smile Lawrence Maynard, her lover, her idol⁷, her perjured³² husband, passed rapidly from the room.

Like one in a dream she bent³³ and raised the[Pg 83] paper from the ground, then with head erect³⁴ and steady step she walked to her own small room and locking the door behind her, fell heavily upon the bed with the lying certificate clasped closely in her rigid³⁵ hand. She awoke to the realization³⁶ that he had wronged her, and before she could fairly endure that knowledge she realized that he had also deserted her, and from that time forth³⁷ her misery³⁸ was complete. Too proud to tell her weakness now in the hour of shame, she reasoned that death alone would erase³⁹ the stain upon her character, and with this sole purpose forming in her half crazed brain she fled to the sluggish⁴⁰ river and took the frightful⁴¹ plunge into its awful depths.

The fate of her supposed suicide had been chronicled, first by the descriptive reports of the bridge officers, at their respective stations, and secondly⁴² by the busy newspaper scribes who haunt police stations for the necessary matter to fill their allotted⁴³ space in the columns of the various dailies.

Elizabeth, holding her babe on her arm, read the report of her supposed entrance to the great unknown world, on the very night of Mrs. Sinclair's visit to her grandparents and her own discharge[Pg 84] from the Hospital, and smiling bitterly, she muttered to herself, "Yes, that is true. I am dead, dead and buried. Now nothing remains⁴⁴ but the walking ghost of Lizzie Merril and"—here she looked sadly down upon the face of the sleeping child and added, "the mother of this innocent babe." Then she wrapped the shawl a nurse had given her, closer around the infant and hurried onward⁴⁵ through the gloomy night:—whither she did not know.

Almost at that moment a young man turned the corner of the street and brushed past her, so near that his arm accidentally touched her shoulder. For a moment she stood perfectly⁴⁶ still, then with a piercing cry, woman and child fell heavily forward and were caught in Maurice Sinclair's arms.

1 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

2 disappearance   

n.消失，消散，失踪

参考例句：

• He was hard put to it to explain her disappearance.他难以说明她为什么不见了。
• Her disappearance gave rise to the wildest rumours.她失踪一事引起了各种流言蜚语。

3 ascertain   

vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清

参考例句：

• It's difficult to ascertain the coal deposits.煤储量很难探明。
• We must ascertain the responsibility in light of different situtations.我们必须根据不同情况判定责任。

4 deserted   

adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的

参考例句：

• The deserted village was filled with a deathly silence.这个荒废的村庄死一般的寂静。
• The enemy chieftain was opposed and deserted by his followers.敌人头目众叛亲离。

5 promptly   

adv.及时地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He paid the money back promptly.他立即还了钱。
• She promptly seized the opportunity his absence gave her.她立即抓住了因他不在场给她创造的机会。

6 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

7 idol   

n.偶像，红人，宠儿

参考例句：

• As an only child he was the idol of his parents.作为独子，他是父母的宠儿。
• Blind worship of this idol must be ended.对这个偶像的盲目崇拜应该结束了。

8 plunge   

v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲

参考例句：

• Test pool's water temperature before you plunge in.在你跳入之前你应该测试水温。
• That would plunge them in the broil of the two countries.那将会使他们陷入这两国的争斗之中。

9 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

10 emanated   

v.从…处传出，传出( emanate的过去式和过去分词 )；产生，表现，显示

参考例句：

• Do you know where these rumours emanated from? 你知道谣言出自何处吗？ 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The rumor emanated from Chicago. 谣言来自芝加哥。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

11 lodger   

n.寄宿人，房客

参考例句：

• My friend is a lodger in my uncle's house.我朋友是我叔叔家的房客。
• Jill and Sue are at variance over their lodger.吉尔和休在对待房客的问题上意见不和。

12 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

13 flasks   

n.瓶，长颈瓶， 烧瓶( flask的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The juggler juggled three flasks. 这个玩杂耍的人可同时抛接三个瓶子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The meat in all of the open flasks putrefied. 所有开口瓶中的肉都腐烂了。 来自辞典例句

14 crucibles   

n.坩埚，严酷的考验（ crucible的名词复数 ）

参考例句：

• Gooch crucibles or similar filters are used for such measurements. 在这样的测定中，采用Gooch坩埚或类似的过滤器。 来自辞典例句
• Have you really measured the world by scrutinies, or through alembics and crucibles? 那么，这是否因为您是从蒸馏器和坩埚上来研究人类的呢？ 来自互联网

15 untold   

adj.数不清的，无数的

参考例句：

• She has done untold damage to our chances.她给我们的机遇造成了不可估量的损害。
• They suffered untold terrors in the dark and huddled together for comfort.他们遭受着黑暗中的难以言传的种种恐怖，因而只好挤在一堆互相壮胆。

16 recital   

n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会

参考例句：

• She is going to give a piano recital.她即将举行钢琴独奏会。
• I had their total attention during the thirty-five minutes that my recital took.在我叙述的35分钟内，他们完全被我吸引了。

17 improvised   

a.即席而作的,即兴的

参考例句：

• He improvised a song about the football team's victory. 他即席创作了一首足球队胜利之歌。
• We improvised a tent out of two blankets and some long poles. 我们用两条毛毯和几根长竿搭成一个临时帐蓬。

18 deliriously   

adv.谵妄（性）；发狂；极度兴奋/亢奋；说胡话

参考例句：

• He was talking deliriously. 他胡说一通。 来自互联网
• Her answer made him deliriously happy. 她的回答令他高兴得神魂颠倒。 来自互联网

19 tempting   

a.诱人的, 吸引人的

参考例句：

• It is tempting to idealize the past. 人都爱把过去的日子说得那么美好。
• It was a tempting offer. 这是个诱人的提议。

20 intoxicated   

喝醉的，极其兴奋的

参考例句：

• She was intoxicated with success. 她为成功所陶醉。
• They became deeply intoxicated and totally disoriented. 他们酩酊大醉，东南西北全然不辨。

21 fascinations   

n.魅力( fascination的名词复数 )；有魅力的东西；迷恋；陶醉

参考例句：

• The fascinations of the circus are endless. 马戏表演非常吸引人。 来自辞典例句
• He held the children spellbound with magic tricks and other fascinations. 他使那些孩子沉浸在魔术和其他魅力中。 来自互联网

22 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

23 bosom   

n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的

参考例句：

• She drew a little book from her bosom.她从怀里取出一本小册子。
• A dark jealousy stirred in his bosom.他内心生出一阵恶毒的嫉妒。

24 concealment   

n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒

参考例句：

• the concealment of crime 对罪行的隐瞒
• Stay in concealment until the danger has passed. 把自己藏起来，待危险过去后再出来。

25 implicitly   

adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地

参考例句：

• Many verbs and many words of other kinds are implicitly causal. 许多动词和许多其他类词都蕴涵着因果关系。
• I can trust Mr. Somerville implicitly, I suppose? 我想，我可以毫无保留地信任萨莫维尔先生吧？

26 bondage   

n.奴役，束缚

参考例句：

• Masters sometimes allowed their slaves to buy their way out of bondage.奴隶主们有时允许奴隶为自己赎身。
• They aim to deliver the people who are in bondage to superstitious belief.他们的目的在于解脱那些受迷信束缚的人。

27 counteracted   

对抗，抵消( counteract的过去式 )

参考例句：

• This can be counteracted only by very effective insulation. 这只能用非常有效的绝缘来防止。
• The effect of his preaching was counteracted by the looseness of his behavior. 他讲道的效果被他放荡的生活所抵消了。

28 caresses   

爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A breeze caresses the cheeks. 微风拂面。
• Hetty was not sufficiently familiar with caresses or outward demonstrations of fondness. 海蒂不习惯于拥抱之类过于外露地表现自己的感情。

29 sobbed   

哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说

参考例句：

• She sobbed out the story of her son's death. 她哭诉着她儿子的死。
• She sobbed out the sad story of her son's death. 她哽咽着诉说她儿子死去的悲惨经过。

30 defiant   

adj.无礼的，挑战的

参考例句：

• With a last defiant gesture,they sang a revolutionary song as they were led away to prison.他们被带走投入监狱时，仍以最后的反抗姿态唱起了一支革命歌曲。
• He assumed a defiant attitude toward his employer.他对雇主采取挑衅的态度。

31 brutally   

adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地

参考例句：

• The uprising was brutally put down.起义被残酷地镇压下去了。
• A pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed.一场争取民主的起义被残酷镇压了。

32 perjured   

adj.伪证的，犯伪证罪的v.发假誓，作伪证( perjure的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The witness perjured himself. 证人作了伪证。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Witnesses lied and perjured themselves. 证人撒谎作伪证。 来自辞典例句

33 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

34 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

• She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
• Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。

35 rigid   

adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的

参考例句：

• She became as rigid as adamant.她变得如顽石般的固执。
• The examination was so rigid that nearly all aspirants were ruled out.考试很严，几乎所有的考生都被淘汰了。

36 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。

37 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

38 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。

39 erase   

v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹

参考例句：

• He tried to erase the idea from his mind.他试图从头脑中抹掉这个想法。
• Please erase my name from the list.请把我的名字从名单上擦去。

40 sluggish   

adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的

参考例句：

• This humid heat makes you feel rather sluggish.这种湿热的天气使人感到懒洋洋的。
• Circulation is much more sluggish in the feet than in the hands.脚部的循环比手部的循环缓慢得多。

41 frightful   

adj.可怕的；讨厌的

参考例句：

• How frightful to have a husband who snores!有一个发鼾声的丈夫多讨厌啊！
• We're having frightful weather these days.这几天天气坏极了。

42 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

43 allotted   

分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I completed the test within the time allotted . 我在限定的时间内完成了试验。
• Each passenger slept on the berth allotted to him. 每个旅客都睡在分配给他的铺位上。

44 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

45 onward   

adj.向前的，前进的；adv.向前，前进，在先

参考例句：

• The Yellow River surges onward like ten thousand horses galloping.黄河以万马奔腾之势滚滚向前。
• He followed in the steps of forerunners and marched onward.他跟随着先辈的足迹前进。

46 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。