"Mr. Deaf Duff: Excuse the familiarity, but the coincidence amuses me. I want you to make me a visit this evening after dark at my quarters in my brother, Knox Van de Lear's house, on Queen Street nearly opposite your place of lodging. If Mars crosses the orbit of Venus to-night, as I expect—there being signs of it in the milky way,—you will assist me in an observation that will stagger you on account of its results. Do not come out until dark, and ask at my brother's den forCal."
"Mr. Deaf Duff: Excuse the familiarity, but the coincidence amuses me. I want you to make me a visit this evening after dark at my quarters in my brother, Knox Van de Lear's house, on Queen Street nearly opposite your place of lodging. If Mars crosses the orbit of Venus to-night, as I expect—there being signs of it in the milky way,—you will assist me in an observation that will stagger you on account of its results. Do not come out until dark, and ask at my brother's den for
Cal."
"I will not be in to-night, Mike," exclaimed Duff Salter a little while afterward. "You can have all the evening to yourself. Where do you spend your spare time?"
"On Traity Island," replied Mike with a grin."I doesn't like Kinsington afther dark. They say it has ghosts, sur."
"But only the ghosts of they killed as they crossed from Treaty Island."
"Sure enough! But I've lost belafe in ghosts since they have become so common. Everybody belaves in thim in Kinsington, and I prefer to be exclusive and sciptical, yer honor."
"Didn't you tell me yesterday that you believed in spirits going and coming and hoping and waiting, and it gave you great comfort?"
"Did I, sur? I forgit it inthirely. It must have been a bad day for my vartigo."
Duff Salter looked at his man long and earnestly, and from head to foot, and the inspection appeared to please him.
"Mike," he said, in his loud, deafish voice, "I am going to cure you of your vertigo."
"Whin, dear Mister Salter."
"Perhaps to-morrow," remarked Duff Salter significantly. "I shall have a man here who will either confer it on you permanently or cure you instantly."
Duff Salter put on his hat, took his stick, and drew the curtains down.
Mike was sitting at the writing table arranging some models of vessels and steam tugs as his employer turned at the doorway and looked back, and, with a countenance more waggish than exasperated, Duff Salter shook his cane at the unobservant Irishman, and sagely gestured with his head.
Agnes was about to take the head of the tea-table as he came down the stairs.
"No," motioned Duff Salter, and pointed out of doors.
He gave a slight examination to Agnes, so delicate as to be almost unnoticed, though she perceived it.
Duff sat at the tea side and wrote on his tablets:
"How is little Podge coming on?"
"Growing better," replied Agnes, "but she will be unfit to teach her school for months. Kind friends have sent her many things."
Duff Salter waited a little while, and wrote:
"I wish I could leave everybody happy behind me when I go away."
"Are you going soon?"
"I am going at once," wrote Duff Salter with a sudden decision. "I am not trusted by anybody here, and my work is over."
Agnes sat a little while in pain and wistfulness. Finally she wrote:
"There is but one thing which prevents our perfect trust in you; it is your distrust of us."
"Iamdistrustful—too much so," answered, in writing, the deaf man. "A little suspicion soon overspreads the whole nature, and yet, I think, one can be generous even with suspicion. Among the disciples were a traitor, a liar, a coward, and a doubter; but none upbraid the last, poor Thomas, and he is sainted in our faith. Do you know that suspicion made me deaf? Yes; if we mock Nature with distrust, she stops our ears. Do you not remember what happened to Zacharias, the priest? He would not believe the angel who announced that his wife would soon become a mother, and for his unbelief was stricken dumb!"
The deaf guest had either stumbled into this illustration, or written it with full design. He looked at Agnes, and the pale and purple colors came and went upon her face as she bent her body forward over the table. Duff Salter arose and spoke with that lost voice, like one in a vacuum, while he folded his tablet.
"Agnes," he said, "it has been cruel to a man of such a sceptical soul as mine to educate him back from the faith he had acquired to the unfaith he had tried to put behind him. Why did you do it? The suppression of the truth is never excusable. The secret you might have scattered with a word, when suspicion started against you, is now diffused through every family and rendezvous in Kensington."
She looked miserable enough, and still received the stab of her guest's magisterial tongue like an affliction from heaven.
"I had also become infected with this imputation," continued Duff Salter. "All things around you looked sinister for a season. A kind Providence has dispelled these black shadows, and I see you now the victim of an immeasurable mistake. Your weakness and another's obstinacy have almost ruined you. I shall save you with a cruel hand; let the remorse be his who hoped to outlive society and its natural suspicions by a mere absence."
"I will not let you upbraid him," spoke Agnes Wilt. "My weakness was the whole mistake."
"Agnes," said the grave, bearded man, "you must walk through Kensington to-morrow with me in the sight of the whole world."
She looked up and around a moment, and staggeredtoward a sofa, but would have fallen had not Duff Salter caught her in his arms and placed her there with tender strength. He whispered in her ear:
"Courage, littlemother!"
Ringing the bell at the low front step of a two-story brick dwelling, Duff Salter was admitted by Mr. Knox Van de Lear, the proprietor, a tall, plain, commonplace man, who scarcely bore one feature of his venerable father. "Come in, Mr. Salter," bellowed Knox, "tea's just a-waitin' for you. Pap's here. You know Cal, certain! This is my good lady, Mrs. Van de Lear. Lottie, put on the oysters and waffles! Don't forgit the catfish. There's nothing like catfish out of the Delaware, Mr. Salter."
"Particularly if they have a corpse or two to flavor them," said Calvin Van de Lear in a low tone.
Mrs. Knox Van de Lear, a fine, large, blonde lady, took the head of the table. She had a sweet, timid voice, quite out of quantity with her bone and flesh, and her eyelashes seemed to be weak, for they closed together often and in almost regular time, and the delicate lids were quite as noticeable as her bashful blue eyes.
"Lottie," said Rev. Silas Van de Lear, "I came in to-night with a little chill upon me. At my age chills are the tremors from other wings hovering near. Please let me have the first cup of coffee hot."
"Certainly, papa," said the hostess, making hasteto fill his cup. "You don't at all feel apprehensive, do you?"
"No," said the old man, with his teeth chattering. "I haven't had apprehensions for long back. Nothing but confidence."
"Oh, pap!" put in Knox Van de Lear, "you'll be a preachin' when I'm a granddaddy. You never mean to die. Eat a waffle!"
"My children," said the old man, "death is over-due with me. It gives me no more concern than the last hour shall give all of us. I had hoped to live for three things: to see my new church raised; to see my son Calvin ready to take my place; to see my neighbor, Miss Wilt, whom I have seen grow up under my eye from childhood, and fair as a lily, brush the dew of scandal from her skirts and resume her place in our church, the handmaid of God again."
"Amen, old man!" spoke Calvin irreverently, holding up his plate for oysters.
"Why, Cal," exclaimed the hostess, closing her delicately-tinted eyelids till the long lashes rested on the cheek, "why don't you call papa more softly?"
"My son," spoke the little old gentleman between his chatterings, "in the priestly office you must avoid abruptness. Be direct at all important times, but neither familiar nor abrupt. I cannot name for you a model of address like Agnes Wilt."
"Isn't she beautiful!" said Mrs. Knox. "Do you think she can be deceitful, papa?"
"I have no means to pierce the souls of people, Lottie, more than others. I don't believe she is wicked, but I draw that from my reason and humanfaith. That woman was a pillar of strength in my Sabbath-school. May the Lord bring her forth from the furnace refined by fire, and punish them who may have persecuted her!"
"Cal is going into a decline on her account," said Knox. "I know it by seeing him eat waffles. She refused Cal one day, and he came home and eat all the cold meat in the house."
"Mr. Salter," the hostess said, raising her voice, "you have a beautiful woman for a landlady. Is she well?"
"Very melancholy," said Duff Salter. "Why don't you visit her?"
"Really," said the hostess, "there is so much feeling against Agnes that, considering Papa Van de Lear's position in Kensington, I have been afraid. Agnes is quite too clever for me!"
"I hope she will be," said Duff Salter, relapsing to his coffee.
"He didn't hear what you said, Lot," exclaimed Calvin. "The old man has to guess at what we halloo at him."
"Have you appraised the estate of the late William Zane?" asked the minister, with his bold pulpit voice, which Salter could hear easily.
"Yes," replied the deaf guest. "It comes out strong. It is worth, clear of everything and not including doubtful credits, one hundred and eighty thousand dollars."
"That is the largest estate in Kensington," exclaimed the clergyman.
"I shall release it all within one week to MissAgnes," said Duff Salter. "You are too old, Mr. Van de Lear, to manage it. I have finished my work as co-executor with you. The third executor is Miss Wilt. With the estate in her hands she will change the tone of public opinion in Kensington, perhaps, and the fugitive heir must return or receive no money from the woman he has injured!"
"I am entirely of your opinion," said Reverend Mr. Van de Lear. "Agnes was independent before; this will make her powerful, and she needs all the power she can get to meet this insensate suburban opinion. When I was a young man, commencing to minister here, I had rivals enough, and deeply sympathize with those who must defend themselves against the embattled gossip of a suburban society."
Mrs. Knox Van de Lear opened and closed her eyes with a saintly sort of resignation.
"I am glad for Agnes," she said. "But I fear the courts will not allow her, suspected as she is, to have the custody of so much wealth that has descended to her through the misfortunes of others, if not by crimes."
"You are right, Lot," said Calvin. "Her little game may be to get a husband as soon as she can, who will resist a trustee's appointment by the courts."
"Cansheget a husband, Cal?"
"Oh, yes! She's lightning! There's old Salter, rich as a Jew. She's smart enough to capture him and add all he has to all that was coming to Andrew Zane."
Mr. Salter drew up his napkin and sneezed into it a soft articulation of "Jericho! Jericho!"
"Cal, don't you think you have some chance thereyet?" asked Knox Van de Lear. "I hoped you would have won Aggy long ago. It's a better show than I ever had. You see I have to be at work at six o'clock, winter and summer, and stay at the bookbindery all day long, and so it goes the year round."
"Indeed, it is so!" exclaimed the hostess, slowly shutting down her silken lids of pink. "My poor husband goes away from me while I still sleep in the dark of dawn; he only returns at supper."
"Well, haven't you got brother Cal?" asked the bookbinder. "He's better company than I am, Lottie."
"But Calvin is in love with Miss Wilt," said the lady, softly unclosing her eves.
"No," coolly remarked Calvin, "I am not in love with her. You know that, Lottie."
"Well, Calvin, dear, you would be if you thought she was pure and clear of crime."
"Don't ask me foolish questions!" said Calvin.
The lady at the head of the table wore a pretty smile which she shut away under her eyelids again and again, and looked gently at Calvin.
"Dear Agnes!" ejaculated Mrs. Knox, "I never blamed her so much as that bold little creature, Podge Byerly! No one could make any impression upon Agnes's confidence until that bright little thing went to board with her. It is so demoralizing to take these working-girls, shop-girls and school-teachers, in where religious influences had prevailed! They became inseparable; Agnes had to entertain such company as Miss Byerly brought there, and it produced a lowering of tone. She looked around her suddenly when thesecrimes were found out, and all her old mature friends were gone. It is so sad to lose all the wholesome influences which protect one!"
Duff Salter had been eating his chicken and catfish very gravely, and as he stopped to sneeze and apologize he noticed that Calvin Van de Lear's face was insolent in its look toward his brother's wife.
"Wholesome influence," said Calvin, "will return at the news of her money, quick enough!"
"Poor dear Cal!" exclaimed the lady; "he is still madly in love!"
"My friends," spoke up Duff Salter, "your father is a very sick man. Let us take him to a chamber and send for his doctor."
Mr. Van de Lear had been neglected in this conversation; it was now seen that he was in collapse and deathly pale. He leaned forward, however, from strong habit, to close the meal with a blessing, and his head fell forward upon the table. Duff Salter had him in his arms in a moment, and bore him into the little parlor and placed him on a sofa.
"Give me some music, children," he murmured. "Oh, my brother Salter! I would that you could hear with me the rustling sounds I hear in music now! There are voices in it keeping heavenly time, saying, 'Well done! well done!' My strong, kind brother, let me lean upon your breast. Had we met in younger days I feel that we would have been very friendly with each other."
Duff Salter already had the meagre little man upon his breast, and his long, hale beard descended upon the pale and aged face.
Mrs. Knox Van de Lear seated herself at the piano and began a hymn, and Calvin Van de Lear accompanied her, singing bass. The old man closed his eyes on Duff Salter's breast, and Mr. Knox Van de Lear went out softly to send for a physician. Duff Salter, looking up at a catch in the singing, saw that Calvin Van de Lear was leaning familiarly on the lady's shoulder while he turned the leaves of the book of sacred music.
"I am very sick," said the old clergyman, still shaken by the chills. "Perhaps we shall meet together no more. My fellow-executor, do my part in this world! In all my life of serving the church and its Divine Master, I have first looked out for the young people. They are most helpless, most valuable. See that Sister Agnes is mercifully cared for! If young Andrew Zane returns, deal gently with him too. Let us be kind to the dear boys, though they go astray. The dear, dear boys!"
Duff Salter received the brave little man's head again upon his breast, and said to himself:
"May God speedily take him away in mercy!"
The doctor, returning with Knox Van de Lear, commanded the minister to be instantly removed to a chamber, and Duff Salter, unassisted, walked up-stairs with him like a father carrying his infant to bed. As they placed the wasted figure away beneath the coverlets, he put his arm around Duff Salter's neck.
"Brother," he said hoarsely, the chill having him in its grasp, "God has blessed you. Can you help my new church?"
"I promise you," said Duff Salter, "that after yourpeople have done their best I will give the remainder. It shall be built!"
"Now, God be praised!" whispered the dying pastor. "And let Thy servant depart in peace."
"Amen!" from somewhere, trembled through the chamber as Duff Salter, his feet muffled like his voice, in the habit of mute people who walk as they hear, passed down the stairway.
Duff Salter took his seat in the dining-room, which was an extension of Knox Van de Lear's plain parlor, and buried his face in his palms. Years ago, when a boy, he had attended preaching in Silas Van de Lear's little chapel, and it touched him deeply that the nestor of the suburb was about to die; the last of the staunch old pastors of the kirk who had never been silent when liberty was in peril. The times were not the same, and the old man was too brave and simple for the latter half of his century. As Duff Salter thought of many memories associated with the Rev. Silas Van de Lear's residence in Kensington, he heard his own name mentioned. It was a lady's voice; nothing but acute sensibility could have made it so plain to a deaf man:
"Husband," said the lady with the slumberous eyelids, "go out with the pitcher and get us half a gallon of ale. Cal and Mr. Salter and myself are thirsty."
"I have been for the doctor, Lottie; let Cal go."
"Cal?" exclaimed the lady, very quietly raising her lashes. "It would not do for him to go forale! He is to be the junior pastor, my dear, as soon as papa is buried, over the Van de Lear church."
"All right," said the tired husband, "I'll go. We must all back up Cal."
As soon as the door closed upon Mr. Knox Van de Lear, a kiss resounded through the little house, and a woman's voice followed it, saying:
"Imprudent!"
"Oh, bah!" spoke Calvin Van de Lear. "Salter is deaf as a post. Lottie, Agnes Wilt has been ruined!"
In the long pause following this remark the deaf man peeped through his fingers and saw the lady of the house kiss her husband's brother again and again.
"I am so glad," she whispered. "Can it be true?"
"It's plain as a barn door. She'll be a mother before shad have run out, or cherries come in."
"The proud creature! And now, Cal dear, you see nothing exceptionally saint-like there?"
"I see shame, friendlessness, wealth, and welcome," spoke the young man. "It's just my luck!"
"But the deaf man? Will he not take her part?"
"No. I shall show him to-night what will cure his partiality. Lottie, you must let me marry her."
The large, blonde lady threw back her head until the strong, animal throat and chin stood sharply defined, and white and scarlet in color as the lobster's meat.
"Scoundrel!" she hissed, clenching Calvin's wrist with an almost maniacal fury.
At this moment a bell began to toll on the neighboring fire company's house, and Knox Van de Lear entered with the pitcher of ale.
"They're tolling the fire bell at the news of father's dying," said Knox.
Calvin filled a glass of ale, and exclaimed:
"Here's to the next pastor of Kensington!" as he laughingly drained it off.
"Oh, brother Cal!" remarked the hostess as she softly dropped her eyelids and smiled reprovingly; "this irreverence comes of visiting Miss Agnes Wilt too often. I must take you in charge."
Duff Salter gave a furious sneeze:
"Jericho! Oh! oh! Jericho!"
Calvin Van de Lear closed the door between the dining-room and the parlor, and drew Duff Salter's tablets from his pocket and wrote:
"I want you to go up on the house roof with me."
Duff looked at him in surprise, and wrote in reply:
"Do you mean to throw me off?"
Calvin's sallow complexion reddened a very little as he laughed flippantly, and stroked his dry side-whiskers and took the tablets again:
"I want you to see the ghost's walk," he wrote. "Come along!"
Passing the sick father's door, Calvin led Duff Salter up to the garret floor, where a room with rag carpet, dumb-bells, boxing-gloves, theological books, and some pictures far from modest, disclosed the varied tastes of an entailed pulpit's expectant. Calvin drew down the curtain of the one window and lighted a lamp. There was a table in the middle of the floor, and there the two men conducted a silent conversation on the ivory tablets.
"This is my room," wrote Calvin. "I stay here all day when I study or enjoy myself. The governordoesn't come in here to give me any advice or nose around."
"Is Mrs. Knox Van de Lear serious as to religious matters?"
"Very," wrote Calvin, sententiously, and looked at Duff Salter with the most open countenance he had ever been seen to show. Duff merely asked another question:
"Has she a good handwriting? I want to have a small document very neatly written."
Calvin went over to a trunk, unlocked it, and took out a bundle of what appeared to be lady's letters, and selecting one, folded the address back and showed the chirography.
"Jericho! Jerry-cho! cho! O cho!" sneezed Duff Salter. "The most admirable writing I have ever seen."
Calvin took the tablets.
"I have been in receipt of some sundry sums of money from you, Salter, to follow up this Zane mystery. I hope to be able to show you to-night that it has not been misinvested."
"You have had two hundred dollars," wrote Duff Salter. "What are your conclusions?"
"Andrew Zane is in Kensington."
"Where?"
"In the block opposite are several houses belonging to the Zane estate. One of them stood empty until within a month, when a tenant unknown to the neighborhood, with small furniture and effects—evidently a mere servant—moved in. My brother's wife has taken a deep interest in the Zane murder, and being at homeall day, her resort is this room, where she can see, unobserved, the wholemenageand movement in the block opposite."
"Why did she feel so much interested?"
"Honor bright!" Calvin wrote. "Well, Mrs. Knox was a great admirer of the late William Zane. They were very intimate—some thought under engagement to marry. Suddenly she accepted my brother, and old Zane turned out to be infatuated with his ward. We may call it rivalry and reminiscence."
"Jer-i-choo-wo!"
Duff Salter, now full of smiles, proffered a pinch of snuff to his host, who declined it, but set out a bottle of brandy in reciprocal friendship.
"Go on," indicated Salter to the tablets.
"One morning, just before daybreak, my brother's wife, glancing out of this window—"
"In this room, you say, before daybreak?"
Calvin looked viciously at Duff Salter, who merely smiled.
"She saw," said Calvin Van de Lear, "an object come out of the trap-door on Zane's old residence and move under shelter of the ridge of the roof to the newly-tenanted dwelling in the same block, and there disappear down the similar trap."
"Jericho! Jericho!—Proceed."
"It was our inference that probably Andrew Zane was making stealthy visits to Agnes, and we applied a test to her. To our astonishment we found she had only seen him once since the murder, and that was the night the bodies were discovered."
"How could you extract that from a self-containedwoman like Agnes Wilt?" asked Duff Salter, deeply interested.
"We got it from Podge Byerly."
"Jerusalem!" exclaimed Duff Salter aloud, knocking over the snuff-box and forgetting to sneeze. "Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, it is a damned lie."
Calvin locked up with some surprise but more conceit.
"I'm a first-class eavesdropper," he wrote, and held it up on the tablet to Duff's eyes. "We got the fact from Podge's bed-ridden brother, a scamp who destroyed his health by excesses and came back on Podge for support. Knowing how corruptible he was, I got access to him and paid him out of your funds to wheedle out of Podge all that Lady Agnes told her. She had no idea that her brother communicated with any person, as he was unable to walk, and she told him for his amusement secrets she never dreamed could go out of the house. We corresponded with him by mail."
"Calvin," wrote Duff Salter, "you never thought of these things yourself."
"To give the devil his credit, my brother's wife suggested that device."
"Jericho-o-o-oh!"
Duff Salter was himself again.
"Well, Salter," continued the heir-apparent of Kensington, "we laid our heads together, and the mystery continued to deepen why Andrew Zane infested the residence of his murdered father if he never revealed himself to the woman he had loved. Not until the discovery that Agnes Wilt had been ruined could we make that out."
They were both looking at each other intently as Duff Salter read the last sentence.
"It then became plain to us," continued Calvin, "that Andrew Zane wanted to abandon the woman he had seduced, as was perfectly natural. He haunted and alarmed the house and kept informed on all its happenings, but cut poor Agnes dead."
"The infamous scoundrel!" exclaimed Duff Salter, looking very dark and serious.
"Now, Salter," continued Calvin, "we had a watch set on that ridge of roofs every night, and another one at the old Zane house, front and rear, and the apparition on the roof was so irregular that we could not understand what occasions it took to come out until we observed that whenever your servant was out of the neighborhood a whole night, the roof-walker was sure to descend into Zane's trap."
"Jer-i-cho-ho-ho!"
"To-night, as we have made ourselves aware, your servant is not in Kensington. We saw him off to Treaty Island. I am watching at this window for the man on the roof. The moment he leaves the trap-door of the tenant's house, it will be entered by officers at the waving of this lamp at my window. One officer will proceed along the roof and station himself on the Zane trap, closing that outlet. At the same time the Zane house will be entered front and rear and searched. The time is due. It is midnight. Come!"
Calvin pointed to a ladder that led from the corner of his study to the roof, and Duff Salter nodded his head acquiescently.
They went up the ladder and thrust their heads into the soft night of early summer.
There was starlight, but no moon.
The engine bell just ceased to toll as they looked forth on the scattered suburb, and at points beheld the Delaware flowing darkly, indicated by occasional lights of vessels reflected upward, and by the very distant lamps on the Camden shore.
Most of the houses within the range of vision were small, patched, and irregular, except where the black walls of the even blocks on some principal streets strode through.
Scarcely a sound, except the tree frogs droning, disturbed the air, and Kensington basked in the midnight like some sleeping village of the plains, stretching out to the fields of cattle and the savory truck farms.
Duff Salter mentally exclaimed:
"Here, like two angels of good or evil, we spy upon the dull old hamlet, where nothing greater has happened than to-night since the Indians bartered their lands away for things of immediate enjoyment. Are not most of these people Indians still, ready to trade away substantial lands of antique title for the playthings of a few brief hours? Yes, heaven itself was signed away by man and woman for the juices of one forbidden fruit. Here, where the good old pastor, like another William Penn, is running his stakes beyond the stars and peopling with angels his possessions there, the savage children are occupied with the trifles of lust, covetousness, and deceit. They are no worse than the sons of Penn, who became apostates to his charity and religion before the breath had left hisbody. So goes the human race, whether around the Tree of Knowledge or Kensington's Treaty Tree."
Duff Salter felt his arm pulled violently, and heard his companion whisper,
"There! Do you see it?"
Across the street, only a few hundred feet distant, an object emerged from the black mass of the buildings and moved rapidly along the opposite ridge of houses against the sky, drawing nearer the two watchers as it advanced, and passing right opposite.
Duff Salter made it out to be a woman or a figure in a gown.
It looked neither to the right nor left, and did not stoop nor cower, but strode boldly as if with right to the large residence of the Zanes, where in a minute it faded away.
Duff Salter felt a little superstitious, but Calvin Van de Lear shot past him down the ladder.
Duff heard the curtain at the window thrown up as the divinity student flashed his lamp and saw the door of the house whence the apparition had come, forced by the police.
As he descended the ladder Calvin Van de Lear extended Duff's hat to him, and pointed across the way.
They were not very prompt reaching the door of the Zane residence, but were still there in time to employ Duff Salter's key, instead of violence, to make the entry.
"Gentlemen," said the deaf man, with authority, "there is no occasion of any of you pressing in here to alarm a lady. Mr. Van de Lear and myself will make the search of the house which you have already guarded, front, back, and above, and rendered it impossible for the object of your warrant to escape."
The dignity and commanding stature of Duff Salter had their effect.
Calvin Van de Lear and Duff Salter entered the silent house, lighted the gas, and walked from room to room, finally entering the apartment of Duff Salter himself.
There sat Mike, the serving-man, in his red hair, uneven eyebrows, crutch, and wooden leg, as quietly arranging the models of vessels and steamers as if he had not anticipated a midnight call nor ceased his labor since Duff Salter had gone out.
"Damnation!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, pale with exertion and rage, "are you here? I thought you were at Treaty Island."
"Misther Salter," said the Irishman, "I returned, do you see, because I forgot something and wanthed a drop of your brandy, sur."
Duff Salter walked up to the speaker and seized him by the lapels of his coat, and placing the other hand upon his head, tore off the entire red-haired scalp which covered him.
"Andrew Zane," said Duff Salter in a low voice, "your disguise is detected. Yield yourself like a man to your father's executor. You are my prisoner!"
Agnes Wilt awoke and said her prayers, unconscious of any event of the night. At the breakfast-table she met Duff Salter, who took both her hands in his.
"Agnes," said Duff Salter—"let me call you so hereafter—did you hear the bell toll last night?"
"No," she replied with agitation. "For what, Mr. Salter?"
"The good priest of Kensington is dying."
"Beloved friend!" she said, as the tears came to her eyes. "And must he die uncertain of my blame or innocence? Yet he will learn it in that wiser world!"
"Agnes, I require perfect submission from you for this day. Will you give it in all things?"
She looked at him a moment in earnest reflection, and said finally:
"Yes, unless my conscience says 'no.'"
"Nothing will be asked of you that you cannot rightfully do. Decision is what is needed now, and I will bring you through triumphantly if you will obey me."
"I will."
"At eleven o'clock we must go to the magistrate's office. I will walk there with you."
"Am I to be arrested?" she asked, hesitating.
"If you go with me it will not be an arrest."
"Mr. Salter," she cried, in a burst of anguish, "I am not fit to be seen upon the streets of Kensington."
He took her in his arms like a daughter.
"Yes, yes, poor girl! The mother of God braved no less. You can bear it. But all this morning I must be closely engaged. An important event happened last night. At eleven, positively, be ready to go out with me."
Agnes was ready, and stepped forth into the daylighton the main thoroughfare of Queen Street. Almost every window was filled with gazers; the sidewalks were lined with strollers, loiterers, and people waiting. She might have fainted if Duff Salter's arm had not been there to sustain her.
A large fishwife, with a basket on her head, was standing beside her comely grown daughter, who had put her large basket down, and both devoured Agnes with their eyes.
"Staying in the house, Beck," exclaimed the mother of the girl, "has been healthy for some people."
"Yes, mammy," answered the girl; "it's safer standing in market with catfish. He! he! he!"
A shipbuilder's daughter was on the front steps, a slender girl of dark, smooth skin and features, talking to a grown boy. The girl bowed: "How do you do, Miss Agnes?" The grown boy giggled inanely.
Two old women, near neighbors of Agnes, had their spectacles wiped and run out to a proper focus, and the older of the two had a double pair upon her most insidious and suspicious nose. As Agnes passed, this old lady gave such a start that she dropped the spectacles off her nose, and ejaculated through the open window, "Lord alive!"
At Knox Van de Lear's house the fine-bodied, feline lady with nictitating eyes, drew aside the curtain, even while the dying man above was in frigid waters, that she might slowly raise and drop her ambrosial lids, and express a refined but not less marked surprise. Agnes, by an excitement of the nerves of apprehension, saw everything while she trembled. She could read the dates of all the houses on the painted cornices ofthe water-spouts, and saw the cabalistic devices of old insurance companies on the property they covered. Pigeons flying about the low roofs clucked and chuckled as if their milky purity had been incensed, and little dogs seemed to draw near and trot after, too familiarly, as if they scented sin.
There were two working-men from Zane & Rainey's ship-yard who had known kindness to their wives from Agnes when those wives were in confinement. Both took off their hats respectfully, but with astonishment overwhelming their pity.
Half the fire company had congregated at one corner of the street—lean, runners of men in red shirts, and with boots outside their trousers. They did not say a word, but gazed as at a riddle going by. Yet at one place a Sabbath scholar of Agnes came out before her, and, making a courtesy, said:
"Teacher, take my orange blossom!"
The flower was nearly white, and very fragrant. Duff Salter reached out and put it in his button-hole.
So excited were the sensibilities of Agnes that it seemed to her the old door-knockers squinted; the idle writing of boys on dead walls read with a hidden meaning; the shade-trees lazily shaking in summer seemed to whisper; if she looked down, there now and then appeared, moulded in the bricks of the pavement, a worn letter, or a passing goose foot, the accident of the brickyard, but now become personal and intentional. The little babies, sporting in their carriages before some houses, leaned forward and looked as wise and awful as doctors in some occult diagnosis. Cartwheels, as they struck hard, articulated, "What, out!Boo! boohoo!" Sunshine all slanted her way. Hucksters' cries sounded like constables' proclamation: "Oyez! oyez!"
With the perceptions, the reflections of Agnes were also startlingly alert. She seemed two or three unfortunate people at once. Now it was Lady Jane Grey going to the tower. Now it was Beatrice Cenci going to torture. Now it was Mary Magdalene going to the cross. At almost every house she felt a kindness speak for her, except mankind; a recollection of nursing, comforting, praying with some one, but all forgotten now. "Via Crucia, Via Crucia," her thorn-torn feet seemed to patter in the echoes of her ears and mind, and there arose upon her spirit the sternest curse of women, direful with God's own rage, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception."
Thus she reached the magistrate's little office, around the door of which was a little crowd of people, and Duff Salter led her in the private door to the residence itself. A cup of tea and a decanter of wine were on the table. The magistrate's wife knew her, and kissed her. Then Agnes broke down and wept like a little child.
The magistrate was a lame man, and a deacon in Van de Lear's church, quite gray, and both prudent and austere, and making use of but few words, so that there was no way of determining his feelings on the case. He took his place behind a plain table and opened court by saying,
"Who appears? Now!"
Duff Salter rose, the largest man in the court-room. His long beard covered his whole breast-bone; his fineintelligent features, clear, sober eyes, and hale, house-bleached skin, bore out the authority conceded to him in Kensington as a rich gentleman of the world.
"Mr. Magistrate," said Duff Salter, "this examination concerns the public and the ends of justice only as bears upon the death of the late citizens of Kensington, William Zane and Saylor Rainey. It is a preliminary examination only, and the person suspected by public gossip has not retained counsel. With your permission, as the executor of William Zane, I will conduct such part of the inquiry here as my duty toward the deceased, and my knowledge of the evidence, notwithstanding my frontier notions of law, suggest to me."
"You prosecute?" asked the magistrate, and added, "Yes, yes! I will!"
Calvin Van de Lear got up and bowed to the magistrate.
"Your Honor, my deep interest in Miss Agnes Wilt has driven me to leave the bedside of a dying parent to see that her interests are properly attended to in this case. Whenever she is concerned I am for the defence."
"Yes!" exclaimed the magistrate. "Salter, have you a witness?"
"Mike Donovan!" called Duff Salter.
A red-haired Irishman, with one eyebrow higher than the other, and scars on his face, walked into the alderman's court from the private room, and was sworn.
"Donovan," spoke Duff Salter, standing up, "relate the occurrences of a certain night when you rowedthe prisoner, Andrew Zane, and certain other persons, from Treaty Island to an uncertain point in the River Delaware."
"Stop! stop!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear, rising. "It seems to me I have seen that fellow's face before. Donovan, hadn't you a wooden leg when last I saw you?"
"No doubt of it," answered the Irishman.
"Why haven't you got it on now?" cried Calvin, scowling.
"Because, yer riverence, me own legs was plenty good enough on this occasion."
"Now, now, I won't!" ordered the sententious little magistrate.
"Proceed with the narrative," cried Duff Salter, "and repeat no part of the conversation in that boat."
"It was a dark and lowering night," said the waterman, "as we swung loose from Traity Isle. I sat a little forward of the cintre, managing the oars. Mr. Andrew Zane was in the bow, on the watch for difficulties. In the stern sat the boss, Mr. William Zane. Between him and me—God's rest to him!—sat the murdered gintleman, well-beloved Saylor Rainey! The tide was running six miles an hour. We steered by the lights of Kinsington."
"Then you are confident," said Duff Salter, "that the whole length of the skiff separated William Zane from his son?"
"As confident, yer honor, as that the batteau had two inds. They niver were nearer, the one to the tother, than that, for the whole of the ixpidition. Andscarcely one word did Mr. Andrew utter on the whole ov that bloody passage."
"Say nothing, for the present, about any conversations," commanded Duff Salter, "but go on with the occurrences briefly."
"I had been a very little while, ye must understand me, gintlemen, in the imploy of thim two partners. After they entered the boat they spoke nothing at all, at all, for siveral minutes. It was all I could do wid the strong tide to keep the boat pinted for Kinsington, and I only noticed that Mr. Rainey comminced the conversation in a low tone of voice. Just at that time, or soon afterward, your Honor, a large vessel stood across our bow, going down stream in the night, and I put on all my strength, at Mr. William Zane's order, to cross in front of her, and did so. I was so afraid the ship would take us under that I put my whole attintion to my task, not daring to disobey so positive a boss as Mr. Zane, though it was agin my judgment, indade."
All in the court and outside the door and windows were giving strict attention. Even Andrew Zane, whose face had been rather sullen, listened with a pale spot on his cheeks.
"Go on," said Duff Salter gently. "You relate it very well."
"As we had cleared the ship, gintlemen, I paused an instant to wipe the sweat from my brows, though it was a cold night, for I was quite spint. I then perceived that Mr. Rainey and the master were disputing and raising their voices higher and higher, and what surprised me most of all, your Honor, was the unusual firmness of Mr. Rainey, who was ginerally very obedient to the boss. He faced the boss, and would not take his orders, and I heard him once exclaim: 'Shame on you, sir; he is your son!'"
"Stop! stop!" cried Duff Salter. "You were not to repeat conversations. What next?"
"In the twinklin' of an eye," resumed the witness, "the masther had sazed his partner by the throat and called him a villain. They both stood up in the boat, the masther's hand still in Mr. Rainey's collar, and for an instant Mr. Rainey shook himself loose and cried—"
"Not a word!" exclaimed Duff Salter. "What wasdone?"
"Mr. Rainey cried out something, all at once. The masther fetched a terrible oath and fell back upon his seat. 'You assisted in this villainy!' he shouted. They clinched, and I saw something shine dimly in Mr. William Zane's hand. The report told me what it was. I lifted one oar in a feeling of horror, and the boat swung round abruptly on the blade of the other, and Mr. Rainey, released from the masther's grip, fell overboard in the dark night."
Nothing was said by any person in the court except a suppressed "Bah!" from Calvin Van de Lear.
"Silence! Order! I won't!" exclaimed the lame magistrate, rising from his seat. "Now! Go on!"
"I dropped both oars in me terror, and one of them floated away in the dark. We all stood up in the boat. 'My God!' exclaimed the masther, 'what have I done?' As quick as the beating of my heart he placed the pistol at his own head. I saw the flash and heard the report. Mr. William Zane fell overboard."
There was a shudder of horror for a moment, and then a voice outside the window, hoarse and cheery, shouted to the outer crowd, "Andrew is innocent! Three cheers for Andrew Zane!"
The people in and out of the warm and densely-pressed office simultaneously gave cheers, calling others to the scene, and the old magistrate, lame as he was, arose and looked happy.
"No arrests!" he cried. "Right enough! Good! Now, attention!"
But Andrew Zane kept his seat with an expression of obstinacy, and glared at Calvin Van de Lear, who was trembling with rage.
"Well got up, on my word!" exclaimed Calvin. "Who is this fellow?"
"Go on and finish your story!" commanded Duff Salter.
"God forgive Mike Donovan, your Honor!" continued the witness. "I'm afraid if Mr. William Zane had been the only man overboard I wouldn't have risked me life. He was a hard, overbearin' masther. But I thought of his poor son, standin' paralyzed-like, and the kind Mr. Rainey drownin' in the wintry water, and I jumped down in the dark flood to rescue one or both. From that day to this, the two partners I never saw. It was months before I saw America at all, or the survivin' okkepant of the boat."
"You may explain how that came to be," intimated Duff Salter, grimly superintending the court.
"Well, sir! As I dived from the skiff my head encountered a solid something which made me see a thousand flashes av lightning in one second. I was sostunned that I had only instinct—I belave ye call it that—to throw my ar-rum around the murthering object and hold like death. Ye know, judge, how drownin' men will hold to straws. That straw, yer Honor, was the spar of a vessel movin' through the water. It was, I found out afterward, one of the pieces which had wedged the ship on the Marine Railway, where she had been gettin' repaired, and she comin' off hurriedly about dusk, had not been loosened from her. I raised my voice by a despairin' effort, and screamed 'Help! help!' When I came to I was on an Austrian merchant ship, bound to Wilmington, North Carolina, for naval stores, and then to Trieste. The blow of the spar had given me a slight crack av the skull."
"That crack is wide open yet," said Calvin Van de Lear.
"Begorra," returned the Irishman, facing placidly around until he found the owner of the voice, "Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, it would take many such a blow, sur, to fracture your heart!"
"Go on now, Donovan, and finish your tale. You were carried off to Trieste?" spoke Duff Salter.
"I was, sir. At Wilmington no news had been recaved of any tragedy in Philadelphia, and when I told my story there to a gentleman he concluded I was ravin' and a seein' delusions. The Austrian was short av a crew, and the docthor said if they could get away to sea he could make me effective very soon. I was too helpless to go on deck or make resistance. Says I, 'It's the will av God.'"
A round of applause greeted this story as it was ended, and cheerful hands were extended to the witness and the prisoner. Calvin Van de Lear, however, exclaimed:
"Alderman, what has all this to do with the prisoner's ignominious flight for months from his home and from persons he abandoned to suspicion and shame? This man is an impostor."
"Will you take the stand, Mr. Andrew Zane?" asked Duff Salter.
"No," replied the late fugitive. "I have been hunted and slandered like a wolf. I will give no evidence in Kensington, where I have been so shamefully treated. Let me be sent to a higher court, and there I will speak."
"Alas!" Duff Salter said, with grave emphasis, "it is you father's old and obstinate spirit which is speaking. You are the ghost I thought was his at the door of my chamber. Mr. Magistrate, swear me!"
Duff Salter gravely kissed the Testament and stood ready to depose, when Calvin Van de Lear again interrupted.
"Are you not deaf?" asked the divinity student. "Where are your tablets that you carry every day? You seem to hear too well, I consider."
"You are right," cried Duff Salter, turning on his interrogator like a lion. "I am wholly cured of deafness, and my memory is as acute as my hearing."
Calvin Van de Lear turned pale to the roots of his dry, yellow whiskers.
"Devil!" he muttered.
"My testimony covers only a single point," resumed the strong, direct, and imposing witness. "I saw theface of this prisoner for the first time since his babyhood in his father's house not many weeks ago. It resembled his father's youthful countenance, as I knew it, so greatly that I really believed his parent haunted the streets of Kensington, according to the rumor. The supposed apparition drove me to investigate the mysterious death of William Zane. I believed that Agnes knew the story, but was under this prisoner's command of secrecy. Seeking an assistant, the witness, Donovan, forced himself upon me. In a short time I was confounded by the contradictions of his behavior. Looking deeper into it, I suspected that in his suit of clothing resided at different times two men: the one an agent, the other a principal; the one a reality, the other a disguise. I armed myself and had the duller and less observant of these doubles row me out upon the Delaware on such a night as marked the tragedy he witnessed. When we reached the middle of the river I forced the story of the coincidence from him by reasoning and threats."
"Ha! ha!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear. "Is this an Arkansas snake story?"
"The young Zane had gratified a wilful passion to penetrate the residence of his father, and look at its inmates and the situation from safe harborage there. He found that Donovan in his roving sailor's life had played the crippled sea beggar in the streets of British cities, tying up his natural leg and fitting a wooden leg to the knee—a trick well known to British ballad singers. That leg was in Donovan's sea-chest, as it had been left in this city, and also the crutch necessary to walk with it. Mr. Zane and Donovan had exchangedthe leg and crutch, and the former matched his fellow with a wig and patches. Thus convertible, they had for a little while deceived everybody, but for further convenience Mr. Zane ensconced himself as a tenant in a neighboring house, and when the apparatus was in request by Donovan, he crossed on the roofs between the trap-doors, and still was master of his residence."
"What does all this disclose but the intrigue of despairing guilt?" exclaimed young Van de Lear. "He had destroyed the purity of a lady and abandoned her, and was afraid to show his real face in Kensington."
"We will see as to that," replied Duff Salter. "I had hoped to respect the lady's privacy, but Mr. Zane has refused to testify. Call Agnes Wilt."
All in the magistrate's office rose at the mention of this name, only Andrew Zane keeping his seat amid the crowd. Calvin Van de Lear officiously sought to assist the witness in, but Duff Salter pressed him back and gave the sad and beautiful woman his arm. She was sworn, and stood there blushing and pale by turns.
"What is your name?" asked Duff Salter gently. "Speak very plain, so that all these good friends of yours may make no mistake."
"My name," replied the lady, "is Agnes Zane. I am the wife of Mr. Andrew Zane."
"Very good," said Duff Salter soothingly. "You are the wife of Andrew Zane; wedded how long ago, madam?"
"Eight months."
"Do you see any person in this court-room, Mrs. Zane, that you wish to identify? Let all be seated."
Poor Agnes looked timidly around the place, and sawa person, at whom all were gazing, rise and reach his arms toward her.
"Gracious God!" she whispered, "is it he?"
"It is, dear wife," cried Andrew Zane. "Come to my heart."
Reverend Silas Van de Lear was drawing his latest breaths in the house of one of his elder sons, and only his lips were seen to move in silent prayer, when a younger fellow-clergyman entering, to a cluster of his cloth attending there, said audibly:
"This is a strangedenouementto the great Kensington scandal, which has happened this afternoon."
The large, voluptuous lady with the slowly declining eyelids raised them quietly as in languid surprise.
"You mean the Zane murder? What is it?" asked a minister, while others gathered around, showing the ministry to have human curiosity even in the hour and article of death.
"Miss Agnes Wilt, the especial favorite of our dying patriarch here, was married to young Andrew Zane some time before his father died. There was no murder in the case. Zane the elder, in one of his frequent fits of wild and arrogant rage, which were little less than insanity, killed his partner, Rainey, and in as sudden remorse took his own life."
"What was the occasion of Zane's rage?"
"That is not quite clear, but the local population here is in a violent reaction against the accusers ofyoung Zane and his wife. The church recovers a valuable woman in Agnes Zane."
Mrs. Knox Van de Lear had a vial of smelling salts in her hand, and this vial dropping suddenly on the floor called attention to the fact that the lady had a little swooning turn. She was herself again in a minute, and her eyes slowly unclosed and lifted their tender curtains prettily.
"I am so glad for dear Agnes," she said with a natural loudness in that hushed room. "It even made me forget papa to find Agnes innocent."
The dying minister seemed to catch the words. A ministerial colleague bent down to hear his low articulation:
"Agnes innocent!" said Silas Van de Lear, and strove to clasp his hands. "The praying of the righteous availeth much!"
The physician said the good man's pulse ceased to beat at that minute, and they raised around his scarcely cold remains a hymn to heaven.
Mean time, at the alderman's court, a surprising scene was witnessed. For a few minutes everybody was in a frenzy of delight, and Duff Salter was the hero of the hour. The alderman made no effort to discipline any person; people hugged and laughed, and entreated to shake hands with Andrew Zane, and in the pleasing confusion Calvin Van de Lear slunk out, white as one condemned to be whipped.
"Now! now! We will! Yes!" said the sententious old alderman. "Come to order. Andrew Zane must be sworn!"
At this moment the Kensington volunteer fire apparatus stopped opposite the alderman's office and began to peal its bells merrily. The young husband's obstinacy slowly giving way, seemed to be gone entirely when, searching the room with his eye, he detected the flight of Calvin Van de Lear. He kissed the little book as if it were a box of divine balm, and raised his voice, looking still tenderly at Agnes, and addressing Duff Salter:
"Will you examine me, my father's friend?"
"Yes, now! You will!" exploded the alderman.
"No, take your own method, thou alternate of the late Mike Donovan," exclaimed Duff Salter with a smile.
"I never thought there could be an excuse for my behavior," said Andrew Zane, "until this unexpected kind treatment had encouraged me. Indeed, my friends, I am in every alternative unfortunate. To defend myself I must reflect upon the dead. I will not make a defence, but tell my story plainly.
"My father was a man of deeds—a kind, rude business man. He loved me and I worshipped him, though our apposite tempers frequently brought us in conflict. Neither of us knew how to curb the other or be curbed in turn. Above all things I learned to fear my father's will; it was invincible.
"My wife and I grew up in my widower father's family, and fell in love, and had an understanding that at a proper season we would marry. That season could not be long postponed when Agnes's increasing beauty and my ardor kept pace together. I sought an occasion to break the secret to my father, and his reception of it filled me with terror. 'Marry Agnes!' hereplied. 'You have no right to her. Your mother left her to me. I may marry her myself.'
"If he had never formed this design before it was now pursued with his well-known tireless energy. The suggestion needed no other encouragement than her beauty, ever present to inflame us both. Her household habits and society were to his liking; he offered me everything but that which embraced all to me. 'Go to Europe!' he said. 'Take a wife where you will; but Agnes you shall not have. I will give you money, pleasure, and independence, but I love where you have looked. Agnes will be your mother, not your wife!'
"Alas! gentlemen, this purpose of my father was not mere tyranny; he loved her, indeed, and that was the insurmountable fact. My betrothed had too much reason to know it. We mingled our tears together and acknowledged our dependence and duty, but we loved with that youthful fulness which cannot be mistaken nor dissuaded. In our distress we went to that kind partner whom my father had raised from an apprentice to be his equal, and asked him what to do. He told us to marry while we could. Agnes preferred an open marriage as least in consequences, and involving every trouble in the brave outset. I hoped to wean my father from his wilfulness, and yet protect my affection by a secret marriage, to which with difficulty I prevailed on my betrothed to consent. After our marriage I found my husband's domain no less invaded by my father's suit, until life became intolerable and it was necessary to speak. Poor, brave Rainey, feeling keenly for us, fixed the time and place. He had seldom crossed my father, and I trembled for his safety, but never could have anticipated what came to pass.
"Mr. Rainey said to us, 'I will tell your father, while we are crossing the river some evening in a batteau, that you and Agnes are married, and his suit is fruitless. He will be unable to do worse than sit still and bear it in the small limits of the boat, and before we touch the other shore will get philosophy from time and consideration.'
"That plan was carried out. Shall I recount the dreadful circumstances again? Spare me, I entreat you!"
"No, I won't! The whole truth!" exclaimed the stern magistrate. "Tell it!"
"You are making no mistake, my young friend," said Duff Salter. "It will all be told very soon."
"As we started from Treaty Island, on that dark winter night," continued Andrew Zane, growing pale while he spoke, "Mr. Rainey said to me, 'Go in the bow. You are not to speak one word. I will face your father astern.' The oarsman, Donovan, had a hard pull. The first word I heard my father say was, 'That is none of your affair.' 'It is everybody's affair,' answered Mr. Rainey, 'because you make it so. Behave like a gentleman and a parent. The young people love each other.' 'I have the young lady's affections,' said my father. 'You are making her miserable,' said Mr. Rainey, 'and are deceiving yourself. She begins to hate you.' 'You are an insolent liar!' exclaimed my father. 'If you mix in this business I will throw you out of the firm.' 'That is no intimidation to me,' answered his partner. 'Prosperitycan never attend the business of a cruel and unjust man. I shall be a brother to Andrew and a father to Agnes, since you would defraud them so. William Zane, I will see them married and supported!' With that my father threw himself in mere physical rage upon Mr. Rainey. They both arose, and Mr. Rainey shook himself loose and cried, 'You are outwitted, partner. I saw them married! They are man and wife!'
"With this my father's rage had no expression short of recklessness. He always carried arms, and was unconquerable. His ready hand had sought his weapon, I think, hardly consciously. His dismay and indignation for an instant destroyed his reason at Mr. Rainey's sudden statement of fact.
"My God! can I further particularize on such a scene? In a moment of time I saw before my eyes a homicide of insanity, a suicide of remorse; and to end all, the sailor in the boat, as if set crazy by these occurrences, leaped overboard also."
This narrative, given with rising energy of feeling by Andrew Zane, was heard with breathless attention. Andrew paused and glanced at his wife, whose face was bathed with the inner light of perfect relief. The greater babe of secrecy had ceased to travail with her.
"Mr. Magistrate," said the young husband, "as I am under my oath, I can only relate the acts which followed from the inference of my feelings. My first sense was that of astonishment too intense not to appear unreal and even amusing. It seemed to me that if I would laugh out loud all would come back, as delusions yield to scepticism and mockery. But it wastoo cold not to be real, the scene and persons were too familiar to be erroneous. I had to realize that I was in one of the great and terrible occasional convulsions of human nature. Do you know how it next affected me? With an instant's sense of sublimity! I said to myself, 'How dared I marry so much beauty and womanly majesty? Doing so, I have tempted the old gods and their fates and furies. This is poetical punishment for my temerity.' Still all the while I was laboring at the one scull left in the boat while my brain was fuming so, and listening for sounds on the water. I heard the sailor cry twice, and then his voice fainted away. I began to weep at the oar while I strained upon it, and called 'Help!' and implored God's intervention. At last I sat down in the boat, worn out and in despair, and let it drift down all the city's front, past lights and glooms and floating ice, and wished that I were dead. My father's kindness and all our disagreements rose to mind, and it seemed God's punishment that I had married where his intentions were. Yet to know the truth of this, I said a prayer upon my knees in the wet boat while my teeth chattered, and before the end of my prayer had come I was thinking of my wife's pure name, and how this would spot her as with stains of blood unless I could explain it.
"When I reached this stage of my exalted sensibilities I was nearly crazed. There had been no witness of our marriage except the minister, and he was already dead. We had been married at the country parsonage of an old retired minister beyond Oxford church, on the road from Frankford town, as we drove out one afternoon, and I prevailed with my conscientious wife to yield her scruples to our heart's necessity. 'Great God!' I thought aloud—for none could hear me there—'how dreadfully that secret marriage will compromise my wife! Who will believe us without a witness of what I must assert—a story so improbable that I would not believe it myself? I must say that I married my wife secretly from my father's house, confessing deceit for both of us, and with Agnes's religious professions, a sin in the church's estimation. If there could be an excuse for me, the strict people of Kensington will accord none to her. They will charge on her maturer mind the whole responsibility, paint her in the colors of ingratitude, and find in her greatest poverty the principal motive. Yes, they may be wicked enough to say she compassed the death of my father by my hands, to get his property.'
"I had proceeded thus far when the terror of our position became luminous like the coming fire on a prairie, which shows everything but a way of escape. 'Where is your father?' they would ask of me in Kensington. 'He is drowned.' 'How drowned?' 'He shot himself.' 'Why did he shoot himself?' 'Because I had married his ward.' 'But his partner is gone too.' 'He is murdered.' 'Why murdered?' 'Because he interceded for me.' 'Where is your witness?' 'He has disappeared.' I saw the wild improbability of this tale, and thought of past notorious quarrels with my father ended by my voluntary absence. There were but two points that seemed to stick in my nervous mind: 'It never would do to tell our marriage at that moment, and I must find that sailor, who might still be living.'"
"He found me, sure enough, begorra!" exclaimed Mike Donovan, giving the relief of laughter to that intense narrative.
"Cowardly as you may call my resolution, gentlemen, it was all the resolution I had left. To partake of the inheritance left me by both partners in our house I feared to do. 'Let us do the penance of suspicious separation,' I said to Agnes; 'as your husband I command you to let me go!' She yielded like a wife, and stood my hostage in Kensington for all those melancholy months. I had just learned the place for which the bark which passed us on that eventful night had cleared, when the two bullet-pierced bodies were discovered in the ice. That night I sailed for Wilmington, North Carolina. When I arrived there the bark was gone for the Mediterranean, but I heard of my sailor, wounded, in her hospital. I sailed from Charleston for Cuba, and from Cuba to Cadiz, and thence I embarked for Trieste. At Trieste I found the ship, but Donovan had sailed for Liverpool. From Liverpool I tracked him to the River Plate, and thence to Panama. You will ask how I lived all those months? Ask him."
He turned to Duff Salter.
"Mr. Magistrate," spoke Duff Salter, a little confused. "I sent him drafts at his request. He knew me to be the resident executor, and wrote to me. I did it because of the pity I had for Agnes, and my faith in her assurance that he was innocent."
"Good! Yes!" exclaimed the magistrate. "I would have done the same myself."