CHAPTER IVA STARTLING VISIT

CHAPTER IVA STARTLING VISIT

Early next morning Mr. Cave, in accordance with the request of Dr. Kerr, went to the Cliffs to spend the day with Tudor Hereward. He found the young man too ill to leave his room, seated in a reclining-chair near the open window.

The effects of alternate hope and fear ending at last in despair deepened by remorse.

Mr. Cave sat down beside him and essayed to comfort him; but he did not succeed. Loss, sorrow and disappointment may be consoled, but remorse and despair are beyond comfort.

“The truest, gentlest, fondest child that ever blessed man I drove out that bitter night to meet her cruel death! It is that which is killing me,” he said, in reply to Mr. Cave’s well meant efforts to rouse and cheer him.

“You are morbid, Hereward. You are too severeon yourself. You are not rational and consistent. You should remember, my dear friend, you did not mean to drive her away.”

“Ah, but the taunting, insulting, unpardonable words I hurled at her, heaped upon her head, overwhelming her—no true woman could have borne them! If she had been the creature I suspected and accused her of being, she might have borne them and remained here for profit; but Lilith had no alternative but to leave the house! And I drove her from it as surely as if I had taken her by the shoulders and put her out and turned the key against her!”

“I do not think you should consider it in that light. Besides, for the words you used, you would do wisely to remember now the provocation you received,” gravely suggested Mr. Cave.

“Not from her! Not from Lilith! She was ever true, meek, gentle and wonderfully self-controlled for a being so young. No! I never received provocation from that child,” said Hereward, with a deep sigh.

“Then from false appearances!—false appearances which would have driven a much older and wiser man than you quite beside himself.”

“But against which I should have set Lilith’s life and character then—as I do now. No, Mr. Cave, you need not talk to me of comfort. I will not receive it!”

“Ah, Tudor, you hug, cherish, and cultivate your sorrow.”

“Not my sorrow! Sorrow is a matter of time, and it may be consoled. But remorse is a thing of eternity, never to be comforted.”

“You seem to nourish this remorse as a matter of duty and conscience.”

“Yes, I do. I will not take comfort.”

“Tudor, my dear boy, there never was a case of insanity in either branch of your family. Their brains were too strong and too well balanced, else I shouldfear for you. But at any rate you really must go away from this place,” said the minister, very earnestly.

“Well, and if I should, it would be only to wander over the earth as aimlessly and drearily as the legendary Jew,” replied the young man.

Mr. Cave remained with him until nearly dark, and then went away, promising to come and see the solitary mourner in a very few days.

The next morning the invalid, with the assistance of the two men-servants, got downstairs and into the front piazza, where he sat in his favorite reclining-chair, with a little stand beside him.

He was still sitting there alone, gazing vacantly out upon the lovely summer scene of mountain, valley, woods and waters spread out before him, when the sound of a strange footstep, a firm and ringing footstep, fell upon his ear.

In another moment the figure of a young man, dressed as a gentleman, emerged from the footpath through the alder bushes, and came into view.

In that moment, with a start of surprise, Hereward recognized the form and face of Mr. Alfred Ancillon.

The young wanderer came up the steps, and standing in front of the pale and fainting invalid, took off his hat, and in a stern voice demanded—as if he had the most sacred right to demand:

“Tudor Hereward! Where is Lilith?”

“Lilith! How dare you utter that name!—the name of the lady whose destruction you have compassed?” faintly yet indignantly demanded Hereward.

“No! not I, sir! I never wounded her by a word! I never wronged her by a thought! Your senseless jealousy has wrought all this ruin! Only ten days ago, in the remote Southwestern town where I was fulfilling an engagement, did I happen to pick up anold copy of the New YorkPursuivant, and read the account of her dead body having been found three weeks after she had disappeared from her home! I threw up my engagement and came here with all speed, for well I guessed that you, and you only, had the secret of her disappearance and her death. For—‘Jealousy is as cruel as the grave!’”

“Had I no just cause for jealousy?” demanded Hereward, thrown upon his defence, trembling with weakness and scarcely conscious of having instinctively put the question.

“No!—as the Lord is my judge and yours! A better, truer, purer woman than Lilith never lived! A holier tie than that which bound us never united man and woman!” retorted Ancillon. “Utterly blameless, though reckless folly and egotism, if not even insanity, placed her in a false position, created false appearances about her. But should all this have led you to suspect Lilith? Lilith, who was brought up at your good, wise father’s feet, and by your side? Lilith, who was so carefully trained in all wisdom and goodness? Lilith, whose religious and self-sacrificing spirit you knew so well? Should any false appearances have shadowed the brightness of Lilith’s image in your eyes?”

“Man! Hold your peace! I am passing from earth, soon to meet Lilith in the better world, if repentance and faith can take me there. I wish not to quarrel with you now!”

“I will not hold my peace! I came here to ask you—Where is Lilith?”

“And you ask it in the tone in which the minister reads the question: ‘Cain, where is thy brother Abel?’ Lilith is in her grave,” moaned Hereward.

“Yes, she is. And you have put her there. You have as surely murdered your young wife as if you had plunged a sword through her bosom, like thatblack brute, Othello, whom I never could consider a ‘noble’ Moor, and never would personate to please anybody. Othello, when he found out his mistake, had the decency to kill himself—the only decent thing he ever did do! But you, Tudor Hereward—the law cannot hang you for driving your young wife out to death. Why have you not had the manhood to hang yourself?”

“Man, spare your reproaches! I am passing from earth, and if repentance and faith avail me, going to that other world, where I shall receive my dear one’s forgiveness. You may spare your reproaches, as indeed I do not know how, or by what right, you, of all men, dare to make them,” said Hereward, with more dignity than he had hitherto shown.

“I speak by the most sacred right that a man could have to speak,” solemnly replied Ancillon.

“What are you to Lilith, or what was Lilith to you? A man may not know all his wife’s relations. You may be of Lilith’s kindred—and, indeed, I notice a likeness between your faces—but you cannot be of very near kindred.”

“No?” queried Ancillon, with a wistful look.

“No!” repeated Hereward, with more emphasis than he had yet used in speaking—“No! for you are not her brother. I knew her father and mother; they were young people just married a year when Lilith was born. She was not only their first, but their only child. The father—ah me!—lost his life while rescuing me from drowning, a few days before Lilith was born. Her mother, shocked to death by the sudden bereavement, gave birth to her child and died. My father took the infant orphan from beside the dead mother, and brought her home to be his own adopted daughter. So that Lilith was an only child, and you could not be her brother.”

“No, I am not her brother,” assented Ancillon, with the same wistful look.

“And if you are merely her cousin, or even her uncle, the relationship in either case would not give you the right to take such liberties with her name and memory as you have taken, and are taking now.”

“But I am not either her uncle or her cousin,” said Ancillon, with the same inscrutable look.

“Then, in the name of Heaven, man! what are you, that you have dared to do as you have done?” demanded Hereward, with an excitement for which he was to pay in a dangerous reaction and depression.

“Mr. Hereward,” said Ancillon, with more gravity than he had lately exhibited, “I came here not only to ask that question which first I put to your conscience, but also to place in your possession a secret that I have hitherto guarded with the most jealous care, not only for my own sake, but even for yours, and most of all, for Lilith’s, that no sorrow should come to her gentle heart, no reproach to her spotless name; but now that she is gone I care not at all what doom may fall upon me, or what shame may confuse you.”

Ancillon paused and smiled grimly.

“Speak, man! Speak, man—speak! What is it you would tell me?” demanded Hereward, trembling with agitation.

“I would tell you nothing!”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing; for you might not believe my words. But I will give the means of discovering my secret for yourself—of learning my story, and proving its truth beyond all doubt,” gravely replied Ancillon.

“Well? Well? Well?”

“Do you happen to know of an old trunk, the property of Lilith’s parents, filled with family relics and correspondence, bundles of yellow letters, photographs,trinkets, prayer-books, Bibles, old diaries, newspapers, pamphlets, and other rubbish? Do you happen to know of such a depository?”

“I think I do,” said Hereward, reflectingly. “Yes; I am sure I do,” he added, confidently.

“It seems to have been packed and preserved by your father’s orders, after the death of Lilith’s mother and for the possible pleasure or benefit of Lilith’s after life. Ah, dear! It was anything but a pleasure or a benefit to the poor child. It was never opened from the day it was packed until the day after your father’s funeral, when you had gone to Washington, leaving Lilith alone in this old house. Then, she having received the key of the trunk for the first time, as a legacy from your father, sent for the trunk and opened it. And then she learned the dire secret of her family, even before she ever saw my face. It was an accident that brought me to the Cliffs, that night, Mr. Hereward.”

“I heard that it was—the storm——”

“Not so. The storm kept me at the Cliffs, but did not bring me here. I was a guest at Rushmore, and at the supper table chanced to hear, in the gossip of the ladies, the story of Lilith Wyvil’s adoption and marriage. To me it was a revelation. I determined to see her. I did so, and was storm-bound for a week at the Cliffs.”

“Ah!”

“That trunk, Mr. Hereward, is at your disposal. All necessary information can be found within it. Seek and know and prove it, all for yourself! When you have done so, you may deliver me over to the British authorities as a fugitive from justice and send me back to England, under your favorite extradition treaty—to penal servitude for life! I care not one farthing now that Lilith is gone!”

“Man! Man! in Heaven’s name, who and what areyou?” demanded Hereward, pale and shaking with emotion.

“I am known to the British police authorities as John Weston, the mail robber; to the keepers of Portland prison, Z. 789; to the play-going public as Mr. Alfred Ancillon, tragedian, comedian, tenor and athlete; in diplomatic circles in Washington as Señor Zuniga, nephew of the P—— Minister; but to Lilith I was known by another name, and in a sweeter relation. There! I have said and done all for which I came here. I am going now. Good-bye! I shall be at the Antler’s in Frosthill all this week, waiting your pleasure;” and the visitor put on his hat and walked off by the way through which he had come.

He had seen Mr. Hereward drop back in his chair; but neither knew nor, if he had known, would have cared that the invalid had fallen into a deep swoon.

In this condition Dr. Kerr found him a few minutes later.

After using prompt means for his recovery, and seeing him open his eyes and breathe again, the doctor made him swallow a cordial, and then asked him what had caused his swoon.

“Weakness, I suppose,” evasively answered the invalid.

The doctor took him into the cool, shady drawing-room and made him lie down on the sofa.

And then, when his strength was somewhat restored by the cordial he had swallowed, the doctor produced a large envelope with an official stamp, and said:

“I brought this from the post-office for you. I hope it may contain good news that will rouse you up.”

Hereward thanked the doctor, and, without lifting his head from the sofa pillow, opened the long envelope and took out a letter partly in print and partly in writing. His pale face flushed a little as he readthe paper, and he passed it over to Dr. Kerr, saying:

“You see it is a letter announcing my appointment as secretary of legation to the new embassy to the court of ——, and requiring me, in the event of my accepting the mission, to be ready to sail with the party by the Kron Prinz, on the first of June.”

“And you will accept it, Hereward? The sea voyage and the change will be so good for you.”

“Yes, I shall accept it.”

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