I have been reading over the record I have written of my life, which has been made with care and a strict adherence to the truth. I am at the present hour sitting alone in the house I have taken and furnished, and to which I hope shortly to bring my beloved Lauretta as my wife. The writing of this record from time to time has grown into a kind of habit with me, and there are occasions in which I have been greatly interested in it myself. Never until this night have I read the record from beginning to end, and I have come to a resolution to discontinue it. My reason is a sufficient one, and as it concerns no man else, no man can dispute my right to make it.
My resolution is, after to-morrow, to allow my new life, soon to commence, to flow on uninterruptedly without burdening myself with the labour of putting into writing the happy experiences awaiting me. I shall be no longer alone; Lauretta will be by my side; I should begrudge the hours which deprived me of her society.
Another thing. I must have no secrets from her; and much that here is recorded should properly be read by no eye than mine. Lauretta's nature is so gentle, her soul so pure, that it would distress her to read these pages. This shall not be. I recognise a certain morbid vein in myself which the continuing of this record might magnify into a disease. It presents itself to me in the light of guarding myself against myself, by adopting wise measures to foster cheerfulness. That my nature is more melancholy than cheerful is doubtless to be ascribed to the circumstances of my child-life, which was entirely devoid of light and gaiety. This must not be in the future; I have a battle to fight, and I shall conquer because Lauretta's happiness is on the issue.
It will, however, be as well to make the record complete in a certain sense, and I shall therefore take note of certain things which have occurred since my conversation with Pierre in his cell. That done, I shall put these papers aside in a secret place, and shall endeavour to forget them. My first thought was to destroy the record, but I was influenced in the contrary direction by the fact that my first meeting with Lauretta and the growth of my love for her are described in it. First impressions jotted down at the time of their occurrence have a freshness about them which can never be imparted by the aid of memory, and it may afford me pleasure in the future to live over again, through these pages, the sweet days of my early intimacy with my beloved girl. Then there is the strange story of Kristel and Silvain, which undoubtedly is worth preserving.
First, to get rid of the miserable affair of the attempt to rob Doctor Louis's house. Pierre was tried and convicted, and has paid the penalty of his crime. His belief in the possession of a soul could not, after all, have had in it the spirit of sincerity; it must have been vaunted merely in pursuance of his cunning endeavours to escape his just punishment; otherwise he would have confessed before he died. Father Daniel, the good priest, did all he could to bring the man to repentance, but to the last he insisted that he was innocent. It was strange to me to hear Father Daniel express himself sympathetically towards the criminal.
"He laboured, up to the supreme moment," said the good priest, in a compassionate tone, "under the singular hallucination that he was going before his Maker guiltless of the shedding of blood. So fervent and apparently sincere were his protestations that I could not help being shaken in my belief that he was guilty."
"Then you believe in demons?" I remarked, amazed at this weakness.
"Not in the sense," said Father Daniel, "that the unhappy man would have had me believe. Reason rejects his story as something altogether too incredulous; and yet I pity him."
I did not prolong the discussion with the good priest; it would have been useless, and, to Father Daniel, painful. We looked at the matter from widely different standpoints. Intolerance warps the judgment; no less does such a life as Father Daniel has lived, for ever seeking to find excuses for error and crime, for ever seeking to palliate a man's misdeeds. Sweetness of disposition, carried to extremes, may degenerate into positive mental feebleness; to my mind this is the case with Father Daniel. He is not the kind who, in serious matters, can be depended upon for a just estimate of human affairs.
Eric and Emilius, after a longer delay than Doctor Louis anticipated, have taken up their residence in Nerac. They paid two short visits to the village, and I was in hopes each time upon their departure that they had relinquished their intention of living in Nerac. I did not give expression to my wish, for I knew it was not shared by any member of Doctor Louis's family.
It is useless to disguise that I dislike them, and that there exists between us a certain antipathy. To be just, this appears to be more on my side than on theirs, and it is not in my disfavour that the feelings I entertain are nearer the surface. Doctor Louis and the ladies entertain a high opinion of them; I do not; and I have already some reason for looking upon them with a suspicious eye. This reason I will presently explain.
When we were first introduced it was natural that I should regard them with interest, an interest which sprang from the story of their father's fateful life. They bear a wonderful resemblance to each other they are both fair, with tawny beards, which it appears to me they take a pride in shaping and trimming alike; their eyes are blue, and they are of exactly the same height. Undoubtedly handsome men, having in that respect the advantage of me, who, in point of attractive looks, cannot compare with them. They seem to be devotedly attached to each other, but this may or may not be. So were Silvain and Kristel until a woman stepped between them and changed their love to hate. Before I came into personal relationship with Eric and Emilius I made up my mind to distrust appearances and to seek for evidence upon which to form an independent judgment. Some such evidence has already come to me, and I shall secretly follow it up.
They are on terms of the most affectionate intimacy with Doctor Louis and his family, and both Lauretta and Lauretta's mother take pleasure in their society; Doctor Louis, also, in a lesser degree. Women are always more effusive than men.
They are not aware of the relations which bind me to the village. That they may have some suspicion of my feelings for Lauretta is more than probable, for I have seen them look from her to me and then at each other, and I have interpreted these looks. It is as if they said, "Why is this stranger here? He is usurping our place." I have begged Doctor Louis to allow me to speak openly to Lauretta, and he has consented to shorten the period of silence to which I was pledged. I have his permission to declare my love to his daughter to-morrow. There are no doubts in my mind that she will accept me; but therearedoubts that if I left it too late there would be danger that her love for me would be weakened. Yes, although it is torture to me to admit it I cannot rid myself of this impression. How would this be effected and by whom? By these brothers, Eric and Emilius, and by means of misrepresentations to my injury. I have no positive data to go upon, but I am convinced that they have an aversion towards me, and that they are in their hearts jealous of me. The doctor is blind to their true character; he believes them to be generous and noble-minded, men of rectitude and high principle. They are not so. I have the evidence of my senses in proof of it.
So much have I been disturbed and unhinged by my feelings towards these brothers--feelings which I have but imperfectly expressed--that latterly I have frequently been unable to sleep. Impossible to lie abed and toss about for hours in an agony of unrest; therefore I chose the lesser evil, and resumed the nocturnal wanderings which was my habit in Rosemullion before the death of my parents. These nightly rambles have been taken in secret, as in the days of my boyhood, and I mused and spoke aloud as was my custom during that period of my life. But I had new objects to occupy me now--the home in which I hoped to enjoy a heaven of happiness, with Lauretta its guiding star, and all the bright anticipations of the future. I strove to confine myself to these dreams, which filled my soul with joy, but there came to me always the figures of Eric and Emilius, dark shadows to threaten my promised happiness.
Last week it was, on a night in which I felt that sleep would not be mine if I sought my couch; therefore, earlier than usual--it was barely eleven o'clock--I left the house, and went into the woods. Martin Hartog and his fair daughter were in the habit of retiring early and rising with the sun, and I stole quietly away unobserved. At twelve o'clock I turned homewards, and when I was about a hundred yards from my house I was surprised to hear a low murmur of voices within a short distance of me. Since the night on which I visited the Three Black Crows and saw the two strangers there who had come to Nerac with evil intent, I had become very watchful, and now these voices speaking at such an untimely hour thoroughly aroused me. I stepped quietly in their direction, so quietly that I knew I could not be heard, and presently I saw standing at a distance of ten or twelve yards the figures of a man and a woman. The man was Emilius, the woman Martin Hartog's daughter.
Although I had heard their voices before I reached the spot upon which I stood when I recognised their forms, I could not even now determine what they said, they spoke in such low tones. So I stood still and watched them and kept myself from their sight. I may say honestly that I should not have been guilty of the meanness had it not been that I entertain an unconquerable aversion against Eric and Emilius. I was sorry to see Martin Hartog's daughter holding a secret interview with a man at midnight, for the girl had inspired me with a respect of which I now knew she was unworthy; but I cannot aver that I was sorry to see Emilius in such a position, for it was an index to his character and a justification of the unfavourable opinion I had formed of him and Eric. Alike as they were in physical presentment, I had no doubt that their moral natures bore the same kind of resemblance. Libertines both of them, ready for any low intrigue, and holding in light regard a woman's good name and fame. Truly the picture before me showed clearly the stuff of which these brothers are made. If they hold one woman's good name so lightly, they hold all women so. Fit associates, indeed, for a family so pure and stainless as Doctor Louis's!
This was no chance meeting--how was that possible at such an hour? It was premeditated. Theirs was no new acquaintanceship; it must have lasted already some time. The very secrecy of the interview was in itself a condemnation.
Should I make Doctor Louis acquainted with the true character of the brothers who held so high a place in his esteem? This was the question that occurred to me as I gazed upon Emilius and Martin Hartog's daughter, and I soon answered it in the negative. Doctor Louis was a man of settled convictions, hard to convince, hard to turn. His first impulse, upon which he would act, would be to go straight to Emilius, and enlighten him upon the discovery I had made. And then? Why, then, Emilius would invent some tale which it would not be hard to believe, and make light of a matter I deemed so serious. I should be placed in the position of an eavesdropper, as a man setting sly watches upon others to whom, from causeless grounds, I had taken a dislike. I should be at a disadvantage. Whatever the result one thing was certain--that I was a person capable not only of unreasonable antipathies but of small meannesses to which a gentleman would not descend. The love which Doctor Louis bore to Silvain, and which he had transferred to Silvain's children, was not to be easily turned; and at the best I should be introducing doubts into his mind which would reflect upon myself because of the part of spy I had played. No; I decided for the present at least, to keep the knowledge to myself.
As to Martin Hartog, though I could not help feeling pity for him, it was for him, not me, to look after his daughter. From a general point of view these affairs were common enough.
I seemed to see now in a clearer light the kind of man Silvain was--one who would set himself deliberately to deceive where most he was trusted. Honour, fair dealing, brotherly love, were as nought in his eyes where a woman was concerned, and he had transmitted these qualities to Eric and Emilius. My sympathy for Kristel was deepened by what I was gazing on; more than ever was I convinced of the justice of the revenge he took upon the brother who had betrayed him.
These were the thoughts which passed through my mind while Emilius and Martin Hartog's daughter stood conversing. Presently they strolled towards me, and I shrank back in fear of being discovered. This involuntary action on my part, being an accentuation of the meanness of which I was guilty, confirmed me in the resolution at which I had arrived to say nothing of my discovery to Doctor Louis.
They passed me in silence, walking in the direction of my house. I did not follow them, and did not return home for another hour.
How shall I describe the occurrences of this day, the most memorable and eventful in my life? A new life is opening for me. I am overwhelmed at the happiness which is within my grasp. As I walked home from Doctor Louis's house through the darkness a spirit walked by my side, illumining the gloom and filling my heart with gladness.
At one o'clock I presented myself at Doctor Louis's house. He met me at the door, expecting me, and asked me to come with him to a little room he uses as a study. I followed him in silence. His face was grave, and but for its kindly expression I should have feared it was his intention to revoke the permission he had given me to speak to his daughter on this day of the deep, the inextinguishable love I bear for her. He motioned me to a chair, and I seated myself and waited for him to speak.
"This hour," he said, "is to me most solemn."
"And to me, sir," I responded.
"It should be," he said, "to you perhaps, more than to me; but we are inclined ever to take the selfish view. I have been awake very nearly the whole of the night, and so has my wife. Our conversation--well, you can guess the object of it."
"Lauretta, sir."
"Yes, Lauretta, our only child, whom you are about to take from us." I trembled with joy, his words betokening a certainty that Lauretta loved me, an assurance I had yet to receive from her own sweet lips. "My wife and I," he continued, "have been living over again the life of our dear one, and the perfect happiness we have drawn from her. I am not ashamed to say that we have committed some weaknesses during these last few hours, weaknesses springing from our affection for our Home Rose. In the future some such experience may be yours, and then you will know--which now is hidden from you--what parents feel who are asked to give their one ewe lamb into the care of a stranger." I started. "There is no reason for alarm, Gabriel," he said, "because I have used a true word. Until a few short months ago you were really a stranger to us."
"That has not been against me, sir," I said, "and is not, I trust."
"There is no such thought in my mind, Gabriel. There is nothing against you except--except," he repeated, with a little pitiful smile, "that you are about to take from us our most precious possession. Until to-day our dear child was wholly and solely ours; and not only herself, but her past was ours, her past, which has been to us a garden of joy. Henceforth her heart will be divided, and you will have the larger share. That is a great deal to think of, and we have thought of it, my wife and I, and talked of it nearly all the night. Certain treasures," he said, and again the pitiful smile came on his lips, "which in the eyes of other men and women are valueless, still are ours." He opened a drawer, and gazed with loving eyes upon its contents. "Such as a little pair of shoes, a flower or two, a lock of her bright hair."
"May I see it, sir?" I asked, profoundly touched by the loving accents of his voice.
"Surely," he replied, and he passed over to me a lock of golden hair, which I pressed to my lips. "The little head was once covered with these golden curls, and to us, her parents, they were as holy as they would have been on the head of an angel. She was all that to us, Gabriel. It is within the scope of human love to lift one's thoughts to heaven and God; it is within its scope to make one truly fit for the life to come. All things are not of the world worldly; it is a grievous error to think so, and only sceptics can so believe. In the kiss of baby lips, in the touch of little hands, in the myriad sweet ways of childhood, lie the breath of a pure religion which God receives because of its power to sanctify the lowest as well as the highest of human lives. It is good to think of that, and to feel that, in the holiest forms of humanity, the poor stand as high as the rich." He paused a while before he continued. "Gabriel, it is an idle phrase for a father holding the position towards you which I do at the present moment, to say he has no fears for the happiness of his only child."
"If you have any, sir," I said, "question me, and let me endeavour to set your mind at ease. In one respect I can do so with solemn earnestness. If it be my happy lot to win your daughter, her welfare, her honour, her peace of mind, shall be the care of my life. These assured, happiness should follow. I love Lauretta with a pure heart; no other woman has ever possessed my love; to no other woman have I been drawn; nor is it possible that I could be. She is to me part of my spiritual life. I am not as other men, in the ordinary acceptation. In my childhood's life there was but little joy, and the common pleasures of childhood were not mine. From almost my earliest remembrances there was but little light in my parents' house, and in looking back upon it I can scarcely call it a home. The fault was not mine, as you will admit. May I claim some small merit--not of my own purposed earning, but because it was in me, for which I may have reason to be grateful--from the fact that the circumstances of my early life did not corrupt me, did not drive me to a searching for low pleasures, and did not debase me? It seemed to me, sir, that I was ever seeking for something in the heights and not in the depths. Books and study were my comforters, and I derived real pleasures from them. They served to satisfy a want, and, although I contracted a melancholy mood, I was not unhappy. I know that this mood is in me, but when I think of Lauretta it is dispelled. I seem to hear the singing of birds, to see flowers around me, to bathe in sunshine. Perhaps it springs from the fervour of my love for her; but a kind of belief is mine that I have been drawn hither to her, that my way of life was measured to her heart. What more can I say, sir?"
"You have said much," said Doctor Louis, "to comfort and assure me, and have, without being asked, answered questions which were in my mind. Do you remember a conversation you had with my wife in the first days of your convalescence, commenced I think by you in saying that the happiest dream of your life was drawing to a close?"
"I was thinking of Lauretta. Even in those early days I felt that I loved her."
"I understand that now," said Doctor Louis. "My wife replied that life must not be dreamt away, that it has duties."
"I remember the conversation well, sir."
"My wife said that one's ease and pleasures are rewards, only enjoyable when they have been worthily earned; and when you asked, 'Earned in what way?' she answered, 'In accomplishing one's work in the world.'"
"Yes, sir, her words come back to me."
"There is something more," said Doctor Louis, with sad sweetness, "which I should not recall did I not hold duty before me as my chief beacon. Inclination and selfish desire must often be sacrificed for it. You will understand how sadly significant this is to me when I recall what followed. Though, to be sure," he added, in a slightly gayer tone, "we could visit you and our daughter, wherever your abode happened to be. Continuing your conversation with my wife, you said, 'How to discover what one's work really is, and where it should be properly performed?' My wife answered, 'In one's native land.'"
"Those were the words we spoke to one another, sir."
"It was my wife who recalled them to me, and I wish you--in the event of your hopes being realised--to bear them in mind. It would be painful to me to see you lead an idle life, and it would be injurious to you. This quiet village opens out no opportunities to you; it is too narrow, too confined. I have found my place here as an active worker, but I doubt if you would do so."
"There is time to think of it, sir."
"Plenty of time. And now, if you like, we will join my wife and daughter."
"Have you said anything to Lauretta, sir?"
"No. I thought it best, and so did her mother, that her heart should be left to speak for itself."
Lauretta's mother received me with tender, wistful solicitude, and I observed nothing in Lauretta to denote that she had been prepared for the declaration I had come to make. After lunch I proposed to Lauretta to go out into the garden, and she turned to her mother and asked if she would accompany us.
"No, my child," said the mother, "I have things in the house to attend to."
So Lauretta and I went out alone.
It was a lovely day, and Lauretta had thrown a light lace scarf over her head. She was in gay spirits, not boisterous, for she is ever gentle, and she endeavoured to entertain me with innocent prattle, to which I found it difficult to respond. In a little while this forced itself upon her observation, and she asked me if I was not well.
"I am quite well, Lauretta," I replied.
"Then something has annoyed you," she said.
No, I answered, nothing had annoyed me.
"But thereissomething," she said.
"Yes," I said, "thereissomething."
"Tell me," she said.
We were standing by a rosebush, and I plucked one absently, and absently plucked the leaves. She looked at me in silence for a moment or two and said, "This is the first time I have ever seen you destroy a flower."
"I was not thinking of it," I said; and was about to throw it away when an impulse, born purely of love for what was graceful and sweet, restrained me, and I put it into my pocket. In this the most impressive epoch in my life no sentiment but that of tenderness could hold a place in my heart and mind.
"Well?" she said, still not suspecting. "Tell me."
"Lauretta," I said, taking her hand, which she left willingly in mine, "will you listen to the story of my life?"
"You have already told me much," she said.
"You have heard only a part," I said, and I gently urged her to a seat. "I wish you to know all; I wish you to know me as I really am."
"I know you as you really are," she said, and then a faint colour came to her cheeks, and she trembled slightly, seeing a new meaning in my earnest glances.
"May I tell you? May I sit beside you?"
"Yes," she said, and gently withdrew her hand from mine.
I told her all, withholding only from her those mysterious promptings of my lonely hours which I knew would distress her, and to which I was convinced, with her as my companion through life, there would be for ever an end. Of even those promptings I gave her some insight, but so toned down--for her sweet sake, not for mine--as to excite only her sympathy. Apart from this, I was at sincere pains that she should see my life as it had really been, a life stripped of the joys of childhood; a life stripped of the light of home; a life dependent upon itself for comfort and support. Then, unconsciously, and out of the suffering of my soul--for as I spoke it seemed to me that a cruel wrong had been perpetrated upon me in the past--I contrasted the young life I had been condemned to live with that of a child who was blessed with parents whose hearts were animated by a love the evidences of which would endure all through his after life as a sweet and purifying influence. The tears ran down her cheeks as I dwelt upon this part of my story. Then I spoke of the happy chance which had conducted me to her home, and of the happiness I had experienced in my association with her and hers.
"Whatever fate may be mine," I said, "I shall never reflect upon these experiences, I shall never think of your dear parents, without gratitude and affection. Lauretta, it is with their permission I am here now by your side. It is with their permission that I am opening my heart to you. They know we are here together. I love you, Lauretta, and if you will bless me with your love, and place your hand in mine, all my life shall be devoted to your happiness. You can bring a blessing into my days; I will strive to bring a blessing into yours."
My arm stole round her waist; her head drooped to my shoulder, so that her face was hidden from my ardent gaze; the hand I clasped was not withdrawn.
"Lauretta," I whispered, "say 'I love you, Gabriel.'"
"I love you, Gabriel," she whispered; and heaven itself opened out to me.
Half an hour later we went in to her mother, and the noble woman held out her arms to her daughter. As the maiden nestled to her breast, she said, holding out a hand to me, which I reverently kissed, "God in His mercy keep guard over you! His blessing be upon you both!"
* * * * *
These are my last written words in the record I have kept. From this day I commence a new life.
IN WHICH THE SECRET OF THE INHERITANCE TRANSMITTED TO GABRIEL CAREW IS REVEALED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS FROM ABRAHAM SANDIVAL, ESQ., ENGLAND, TO HIS FRIEND, MAXIMILIAN GALLENGA, ESQ., CONTRA COSTA CO., CALIFORNIA.
My Dear Max,--For many months past you have complained that I have been extremely reticent upon domestic matters, and that I have said little or nothing concerning my son Reginald, who, since you quitted the centres of European civilisation to bury yourself in a sparsely populated Paradise, has grown from childhood to manhood. A ripe manhood, my dear Max, such as I, his father, approve of, and to the future development of which, now that a grave and strange crisis in his life has come to a happy ending, I look forward with loving interest. It is, I know, your affection for Reginald that causes you to be anxious for news of him. Well do I remember when you informed me of your fixed resolution to seek not only new scenes but new modes of life, how earnestly you strove to prevail upon me to allow him to accompany you.
"He is young and plastic," you said, "and I can train him to happiness. The fewer the wants, the more contented the lot of man."
You wished to educate Reginald according to the primitive views to which you had become so strongly wedded, and you did your best to convert me to them, saying, I remember, that I should doubtless suffer in parting with Reginald, but that it was a father's duty to make sacrifices for his children. You did not succeed. My belief was, and is, that man is born to progress, and that to go back into primitiveness, to commence again, as it were, the history of the world and mankind, as though we had been living in error through all the centuries, is a folly. I did not apply this criticism to you; I regarded your new departure not as a folly, but as a mistake. I doubt even now whether it has made you happier than you were, and I fancy I detect here and there in your letters a touch of sadness and regret--of which perhaps you are unconscious--that you should have cut yourself away from the busy life of multitudes of people. However, it is not my purpose now to enlarge upon this theme. The history I am about to relate is personal to myself and to Reginald, whose destiny it has been to come into close contact with a family, the head of which, Gabriel Carew, affords a psychological study as strange probably as was ever presented to the judgment of mankind.
There are various reasons for my undertaking a task which will occupy a great deal of time and entail considerable labour. The labour will be interesting to me, and its products no less interesting to you, who were always fond of the mystical. I have leisure to apply myself to it. Reginald is not at present with me; he has left me for a few weeks upon a mission of sunshine. This will sound enigmatical to you, but you must content yourself with the gradual and intelligible unfolding of the wonderful story I am about to narrate. Like a skilful narrator I shall not weaken the interest by giving information and presenting pictures to you in the wrong places. The history is one which it is my opinion should not be lost to the world; its phases are so remarkable that it will open up a field of inquiry which may not be without profitable results to those who study psychological mysteries. A few years hence I should not be able to recall events in their logical order; I therefore do so while I possess the power and while my memory is clear with respect to them.
You will soon discover that neither I nor Reginald is the principal character in this drama of life. That position is occupied by Mr. Gabriel Carew, the owner of an estate in the county of Kent, known as Rosemullion.
My labours will be thrown away unless you are prepared to read what I shall write with unquestioning faith. I shall set down nothing but the truth, and you must accept it without a thought of casting doubt upon it. That you will wonder and be amazed is certain; it would, indeed, be strange otherwise; for in all your varied experiences (you led a busy and eventful life before you left us) you met with none so singular and weird as the events which I am about to bring to your knowledge. You must accept also--as the best and most suitable form through which you will be made familiar not only with the personality of Gabriel Carew, but with the mysterious incidents of his life--the methods I shall adopt in the unfolding of my narrative. They are such as are frequently adopted with success by writers of fiction, and as my material is fact, I am justified in pressing it into my service. I am aware that objection may be taken to it on the ground that I shall be presenting you with conversations between persons of which I was not a witness, but I do not see in what other way I could offer you an intelligent and intelligible account of the circumstances of the story. All that I can therefore do is to promise that I will keep a strict curb upon my imagination and will not allow it to encroach upon the domains of truth. With this necessary prelude I devote myself to my task.
Before, however, myself commencing the work there is something essential for you to do. Accompanying my own manuscript is a packet, carefully sealed and secured, on the outer sheet of which is written, "Not to be disturbed or opened until instructions to do so are given by Abraham Sandival to his friend Maximilian Gallenofa." The precaution is sufficient to whet any man's curiosity, but is not taken to that end. It is simply in pursuance of the plan I have designed, by which you will become possessed of all the details and particulars for the proper understanding of what I shall impart to you. The packet, my dear Max, is neither more nor less than a life record made by Gabriel Carew himself up to within a few months of his marriage, which took place twenty years ago in the village of Nerac. The lady Gabriel Carew married was the daughter of Doctor Louis, a gentleman of rare acquirements, and distinguished both for his learning and benevolence. There is no evidence in the record as to whether its recital was spread over a number of years, or was begun and finished within a few months; but that matters little. It bears the impress of absolute truth and candour, and apart from its startling revelations you will recognise in it a picturesqueness of description hardly to be expected from one who had not made a study of literature. Its perusal will perplexedly stir your mind, and in the feelings it will excite towards Gabriel Carew there will most likely be an element of pity, the reason for which you will find it difficult to explain. "Season your admiration for a while;" before I am at the end of my task the riddle will be solved.
As I pen these words I can realise your perplexity during your perusal of the record as to the manner in which my son Reginald came be associated with so strange a man as the writer. But this is a world of mystery, and we can never hope to find a key to its spiritual workings. With respect to this particular mystery nothing shall be hidden from you. You will learn how I came to be mixed up in it; you will learn how vitally interwoven it threatened to be in Reginald's life; you will learn how Gabriel Carew's manuscript fell into my hands; and the mystery of his life will be revealed to you.
Now, my dear Max, you can unfasten the packet, and read the record.
I assume that you are now familiar with the story of Gabriel Carew's life up to the point, or within a few months, of his marriage with Lauretta, and that you have formed some opinion of the different persons with whom he came in contact in Nerac. Outside Nerac there was only one person who can be said to have been interested in his fate; this was his mother's nurse, Mrs. Fortress, and you must be deeply impressed by the part she played in the youthful life of Gabriel Carew. Of her I shall have to speak in due course.
I transport you in fancy to Nerac, my dear Max, where I have been not very long ago, and where I conversed with old people who to this day remember Gabriel Carew and his sweet wife Lauretta, whom he brought with him to England some little time after their marriage. It is not likely that the incidents in connection with Gabriel Carew and his wife will be forgotten during this generation or the next in that loveliest of villages.
When you laid aside Carew's manuscript he had received the sanction of Lauretta's mother to his engagement with the sweet maid, and the good woman had given her children her blessing. Thereafter Gabriel Carew wrote: "These are my last written words in the record I have kept. From this day I commence a new life." He kept his word with respect to his resolve not to add another word to the record. He sealed it up and deposited it in his desk; and it is my belief that from that day he never read a line of its contents.
We are, then, my dear Max, in Nerac, you and I in spirit, in the holiday time of the open courtship of Gabriel Carew and Lauretta. Carew is occupying the house of which it was his intention to make Lauretta the mistress, and there are residing in it, besides the ordinary servants, Martin Hartog, the gardener, and his daughter, with whom, from Carew's record, Emilius was supposed to be carrying on an intrigue of a secret and discreditable nature. It is evident, from the manner in which Carew referred to it, that he considered it dishonourable. The name of this girl was Patricia.
There remain to be mentioned, as characters in the drama then being played, Doctor Louis, Eric, and Father Daniel.
The crimes of the two ruffians who had attempted to enter Doctor Louis's house remained for long fresh in the memories of the villagers. They were both dead, one murdered, the other executed for a deed of which only one person in Nerac had an uneasy sense of his innocence--Father Daniel. The good priest, having received from the unfortunate man a full account of his life from childhood, journeyed shortly afterwards to the village in which he had been born and was best known, for the purpose of making inquiries into its truth. He found it verified in every particular, and he learnt, moreover, that although the hunchback had been frequently in trouble, it was rather from sheer wretchedness and poverty than from any natural brutality of disposition that he had drifted into crime. It stood to his credit that Father Daniel could trace to him no acts of cruel violence; indeed, the priest succeeded in bringing to light two or three circumstances in the hunchback's career which spoke well for his humanity, one of them being that he was kind to his bedridden mother. Father Daniel returned to Nerac much shaken by the reflection that in this man's case justice had been in error. But if this were so, if the hunchback were innocent, upon whom to fix the guilt? A sadness weighed upon the good priest's heart as he went about his daily duties, and gazed upon his flock with an awful suspicion in his mind that there was a murderer among them, for whose crime an innocent man had been executed.
Gabriel Carew was happy. The gloom of his early life, which threatened to cast dark shadows over all his days, seemed banished for ever. He was liked and respected in the village in which he had found his happiness; his charities caused men and women to hold him in something like affectionate regard; he was Father Daniel's friend, and no case of suffering or poverty was mentioned to him which he was not ready to relieve; in Doctor Louis's home he held an honoured place; and he was loved by a good and pure woman, who had consented to link her fate with his. Surely in this prospect there was nothing that could be productive of aught but good.
The sweetness and harmony of the time, however, were soon to be disturbed. After a few weeks of happiness, Gabriel Carew began to be troubled. In his heart he had no love for the twin brothers, Eric and Emilius; he believed them to be light-minded and unscrupulous, nay, more, he believed them to be treacherous in their dealings with both men and women. These evil qualities, he had decided with himself, they had inherited from their father, Silvain, whose conduct towards his unhappy brother Kristel had excited Gabriel Carew's strong abhorrence. As is shown in the comments he makes in his record, all his sympathy was with Kristel, and he had contracted a passionate antipathy against Silvain, whom he believed to be guilty of the blackest treachery in his dealings with Avicia. This antipathy he now transferred to Silvain's sons, Eric and Emilius, and they needed to be angels, not men, to overcome it.
Not that they tried to win Carew's good opinion. Although his feelings for them were not openly expressed, they made themselves felt in the consciousness of these twin brothers, who instinctively recognised that Gabriel Carew was their enemy. Therefore they held off from him, and repaid him quietly in kind. But this was a matter solely and entirely between themselves and known only to themselves. The three men knew what deep pain and grief it would cause not only Doctor Louis and his wife, but the gentle Lauretta, to learn that they were in enmity with each other, and one and all were animated by the same desire to keep this antagonism from the knowledge of the family. This was, indeed, a tacit understanding between them, and it was so thoroughly carried out that no member of Doctor Louis's family suspected it; and neither was it suspected in the village. To all outward appearance Gabriel Carew and Eric and Emilius were friends.
It was not the brothers but Carew who, in the first instance, was to blame. He was the originator and the creator of the trouble, for it is scarcely to be doubted that had he held out the hand of a frank friendship to them, they would have accepted it, even though their acceptance needed some sacrifice on their parts. The reason for this qualification will be apparent to you later on in the story, and you will then also understand why I do not reveal certain circumstances respecting the affection of Eric and Emilius for Martin Hartog's daughter, Patricia, and for the female members of the family of Doctor Louis. It would be anticipating events. I am relating the story in the order in which it progressed, and, so far as my knowledge of it goes, according to the sequence of time.
Certainly the dominant cause of Gabriel Carew's hatred for the brothers sprang from his jealousy of them with respect to Lauretta. They and she had been friends from childhood, and they were regarded by Doctor Louis and his wife as members of their family. This in itself was sufficient to inflame so exacting a lover as Carew. He interpreted every innocent little familiarity to their disadvantage, and magnified trifles inordinately. They saw his sufferings and were, perhaps, somewhat scornful of them. He had already shown them how deep was his hatred of them, and they not unnaturally resented it. After all, he was a stranger in Nerac, a come-by-chance visitor, who had usurped the place which might have been occupied by one of them had the winds been fair. Instead of being overbearing and arrogant he should have been gracious and conciliating. It was undoubtedly his duty to be courteous and mannerly from the first day of their acquaintance; instead of which he had, before he saw them, contracted a dislike for them which he had allowed to swell to monstrous and unjustifiable proportions.
Gabriel Carew, however, justified himself to himself, and it may be at once conceded that he had grounds for his feelings which were to him--and would likely have been to some other men--sufficient. These may now be set forth.
When a lover's suspicious and jealous nature is aroused it does not from that moment sleep. There is no rest, no repose for it. If it require opportunities for confirmation or for the infliction of self-suffering, it is never difficult to find them. Imagination steps in and supplies the place of fact. Every hour is a torture; every innocent look and smile is brooded over in secret. A most prolific, unreasonable, and cruel breeder of shadows is jealousy, and the evil of it is that it breeds in secret.
Gabriel Carew set himself to watch, and from the keen observance of a nature so thorough and intense as his nothing could escape. He was an unseen witness of other interviews between Patricia Hartog and Emilius; and not only of interviews between her and Emilius but between her and Eric. He formed his conclusions. The brothers were playing false to each other, and the girl was playing false with both. This was of little account; he had no more than a passing interest in Patricia, and although at one time he had some kind of intention of informing Martin Hartog of these secret interviews, and placing the father on his guard--for the gardener seemed to be quite unaware that an intrigue was going on--he relinquished the intention, saying that it was no affair of his. But it confirmed the impressions he had formed of the character of Eric and Emilius, and it strengthened him in his determination to allow no intercourse between them and the woman he loved.
An additional torture was in store for him, and it fell upon him like a thunderbolt. One day he saw Emilius and Lauretta walking in the woods, talking earnestly and confidentially together. His blood boiled; his heart beat so violently that he could scarcely distinguish surrounding objects. So violent was his agitation that it was many minutes before he recovered himself, and then Lauretta and Emilius had passed out of sight. He went home in a wild fury of despair.
He had not been near enough to hear one word of the conversation, but their attitude was to him confirmation of his jealous suspicion that the young man was endeavouring to supplant him in Lauretta's affections. In the evening he saw Lauretta in her home, and she noticed a change in him.
"Are you ill, Gabriel?" she asked.
"No," he replied, "I am quite well. What should make me otherwise?"
The bitterness in his voice surprised her, and she insisted that he should seek repose. "To get me out of the way," he thought; and then, gazing into her solicitous and innocent eyes, he mutely reproached himself for doubting her. No, it was not she who was to blame; she was still his, she was still true to him; but how easy was it for a friend so close to her as Emilius to instil into her trustful heart evil reports against himself! "That is the first step," he thought. "What must follow is simple. These men, these villains, are capable of any treachery. Honour is a stranger to their scheming natures. How shall I act? To meet them openly, to accuse them openly, may be my ruin. They are too firmly fixed in the affections of Doctor Louis and his wife--they are too firmly fixed in the affections of even Lauretta herself--for me to hope to expose them upon evidence so slender. Not slender to me, but to them. These treacherous brothers are conspiring secretly against me. I will meet them with their own weapons. Secrecy for secrecy. I will wait and watch till I have the strongest proof against them, and then I will expose their true characters to Doctor Louis and Lauretta."
Having thus resolved, he was not the man to swerve from the plan he laid down. The nightly vigils he had kept in his young life served him now, and it seemed as if he could do without sleep. The stealthy meetings between Patricia and the brothers continued, and before long he saw Eric and Lauretta in the woods together. In his espionage he was always careful not to approach near enough to bring discovery upon himself.
In an indirect manner, as though it was a matter which he deemed of slight importance, he questioned Lauretta as to her walks in the woods with Eric and Emilius.
"Yes," she said artlessly, "we sometimes meet there."
"By accident?" asked Gabriel Carew.
"Not always by accident," replied Lauretta. "Remember, Gabriel, Eric and Emilius are as my brothers, and if they have a secret----" And then she blushed, grew confused, and paused.
These signs were poisoned food indeed to Carew, but he did not betray himself.
"Have they a secret?" he asked, with assumed carelessness.
"It was wrong of me to speak," said Lauretta, "after my promise to say nothing to a single soul in the village."
"And most especially," said Carew, hitting the mark, "to me."
She grew more confused. "Do not press me, Gabriel."
"Only," he continued, with slight persistence, "that it must be a heart secret."
She was silent, and he dropped the subject.
From the interchange of these few words he extracted the most exquisite torture. There was, then, between Lauretta and the brothers a secret of the heart, known only to themselves, to be revealed to none, and to him, Gabriel Carew, to whom the young girl was affianced, least of all. It must be well understood, in this explanation of what was occurring in the lives of these young people at that momentous period, that Gabriel Carew never once suspected that Lauretta was false to him. His great fear was that Eric and Emilius were working warily against him, and were cunningly fabricating some kind of evidence in his disfavour which would rob him of Lauretta's love. They were conspiring to this end, to the destruction of his happiness, and they were waiting for the hour to strike the fatal blow. Well, it was for him to strike first. His love for Lauretta was so all-absorbing that all other considerations--however serious the direct or indirect consequences of them--sank into utter insignificance by the side of it. He did not allow it to weigh against Lauretta that she appeared to be in collusion with Eric and Emilius, and to be favouring their schemes. Her nature was so guileless and unsuspecting that she could be easily led and deceived by friends in whom she placed a trust. It was this that strengthened Carew in his resolve not to rudely make the attempt to open her eyes to the perfidy of Eric and Emilius. She would have been incredulous, and the arguments he should use against his enemies might be turned against himself. Therefore he adhered to the line of action he had marked out. He waited, and watched, and suffered. Meanwhile, the day appointed for his union with Lauretta was approaching.
Within a fortnight of that day Gabriel Carew's passions were roused to an almost uncontrollable pitch.
It was evening, and he saw Eric and Emilius in the woods. They were conversing with more than ordinary animation, and appeared to be discussing some question upon which they did not agree. Carew saw signs which he could not interpret--appeals, implorings, evidences of strong feeling on one side and of humbleness on the other, despair from one, sorrow from the other; and then suddenly a phase which startled the watcher and filled him with a savage joy. Eric, in a paroxysm, laid hands furiously upon his brother, and it seemed for a moment as if a violent struggle were about to take place.
It was to the restraint and moderation of Emilius that this unbrotherly conflict was avoided. He did not meet violence with violence; after a pause he gently lifted Eric's hands from his shoulders, and with a sad look turned away, Eric gazing at his retreating figure in a kind of bewilderment. Presently Emilius was gone, and only Eric remained.
He was not long alone. From an opposite direction to that taken by Emilius the watcher saw approaching the form of the woman he loved, and to whom he was shortly to be wed. That her coming was not accidental, but in fulfilment of a promise was clear to Gabriel Carew. Eric expected her, and welcomed her without surprise. Then the two began to converse.
Carew's heart beat tumultuously; he would have given worlds to hear what was being said, but he was at too great a distance for a word to reach his ears. For a time Eric was the principal speaker, Lauretta, for the most part, listening, and uttering now and then merely a word or two. In her quiet way she appeared to be as deeply agitated as the young man who was addressing her in an attitude of despairing appeal. Again and again it seemed as if he had finished what he had to say, and again and again he resumed, without abatement of the excitement under which he was labouring. At length he ceased, and then Lauretta became the principal actor in the scene. She spoke long and forcibly, but always with that gentleness of manner which was one of her sweetest characteristics. In her turn she seemed to be appealing to the young man, and to be endeavouring to impress upon him a sad and bitter truth which he was unwilling, and not in the mood, to recognise. For a long time she was unsuccessful; the young man walked impatiently a few steps from her, then returned, contrite and humble, but still with all the signs of great suffering upon him. At length her words had upon him the effect she desired; he wavered, he held out his hands helplessly, and presently covered his face with them and sank to the ground. Then, after a silence, during which Lauretta gazed compassionately upon his convulsed form, she stooped and placed her hand upon his shoulder. He lifted his eyes, from which the tears were flowing, and raised himself from the earth. He stood before her with bowed head, and she continued to speak. The pitiful sweetness of her face almost drove Carew mad; it could not be mistaken that her heart was beating with sympathy for Eric's sufferings. A few minutes more passed, and then it seemed as if she had prevailed. Eric accepted the hand she held out to him, and pressed his lips upon it. Had he at that moment been within Gabriel Carew's reach, it would have fared ill with both these men, but Heaven alone knows whether it would have averted what was to follow before the setting of another sun, to the consternation and grief of the entire village. After pressing his lips to Lauretta's hand, the pair separated, each going a different way, and Gabriel Carew ground his teeth as he observed that there were tears in Lauretta's eyes as well as in Eric's. A darkness fell upon him as he walked homewards.
The following morning Nerac and the neighbourhood around were agitated by news of a tragedy more thrilling and terrible than that in which the hunchback and his companion in crime were concerned. In attendance upon this tragedy, and preceding its discovery, was a circumstance stirring enough in its way in the usually quiet life of the simple villagers, but which, in the light of the mysterious tragedy, would have paled into insignificance had it not been that it appeared to have a direct bearing upon it. Martin Hartog's daughter, Patricia, had fled from her home, and was nowhere to be discovered.
This flight was made known to the villagers early in the morning by the appearance among them of Martin Hartog, demanding in which house his daughter had taken refuge. The man was distracted; his wild words and actions excited great alarm, and when he found that he could obtain no satisfaction from them, and that every man and woman in Nerac professed ignorance of his daughter's movements, he called down heaven's vengeance upon the man who had betrayed her, and left them to search the woods for Patricia.
The words he had uttered in his imprecations when he called upon a higher power for vengeance on a villain opened the villagers' eyes. Patricia had been betrayed. By whom? Who was the monster who had worked this evil?
While they were talking excitedly together they saw Gabriel Carew hurrying to the house of Father Daniel. He was admitted, and in the course of a few minutes emerged from it in the company of the good priest, whose troubled face denoted that he had heard the sad news of Patricia's flight from her father's home. The villagers held aloof from Father Daniel and Gabriel Carew, seeing that they were in earnest converse. Carew was imparting to the priest his suspicions of Eric and Emilius in connection with this event; he did not mention Lauretta's name, but related how on several occasions he had been an accidental witness of meetings between Patricia and one or other of the brothers.
"It was not for me to place a construction upon these meetings," said Carew, "nor did it appear to me that I was called upon to mention it to any one. It would have been natural for me to suppose that Martin Hartog was fully acquainted with his daughter's movements, and that, being of an independent nature, he would have resented any interference from me. He is Patricia's father, and it was believed by all that he guarded her well. Had he been my equal I might have incidentally asked whether there was anything serious between his daughter and these brothers, but I am his master, and therefore was precluded from inviting a confidence which can only exist between men occupying the same social condition. There is, besides, another reason for my silence which, if you care to hear, I will impart to you."
"Nothing should be concealed from me," said Father Daniel.
"Although," said Gabriel Carew, "I have been a resident here now for some time, I felt, and feel, that a larger knowledge of me is necessary to give due and just weight to the unfavourable opinion I have formed of two men with whom you have been acquainted from childhood, and who hold a place in your heart of which they are utterly unworthy. Not alone in your heart, but in the hearts of my dearest friends, Doctor Louis and his family.
"You refer to Eric and Emilius," said the priest.
"Yes, I refer to them."
"What you have already said concerning them has deeply pained me. I do not share your suspicions. Their meetings with Hartog's daughter were, I am convinced, innocent. They are incapable of an act of baseness; they are of noble natures, and it is impossible that they should ever have harboured a thought of treachery to a young maiden."
"I am more than justified," said Gabriel Carew, "by the expression of your opinion, in the course I took. You would have listened with impatience to me, and what I should have said would have recoiled on myself. Yet now I regret that I did not interfere; this calamity might have been avoided, and a woman's honour saved. Let us seek Martin Hartog; he may be in possession of information to guide us."
From the villagers they learnt that Hartog had gone to the woods, and they were about to proceed in that direction when another, who had just arrived, informed them that he had seen Hartog going to Gabriel Carew's house. Thither they proceeded, and found Hartog in his cottage. He was on his knees, when they entered, before a box in which his daughter kept her clothes. This he had forced open, and was searching. He looked wildly at Father Daniel and Carew, and immediately resumed his task, throwing the girl's clothes upon the floor after examining the pockets. In his haste and agitation he did not observe a portrait which he had cast aside, Carew picked it up and handed it to Father Daniel. It was the portrait of Emilius.
"Does this look like innocence?" inquired Carew. "Who is the more likely to be right in our estimate of these brothers, you or I?"
Father Daniel, overwhelmed by the evidence, did not reply. By this time Martin Hartog had found a letter which he was eagerly perusing.
"This is the villain," he cried. "If there is justice in heaven he has met with his deserts. If he still lives he shall die by my hands!"
"Hush, hush!" murmured Father Daniel. "Vengeance is not yours to deal out. Pray for comfort--pray for mercy."
"Pray for mercy!" cried Hartog with a bitter laugh. "I pray for vengeance! If the monster be not already smitten, Lord, give him into my hands! I will tear him limb from limb! But who, who is he? The cunning villain has not even signed his name!"
Father Daniel took the letter from his unresisting hand, and as his eyes fell upon the writing he started and trembled.
"Emilius's?" asked Gabriel Carew.
"Alas!" sighed the priest.
It was indeed the writing of Emilius. Martin Hartog had heard Carew's inquiry and the priest's reply.
"What!" he cried. "That viper!" And without another word he rushed from the cottage. Carew and the priest hastily followed him, but he outstripped them, and was soon out of sight.
"There will be a deed of violence done," said Father Daniel, "if the men meet. I must go immediately to the house of these unhappy brothers and warn them."
Carew accompanied him, but when they arrived at the house they were informed that nothing had been seen of Eric and Emilius since the previous night. Neither of them had been home nor slept in his bed. This seemed to complicate the mystery in Father Daniel's eyes, although it was no mystery to Carew, who was convinced that where Patricia was there would Emilius be found. Father Daniel's grief and horror were clearly depicted. He looked upon the inhabitants of Nerac as one family, and he regarded the dishonour of Martin Hartog's daughter as dishonour to all. Carew, being anxious to see Lauretta, left him to his inquiries. Dr. Louis and his family were already acquainted with the agitating news.
"Dark clouds hang over this once happy village," said Doctor Louis to Carew.
He was greatly shocked, but he had no hesitation in declaring that, although circumstances looked black against the twin brothers, his faith in them was undisturbed. Lauretta shared his belief, and Lauretta's mother also. Gabriel Carew did not combat with them; he held quietly to his views, convinced that in a short time they would think as he did. Lauretta was very pale, and out of consideration for her Gabriel Carew endeavoured to avoid the all-engrossing subject. That, however, was impossible. Nothing else could be thought or spoken of. Again and again it was indirectly referred to. Once Carew remarked to Lauretta, "You said that Eric and Emilius had a secret, and you gave me to understand that you were not ignorant of it. Has it any connection with what has occurred?"
"I must not answer you, Gabriel," she replied; "when we see Emilius again all will be explained."
Little did she suspect the awful import of those simple words. In Carew's mind the remembrance of the story of Kristel and Silvain was very vivid.
"Were Eric and Emilius true friends?" he asked.
Lauretta looked at him piteously; her lips quivered. "They are brothers," she said.
"You trust me, Lauretta?" he said.
"Indeed I do," she replied. "Thoroughly."
"You love me, Lauretta?"
"With my whole heart, Gabriel."
She gazed at him in tender surprise; for weeks past he had not been so happy. The trouble by which he had been haunted took flight.
"And yet," he could not help saying, "you have a secret, and you keep it from me!"
His voice was almost gay; there was no touch of reproach in it.
"The secret is not mine, Gabriel," she said, and she allowed him to pass his arm around her; her head sank upon his breast. "When you know all, you will approve," she murmured. "As I trust you, so must you trust me."
Their lips met; perfect confidence and faith were established between them, although on Lauretta's side there had been no shadow on the love she gave him.
It was late in the afternoon when Carew was informed that Father Daniel wished to speak to him privately. He kissed Lauretta and went out to the priest, in whose face he saw a new horror.
"I should be the first to tell them," said Father Daniel in a husky voice, "but I am not yet strong enough. They will learn soon enough without me. It is known only to a few."
"What is known?" asked Carew. "Is Emilius found?"
"No," replied the priest, "but Eric is. I would not have him removed until the magistrate, who is absent and has been sent for, arrives. Come with me."
In a state of wonder Carew accompanied Father Daniel out of Doctor Louis's house, and the priest led the way to the woods.
"Why in this direction?" inquired Gabriel Carew. "We have passed the house in which the brothers live."
"Wait," said Father Daniel solemnly. "They live there no longer."
The sun was setting, and the light was quivering on the tops of the distant trees. Father Daniel and Gabriel Carew plunged into the woods. There were scouts on the outskirts, to whom the priest said, "Has the magistrate arrived?"
"No, father," was the answer, "we expect him every moment."
Father Daniel nodded and passed on.
"What does all this mean?" asked Gabriel Carew.
And again the priest replied, "Wait."
From that moment until they arrived at the spot to which Father Daniel led him, Carew was silent. What had passed between him and Lauretta had so filled his soul with happiness that he bestowed but little thought upon a vulgar intrigue between a peasant girl and men whom he had long since condemned. They no longer troubled him; they had passed for ever out of his life, and his heart was at rest. Father Daniel and he walked some distance into the shadows of the forest and the night. Before him he saw lights in the hands of two villagers who had evidently been stationed there to keep guard.
"Father Daniel?" they cried in fearsome voices.
"Yes," he replied, "it is I."
He conducted Gabriel Carew to a spot, and pointed downwards with his finger; and there, prone and still upon the fallen leaves, lay the body of Eric stone dead, stabbed to the heart!
"Martin Hartog," said the priest, "is in custody on suspicion of this ruthless murder."
"Why?" asked Gabriel Carew. "What evidence is there to incriminate him?"
"When the body was first discovered," said the priest, "your gardener was standing by its side. Upon being questioned his answer was, 'If judgment has not fallen upon the monster, it has overtaken his brother. The brood should be wiped off the face of the earth.' He spoke no further word."