Over the region of the great lakes, her favorite haunt, hung the enchanted stillness, the misty glamour of the purple-cloaked witch—Indian Summer; whose sorcery veiled the dazzling face of the sun, and changed the silver lustre of Selene into the vast, solemn red blot that stared wonderingly at its own weird image in the glassy waters.
Wrapped in that soft, sweet haze, which like the eider down of charity smooths all roughness, rounds all angles, the world of shore and lake presented a magical panorama of towns and villages, herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, spires of churches, masts of vessels,—all flashing past the open window of the car, where Beryl sat, watching the shadows lengthen as the long train thundered eastward, and the tree dials marked the hour record on the golden brown stubble fields.
When the goal is in sight, do we dwell on the hazard, the strained muscles, the blistered feet, and the fierce thirst the long race-course cost us? Who know that they are weary and spent, while the prize brightens, nears as they stretch panting to grasp it?
The certainty of meeting her brother, the anticipation of all that she felt assured he would promise concerning his future, when he learned the severity of the ordeal which she had endured in his behalf, blotted out the costliness of the accomplishment. Like that glorious violet haze of Indian Summer, which was drawing its opalescent drapery along the vanishing iron railway track blackened with cinders, and softly shrouding the grim outlines of wreck, that told where a vessel had foundered on the lake in the early autumn gale, an overruling Providence seemed shedding peace even upon her troubled past. In the swift flash of the divine fire that sanctified the accepted sacrifice, she was too dazzled to remember the moan of the slaughtered victim, the agony of the death struggle; and now, her thoughts spanned the gulf of time, and painted the eternal reunion of the broken and dishonored family group.
From these comforting reflections she was aroused by a piercing cry that made her spring forward, and scan the crowd of human faces collected close to the rails, at a small town where the cars had halted.
On a side track in front of her window, was a train which had just dashed in from Buffalo, and amid the surging mass of jeering spectators, two officers stepped down from the platform, each with a hand on the arm of a man, who was heavily handcuffed. At the sight, a white-haired, withered woman leaning from a carriage and staring with horror-haunted eyes, had screamed, and was falling back insensible.
"That is his mother. Poor thing, why did they let her come? He is her only boy," said a man to his comrade, who stood near Beryl's seat.
"What is the matter?" asked a gentleman, sitting immediately in front of her.
"Two of our officers winged a bird, who thought it was safe flying over yonder, with the lake between him and the county jail. Canada is handy hunting-ground, when the game happens to be runaway thieves; and we have bagged one. He was the cashier of our Savings Bank, and not satisfied with tampering with the books, and forcing balances, he finally robbed the vault of a lot of gold, and flew across the line. His wife met him at St. Catherine's, and he met the iron bracelets he was dodging."
The train moved on, and once more Beryl heard the howling of the wolves, that she had hoped were left forever behind; that now seemed in full cry bearing down upon their prey. Should she return to the "Anchorage", and advertise Bertie's danger? So vague were her ideas relative to the limits of extradition, that she had regarded Canada as a city of refuge; considered its protection of United States' criminal fugitives as efficacious, as meeting a Vestal Priestess on the way to his execution, proved in rescuing a Roman malefactor from the penalty of violated law; but this shred of comfort had parted, when most she required its aid.
"Yes, I understand extradition provisions have been arranged, which are bound to have a wholesome effect; especially in this section, where it is so easy to slip across the lakes any dark night. I am told nearly all felonies will be embraced now—from murder to burglary—and that Her Majesty's Secretaries are more willing to aid our officers, than was the case a few years ago, when no end of quibbling tied up justice."
The gentlemen on the seat in front of her, moved away to the smoking car; and the woman in gray listened to the creak and whirr of the wheel of torturing dread, upon which some malignant fate once more bound her. Bertie had been safe in his mountain fastness, until her ill-starred advertisement coaxed him within reach of the police Briareus. Could she discern the hand of merciful warning in this fortuitous meeting with a captured culprit; which so vividly recalled the maddening incidents of her return to X—-, when the sheriff had hurried her from the car? A sickening terror seized her, and along the expanse of pearly mist that united earth and sky, in tke snowy fringe of ripples breaking their teeth on the shelving beach, she seemed to read the doom of her stratagem written in words of menace:
"Go where you may, but I give you fair warning you cannot escape me; and the day on which you meet that guilty vagabond, you betray him to the scouts of justice."
Far away, among the orange groves of Louisiana, would he forget his threat, or fail to execute it? On and on darted the train; people laughed and talked; a tired baby swayed from side to side on the nurse's knees, crooned herself to sleep; and a canary in a cage covered with pink net, broke suddenly into a spasm of trills and roulades.
It was almost four o'clock when the dull roar of Niagara set the air a tremble, and the few remaining passengers left the train. The little town was unusually quiet and deserted, the tide of summer travel having ebbed; and not until the crystal fingers of the ice fairy had built her wonderful Giralda out of foam and spray, would that of Winter tourists begin to flow.
Leaving her trunk at the "baggage room" of the station, Beryl engaged a carriage driver to take her to the Suspension Bridge. Drawing her gray bonnet and veil as far as possible over her face, she paid the toll, and noticed that the keeper peered curiously at her, and muttered something in an undertone to a man wearing a uniform, who turned and stared at her.
She hurried away along that iron mesh swinging high in air like a vast spider web, spun from shore to shore across the swirling, snarling caldron of hissing waters. Was the officer the wary spider watching her movements, waiting to slip down the metal snare, and devour her hopes? Her heart beats sounded as the heavy thuds of a drum; the rush of dire forebodings drowned even the roar of the Falls, and the magnificence of the spectacle vanished before the awful realization of the danger to which she had invited Bertie.
The bridge was deserted; no human being was visible; and now and then she glanced back over her shoulder, dreading she knew not what form of pursuit. At last her flying feet touched British soil, but she knew now, that neither Bezer nor yet Shechcm lay before her; and no sign-post rose to welcome her, with the "Refuge—Refuge"—the water and the bread appointed of old, for spent fugitives. Canada was an ambush that, despite all caution, might betray her. Against the last rail of the bridge she leaned, tried to steady her nerves; and put up one passionate prayer:
"Turn not Thy face from me, O my God! in this last hour! Guide me aright. Overrule all my mistakes, and save my repentant brother."
On the wide gallery of the "Clifton House" stood a gardener engaged in removing the flower baskets that hung between the columns; and as he paused in his work, to observe the quaint gray figure below, she asked, in a voice that was strained beyond its customary sweetness:
"Please direct me to the Museum."
"Follow the street along the cliff, and you can't miss it. Behind those trees yonder, on the right hand side. To the best of my belief, it is shut up this week."
Turning south, she walked more leisurely, lest undue haste should excite suspicion; and all the solemn sublimity of the scene confronted her. The green crescent of the Horseshoe blanched to foam, as it leaped to the stony gulf below, the wreaths of mist floating up, gilded by the sunshine; the maddened rush of the tossing, frothing, whirling rapids seething like melted gold as the western radiance smote the bubbling surface; the scarlet flakes of foliage clinging to the trees on Goat Island, and far above, on the wooded height beyond, the picturesque outlines of the Convent, lifting its belfry against the azure sky. As doomed swimmers lost in those rapids, swept head downward to destruction, nearing the last wild plunge catch the glimmer of that consecrated tower held aloft, so to Beryl's eyes it now seemed a symbol of comfort; and faith once more girded her.
A woman wearing a blue plaid handkerchief tied over her head and knotted under her chin, and carrying a basket of red apples on one arm, while with the other she led a lowing cow along the dusty road, paused at a signal, in front of the gray clad stranger.
"Which is the Museum?"
"Yonder, where the goats are huddled."
The building was closed, but in those days a garden lay to the north of it; and a small gate that gave admittance to seats and flowers connected with the Museum, now stood open.
The walks were strewn with pale yellow poplar leaves, and bordered with belated pink hollyhocks, and crimson chrysanthemums blighted by frost, shivering in their death chill; and from a neighboring willow stripped of curtaining foliage, a lonely bird piped its plaintive threnody, for the loss of one summer's mate. At the extremity of the little garden, under shelter of an ancient, gnarled tree, that screened a semicircular seat from the observation of those passing on the street, Beryl sat down to rest; to collect her thoughts.
In the solitude, she threw back her veil, leaned her head against the trunk of the tree where wan lichens made a pearly cushion, and shut her eyes. The afternoon was wearing away; a keen wind shook the bare boughs; only the ceaseless, unchanging chant of waters rose from the vast throat of nature, invoking its God.
She heard no footsteps; but some strange current attacked her veins, thrilled along her nerves, strung as taut as the wires of a harp, and starting up she became aware that a man was standing on the clover sward close to her. A dark brown overcoat, a broad brimmed, soft wool hat, drawn as a mask down to the bridge of the nose, and a bare hand covering the mouth, was all she saw.
Stretching out her arms, she sprang to meet him:
"O Bertie! At last! At last!"
The figure drew back slightly, lifted his hat; and where she had expected to see her brother's golden curls, the crisp, black locks of Mr. Dunbar met her gaze.
"You! Here?"
She staggered, and sank back on the bench; the realization of Bertie's peril throttling the joy that leaped up in her heart, at sight of the beloved features.
"I am here. I come as promptly to fulfil my promise as you to keep your tryst. Do you understand me so little, that you doubted my word?"
Her bonnet had slipped back, and as all the chastened beauty of her face framed in the dainty cap, became fully exposed, a heavy sigh escaped him, and he set his teeth, like one nerved to endure torture.
For months he had nourished the germ of a generous purpose, had tried to accustom himself to the idea of ultimately surrendering her; but in her presence, a certain bitter fury swept away the wretched figment, and he remembered only how fair, how holy, how dear she was to him. Once more the cry of his famishing heart was: "Death may part us. I swear no man's arms ever shall."
"Why waylay and torment me? Have I not suffered enough at your hands? Between me and mine not even you can come."
"Take care! For your sake I am here, hoping to spare you some pangs; to allow you at least an opportunity to see him—"
"What have you done? Don't tell me I am too late. Where is he? Oh! where—where is he?"
She had sprung up, and her hands closed around his arm, shaking it in the desperation of her dread; while her voice quivered under the strain of a conjecture that Bertie had already been arrested.
"Where is your chivalrous, courageous, unselfish, devoted lover? To ascertain exactly where he skulks, is my mission to Canada; for I thought I had schooled myself to bear the pain of—"
"What do you mean? What have you done with my Bertie? Oh—"
She threw herself suddenly on her knees, held up her hands, and a wailing cry broke the stillness:
"Save him, Mr. Dunbar! You will break my heart if you bring ruin upon his dear head. He is all I have on earth, he is my own brother! My brother! my brother!"
The blood ebbed from his face; the haughty mouth twitched in a sudden spasm, and he put his hand over his eyes.
Could she adopt this ruse to thwart pursuit of the man whom she idolized? For half a moment he stood, with whitened lips; then stooped, took the face of the kneeling woman in his palms, and scanned it.
"Your brother?"
"My brother. Do you understand at last, why I must save him? Why you must help me to screen him from ruin?"
"Great God! After all, what a blind fool I have been!"
He raised her, placed her on the bench; sat down and leaned his head on his hand. To Beryl, the silence that followed was an excruciating torture, beyond even her power of endurance.
"Do not keep me in suspense. Where is Bertie? Let me see him, if he is here."
"He is not here. It was to assist you in finding him, that I enticed you here."
"You enticed me?"
"I put the advertisement in the 'Herald', knowing that if you chanced to see it, all the legions of Satan could not keep you away. I have been here since Sunday, waiting and watching. I was obliged to see you, for your own sake, as well as to satisfy my longing to look once more into your face; and I felt assured the magnetic name of 'Bertie' would draw you here swiftly."
"Then it was only a snare, that advertisement? Oh! you are cruel!"
"Not to you. It was to promote your peace of mind, by enabling you to meet the man who, I supposed was your lover, that I invited you to this place. Mark you, only to see, never to marry him."
"Where is he?"
"Exactly where, I do not yet know; but very soon you shall learn."
"Is he in peril?"
"Not from arrest at present, by human officers of retributive justice."
"He is not coming here?"
"Certainly not."
"How did you learn his name?"
"I suspected that the advertisement you published in the "Herald" after leaving X—-, was a clue that would aid me. I clung to it, for I was sure it referred to the man whom I have hunted so persistently."
"You have something to tell me. Be merciful, and end my suspense."
"First, answer one question. Why did you conceal from me the fact that you had a brother? Why did you allow me to suffer from a false theory, that you knew made my life a slow torture?"
He leaned nearer, and under the blue fire of his eager eyes, the blood mounted into her pale cheeks.
"My motive belongs to a past, with which I trust I have done forever; and you have no right to violate its buried ashes."
"I must, and I will have all the truth, cost what it may. Between you and me, no spectre of mystery shall longer stalk. If you had trusted me, and confessed the facts before the trial, you would have muzzled me effectually, and prevented the employment of detectives whom I have hissed on your brother's track. Why did you lead me astray, and confirm my suspicion that you were shielding a lover?"
"I was innocent; but my name, my father's honored name, was in jeopardy of dishonor, and to protect it, I would not undeceive you. Had my brother been convicted, the established guilt would have tarnished forever our only legacy, all that father left to Bertie and to me—his spotless name."
"You are quibbling. Did you shield the family name by enduring the purgatory of seeing your own on the list of penitentiary convicts? You deliberately fastened the odium of the crime upon your father's daughter; and you knew, you understood perfectly, that by strengthening my erroneous supposition, you were lashing me to a pursuit of the person, whom you could have best protected by frankly telling me all. If he is really your brother, what did you expect to accomplish by fostering my belief that he was your lover?"
"Mr. Dunbar, spare me this inquisition. Release me from the rack of suspense. Tell me why you set this snare, baited with Bertie's name?"
"I must first end my own suspense. If you wish to find the man, you tell me is your brother, I will aid you only when you have bared your heart to me. You had some powerful incentive unrevealed. I will know exactly, why you made me suffer all these years, the pangs of a devouring jealousy, keener than a vulture's talons."
With crimson cheeks, and shy, averted eyes, she sat trembling; unconsciously locking and unlocking her fingers. Her head drooped, and the voice was a low flutter:
"If I had told you that the handkerchief was one I gave to my brother, because he fancied the gay border, and that the pipe belonged to my dear father, and if you had known that for more than a year before I went to X—-no tidings from that brother had reached me, would you have kept my secret, when you saw my life laid in the scales held by the jury? Suppose they had condemned me to death? I expected that fate; but knowing the truth, would you have permitted the execution of that sentence?"
"Certainly not; and you understand why I should never have allowed it."
"I knew that in such an emergency I could not trust you."
Five minutes passed, while he silently sought to unravel the web; and Beryl dared not meet his gaze.
"You had some stronger motive, else you would have confessed all, when I started to Dakota. Anxiety for your brother's safety would have unsealed your lips. What actuated you then? I mean to know everything now."
"Miss Gordon was my friend. She showed me kindness which I could never forget."
"Miss Gordon is a very noble woman, kinder to all the world than to herself; but did gratitude to her involve sacrifice of me?"
"You were betrothed. I owed it to her, to keep you loyal to your vows, as far as my power extended. I tried faithfully to guard her happiness, while endeavoring to shield my brother."
"Knowing you had all my heart, you dared not let me learn that the rival existed only in my imagination? loyal soul! Did you deem it a kindness to aid in binding her to an unloving husband? Her womanly instincts saved her from that death in life; and years ago, she set us both free. She wears no willows, let me tell you; and those who should know best, think that before very long she will sail for Europe as wife of Governor Glenbeigh, the newly appointed minister to Z—-, a brilliant position, which she will nobly grace. She will be happier as Glenbeigh's wife than I could possibly have made her; for he loves her as she deserves to be loved. So, for Miss Gordon's sake, you immolated me?"
Only the pathetic piping of the lonely bird made answer.
Like the premonitory thrill that creeps through forest leaves, before the coming burst of a tempest, he seemed to tremble slightly; his tone had a rising ring, and a dark flush stained his swarthy face, deepened the color in his brilliant eyes.
"Oh, my white rose! A wonderful fragrance of hope steals into the air; a light breaks upon my dreary world that makes me giddy! Can it be possible that you—"
He paused, and she covered her face with her hands.
"Beryl, you are the only woman I have ever loved. You came suddenly into my life, as an irresistible incarnation of some fateful witchery that stole and fired my heart, subverted all my plans, made havoc of lifelong hopes, dominated my will, changed my nature; overturned the cool selfishness on the altar of my worship, and set up your own image in a temple, swept, garnished, and sanctified forever by your in-dwelling. You have cost me stinging humiliation, years of regret, of bitter disappointment; and the ceaselessly gnawing pain of a jealous dread that despite my vigilance, another man might some day possess you. I have money, influence, professional success, gratified ambition, and enviable social eminence; I have all but that which a man wants most, the one woman in the great wide world whom he loves truly, loves better than he loves himself; and who holds his heart in the hollow of her hand. I want my beautiful, proud, pure, stately white rose. I want my Beryl. I will have my own."
He had risen, stood before her; took the hands that veiled her countenance, and drew her to her feet.
"You have been loyal to parents, to brother, to friends, to duty; be loyal now to your own heart; answer me truly. What did you mean when you once said, with a mournful pathos I cannot forget: 'We love not always whom we should, or would, were choice permitted us?' You defied me that day, and prayed God to bless your lover; taunted me with words that have made days dreary, nights hideous: 'To whom I have given my whole deep heart, you shall never know.' Did you mean—ah—will you tell me now?"
She bent her head till it almost touched him, but no answer came.
"You will not? I swear you shall; else I shall hope, believe, know beyond all doubt, that during these years, I have not been the only sufferer; and that loyal as was your soul, your rebel heart is as truly mine, as all my deathless love is surely yours."
She tried to withdraw her hands; but his hold tightened, and infinite exultation rang in his voice.
"My darling! My darling—you dare not deny it? I shall wear my white rose to make all the future sweet with a blessed love; but have you no word of assurance for my hungry ears? Is my darling too proud?"
He raised her hands, laid her arms around his neck, and folded very close to his heart, the long coveted prize.
"My Beryl, it was a stubborn battle, but Lennox Dunbar claims his own; and will hold her safe forever. Will you be loyal to your tyrant?"
Was it a white or a crimson rose that hid its lovely petals against his shoulder, and whispered with lips that his kiss had rouged:
"Have I ever been allowed a choice? Was I not foredoomed to be always at the mercy of Tiberius?"
The little garden was growing dusky, the gilded mist waving its spectral banners over the thundering cataract, had whitened as the sun went down behind the wooded crest that barred the western sky line; and the shimmering gold on the heaving, whirling current of the Rapids faded to leaden tints, flecked with foam, as like a maddened suitor, parted by Goat Island from its beloved, it rushed to plunge into the abyss, where the silvery bridal veil shook her signal, and all the roaring gorge filled with purple gloom.
Mr. Dunbar drew his companion's hand under his arm, and led her toward the Clifton House.
"You and I have done with shadows. On the heights yonder, the sun still shines. Up there waits one, who will tell you that which he refuses to divulge to any one else. Ten days ago my agents notified me that a man was searching for Mrs. Brentano and her daughter Beryl in New York; and that he had gone to X—-, where he spent several days in consultation with the Catholic priest. Singleton sent me a telegram, and I reached X—-in time to accompany the stranger back to New York. To me he admits only, that he lives in Montreal; and is the bearer of a message, the import of which, sacred promises prevent him from revealing to any one but Miss Brentano. He is an elderly man, and so wary, no amount of dexterity can circumvent his caution. Very complex and inexplicable motives brought me here; chiefly the longing to see you, to learn your retreat, your mode of existence; and also the intention to exact one condition, before I made it possible for you to find the object of your search. When you had given me your promise not to marry him, it was my purpose to allow you one final meeting; and if you forfeited your compact, the dungeon and the gallows awaited him. Love makes women martyrs; they are the apostles of the gospel of altruism. Love revives in men of my stamp, the primeval and undifferentiated tiger. When I think of all that you have endured, of how nearly I lost you, my snowdrop, do you wonder I shall hasten to set you in the garden of my heart, and shelter your dear head from every chill wind of adversity?"
They had passed through a gate, crossed a lawn, and reached a long, steep flight of steps leading straight up the face of a cliff, to the grounds attached to a villa. With her hand clasped tightly in his, Mr. Dunbar and Beryl slowly mounted the abrupt stairway, and when they gained the elevated terrace, a man who was walking up and down the sward, came quickly forward.
Pressing her fingers tenderly, Mr. Dunbar released her hand.
"When your interview is ended, come to me yonder at the side gate, where I have a carriage to take you over the bridge. Father Beckx, this is Miss Brentano. I leave her in your care."
The sun was sending his last level shafts of light from the edge of the sky, when a man dressed in long black vestments, a raven-haired, raven-eyed, thin lipped and clean shaven personage, with a placid countenance as coldly irresponsive as a stone mask, sat down on the top step of the long stairs, beside the woman in gray, whose eager white face was turned to meet his, in breathless and mute expectancy.
The lingering twilight held at bay slowly marching night; the sunset glory streamed up almost to the zenith in bands of amethyst and faint opaline green, like the far reaching plumes of an archangel's pinions beating the still, crystal air. Later, the vivid orange of the afterglow burned with a transient splendor, as the dying smile of a day that had gone to its eternal grave; and all the West was one vast evening primrose of palest gold sprinkled with star dust, when Beryl went slowly to join the figure pacing restlessly in front of the gate.
Across the grassy lawn he came to meet her. In mute surrender she lifted her arms, laid her proud head, with its bared wealth of burnished bronze hair, down on his shoulder, and wept passionately.
When he had placed her in the carriage, and held her close to his heart, with his dark cheek resting on hers, where tears still trickled, he whispered:
"How much are you willing to tell me?"
"Only that I must start at once on a long, lonely journey to a desolate retreat, in mountain solitudes; far away in the wilderness of the Northwest. Bertie is there; and I must see him once more."
"How soon do you wish to start?"
"Within the next three days."
"You must wait one week. I cannot go before that time."
"You—?"
"Do you suppose I shall allow you to travel there without me? Do you imagine I shall ever lose sight of you, till the vows are uttered that make you my wife? You cannot see your brother's face, until you have first looked into your husband's. In one week I can arrange to go, to the ends of the earth if you will; but you will meet your brother only when you are Beryl Dunbar."
"No—no! You forget, ah!—You forget. I have worn the penitentiary homespun, and the brand of the convict seared my fair name, scarred all my life. The wounds will heal, but time can never efface the hard lines of the cicatrice; and I could not bear to mar the lustre of your honored name by—"
"Hush!—hush. It is ungenerous in you to wound me so sorely. When I remember the fiery furnace through which my wife walked unscorched, with such sublime and patient heroism, is it possible that I should forget whose rash hand, whose besotted idiocy consigned her to the awful ordeal? Out of the black shadow where I thrust you, sprang the halo that glorifies you. How often, in the silence of my sleepless nights, have I heard the echo of your wild, despairing cry: 'You have ruined my life!' Oh, my darling! If you withhold yourself, if you cast me away, you will indeed ruin mine. If you could realize how I wince at the recollection of your suffering, you would not cruelly remind me of my own accursed work."
"If the soul of my brother be ransomed thereby, I shall thank you, even for all that X—-cost me. The world knows now, that no suspicion clings to me; but, Mr. Dunbar, the disgrace blots forever the dear name I tried to shield; and my vindication only blackens Bertie."
"The world will never know. Your sad secret shall be kept, and my name shall wrap you in ermine, and my love make your future redeem the past. Having found my darling, can I afford to run the risk of losing her? You belong to me, and I will not trust you out of my sight, until the law gives me a husband's claim. The mother of one of my oldest friends is boarding here in Niagara. I will commit you to her care until to-morrow; then some church will furnish an altar where you shall pledge me your loyalty."
"Impossible! To-night a train will take me to Buffalo, where I can catch the express going West. There are reasons why I must make no delay; must hasten back to explain many things to the Matron of the Sisterhood, where I have dwelt so safely and so peacefully since I left X—-."
"Give me the reasons. 'Impossible' ne me dites jamais ce bete de mot!' Give me your reasons."
His arm tightened around her.
"Not now."
"Then you shall not leave me. I will endure no more mysteries."
"Mr. Dunbar, I wear the uniform of a celibate Order of Gray Sisters; and the matron trusted me in an unusual degree, when she consented that I should undertake this journey on a secret mission. I came to Niagara, as I supposed, to keep an appointment with my brother, and I met you. If I lingered one instant here, it might reflect some discredit upon this dear gray garb, which all hold so irreproachable. Sister Ruth trusted me. I cannot, I will not, even in the smallest iota, appear to betray her confidence; and I must go at once, and go as I came—alone. Bid the driver take me to the railway station, and you must remain in the carriage. I can have no escort. Your presence would subject me to criticism, and I will guard the 'gray' that so mercifully guarded me."
"Beryl, are you trying to elude me?"
"I am faithfully trying to keep my compact with Sister Ruth. Here is a card bearing the exact address of the 'Anchorage'. I am going there as quickly as possible, to make speedy arrangements for my long journey West, to that place almost within sound of the Pacific Ocean."
"Put your hand in mine. Promise me before God, that you will not vanish from me; that you will not leave the 'Anchorage' until I come and see you there."
"I promise; but time presses. I must hasten to find Bertie."
"Do you know exactly where to go?"
"Yes. I have minute directions written down."
"Wait until I come. I trust you to keep your promise. Ah! after to-day, I could not bear to lose my 'Rosa Alba.' God make me more worthy of my loyal and beautiful darling. After all, not Alcestis, but Antigone!"
White and still, lay the world of the far Northwest, wrapped in peace as profound as that which reigned in primeval ages; when ancestral Nahuas, dragging their sleds across frozen Behring Straits, or cast amid other drift of the Japanese current upon the strange new Pacific shore, climbed the mountains, and fell on their faces before the sun, whose worshippers have sacrificed in all hemispheres.
If civilization be the analogue of geologic accretion, how tortuous is the trend and dip of the ethnological strata, how abrupt the overlapping of myths. How many aeons divided the totem coyote from the she-wolf of Romulus and Remus? Which is the primitive and parent flame, the sacred fire of Pueblo Estufas, of Greek Prytaneum, of Roman Vesta, of Persian Atish-khudahs? If the Laurentian system be the oldest upheaval of land, and its "dawn animal" the first evolution of life that left fossil footprints, where are all the missing links in ethnology, which would save science that rejects Genesis—the paradox of peopling the oldest known continent by immigration from those incalculably younger?
Winter had lagged, loath to set his snow shoes upon the lingering, diaphanous train of Indian Summer, but December was inexorable, and the livery of ice glittered everywhere in the mid-day sun.
Along a well-worn bridle trail, now slippery as glass, winding around the base of crags, through narrow gorges that almost overarched, leaving a mere skylight of intense blue to mark the way, moved a party of four persons in single file, slowly ascending a steep spiral. In advance, mounted on a black pony, was a cowled monk, whose long, thin profile suggested that of Savonarola; and just behind him rode a Canadian half-breed guide, with the copperish red of aboriginal America on his high cheek bones, and the warm glow of sunny France in his keen black eyes. Guiding his horse with the left hand, his right led the dappled mustang belonging to the third figure; a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing an overcoat that reached to his knees, who walked with his hand on the bridle bit of a white mule, whereon sat a woman, wrapped in silver fox furs from throat to feet. A cap or hood of the same soft, warm material was worn over her head, where a roll of dark auburn hair coiled at the back; and around her white temples clustered rings and tendrils of the glossy bronze locks that contrasted so singularly with the black arch of the brows, and the fringe that darkened the luminous gray eyes.
One month had elapsed since the Umilta Sisters of the "Anchorage", following Sister Ruth, walked in the star-lit dawn of a November day, to a neighboring church, and watched Doctor Grantlin lead down the aisle, a pale, trembling woman whose hand he placed in that of the man, waiting in front of the altar. The Sisterhood had listened to the solemn words of the marriage service, the interchange of vows, and the benediction, while priestly hands were laid tapon two bowed heads.
When the rising sun greeted the husband and wife, they were speeding westward, on the first stage of their long journey.
To-day, the quest would end; and into Beryl's face had crept the wistful yearning that was a reflection of that strange blending of patience and longing, which made her so beautiful in her husband's eyes; so strong in faith, so serene in waiting resignation. Suddenly the monk drew rein, threw up his drooping head, and listened. Clear and sweet as the silvery chime of bells ringing in happy dreams, floated through the crystal air the sound of the Angelus; and fainter and fainter fell the echoes, dying in immeasurable distance. Low bent the shaven head, and through brown, fingers stole the consecrated beads, while with closed eyes the prayers were uttered; and in the pause, the guide made the sign of the cross, and Mr. Dunbar instinctively took off his hat.
"Six hours' steady climbing is a severe tax. Are you very tired?" he whispered, laying his arm around Beryl's waist, and lifting his brilliant eyes eloquent with an infinite tenderness.
With one hand on his shoulder as he stood beside her, she leaned down until her lips touched the black hair tossed back from his forehead.
"After waiting so many terrible years, what are a few more hours of suspense? Since I have you, can I ever again feel tired?"
Behind them lay a dark undulating line, where oak and cedar had made their last stand on the upward march; nearer, the spectral ranks of stunted firs showed the outposts of forest advance; and a few feet from the narrow path, a perpendicular cliff formed one wall of a deep canon, where a glittering ribbon of water hurried to leap into the Pacific, ere pursuing Winter arrested and bound it with icy manacles to its stony bed. To the north dazzling white peaks cut strange solemn shapes, like silver cameos on a ground of indigo sky; and overhead, burnished lines of snow geese printed their glittering triangles on the paler blue of the zenith, as the winged host dipped southward.
The monk moved on, and after a while his companions perceived that the way descended rapidly until they reached the face of a rock that rose straight and smooth as a wall of human masonry, and apparently barred further progress. Taking from his bosom the twisted section of a polished horn, only a finger's length, the cowled figure raised it to his lips, and blew three whistles, that ended in a rising inflection which waked all the wolfish pack of mountain echoes into fitful barking. Two moments later, an answering signal seemed to issue from the invisible jaws of Hades; a wild, quivering sepulchral cry, as of a monster half throttled. Twenty feet beyond the spot where the party had halted, a steep descent led them to a shelving canon, once the bed of a broad mountain torrent, whose course some seismic upheaval had diverted to other channels. Following for a few yards the sinuous stony way, worn here and there into smooth circular cavities like miniature wells, by the eddying of the ancient current and the grinding of pebbles, the travellers turned a sharp angle, and found themselves at the mouth of Tartarus.
The force of the stream had originally cut a low arch in its egress, which human needs and ingenuity had broadened, heightened and closed by heavy iron bars, slipped into stone slots. Behind this gateway glimmered a faint light that brightened into a red star; and soon, a figure clad in the long, black monastic gown, and bearing a huge torch of blazing pitch pine, emerged from the bowels of the earth. There was the rattle of a chain, the creak of a pulley, and the bars were lowered.
So vividly did the scene recall that black, stormy night in February, when Mr. Dunbar had seen the lantern of the gaoler flash through the penitentiary gates closing on the young convict, that he drew his breath now through clinched teeth, and quickly laid his hand upon that of his wife, which grasped the bridle resting upon the neck of her mule. Silently the procession filed in, and with little delay the torch bearer replaced the bars, advanced to the head of the column, and with long, swift strides led the way down a wide tunnel. Between the monks no salutation was exchanged; and only the ringing tramp of the horses' feet on the stone pavement, jarred the profound stillness. The lurid glare of the torch danced on the rocky vault, and the shadows projected by men and beasts were gigantic and grotesque. Very soon a gray twilight stole to meet them; an arch of light like a window opening into heaven brightened, glared, and the party emerged into a courtyard that seemed an entrance to some vast amphitheatre.
Opposite the mouth of the tunnel, and distant perhaps two hundred yards, lay an oval lake, bordered on the right by a valley running southeast, while its northern shore rose abruptly in a parapet of rock, that patient cloistered workmen had cut into broad terraces; and upon which opened rows of cells excavated from the mountain side, and resembling magnified swallow nests, or a huge petrified honeycomb sliced vertically.
A legend so hoary, that "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary", had assigned the outlines of this stone cutting to that dim dawn of primeval tribal life, which left its later traces in the Watch Tower of the Mancos, the Casa del Eco, and the "niche stairway of the Hovenweep".
In the slow deposition of the human strata, cliff dwellers disappeared beneath predatory, nomadic modern savages, who, hunting and fishing in this lonely fastness, had increased its natural fortifications, and made it an impregnable depot of supplies, until Hudson Bay trappers wrenched it from their grasp, and appropriated it as a peltry magazine. To the dynasty of traders had succeeded the spiritual rule of a Jesuit Mission; then miners kindled camp fires in the deserted excavations, as they probed the mountain for ores; and more recently the noiseless feet of a band of holy celibates belonging to an austere Order, went up and down the face of the cliff, with cross and bell and incense exorcising haunting aboriginal spectres; while holy water sprinkled the uncanny, dismal precincts of a circular room hollowed behind and beneath all other apartments, the monumental, sacred Estufa.
At a signal from the monk who had escorted them, Mr. Dunbar lifted Beryl from her saddle, and hand in hand they followed him across the courtyard, mounted a flight of steps cut in the rock, and passed into a low, dim room, where the ceiling was crossed in squares by heavy, red cedar beams. The floor was paved with diamond-shaped slabs of purple slate, the whitewashed wall adorned with colored lithographs of the Passion; and above the cavernous chimney arch, where cedar logs blazed, ran the inscription: "Otiositas inimica est animae."
Noiselessly as the wings of a huge bat, a leathern screen was folded back from the corner of the room, and a venerable man advanced from the gloom.
A fringe of white hair surrounded his head like a laurel chaplet in old statues, and the heavy, straight brows that almost met across the nose, hung as snowflakes over the intensely black eyes as glowing as lamps set in the sockets of an ivory image. Scholarly and magnetic as Abelard, with a certain innate proud poise of the head and shoulders, that ill accorded with the Carlo-Borromeo expression of seraphic serenity and meekness, set like a seal on the large square mouth, he looked a veritable type of the ecclesiastical cenobites who, since the days of Pachomius at Tabennae, have made their hearts altars of the Triple Vows, and girdled the globe with a cable of scholastic mysticism. The pale, shrunken hand he laid on the black serge that covered his breast, was delicate as a woman's, and checkered with knotted lines where the blood crept feebly.
Bowing low, he spoke in a carefully modulated voice, deep and resonant as a bass viol:
"Welcome to such hospitality as our poverty permits. A cipher telegram forwarded from the nearest station, sixty miles hence, prepared us to expect a newly-married woman searching for a man, known to the secular world as Robert Luke Brentano. You claim to be his nearest blood relative?"
"I am his sister. How is he?"
"Alive, but sinking fast; sustained beyond all human calculation by the hope of seeing you. You have not come one moment too soon. The man you seek is only a lay brother here. The rules of our Order forbid the admission of women to the cloister, but in articulo mortis! can I deny him now the confession he wishes to offer you? Our holy ordinances have done their divine work; the last rites of the Church have soothed and consecrated the heart of Brother Luke, and an hour ago, extreme unction was administered. Follow me."
"He knows that I am coming?" asked Beryl, raising her white, tear-drenched face from her husband's shoulder.
"He knows; and holds death back to see you. His self-imposed penance makes him steadfastly refuse the comparative comfort of our meagre infirmary, and it is his wish to die, where he has spent so many nights in penitential prayer. For several days, the paralysis of years has been gradually loosening its fetters, and this morning, the distressing and ghastly distortion of one side of his face almost disappeared. Though his voice is well nigh gone, it returns fitfully, and his strength seems supernatural. Fearing that you might not arrive in time, I have written down his last confession, and here commit it to you."
He placed a roll of paper in her hand, and drawing his cowl over his head, led them up an easy stairway cut in the stone, to a second terrace four feet wide, that projected as a roof beyond the lower tier of cells.
A hundred feet below lay the lakelet, shining as a mirror; to the southeast stretched a valley bounded by buttes crowned with cedar, and in the undulating field, locked from fierce winds, cattle and goats sunned themselves, where in summer time grain waved, fruit ripened, and bees hummed.
From the parapet of a low wall facing west, rose a round tower heavily buttressed, where swung the bell; and through an open arch in the side, under the uplifted cross, the eye swept on and on, over a world of snowy peaks, dark canons, mountain minarets girding the northern horizon; and far, far away a scintillating thread of white fire marked where the Pacific smiled behind the fiords that channelled the rock-ribbed coast.
In that still, cold and brilliant atmosphere, how dazzling the snow blink, how sharp the outline of projected shadows, how close the bending heavens seemed; but to the yearning soul of Beryl, the silent, solemn sublimity of the mighty panorama made no appeal.
Through slowly dripping tears she saw only the spectral flitting of her mother's sad face, as in their last interview she had committed the soul of the son to the guardianship of the daughter.
The monk paused, and pointed to the third cell from the spot where he stood.
"It is but a step farther. Yonder, where the skull is set over the entrance."
"I will wait here," said Mr. Dunbar, relinquishing with a tight pressure, his wife's cold hand.
"No, come. Are we not one?"
She hurried along the terrace, and reached the low open doorway fronting the South, where the sunshine streamed in like God's smile of forgiveness.
On the stone floor was a straw pallet covered with coarse brown blankets, whereon, half propped by one elbow, with head against the gray rocky wall, lay the emaciated wreck of a man, whose pallid face might have been mistaken for that of a corpse, but for the superhuman splendor of the wide, deep brown eyes.
Beryl sprang into the cave-like recess, and fell on her knees. She snatched him to her heart, laid his head on her shoulder.
"Bertie! My darling! my darling!—"
He tried to raise one arm to her neck, but it fell back. She lifted it, held it close, and face to face with her lips on his, she broke into passionate sobbing, rocking herself to and fro, in the tempest of grief.
"Give me, give—me—air—" He struggled for breath, which her tight clasp denied him; and for some minutes he panted, while Mr. Dunbar fanned him with his hat. Then the heaving chest grew more quiet, and after a moment, his eyes lighted with a happy smile as they fastened on Beryl's face, bent over him.
"Gigina, sweet, faithful sister, it is almost heaven to see you once more. God is good, even to me."
"If I could have found you sooner! All these dreadful years I have lived at God's feet—with one prayer: let me help my Bertie, let me see my brother's face," moaned Beryl, pressing her lips to the clammy, fleshless hand she held against her throat.
"I was too unworthy. I dreaded your pure eyes, and mother's, as I would an accusing angel's. I did not know, then, that mother was already one of the Beatified. I know now, that neither life nor death, nor sin nor shame, nor the brand of disgrace can change mother's love; for I see her to-day, smiling at the door, beckoning me to follow where the sun shines forever. My sainted mother."
"Her last breath was a blessing for you. See, Bertie! this was her wedding ring. Her final message was, 'Give this to my darling!' Be comforted, dear Bertie, she loved you even to the end—supremely. You were her idol in death as in life. Our father's ring was the most sacred relic she owned, and she left it to you."
She attempted to place the gold band on one of his fingers, but he closed that hand, and the dark eyes so like his mother's, were for an instant dimmed by tears.
"Keep it; no sin of theft soils your hands. You can wear it without a blush. You never robbed an old man of his gold. That was my crime, I am a thief."
"Our God sees you have repented bitterly; and He has pardoned your sins for His dear Son's sake. Tell me, Bertie, have you made your eternal salvation sure? Are you, in your soul, at peace with God?"
"At perfect peace. I want to die, because now I am no longer afraid to meet Him, who forgives even thieves. Gigi, wait a little—"
He seemed to make a desperate effort to rally his strength, and the thin, fine nostril flared, in the battle for breath.
"There has been a terrible mistake, and they made you suffer for what they imagined happened. When I found I had only a few months to live, I wrote to Father Beckx, whom I had known in Montreal, and asked him to tell mother where I was. I never knew till he went to X—-and wrote us about the trial, that you were suspected and punished for a crime that was never committed. I thought you and mother were safe in New York, all those years, and I knew that you would be sure to take care of her. I have it all written down—and I can't tell you now—but I want to look straight into your dear eyes—my brave sister, my loving sister—and let you learn first from me—the reward you have won—your Bertie is not a murderer. I did take the money from the vault which was wide open, when first I saw it. I did steal and destroy the will, which I thought unjustly robbed us all of our right to the Darrington estate, but that was my sole offence. I am a thief, before God and man, but there is no more stain of blood on my hands than on yours. General Darrington was not murdered. He died by the hand of God alone—"
A bluish shadow settled around his parted lips, and he panted.
Mr. Dunbar raised him, fanned him, rested his head more comfortably against his sister's shoulder; and again he looked intently into her eyes, as though his soul, plumed for departure, must right itself in the presence of hers, before the final flight.
"He struck me with the andiron, and broke my wrist here—then before I ever touched him—as he raised it to assault me the second time—there came an awful blinding glare—the world was wrapped in a blue fire—and God struck us both down. When I became conscious, my senses were all stunned, but after a while I knew I was lying on the floor, with a cold hand resting like lead on my face. I got up; the figure didn't move, and I supposed that like myself he was stunned by the shock. As I passed a mirror on my way to the window—I saw myself—for the lamp was burning bright. God had branded me a thief. Do you see here—drawn—paralyzed, oh, Gina! All these years I have worn the dark streak, and one eye was blind, one ear stone deaf. I was a walking shadow of my own sin; horrible to look upon—and I fled to avoid the gaze of my race. Somewhere, in Illinois I think, I heard two men on a train speak of a large reward offered for the recovery of Gen'l Darrington's will, which had been stolen by one of his heirs, whom the police were hunting. I was branded—and on my breast here was printed the face of the dead man—for he had torn my shirt open as he seized me with one hand, and struck me with the other. I hid in mines, crossed the plains, secreted myself in a bee ranche. Then the Canadian railroad was partly built, and I joined the grading party and worked—until the curse of my sin was more than I could bear. I heard of the holy Brothers here, made my last journey, confessed my theft, and entered on my penance. Gina, General Darrington was killed instantly by the lightning."
As the burden Beryl had long borne slipped suddenly from her heart, the joy of release from blood-stain was so unexpected, so intense, that her face blanched to a deadly pallor, and the glad eyes she lifted to her husband's shone as those of an angel.
"Bertie—Bertie—" Words failed her. She could only kiss the wasted cold hands that were innocent of bloodshed.
After some moments, the dying man said almost in a whisper:
"I never knew you were punished for my sin, until it was too late to save you, but God's witness cleared your pure name. The lightning that scorched me, printed its testimony to set you free. My sister—my sister—God will surely recompense your faithful—" The voice died in a quivering gurgle.
"I have my reward, dear Bertie. Oh, how much more than I deserve! I have you in my arms, innocent of murder, thank God! thank God! I have the blessed absurance that your pardoned soul goes to meet mother's in Eternal Peace; and to secure that, I would have willingly died an ignominious death. It was through the fiery flames of prison, and trial and convict shame, that God led me to the most precious crown any woman ever wore, my husband's confidence and love. Only behind dungeon bars could I have won my husband's heart, which holds for me the whole wide world of earthly peace and hope. For your sin, you have suffered. Its consequences to others from the destruction of the will, have been averted by the prompt transfer of all the property which Gen'l Darrington left, to his chosen heir Prince. Pecuniarily no one was injured by your act. Dear Bertie—Bertie, are you listening?"
He smiled but made no answer, and his eyes had a strained and exultant expression. After a long silence, he cried huskily:
"The curse is taken away—out of my blinded eye I see—Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi—"
A slight spasm shook him, and feeling his cheek grow colder, Beryl threw off the fur cloak, and folded it closely around the wasted body which leaned heavily against her. The sunny short rings of hair clung to his sunken, blue veined temples, where cold drops gathered; and a gray seal was set about the wan lips that writhed in the fight for breath.
"Bertie, kiss me—tell me you are not afraid."
She fancied he nestled his face closer, but the wide eyes were fixed on the golden light that was fading fast across the narrow doorway.
Pressing her quivering lips to his, she sobbed:
"Tell mother, her little girl was faithful—"
Another spasm shook the form, and after a little while, the eyes closed; the panting ceased, and the tired breath was drawn in long, shuddering sighs.
Mr. Dunbar beckoned to the cowled form who, rosary in hand, paced the terrace, and the two laid the dying man back on his pallet of straw.
Fainter grew the slow breath, and the voice of the monk rolled through the silence, like the tremolo swell of an organ:
"Delicta juventutis, et ignorantias ejus, quoesumus, ne memineris, Domine; sed secundum magnam misericordiam tuam memor esto illius in gloria claritatis tuoe."
On the stone floor Beryl knelt, with her brother's icy hand clasped against her cheek, and as she watched, the twitching of the muscles ceased, the lips so long distorted, took on their old curves of beauty. A marble pallor blanched the dark stain of the branded cheek, and the Bertie of innocent youth came slowly out of the long eclipse.
Death, God's most tender angel, laid her divine lips upon the scars of sin, that vanished at her touch; drew her white fingers across the lines and shadows of suffering time, and leaving the halo of eternal peace upon the frozen features, gave back to Beryl her beautiful Bertie of old.
The sun was setting; and far away the ice domes and minarets of immemorial mountains took on the burnished similitude of the New Jerusalem, which only the exiled saw from lonely Patmos.
Lennox Dunbar lifted his wife from the form of the sleeper, whose ransomed soul had entered early into Rest; and folded her tenderly to the heart that henceforth was her refuge from all earthly woes.
At midnight, the brooding silence of the snow-hooded solitude was broken by the tolling of the monastery bell; and while all the mountain echoes responded to the slow knell for the departed soul, there rose from the chapel under the cliffs, the solemn chant of the monks for their dead:
"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis."
"Give them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them."