"Ave Maria! Oh, hear when we call,Mother of Heaven, who is Saviour of all;Feeble and fearing, we trust in thy might;In doubting and darkness thy love be our light.Let us sleep on thy breast while the night-taper burns.And wake in thine arms when the morning returns!Ave Maria! Ave Maria! Ave Maria! audi nos!"
"Ave Maria! Oh, hear when we call,Mother of Heaven, who is Saviour of all;Feeble and fearing, we trust in thy might;In doubting and darkness thy love be our light.Let us sleep on thy breast while the night-taper burns.And wake in thine arms when the morning returns!Ave Maria! Ave Maria! Ave Maria! audi nos!"
The singing ceased, the fingers were motionless, and the pale face drooped and sunk down on the pale hands. And still Val Blake stood mute, motionless, utterly confounded. For there before him, with only the moonlight shadow of her former loveliness left, sat and sang, not the dead, but the living, Nathalie Marsh!
How long Mr. Val Blake stood there, staring at that sight of wonder, neither he nor I ever knew; but while it drooped in a strange, heartbroken way over the instrument, and he stood looking at it, powerless to speak or move, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and looking round he saw the pale face of Paul Wyndham. Pale always, but deadly white, Mr. Blake saw, in the spectral October gloaming.
"Blake," he said, in a hoarse whisper, that did not sound like Paul Wyndham's peculiarly clear and melodious voice, "if ever you were my friend, be silent now! Help me to get away from here unseen."
Some dim foreshadowing of the truth dawned on the slow mind of Val Blake. The ghost of Nathalie Marsh—the invisible and mysterious woman shut up in Rosebush Cottage—could they, after all, be connected, and was the mad mother only a blind. The question passed through Val's mind in a vague sort of way, while he watched Paul Wyndham bend over the drooping figure, as tenderly as a mother over the cradle of her first-born. His voice too, had changed when he spoke to her, and was infinitely gentle and loving.
"My darling," he said, "you must not stay here. I have come to fetch you home."
She lifted up her head at once, and held out her arms to him, like a little child that wants to be taken. All the pale, misty hair floated softly back from her wan face. Oh! how altered from the bright face Val Blake once knew, and the blue eyes she lifted to his face had a strange, meaningless light, that chilled the blood in the veins of the looker-on.
"Yes, take me away," she said, wearily; but in Nathalie Marsh's own voice. "I knew you would come. Where's Midge? I am cold here."
"Midge is at home, my darling. Here is your mantle—stand up while I put it on."
She arose; and Val saw she was dressed in white—a sort of white cashmere morning-gown, lined with quilted blue silk. Mr. Wyndham arranged the long white mantle around the wasted figure, drawing the hood over the head and face. Ghostly enough she looked, standing there in the gloom; and Val knew she must have been dressed in the same manner on the night she so startled him and Laura. But Mr. Wyndham, who wore a long black cloak himself these chilly evenings, took it off and arranged it over her white robes, effectually concealing them, as he drew her forward.
"Go down-stairs, Blake," he said, "a cab is waiting outside the gates. Come with us, and I will tell you everything."
Mr. Blake mechanically obeyed. He was not quite sure it was not all the nightmare, and not at all certain he was not asleep in his own room, and dreaming this singular little episode, and would awake presently to smile at it all. He went down-stairs in silent bewilderment, never speaking a word, and hardly able to think. Nathalie Marsh was dead—or at least some one was dead, and buried out there in the cemetery, that he had taken to be Nathalie Marsh—how then did she come to be walking down-stairs behind him, supported by that extraordinary man, Paul Wyndham?
The cathedral was quite deserted when they got down, and the sexton was just locking it up for the night. He stared a little at the three forms going by him; but he was an old man, with sight not so good as it might be, and he did not recognize them. They met no one within the inclosed grounds. At the side gate a cab stood waiting; Mr. Blake opened the door, and Mr. Wyndham helped in his silent companion, who yielded herself, "passive to all changes."
"Come with us, Blake," Mr. Wyndham said, as he entered and seated himself by the lady. "Rosebush Cottage, driver. Make haste!"
Not a word was spoken during the drive. The slight figure of the woman lay back in a corner, her head drooping against the side of the carriage. Paul Wyndham sat by her, looking at her often, but not addressing her; and Mr. Blake, in a hopeless morass of doubt and mystification, sat staring at the living ghost, and wondering when he was going to wake from his dream.
The distance was short. In ten minutes they stopped in front of the pretty cottage, from whose curtained windows a bright light shone. The roses in the garden were dead long ago, and only gaunt stalks and bare vines twined themselves, like ugly brown snakes, where the climbing roses grew. A queer figure stood at the gate—an ugly, dwarfed, and unwieldy figure, with a big head set on no neck at all, and a broad, florid face, and little pin-hole eyes. But the eyes were big enough to express a great deal of anxiety; and she flung the gate open and rushed out as the carriage door opened and Mr. Wyndham got out.
"Have you found her?" she cried. "Oh, dear! oh, dear! Where was she, now?"
Mr. Wyndham did not notice her.
"Get out, Blake," he said; and Midge recoiled with a cry of consternation at sight of Val's towering form. The next instant, he had lifted the lady out in his arms, as if she were a baby, and carried her within the gate. "Take her into the house," he said, sternly. "I shall talk to you about this again!"
Midge obeyed meekly—Val wondered as much at that meekness as at anything he had seen yet—and led the passive girlish creature into the house. Mr. Wyndham paid and dismissed the cabman, and held the gate open for Val.
"Come in, Blake," he said gravely; "the time has come when my secret can be no longer kept, and I would sooner tell it to you than to any other human being in existence."
"Tell me," said Val, finding voice for the first time, "is that really Nathalie Marsh?"
"She was Nathalie Marsh—she is Nathalie Wyndham now. She is my wife!"
Mr. Blake fairly gasped for breath.
"Your wife!" he exclaimed, "are you going mad, Mr. Wyndham? Olive is your wife!"
"No," said Paul Wyndham, with cold sternness, "she is not—she never has been. The compact I made with her was a formal matter of business, which gave me the right to dwell under the same roof with her, but never made me her husband. She and I understand each other perfectly. Nathalie is my wife—my dear and cherished wife, and was so before I ever came to Speckport."
"Then, Mr. Wyndham," said Val, with gravity, "you are a scoundrel!"
"Perhaps so. Come in."
Val Blake took off his hat and crossed the threshold of Rosebush Cottage for the first time since it was inhabited.
"And your mother was only a myth?" he asked, as Mr. Wyndham closed and locked carefully the front door.
"Only a myth. My mother is in Westchester County yet."
Val asked no more questions, but looked around him. The hall was long, with beautiful proof-engravings, and lit by pendant chandeliers. There was a door to either hand—Midge came out of the one to the left, still wearing that anxious face.
"Now, then," said Mr. Wyndham, sternly, "how did this happen?"
"It wasn't my fault," snapped Midge, her usual manner returning. "I did my best, and she'd behaved herself for so long, I'd no idee she was going to scud off again. The door wasn't open ten minutes, and I was out in the kitchen bakin' the pies, and when I came back she was gone. I put after her and met you, and I couldn't help it now; so talk's of no use. Where did you find her?"
"In the cathedral. She was speaking of it this morning, and asking me to take her there, so I knew she would make for that."
"What made you fetch him here?" inquired Midge, poking one stubby index-finger at Mr. Blake.
"He saw her and recognized her before I did. Get out of the way, Midge, we are going in."
Midge went away, snorting to herself, and Mr. Wyndham opened the door, and preceded Mr. Blake into the drawing-room of the cottage. Such a pretty drawing-room, lit by the rosy blaze of a clear coal-fire in a grate of shining steel, and pendent chandeliers of glittering glass and frosted silver. A small, high-ceilinged room, the walls hung with white and gold paperhangings, and adorned with perfect gems of art. The windows were draped in blue satin and white lace, and there was a Brussels carpet on the floor, where violets, and bluebells, and morning-glories ran wild on a white ground, and looked like pale spring flowers blooming in a snow bank. The chairs were of white enameled wood—the legs and back touched up with gold, and cushioned in blue satin. There were inlaid tables, laden with superbly bound books of beauty, annuals, albums, and portfolios of engravings; and a rosewood piano stood in one corner, with the music scattered about. There was an open door to the left, leading into a bed-room furnished in much the same style; but Val scarcely looked at it—all his attention was taken by the white girlish form lying back in a great carved and gilded chair in front of the fire. What a wreck she was! The transparent skin, the hollow cheeks, the sunken eyes, the wasted little hands, the shadowy figure—what a wreck of the blonde loveliness of other days. Her head lay back among the blue satin pillows, her hands dropped listless over the arms of the chair, and her eyes were fixed on the leaping jets of flame, in a meaningless stare. She never turned to look at them when they came in; she did not even turn when Val Blake crossed over and bent above her.
"Nathalie," he said, a little tremor in his voice; "Nathalie, don't you know me?"
She lifted her blue eyes vacantly to his face, murmured an inarticulate something, moved her head restlessly, and then went back to staring at the fire. Val rose up, white even to his lips.
"Wyndham, what is it?" he asked, afraid, while he spoke, to hear the answer. "Why does she look like that?"
Paul Wyndham was leaning against the mantel, his head drooping. Now he lifted it, and Val saw the dark despair that filled his eyes.
"Its meaning," he said, "has nearly broken my heart. If I have done wrong, I have been terribly punished, and even you, Blake, might be merciful now. My poor darling's mind is gone!"
There was a pause, a pause of mute consternation on Val's part. Mr. Wyndham bent over Nathalie, with that look of unspeakable tenderness that made his face something new to Val—a face entirely new.
"My darling, you are tired, I know," he said, "and want to go to bed. Don't you, Natty?"
The old name! It brought a pang to Val's heart to hear it. Paul Wyndham spoke to her as he would have spoken to a child of three years; and Val thought he would sooner she were indeed lying under the sods in the cemetery than see her as he saw her now—dead in life.
"Yes, Paul," she said, rising wearily, but at once.
"Or, perhaps," Mr. Wyndham said, looking at her thoughtfully, "you would like to sing before you go. You told me the other day, you know, you always slept better if you sang before going to bed."
"Oh, yes!" Nathalie said, her face lighting suddenly with animation. "What shall I sing, Paul?"
"Anything you like, my dearest."
He led her to the piano, and opened it, while she took her seat on the stool, and ran her fingers lightly over the keys at random. Val Blake closed his eyes to listen. How long—how long ago it seemed since he had heard Nathalie Marsh's melodious voice ringing through the cathedral-aisles! The thin fingers wandered off into a plaintive little prelude, that had something wild and melancholy in its wailing minor key. The song was as sadly-sweet as the air, and the voice that sung was full of pathos.
The song died out as mournfully as the last cadence of a funeral-hymn, and the pale singer arose.
"I am very tired, Paul," Nathalie said, in a spiritless sort of way, "and I think my head is aching. Tell Midge to come."
He rang the bell and put his arm round her to lead her away.
"Say good night to Mr. Blake, Nathalie. You remember Val Blake, don't you, my darling?"
"Yes," she said; but the smile she turned upon him was meaningless, and as cold as moonlight in snow. "Good-night!"
Something was choking Val's voice, and his answering good-night was very husky. Paul Wyndham led her into the inner room, and Midge bustled in after the old fashion, and Nathalie was left in her charge to be undressed for the night. Mr. Wyndham left the room and returned presently, bearing wine and cigars.
"If I am what you called me a while ago, Blake," Mr. Wyndham said, with a smile that had very much of sadness in it, "there are extenuating circumstances that may lighten my guilt."
"Wrong is wrong," said Mr. Blake, gravely, "and no extenuating circumstances can make it right. You are a bigamist, by your own confession, and you know how the civil law punishes that."
"Yes, Blake, I know it," said Mr. Wyndham, "and, knowing it, I have risked all to win her, my poor lost darling within that room! Heaven knows, I have hardly had a day's peace since. The broad road may be strewn with roses, as preachers say it is, but the thorns in the flowers sting very sharply sometimes, too."
Mr. Blake made no reply to this aphorism, he was lighting his cigar, with a listening face, waiting for the story his companion had to tell. Midge came out of the bed-room while he waited, threw more coal on the fire, and left the room. But still Paul Wyndham did not begin. He was smoking, and looking thoughtfully into the red fire and the falling cinders, and the ticking of an ormolu clock on the chimney-piece, and the dreary sighing of the night-wind without alone broke the silence. The clock struck eight, and Val lost patience.
"Well, Wyndham, why wait? Go on. I am waiting to hear this most extraordinary affair explained."
"You all here in Speckport thought Nathalie Marsh committed suicide—did you not?" said Mr. Wyndham, looking up. "It is such a charitable place this town of yours, and your good people are so wonderfully ready to place the worst construction on everything, that you never thought she might have fallen in by accident—did you?
"It looked very suspicious," said Val. "Heaven knows how some of us pitied her, poor girl! but still——"
"But still you gave her credit for suicide. Let me restore her character. She never for a moment thought of self-destruction. I have her own solemn word for it. She was heart-broken,—despairing—my own injured darling!—but all the teachings of her life told her suicide was the only crime for which God has no mercy. She never thought of suicide on the night she wandered down to the old wharf. Most miserable she was. Perhaps the wretched night was in harmony with her great trouble; but she did not go there to look for death. She missed her footing on the slimy, rotten plank, and fell in, and from that moment her story—as far as you know it—ends."
Val nodded. He was smoking, and it was too much trouble to remove the cigar to speak.
"She was saved almost by a miracle. A passing boat heard the splash and her cry for help, and rowed to the spot. They saw her as she arose, and saved her, and one man on board recognized her. The man's name was Captain Locksley. Do you remember it?"
"Locksley!" cried Val. "Captain Frank Locksley of the 'Southern Cross?' Know him? Yes, as well as I know you! He was over head and ears in love with Nathalie, himself."
"Yes, I know. He recognized her, and would have returned with her to the shore; but she positively refused to go. She would die, she cried out, if she did not get away from this horrible place. Captain Locksley took her on board of his ship. There was a woman there, the wife of the steward, and she took charge of the poor, deranged girl. Captain Locksley sailed that night. He was off on a three-years' voyage; but on his way he was to touch at New York. The evening before they reached that city, he made an offer of his hand to the poor girl he had saved. He knew her story. He loved her and pitied her; but she refused. She only wanted to be away from Speckport. She would remain in New York. One place was as good as another, and a great city the best of all; but her lot was dust and ashes. She would never marry, she told him. Captain Locksley had a cousin, the wealthy manager of a fashionable Broadway theater, and, as a favor, the manager consented to receive Nathalie into his corps. Her rôle was a very simple one—walking lady at first, coming on only to stare at the audience at first. But my poor girl's beauty, though the shadow only of the brightness that had been, made her rise. She took minor parts, and they made her sing when they found what a superb voice she possessed. Her voice, the manager told me once, might make her fortune—at least it would have made the fortune of any other woman; but my darling had lost life, and with it all ambition. She never would be a good actress, but the audience looked at her a great deal; and the mournful melody of her voice, whether she talked or sang, had a charm for all. It paid the manager; so he kept her, and doled out her weekly pittance, and she took it uncomplainingly. I have sometimes wondered since how it was no one from Speckport ever saw and recognized her; but, I dare say, if they did, they would merely set it down as an odd chance resemblance. They were all so certain of her death, and then the false name and the disguising stage-dresses helped to baffle them. It was at the theater I first met her. They took my dramas when I turned dramatist, and I was always there. She attracted me from the beginning. She interested me strongly the first time I saw her, and I found myself pitying her somehow without knowing anything about her. I could not cease thinking of her after. The pale face and mournful blue eyes haunted me wherever I went. I found out she was called Miss Johnson, and that she lodged in a shabby house in a shabby street; and that was all any one heard. But of my own knowledge I knew she was good and fair, and that great sorrow, not sin, had darkened her young life. Why it was I loved her, I never could tell. It way my fate, I suppose; for my struggles were vain, and only left me more helplessly entangled. The manager laughed at me; my friends talked of acts of lunacy and genteel private lunatic asylums for me; but it was all useless. I loved her, and was not to be laughed out of it, and one night the truth broke from me. I begged her to tell me who she was and to become my wife; but she refused. She refused, Blake, to do either; but she was very gentle and womanly saying the cruel words. She was very grateful to me, she said, my poor dear! but she could not be unjust enough to take me at my word. The fancy for her would soon leave me. She was not worthy to be the wife of any good man. I must forget her. I must never speak to her like this again. Blake, I went home that night in a sort of despair. I hated and despised myself for my pitiful weakness. I tried to conquer myself, and failed miserably. I could not stay away from the theater. I could not forget her. I could not do anything I ought to do. I went to the house where she lodged, and found out all they knew about her there. It was very little; but it was all good. I made the manager tell me again what his cousin, Captain Locksley, had told him of her, and I ascertained that Captain Locksley was an honorable and truthful man. He had said she had undergone a great deal of trouble, and had met with heavy reverse of fortune, but that she was the best and purest of beings, and he trusted his cousin would always be her true friend. He told him he had long loved her, and that he had asked her to be his wife, and she had refused. I knew, therefore, there was nothing worse than worldly misfortune in the past life of the woman I had loved. Once again I sought her out, and implored her to leave her hard life and be my wife, keeping her past life secret if she chose; and once again I was refused.
"After that second refusal," Mr. Wyndham said, throwing his smoked-out cigar in the fire, and lighting another, "I gave up hope entirely. There was such a steady, inflexible resolution on her poor, pale, worn face, that a despairing conviction of the uselessness of all further attempts came upon me. Still I could not go away—I despised myself for my pitiful weakness—but I could not, Blake, I could not! I loved her, and I was a weak, irresolute coward, and lingered about the theater only to get a word from her, a look at her, as she went past, or follow her at a distance through the city streets, to see that she got safely home. I despaired, but I could not fly. And one cold March morning, as I sat at the window of my hotel, staring dreamily out, she passed by; trying to fix my thoughts on the manuscript before me, and unable to think of anything but the pale actress, a waiter came in and handed me a letter. It was a very large letter, in a strange female hand I had never seen before; but I knew it was from her—my darling! I tore off the envelope; it contained half a dozen closely-written sheets, and was signed "Nathalie Marsh." I knew the actress only as Miss Johnson; but I never thought it was her real name. I knew now what it was. It was a very long letter; she told me where she came from, and why she was here, an actress. She told me her whole story; her sad, pitiful story of wrong and suffering; the fortune she had lost; the brother wrongfully condemned; and the treachery—the false, cruel, shameful treachery—of the man she had loved and trusted. She told me all, in a simple, truthful, earnest way that went to my heart; and then she told me her reasons for telling it. I was her only friend, she said. I had always been good and kind to her—my poor, little, forlorn lamb!—and she trusted and believed in me. She did not love me; she never could love any one again; but she honored and esteemed me, and if I could be content with that, she would be my wife—faithful and true until death—on one condition."
Paul Wyndham paused. He had been gazing dreamily into the fire whilst talking, but now he looked hesitatingly at Val Blake.
"I hardly know how to go on," he said, "without involving others, whom I have no right to name, but I must, I suppose; there is no alternative after the discovery you have made to-night. Another had become possessed of the fortune that should have been hers; a fortune that was hers by every law of right and justice. Another, who had no claim upon it, except, perhaps, that of mere chance—and the new heiress had been a fellow-lodger of hers in Minetta street. She was young and handsome, and had been a lady. I knew her by sight, for she had accompanied my darling often to the theater. She would go to Speckport; she would possess the thousands that should have been my Nathalie's—the fatal thousands for which her heart had been broken, her young life ruined. She would be honored and flattered and happy; she would marry, perhaps, the very man who had so wronged herself. He was a notorious fortune-hunter; she was sure he would be at her feet in a month, and was almost equally sure he would be accepted. She could not endure the thought—not that she loved him now—that had all gone long ago; but she wanted to baffle him, to make him suffer as he had made her suffer, and to possess after all a portion of the wealth which should have been all hers. She would be my wife, she said, if I would bring this about. She knew a secret in the life of this new heiress that placed her completely in her power, and she confided that secret to me. She would be my wife as soon as I pleased, if I would only help her in this scheme—if, after our marriage, I would go to Speckport, compel the heiress into a formal union with myself that should mean nothing but a business compact on either side, and so battle Captain Cavendish, and win for my lawful wife after all the fortune that was hers by right. You stare, Blake; it sounds very extraordinary and improbable, but it is the simple truth, nevertheless, and I saw no reason to see why it could not be carried out. The secret I held placed the heiress utterly in my power and would force her to comply with my every wish. Mind, Blake, it was not the sort of secret that causes divorce cases; it was a crime committed, no doubt; a crime of falsehood and ambition, not of shame, else that woman at Redmon would never for one poor instant, under any temptation whatever, have borne my name.
"I read the strange letter over a half a dozen times, and Val, old boy, I consented. You don't need to tell me how miserably weak and despicable it was. I know it all, and knew it then just as well. But I want you to think of me at my best. If the heiress had been a good woman, I would have lain down and died sooner than disturb her; but I knew she was not. I knew she was a bad, bold, crafty, ambitious creature, without a heart; with only a cold, calculating brain, capable of committing a great crime for her own ends; and I had no pity for her. I consented, for I loved my poor, pale girl with a passionate devotion you never can realize, and felt all her wrongs burning in my own breast, and longed to take them upon myself and go forth and avenge her. I did not know then, as I do now, that it was a diseased brain that prompted that letter. I did not know that reason had left her throne, with that constant brooding on one theme, and that my love was mad when she asked me to commit a crime. I did not know. I wrote her a long answer, promising anything, everything, if she would be my wife. My poor girl! My poor, poor Nathalie!"
Mr. Blake sat staring stoically at the coals, making no comment whatever on anything he heard, even when Paul Wyndham made that pause, with a face full of tender pity and love.
"We were married, Val," he said, looking up again, "and the month that followed was the happiest I ever knew. Our marriage was very recent, and I took my darling on a Southern tour, hoping that would make her forget the past and be happy. But it did not. Nothing could ever make her happy, she said, but seeing retribution fall on the unjust, and returning to her native town. Not openly, that was out of the question—but in secret, where she could know for herself that her wrongs had been avenged. So I left her in New York, and came here, and, Blake, you know the rest. I did frustrate that bad man, of whom I do not wish to speak since he is dead. I did marry the heiress, or we went through the ceremony that our friends took to be such. We understood each other perfectly from the first. I found her precisely what I had thought her—a bold, ambitious woman, reveling in wealth that was the birthright of another; ready to marry a man for whom she did not care a jot, because she hoped he would some day place a coronet on her head. I had little pity for such a woman, and besides, I was bound by a solemn promise to my dear one, who never would see me again if I failed. I married the heiress of Redmon, and had a legal right to share the wealth that should have been all my own true wife's. I purchased this cottage—I brought Nathalie here—I secured the services of her faithful old servant, and Speckport thought it was my sick mother!
"Very slowly some dim shadow of the truth came into my mind—very slowly—for I turned cold with horror only at the thought. Her mind was going—I saw it now—and the horror and anguish and despair of that discovery is known only to Heaven and myself. I had been so happy in spite of all—happy in this cottage with my darling wife—and now my punishment was coming, and was heavier than I could bear. My own act brought on the crisis. I was always urging her to let me take her out—I knew it would do her good; but she had such a dread of discovery that I never could persuade her. You remember the Sunday you saw us at the cathedral. She had often said she would like to go there, and that day I persuaded her to go, to hear the popular preacher. The sermon was a fearful one—you recollect it—and it completed the work remorse and suffering had begun. My wife was a hopeless lunatic from that day. O my love! my love! surely your punishment was greater than your sin!"
Val did not speak. The white anguish on Paul Wyndham's face was beyond all wordy consolation.
"It was after that she took to wandering out. She was haunted by one idea now—the sin she had committed against Olive; and tormented by a ceaseless desire to find her out, and kneel at her feet for forgiveness. She wandered to the Redmon road on the night you saw her first, with some such idea, and fled in terror at Laura's scream. Midge had followed and found her, and led her home. From that time, Midge had to watch her ceaselessly to keep her in; but sometimes, in spite of all, she would make her way out. She went to the cemetery to see her own grave, poor child! and Midge found her there, too; she went to the cathedral this evening in the same way. All the old familiar places drew her to them with an irresistible power of attraction, and I knew this discovery must come, sooner or later. I am deeply thankful you were the first to make it, for I can trust you, dear old Val! I dare not call in medical service, but I know her case is quite hopeless. She is never otherwise than gentle and patient—she is like a little child, and I know reason has gone forever. Blake, I know I have done wrong. I know I have deserved this, but it breaks my heart!"
"And this is the end of your story," said Val, looking at him with a stony face.
"This is the end—a pitiful story of weakness and wrong-doing, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Val, rising, and flinging his smoked-out cigar in the fire, "it is. A bad and cruel story as ever I heard. A story I never should have given you the credit of being the hero of, Paul Wyndham. You have profaned a holy rite—you have broken the laws of God and man—you have committed a felony, for which life-long imprisonment is the penalty. You are a bigamist, sir. The laws of this matter-of-fact land recognize no romantic glossing over of facts. You have married two wives—that humbug about one marriage meaning nothing, being only a business arrangement, is only bosh. You are a bigamist, Mr. Wyndham, and you cannot expect me to hoodwink your crime from the eyes of the land."
"No," said Mr. Wyndham, bitterly, "I expect nothing. You will turn Rhadamanthus, and have justice, though the heavens fall, I dare say. You will publish my misdoings on the house-tops, and at the street-corners. It will be a rare treat for Speckport, and Mr. Val Blake will awake all at once, and find himself famous!"
Mr. Blake listened with the same face of stone.
"I will do what is right and above-board, Mr. Wyndham. I will have no act or part in any plot as long as I live. The only one I ever had a hand in was that affair of Cherrie's, and I was sorry enough for that afterward. If Nathalie Marsh were my sister, I could scarcely care more for her than I do; but I tell you I would sooner know she was dead and buried out there, than living, and as she is. I am sorry for you, Mr. Wyndham, for I had some faith in you; but it is out of all reason to ask me to conceal such a crime as this."
"I ask for nothing," Paul Wyndham said, more in sorrow than in anger. "I am entirely at your mercy. Heaven knows it does not matter much what becomes of me, but it is hard to think of her name—my poor dear!—dragged through the slime of the streets."
Perhaps Val Blake was sorry for him in his secret heart—for it was a kindly heart, too, was Val's—but his face did not show it. He lifted his hat, and turned to go.
"I shall be as merciful as is compatible with justice," he said; "before I make this matter known to the proper authorities, you shall be warned. But there are others who must be told to-morrow. She must have medical advice at once, for she is evidently dying by inches; her mother must know, and—" His hand was on the lock of the door as he stopped, and faced round—"and the woman you have wronged. As to your secret power over her, you need not make such a mystery of it. I know what it is!"
"You!" Paul Wyndham said, turning his powerful gray eyes upon him. "You, Blake! Impossible!"
Mr. Blake nodded intelligently.
"She is not the true heiress! Ah! I see I am right! I have had reason to think so for some time past; but I never was sure until to-night. Oh, yes! I know the secret, and I know more. I think I can put my hand on one who is the heiress, before to-morrow's sun goes down."
There flashed through Paul Wyndham's mind what Olive had said, in that first stormy interview they had held, about the true heiress, who had made over to her the true estate. What if it had been true?
"Who is it?" he asked. "You cannot! She is dead!"
"Not a bit of it. She is worth half a dozen dead people yet! I shall see her to-morrow, and find out if I am not right."
"See her to-morrow! Then she is in Speckport?"
"To be sure she is! I will visit the other one, too—Harriet, you know. She must be told at once."
"You know her name! Blake, who has told you all this?"
"Not now!" said Val, opening the door; "some other time I will tell you. You are at liberty to make what use of your time you please. You have between this and to-morrow."
"I shall not make use of it to fly," said Mr. Wyndham, coolly; "whatever comes, I shall stay here and meet it. I have only one request to make—be as tender with that poor girl at Redmon as you can. I do not think she is happy, and I believe she is a far better woman than I took her to be. I am sorry for the wrong I have done her, but it is too late in the day for all that now. I do not ask you to spare me, but do spare her?"
"I shall not add to the truth—be sure of it. Good night!"
"Good night!" Paul Wyndham said, locking and closing the door after him, and returning to the room they had left. So it was all over, and the discovery he had dreaded and foreseen all along, had come at last. It was all over, and the scheme of his life was at an end. He had been happy here—oh, very, very happy! with the wife he loved, and who had trusted and clung to him, as a timid child does to a father. How often he had sat in this very room, reading to her dreamy, misty Shelley, or Byron, or Owen Meredith, and she had sat on a low stool at his feet, her blue eyes looking up in his face, her hazy gold hair rippling loose about her, like a cloud of sunlight, or with that golden head pillowed on his knee, while she dropped asleep in the blue summer twilight, listening. Yes, he had been unspeakably happy there, while some one had sat unthought of at Redmon, eating out her own heart in her grand miserable solitude. He had been very happy here; but it was all over now, and his life seemed closing black around him, like a sort of iron shroud. It would all pass, and he would exist for years, perhaps, yet, and eat, and drink, and sleep, and go on with the dull routine of existence, but his life was at an end. He had sinned, and the retribution that always follows sin in this world, or the next, had overtaken him. He had been happy here, but it was gone forever—nevermore to be—nevermore—nevermore!
In Mrs. Major Wheatly's pretty drawing-room in their new house in Golden Row sat Miss Winnie Rose, the governess. She is dressed in slight mourning, very simple, as becomes a governess, but fitting the small, light figure with exquisite neatness, and she is counting time for Miss Wheatly, who sits strumming out her music-lesson at the piano. Mrs. Wheatly lies on a sofa at the window, dawdling over a novel and looking listlessly at the passers-by, and wishing some one would call. She started up, thinking her mental prayer was granted, as a servant entered with a card. But it was not for her. It was handed to the governess.
"Mr. Blake!" said Miss Rose, hesitatingly. "This cannot be for me, Margaret."
"O yes'm, it is! He requested particularly to see Miss Rose."
"Is it Mr. Blake?" inquired Mrs. Wheatly. "What can he want with you, I wonder?"
Miss Rose smiled as she got up.
"I am sure I don't know. I may go down, I suppose?"
"Oh, certainly, my dear!" said Mrs. Wheatly, yawning. "And ask him if he has heard from his sister lately. Stop your strumming, Louisa, it makes my head ache."
Mr. Blake was sitting in what was called the morning-room, and shook hands with Miss Rose when she came in. But how strangely grave he was! What could he want with her? Her heart fluttered a little as she looked at him.
"My dear young lady!" he began, with an ominously grave face, "it is very serious business that brings me here this morning. Are you quite sure no one can overhear us?"
Awful beginning! The little governess turned pale as she listened.
"No one," she faltered. "What is it you mean, Mr. Blake?"
"My dear," said Mr. Blake, as if he were speaking to a young lady of ten years, "don't look so frightened. I want to ask you a question, and you must pardon me if it sounds impertinent. Is your name, your family-name, really Rose?"
The governess uttered a low cry, and covered her face with both hands.
"I am answered," said Val. "Your name is Henderson—Olive Henderson; and you should be heiress of Redmon, instead of—of the person whose name is Harriet, and who reigns there now. Oh, my dear young lady, how is this? Is there no one in the world to be trusted?"
She rose from her seat suddenly, and sank on her knees at his feet with a gushing sob.
"I have done wrong," she cried, "for all deceit is wrong; and though Rose is my name, it is not my father's. But oh, Mr. Blake! if you only knew all, I don't think you would blame me so much. It was not I who changed it. It has been the name by which I have gone for years, and I could not resume my rightful one without suspicion and explanation that involved the honor of the dead; and so I was silent. No one was wronged by it—no one in the wide world; and I did not think it so very wrong."
She sobbed out as she spoke, in a sudden outbreak of distress. Val stooped kindly and raised her up.
"My dear child, I only doubted you for a moment. You are too good to willfully deceive any one to their harm. But you must calm yourself and listen to me; for right must be done to all. Who is that woman at Redmon? Is she your stepsister?"
The governess's only reply was to clasp her hands piteously.
"Oh, Mr. Blake, what have you done? How have you found this out? Oh, I am so sorry, so very sorry; for you don't know the misery you will make!"
"Misery! Do you mean to yourself?"
"No, no! but to her. Poor Harriet! Oh, Mr. Blake, who can have told you this?"
"Sit down and calm yourself, my dear Miss Rose, and you shall hear all. Do you recollect one day, very shortly after your return here, visiting Miss Henderson at her cottage down the street here?"
"Yes, yes."
"You and she had along conversation in her chamber that day, part of which was overheard. Miss Catty Clowrie was in the house at the time, and she overheard—how, I don't pretend to say; but she heard enough to excite her suspicions that all was not as it should be. She heard you addressed as 'Olly', and heard you call Miss Henderson 'Harriet.' She saw her down on her knees before you, pleading desperately for something, Miss Clowrie could not quite make out what; and she heard you promise to comply with her request, on condition of her paying over to Mrs. Marsh a certain annuity. All this looked very odd, you know; and Miss Clowrie, who is a good deal of an attorney, they tell me, scented a criminal case. She consulted with her father on the subject, and was overheard by her brother Jacob, who is in my office. Jake communicated the story next morning in confidence to Bill Blair, and Bill related it in confidence to me. I cross-questioned Jake, and got out of him all he knew, and then pooh-poohed the story, and told them Catty must have been dreaming. But the annuity was paid, and I suspected the whole thing at once. It was none of my business, however, so I held my tongue; and as Mr. and Miss Clowrie hadn't facts enough to go upon, they held theirs, too, and waited for something to turn up. There is the story to you, Miss Rose; and now why on earth, if you are the true Olive Henderson, have you slaved here as a governess, while you let another, who had no right, usurp your place and wealth?"
The governess lifted her head with some spirit.
"It is no slavery, Mr. Blake! They are very kind to me here, Mr. Blake, and I have every reason to be happy; and Harriet has a right, a strong right, which I never mean to dispute, to possess whatever belongs to me. She is no usurper, for I have made over to her fully and sincerely the legacy bequeathed to Philip Henderson.
"I understand. You are very generous and self-sacrificing, Miss Rose—but still she has no right there, and—" But Miss Rose interrupted, clasping her hands in passionate appeal.
"Oh, Mr. Blake, what are you going to do? Oh, I entreat of you, if you have any regard for me or poor Harriet, not to reveal what you know. Indeed, indeed, I don't want it! What should I do with half that money? I have everything I want, and am as happy as the day is long. Do you think I could ever be happy again if I turned poor Harriet out; do you think I could ever live in that grand place, knowing I had made her miserable for life? Oh, no, Mr. Blake! You are good and kind-hearted, and would not make any one unhappy, I know! Then let things go on as they are; and don't say anything about this?"
"But I cannot, my dear little martyr!" said Val, "and I must speak of it to her, at least, because it is involved in another story she must hear."
"In another story?"
"Yes, Miss Rose—for I suppose I must still call you by that name—in another story, stranger than anything you ever heard out of a novel. A cruel and shameful story of wrong and revenge, that I have come here to tell you this morning, and to which all this has been but the preface."
The governess lifted her pale, wondering face in mute inquiry, and Val began the story Paul Wyndham had related the night before. The brown eyes of the little governess dilated, and her lips parted as she listened, but she never spoke or interrupted him until he had finished. She sat with her clasped hands in her lap, her eyes never leaving his face, her lips apart and breathless.
"So you see, Miss Rose," Val wound up, "in telling that unfortunate girl at Redmon that she is not, and never has been, legally the wife of Paul Wyndham, it is of absolute impossibility to shirk the other story. Had she never falsely possessed herself of that to which she had no claim, this dishonor would have been saved her. She might have been poor, but not disgraced, as she is now."
"Oh, Mr. Blake! what have I heard? Nathalie Marsh alive and here?"
"Not Nathalie Marsh—Nathalie Wyndham. Whatever your stepsister may be, Nathalie at least is his lawful wife!"
"Oh, my poor, poor, Nathalie! And is she really insane—hopelessly insane?"
"Hopelessly, I fear, but she does not look as if her life would last long. She is only the shadow of what she was—a poor, thin, frail shadow.
"And Harriet, who is so proud, what will she say when this is told her? Oh, how could Mr. Wyndham do her such a wrong? It was cruel! it was unmanly!"
"So it was," nodded Val, "and it's not like him, either; for Wyndham is a pretty honorable fellow, as the world goes. But man, even at the best," said Mr. Blake, modestly, thinking of his own short-comings, "is weak, and temptation is strong. I think he is sorry enough for it now—not selfishly sorry, either. And now, Miss Rose, what I want is this. I know you are a sort of unprofessed Sister of Charity where the sick are concerned, and you and poor Natty used to be friends. I want to know if you will come and stay with her for awhile; she hasn't a soul of the female kind but Midge. If Joanna were here, I wouldn't have to trouble you; but in her absence you are the only one I can think of. Of course, her mother must go; but poor Mrs. Marsh is of no more use in a sick room than a big wax doll. She will play propriety while you stay."
"Yes, yes; I will go at once!" exclaimed Miss Rose, starting up in womanly impulsiveness. "Wait one moment while I run and tell Mrs. Wheatly."
"Oh, there's no such hurry! It will do this afternoon, when I will call for you, with Mrs. Marsh. Don't tell Mrs. Wheatly who it is you are going to see, mind—the secret will get out, of course, but we don't want everybody to know it just yet."
"I will not tell. What time will you call?"
"About three. I am going to Redmon now. She ought to know at once!"
"My poor, poor Harriet! Oh, Mr. Blake! She is so proud and sensitive. You will spare her as much as you can?"
Mr. Blake took the two little clasped hands between his own broad palms, and looked down kindly in the pale, pleading face.
"I think I could spare my worst enemy if you pleaded for him, my little friend. Don't be afraid of me, Miss Winnie. I don't think it is in me to strike a fallen foe—and that poor girl at Redmon never injured me. Good-bye, until then!"
Mr. Blake's composure, as we know, was not easily disturbed; but he rang the bell at Redmon with much the same sensation a miserable sufferer from toothache rings at a dentist's door.
Yes, Mrs. Wyndham was in, the servant said, taking the visitor's card and ushering him into the library, where a bright fire blazed, for the lady of Redmon liked fires. Val sat and stared at it, wondering how he would begin his disagreeable task, and how she would take it.
"She's such a flarer anyway!" thought Mr. Blake, "that I dare say she'll fly out at me like a wildcat! What a mess it is! I wish I never had got into it!"
The door opened while he was thinking, and Olive came in. She was dressed in a loose morning negligee, every fold showing how indifferently her toilet had been made. Val saw, too, how pale, and wan, and weary her dark face looked; how hollow, and earthen, and melancholy her large black eyes. She had had her own share of the suffering, and her pride and haughty defiance seemed subdued now.
"Does she know already?" wondered Val; "if not, why does she look like that? Have you been ill, Mrs. Wyndham?" he asked, aloud.
"Oh, no," she said, drearily; "but I have not been out much of late, and so have got low-spirited, I suppose. This wretched autumn weather, too, always makes me dismal."
"How shall I begin?" thought Val, staring moodily in the fire. But the cheering blaze gave forth no answer, and it was Olive herself who broke the ice.
"Has anything happened, Mr. Blake, to make you wear that serious face? Mr. Wyndham——"
She paused—her voice quivering a little. Val looked up.
"Mr. Wyndham is at Rosebush Cottage," he said. "Did you know it?"
"I thought he was. It is three days since he was here."
The tremor was in her voice again.
"What does it mean, at all?" thought Val; "it can't be that she cares for the fellow, surely!"
"Is his mother worse, do you know?" she asked, her spirit rebelling against the question her torturing anxiety forced from her.
"Now it is coming!" thought Val; "bless my soul! but it is hard to get out! It sticks in my throat like Macbeth's amen! Madam," he said, aloud, facing round and plunging into the icy shower-bath at once, "there has been a terrible mistake, which only came to my knowledge last night. A great wrong has been done you by Mr. Wyndham, and it is to inform you of it I have come here to-day."
Her pale face turned blood-red, and then ghastly white.
"You need not tell me," she cried, "I know it! She is not his mother!"
"She is not!" said Val, very much surprised; "but how in the world did you find it out?"
She did not speak. She sat looking at him with a dreadful fixed stare.
"Tell me all," she said; "tell me all! Who is she?"
"She is his wife! I don't think you can know that. He was a married man before he ever saw you here."
A low cry of despair broke from Olive's white lips. This was not what she had expected—at the worst, she had never thought of this.
"His wife!" she cried, "and what, then, am I?"
Val sat dumb. It was not a very pleasant question to answer; and, to tell the truth, he was more than a little afraid of the lightning flashing from those midnight eyes.
"What am I?" she repeated, in a voice almost piercing in its shrillness. "What am I? If she is his wife, what am I?"
"My dear madam, it is a most wicked affair from beginning to end, and you have been most shamefully duped. Believe me, I pity you from the very bottom of my heart."
With a cry that Val Blake never forgot, in its broken-hearted anguish and despair, she dropped down on the sofa, and buried her face among the pillows, as if she would have shut out the world and its miseries, as she did the sight of the man before her.
Mr. Blake, not knowing any panacea for misery such as this, and fearing to turn consoler, lest he should make a mess of it, did the very best thing he could have done, let it alone, and began the story he had to tell. So, lying there in her bitter humiliation, this woman heard that her miserable secret was a secret no longer, and that the pale, silent actress of Mrs. Butterby's lodgings had been Nathalie Marsh, and was now Paul Wyndham's beloved wife. That was the misery—she scarcely heeded, in the supreme suffering of that thought, the discovery of her own trickery and deceit—she only knew that the man she had thought her husband, and who, in spite of herself, she had learned to love, had cruelly and shamefully deceived her. She had never for one poor moment been his wife, never for an instant had a right to his name; she was only the poor despised tool, whom he used at the bidding of the wife he loved. The horrible agony she suffered lying there, and thinking of those things, no human pen can tell—no heart conceive.
Mr. Blake rose up when he finished his narrative, thankful it was over. She had never moved or spoken all the time, but he knew she had heard him, and he paused, with his hand on the door, to make a last remark.
"I beg, my dear young lady, you will not be overcome by this unfortunate affair. It will be kept as close as possible, and you need not be disturbed in the possession of Redmon, since such is Miss Rose's wish. I have done my duty in telling you, though the duty has been a very unpleasant one, good-morning, madam."
She never moved. Val looked at the prostrate figure with a vague uneasiness, and remembered it was just such women as this that swallowed poison, or went down to the river and drowned themselves. He thought of it all the way to Mrs. Marsh's, growing more and more uneasy all the time.
"Oh, hang it," thought Mr. Blake, "I wish Paul Wyndham had been at Jericho before I ever got mixed up in his dirty doings. If that black-eyed young woman goes and does something desperate, I shall feel as if I had a hand in her death. I am always getting into other people's scrapes, somehow! I suppose it's my luck!"
Val knocked at the cottage door, and was admitted to the pleased presence of Mrs. Marsh. And to her, once again, the story of plot and counterplot had to be told; but it was a long time before she could quite comprehend it. She cried a good deal when she fully took in the sense of the thing, said she wondered at Mr. Wyndham, and thought it was dreadful to have Nathalie restored, only to find she was out of her mind. She wanted to go to her at once, she said—poor dear Natty! and so Mr. Blake went for a cab without more ado, and found Mrs. Marsh shawled and bonneted, and all ready, upon his return. They drove up Golden Row and stopped at Mrs. Wheatly's for Miss Rose, whom Val handed in, in a few minutes, and then packed himself up beside the driver.
Midge opened the door of Rosebush Cottage to the visitors, and stared aghast upon seeing who they were.
"Is Mr. Wyndham in?" asked Val.
Midge nodded, and jerked her head toward the room he had been in the preceding night, and, unconscious Val tapped at it, and then walked in, followed by the two ladies.
Paul Wyndham stood up as they entered, pale and quiet as ever. Nathalie, wrapped in a loose white morning-dress, lay on a lounge, a pile of pillows under her head, and a mingled odor of vinegar and cologne and a number of saturated cloths showed he had been bathing her forehead when they came in. Mrs. Marsh never noticed him, but fell down on her knees beside the lounge, in an outburst of motherly grief and joy, raining kisses on the feverish face. Alas! that now-flushed, feverish face! the cheeks crimson, the forehead shining, and burning with raging fever, the golden hair all tossed and disordered over the pillows, and the hot, restless head turning ceaselessly from side to side, vainly trying to cool its fire. The blue eyes shone with fever's luster; but no light of recognition came into them at her mother's passionate words and kisses. Miss Rose, throwing off her hat and mantle, knelt beside her and dipped the cloths in vinegar and water, and laid them on the burning brow of the poor stricken girl. Val looked inquiringly at Mr. Wyndham.
"She must have taken cold last evening in the church," he answered, in a low tone; "she became delirious in the night, and has continued so ever since."
"I'll be off for the doctor at once," said Val, briskly; "she's in a bad way, I know. I'll fetch Dr. Leach, he was their family physician, and won't tell."
Energetic Mr. Blake stalked out of the room without more ado. Paul Wyndham followed him to the door.
"They know?" he inquired, motioning toward the room they had quitted.
"All about it," said Val, "and so does that unhappy young woman at Redmon, and if she doesn't commit suicide before night it will be a mercy. And oh, Wyndham, by the way, you had better not show yourself. It isn't a very creditable affair, you know, to any of the parties concerned, and the best atonement you can make is to keep out of sight."
He strode off, without waiting for a reply, in search of Dr. Leach, and had the good fortune to find that gentleman taking his dinner. Mr. Blake hurried him through that meal with little regard to calm digestion, and on the road had to relate, for the fourth time, the story, of which he was by this time heartily sick.
Dr. Leach listened like a man who cannot believe his own ears.
"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "is it a story out of the Arabian Nights you are telling me? Nathalie Marsh alive, and Mr. Wyndham's wife! The mother all a hoax, and the young woman at Redmon a—what is she, Blake?"
"Blamed if I know!" replied Mr. Blake; "but, whatever she is, Nathalie was the first wife. It's a very uncommon story, but it is true as preaching for all that, only I am getting tired of telling it so often."
"Well, well, well! Wonders will never cease! Natty returned to life, Cherrie back in Speckport, and Charley coming! Why, Val, we will have the old merry time all over again before long."
"I am afraid not! I am afraid poor Nathalie is beyond even your skill, doctor. She was almost at death's door before, and this fever will finish her."
Mr. Wyndham was not in the room when the doctor and Val returned. Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose were still keeping cooling applications to the hot forehead, but nothing could cool the fever that consumed her. Val drew Miss Rose aside as the doctor bent over his patient.
"Where is Wyndham?" he asked.
"I don't know. He has not been here since you left."
"What do you think of her?" nodding toward the fever-stricken girl on the lounge.
The governess, whose experience among the sick poor made her no unskillful leech, looked out of the window through a mist of tears.
"We have found her to lose her again, I fear. Look at Dr. Leach's face! Can you not read his verdict there?"
The old physician certainly was looking seriously grave, and shook his head at Mrs. Marsh's eager questioning.
"We must hope for the best, ma'am, and do what we can. The result is in the hands of Providence."
"Then you think there is danger, doctor?" said Val, coming forward.
"Imminent danger, sir! It is typhoid fever, and a very serious case, too. A strong constitution would stand a chance, but she has no constitution at all. Gone, sir! gone! she is as feeble as an infant."
"Then there is no hope at all?"
"None!" replied Dr. Leach, solemnly; "she will never leave this room alive. And better so, better so than as she was."
"Yes," said Val, sadly; "it is better as it is! My dear Mrs. Marsh, don't distress yourself so. Think that her mind is entirely gone, and never could be restored, I believe, and you will be thankful that her earthly troubles are so nearly ended."
Dr. Leach was giving directions in a low tone to Miss Rose, and Val, at his desire, lifted the slight form of the sufferer in his strong arms, carried her into the inner room, and laid her on the bed.
"I will call in again before night," said the doctor. "Remember my directions, Miss Rose. Come, Blake; you're going, I suppose?"
"Yes; in a moment. I want to see Wyndham."
Paul Wyndham was walking up and down the hall as they came out, his pale face expressive of but one thing—intensest anxiety. Dr. Leach, with a stiff bow, passed on and went out, but Val halted.
"Well?" Mr. Wyndham asked, eagerly.
"No hope," said Val; "no earthly power can save her. It's typhoid—the most malignant kind. She will die, thank God!"
Paul Wyndham leaned against the wall and covered his face, with a bitter groan.
"As to you," pursued Val, sternly, "you must leave this house at once, and enter it no more. Do not forget that we are acting criminally in screening you from the law, and that we can enforce our commands. Go at once, and do not come here again until all is over!"
He left the house as he spoke, and joined the doctor, who had gained the highroad. Some people passing stared to see them coming from Rosebush Cottage, and surmised Mr. Wyndham's mad mother must be worse than ever.
"How long can she last, doctor?" Val asked, before they parted.
"Not over two weeks, I fancy, at the most. This fever will carry her off at once."
Late in the evening Dr. Leach returned, and found Nathalie worse. Mr. Wyndham had left the cottage, after taking one last look at the wife he loved so passionately. The agony in his face had gone to Mrs. Marsh's heart, and she cried now, as she spoke of it to the doctor.
"Yes, I dare say," the old man returned, shortly, "he's very sorry, no doubt, but he's a villain for all that; and, only for poor Natty's sake, I'd have him arrested for bigamy this minute!"
Miss Rose did not go home that night; she would never leave Nathalie now. She sent a note to Mrs. Wheatly by the doctor, explaining that it was a case of typhoid, and that she feared to bring the infection into the family. All further explanation she left to the doctor, only desiring that her clothes might be sent to her. Mrs. Marsh dispatched a similar message to Betsy Ann, and before night everybody knew that Mr. Wyndham's mother was very bad, that Dr. Leach and Val Blake had been there, and that Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose were staying to take care of her.
And what did Speckport say to all this? Oh, Speckport had a great deal to say, and surmise, and inquire. How was it, Speckport wanted to know, in the first place, that Mrs. Marsh and Miss Rose should be especially selected as the sick woman's nurses? To which Dr. Leach replied that Miss Rose, being such a capital hand at the business, and so fond of it into the bargain, he thought that there was no one in the town so fitted for the task; and Mrs. Marsh, having nothing else to do, could play propriety and read novels there as well as in Cottage Street. What was Mr. Wyndham's mother like, was she a violent lunatic, and was her present disease infectious? Speckport further inquired. To which Dr. Leach said, Mrs. Wyndham was the wreck of a very handsome woman, that she was not violent, only imbecile, and that her fever was highly infectious, and made it extremely dangerous for any one but the physician and nurses to enter the house; on which account Mr. Wyndham would absent himself from Redmon, and Mrs. Olive from Rosebush Cottage, until all was over. After which ominous phrase the doctor would hurry away, and Speckport was satisfied.
Mr. Blake, to be consistent, took up his quarters elsewhere, and visited the cottage every day to inquire. Paul Wyndham, who was stopping at the Farmer's Hotel, very near the cottage, came two or three times a day to ask, but no one invited him to enter, and a sense of honor forbade his intruding. The answer to all inquiries was continually the same, "No better." No, Nathalie was no better—never would be better in this world! She lay tossing on her feverish bed, raving wildly, consumed with burning heat, never resting night or day. All the scenes of her life were acted over again in that burning chasm. Now she babbled of her schoolgirl-days, her mathematics and her music, or berrying and nutting frolics with Charley. Now she was with Captain Cavendish, loving and trusting and happy; and now she was shrieking out again that she saw the murdered woman, and covering her eyes to shut out the ghastly sight. Now the days of her misery had come; now she was at sea with Captain Locksley, and in the New York lodging-house; now on the stage, making rambling, incoherent speeches, and singing stage-songs. Now she was with Paul Wyndham, his wife; now she was in the cathedral listening to the stern preacher. And here she would shriek out, and toss her arms wildly, and ask them to take her to Redmon, that she must tell her all—she must! she must! And Miss Rose and her mother would have to hold her down by force to prevent her from rising from the bed in her excitement, and soothe her with promises that she should go there—only to wait a little while. And the poor sufferer would fall back exhausted, and perhaps go back to the old days when she played with Charley, a child.