"You are not fit for this," said Mr. Rutledge, in a low tone, as he put me in the saddle. "You had better give it up. It is not too late; let one of the others take your place."
"No, thank you. I shall be better for the ride."
"Captain McGuffy, you must remember your pupil is rather inexperienced," he said, uneasily, as the captain mounted and rode up beside me. "Madge has not been used for some time, and she is feeling very fine."
"No danger," said the captain, as, followed by Phil, we trotted rapidly down the avenue. There must have been a touch of human intelligence and sympathy in Madge; she was burning to be off on a mad race across the country; she was fairly throbbing with impatience; my weak grasp upon her bridle she could have thrown off with one toss of her arched neck; but, quivering with life and fire as she was, she restrained her pace to suit my fears, and minded my slightest touch, with more than human gentleness. By degrees, I came to realize this, and reassured and emboldened, I sat more firmly and rode less timidly. The cool air of the morning braced and strengthened my nerves; I could hardly have believed that I could have felt so differently in so short a time, and every foot of ground we put between us and Rutledge, seemed to distance just so far my anxiety and wretchedness. My companions amused themselves, and thought they were amusing me, by reminiscences of military adventures, frontier experiences, and camp life; which served to keep them occupied, and give me time to rest and recover myself. When we rode into the lodge gate at Windy Hill, I was indeed so much better for my ride, that even Phil noticed the change in my expression.
"You ought to have ridden every day while we have been here. You must ride to-morrow by all means."
We were the first of the party to arrive, and had been seated in the parlor some minutes, enjoying the prattle of the Misses Mason, before the others drove up. All were made hugely welcome. One is surest of appreciation, socially, in a visit to a lonely country place, where visitors are at a premium, and where there are pining young daughters, and unemployed young sons, and a hospitable head of the family, to swell the note of welcome. All these elements of hospitality we found at Windy Hill; never were guests more welcome, and the only doubt seemed to be, whether we should ever be allowed to go. Lunch did not suffice, we must stay to dinner. Masonpèresaid it should be so, and Masonfilsordered the carriage away, and the horses taken out. Mrs. Churchill pleaded our toilets, but was overruled. Mr. Rutledge advanced the necessity for our visit at Beech Grove as an obstacle. That should be no objection. After dinner the young people should join us, and we could all go together. There being really no reason why we should not accept this hospitality, it was at last decided we should remain. The morning slipped away very fast; there was a great deal to be seen about the place; fine views and pretty walks on every hand, outside, and a library and picture-gallery full of interest within. New merchandisable interest, that is. The Masons had just returned from Europe, and had brought with them whatever had been procurable for money, unbacked by taste or judgment. The result was, a good many pictures in rather questionable taste, but framed and hung unexceptionably; a great deal of so-so statuary, engravings bought by the portfolio, and "gems of art," bearing about the same relation to high art, that the contents of some jeweller's show-case, in Chatham street, bears to the Koh-i-noor. My particular friend, the younger Mr. Mason, attended me through the library and picture-gallery; and though the names of the pictures and the prices of the books seemed to be the items that he was most familiar with, I could not but admire the grasp of mind that could master and retain such dry statistics. By the time that dinner was announced, I felt that we had earned it, so much listening, looking, admiring had we done.
Dinner at the Masons' was never a brief meal; the master of the house had known too much of short commons in his boyhood, and eighteen-penny lunches at second-rate eating-houses during his clerkship, not to place a full value upon the luxuries of the table; and on the present occasion nothing was wanting to make it an elaborate and elegant repast, honorable to guests and entertainers. It was five o'clock before we left the table, and fully six before we were in the saddle. The ride to Beech Grove occupied another hour; a mere call, of course, was impossible. We were quite as cordially, though rather less enthusiastically, welcomed by Mr. Emerson and his black-eyed daughter; the horses were again sent away, and we were told to consider ourselves prisoners for the evening. Not a very dreary and insupportable prison, certainly, we were condemned to. Beech Grove was a lovely spot; the house, about one-third the size of the one we had just left, was a gem in point of architectural beauty and tasteful decoration. Cultivation and refinement spoke at every turn—choice pictures, rare books, exquisite bronzes, were the natural and unobtrusive furniture of the rooms; one was not called upon to admire by anything more demonstrative than quiet enjoyment and ease. It was the atmosphere of the place that one was to revel in; and no obligation existed to analyze its component parts.
The realization of the speedy termination of our pleasant intercourse, at least for the present, gave a very natural charm to the evening, and made it a very prolonged and happy one. At least, to those of us who had not forgotten how to be happy; for me, I could hardly remember when I had not been wretched, so agonizingly long and miserable had the past fortnight been, and so strongly had it marked itself on my memory. I looked with a kind of wonder at the light-heartedness of my companions. Was it possible I had ever found anything to laugh at in such things as called forth their merriment, or anything to stir my anger in their puerile slights and taunts? Grace was vexed by my indifference, and tried, with no contemptible ingenuity, to irritate me; and Josephine and Ella too, resented my determined appropriation of their beaux. I was too listless though, at last they found, to make it pay to tease me; so, by degrees, they dropped off and left me. Even Mr. Mason, it was evident, was beginning to think that he had overrated my spirit, and the captain, that my overtures of the morning did not mean quite so much, after all, as he had flattered himself. Miss Emerson, who was a nice, bright girl, not in the least afraid of herself or of any one else, and with whom one felt intimate after half an hour's acquaintance, ran up to me and asked mesotto voce, if it didn't bore me to death to have that man talk to me; she was sure I looked tired, and she meant to relieve me; so, with some clever excuse, in a few minutes she hurried me off to the library, made me lie on the sofa while she sat beside me, and chatted with me in her peculiarly piquant and amusing manner. It was very nice and comfortable to be treated so; but I could not help wondering what her other guests would think of her for absenting herself from them so much. It was a matter of very little moment to Miss Janet, however, what any one but "Papa" thought of her, and she was sure of a tender judgment from him always; but at last it seemed to strike her that even he might consider it rather negligent to leave the parlor so long, so springing up, she said:
"I must go back to those people; but remember, you are not to stir; or, yes, you may sit here by the table, and look over these engravings. You are not fit to be dragged about making visits; they're a set of heathens to make you go. I know you hate it. Whatisthe matter, really, now?" she said, abruptly, stooping over me, and fixing her black eyes on my face. "You don't look like the same girl latterly. If I hadn't known you before, I should have thought you were tiresome and mopish and had no spirit. I like you better than your French cousins, and I wish you'd come and stay with me. Won't you? I'll make Papa coax Mrs. Churchill to let you stay after they go."
I shook my head and sighed.
"You look as if it were no use to talk about it; but I don't give it up, though I must go to the parlor. I shall come back and look after you every little while, and I'm going to send some one to entertain you while I'm gone."
"Oh! I'd rather not—I'd rather be quiet"——
Miss Janet shook her head with a very pretty determined shake.
"You shall have somebody that won't bore you—somebody that I like and that you like; the only man here, in point of fact, worth talking to, except Papa," and she ran off.
I leaned back in my chair and tried to be patient; since we left Windy Hill every minute had grown longer than the last. I had been in a fever of anxiety about the effect our absence might produce on Victor. I knew his morbid bitterness would construe it into a willful thing on my part, and that the neglect would seem unpardonable and cruel. The evening had seemed interminable, and no one dreamed of going yet.
In a few moments I heard Miss Emerson's voice in the hall, and Mr. Rutledge's in reply. "Of course, since you desire it, I will do my best to be entertaining; but you know you have not told me who it is I am to devote myself to."
"O, you shall see for yourself; go in the library, she is there, and be sure you amuse and please her, for she's my particular favorite," and with a laugh and a nod, she left him in the door.
Mr. Rutledge started a little, and did not look very much pleased when he recognized me; but there was no help, so he sat down beside me at the table.
"Miss Emerson told me she should send some one to entertain me. I didn't know she meant to send you."
"Is there any one you would prefer? Mr. Arbuthnot, the captain, or your heavy adorer, Mr. Theodore Mason? You need not hesitate to tell me. I will resign in favor of any one you name."
I was too miserable to be angry at his tone; with a languid movement of my hand, I answered:
"If you are willing to stay, sir, there is no one I should like so well."
"It is not often you allow yourself in anything so gracious as that. I will stay with pleasure. But Miss Emerson says I must entertain you—I must be agreeable. Now, though I dare not, for my life, disobey anything so blackeyed and imperious, still I haven't the first idea how to proceed, and unless you give me a hint, I am certain I shall fail. What shall I talk about? What do young ladies like, literature or gossip—people or things?"
"My tastes haven't changed, Mr. Rutledge; you used to find no difficulty in talking to me—at least, I never supposed it cost you much effort, and you always succeeded in entertaining me; so if that is honestly your object to-night, I do not think you need be at a loss."
"What did I use to talk about, when I amused you, if ever I was so happy? If you would give me a suggestion"——
He turned his eyes full on me, as I answered: "When you first used to talk to me, you seemed to think me a very foolish, frightened child, and were very kind and gentle. Then, after you had found out I was old enough to understand you, and clever enough to appreciate you, you used to talk to me about your travels, and the people you had met, the countries you had seen. Sometimes you would talk to me about books, and make me tell you what ones I liked, and after you were convinced, I was prejudiced and enthusiastic enough to make it worth your while to oppose me, you would amuse yourself by contradicting and thwarting me. Then you would suddenly change and be kind—oh! so kind!—and treat me as if I were fit to be your friend and your companion; you would tell me about the world that I had only dreamed of then; you warned me of its danger, its heartlessness and treachery; you counselled me, and talked as if you really cared what became of me; you told me the world was full of coldness and unkindness, but oh! you did not tell me half you might have told me about that. Then, sometimes—not often—you would tell me some slight thing about yourself; you looked sterner and colder than ever when you did; your eye would flash, and your lip would curl—some unseen chain would gall you when you thought of the Past; something that came with its memory humbled you, you hated it, you hated yourself; but I liked you—I liked you better then than when you were talking to please me, or to instruct me, or to please or instruct other people; you were involuntary then—you were yourself—and though I liked you in those days whatever you did, I liked you best of all when you talked of yourself."
"Then I will talk of myself now; I have promised to entertain you, and you have told me how to do it. They are dancing in the parlor now, and the music and the laughing will screen us from them; you can listen at your ease, and be entertained without fear of interruption. I believe you when you say you like to hear me talk of myself, because it pleases me to believe it, and men, you know, will go great lengths to believe anything that suits their vanity.
"But first, you will not mind anything that I may say—you will not shrink and blush? Remember, it is a man's life, and not a woman's, that you are to hear about—a dark life, and not a prosperous one—and to make it vivid to you, I must show you the blackness of the shadow and the depth of the gloom; you must know what the trial has been before you can know what grim strength was needed to endure it—what coldness and sternness, as you call them, to keep down the pain within. You are a child no longer; you know something of what suffering is, so I can tell you with some hope of pity, if you will listen and not be dainty—if you will forget all about yourself, and think only of what you hear. Can you be such a listener? Such only are worthy of confidence. I never found one before, but I will try you. Do you hear the rumbling of that distant thunder? How strangely it mixes with the music across the hall! There is a storm coming up; we cannot go home for two hours yet, and they will not tire of dancing even then"——
There was a keen, piercing flash of lightning.
"Does it make you nervous? You used to be afraid in thunder-storms."
"I don't mind the lightning any more than the flare of the candle to-night, Mr. Rutledge. Why don't you go on with what you promised to tell me?"
"I will not begin by telling you about my childhood; a happy childhood is a thing to be enjoyed once in reality, and forever in memory, but not to be talked about; no one but the man himself can see the least pathos or deliciousness in the details and recollections of his nursery days; to others they are weariness and folly; to him they are the sweetest pages in his memory; but he must not hope to find there is any other than himself who can see any interest in them. Perhaps his mother, if God spares her to him—perhaps the woman whom he has taught to love him, and to whom he is all the world—perhaps his young children, before they have learned their perfect lesson of egotism and selfishness—may listen as if the story were their own; but I have found no one to whom I could be egotistical and not be wearisome; I have found that most people like to hear about themselves, and I have not thwarted them.
"But you shall hear of what I have told no one else."
——"Of all sad words of tongue or pen,The saddest are these: 'It might have been!"Whittier.
And I did hear it; I heard during the slow gathering and heavy bursting of that summer storm, the story about which my imagination had been so busy, and of which I had so longed to be assured; I heard from Mr. Rutledge's own lips, of his happy childhood, his hopeful boyhood. He described himself as he was then, as if he were describing some one else, some one who had died and left the light of day; for it was nothing else but death that passed upon him, a death to hope and faith, a death to tenderness and trust, a death to all but stern endurance and sufferings that make life worse than death. If he had not been just so enthusiastic and full of hope, he could not have been so dashed down to despair; but because he had never dreamed that there could be anything but truth and purity and honor in those he loved, just so cruel and fatal was the awakening from the dream. He told me of his brother, the handsome Richard: with a soul too refined and delicate for the rough world he had to do with, a temperament that recoiled with pain from all that was coarse or common, a pride that was so intuitive that it could hardly be overcome, so unconscious that it could hardly be called a sin, so fostered that he, at least, was not to blame for it. To him it was not matter of exultation that he was rich and well-born and high-bred; it was only his native air, his place in life, his vital breath, without which he must have died. Never overbearing and imperious, his reserve saved him from familiarity, his gentleness from aversion. Ah! Rutledge had then a worthy heir, noble, handsome, high-toned enough to fill even his proud father's ambition.
And then he told me, and it cost him a keen pang to speak her name, of Alice, his beautiful sister; of the adoration with which he had looked up to her, the pride which every one of the narrow home circle felt in her loveliness and grace. He had believed she was almost an angel; he had never looked above her for purity and truth, and in one cruel moment he had to learn that she was false and sinful, that she had fallen below the lowest, that "she had mixed her ancient blood with shame," that the darling and pride of every heart was now the disgrace and anguish of every heart.
The story that he told me did not sound at all like this; I could no more tell it as he told it, than I could paint one of Church's pictures. I could, perhaps, describe, so as to make intelligible, the picture or the story, but it would be as impossible for me to render faithfully, in every delicate tone and touch, in the masterly strength and vivid power, the one as the other.
I listened with every pulse; my heart stopped, spellbound, before that story; not even my own life could have had more interest to me than his; and vaguely—but oh! how bitterly—it began to dawn upon me, that once I might have had the power to have made the past forgotten in the present, to have won him to believe in love and truth once more; that in my fatal choice I had not doomed myself alone, that three souls, instead of my own sinning one, were writhing now under the curse of my folly and deceit. Alice Rutledge's name had perished forever from the records of the good and pure; where would mine be, when the secrets of all hearts should be revealed? Not among the good, with a lie on my lips, a life-long hypocrisy to be carried in my heart; not among the pure, cherishing yet this unconquered passion, while in the sight of Heaven I was breaking a vow only less sacred than the one I must make before the altar. But it is her story and not mine I am to tell.
If human love and care could suffice to keep any soul, under the pressure of a strong temptation, Alice Rutledge might have been safe; yet environed and hemmed in with affection, she fell; honor, pride, filial love, were powerless to keep her back. The only principle that can save man or woman in the hour when the powers of darkness have leave to try them, she lacked, and lacking that, fell hopelessly from the earthly paradise which alone she had lived for or regarded. The fair, frail daughter of a godless house, the child whose glance had never been directed to anything higher than virtue and honor, to whom no principle more binding than that of morality had been taught, whose frailty had never been strengthened by any aid more powerful and enduring than the yearning fondness of the hearts that doted on her; what wonder that when the powers of hell assaulted her, no strength could stand against them that was not divine, no work stand in that day, that was of wood, or hay, or stubble, no work that had not Heaven's own seal to resist the devouring flame!
All that the wit and knowledge and virtue of man could teach, Alice Rutledge had been taught; but the only lesson that could have done her any good in that day, she had never learned. The lesson that she should have lisped at her mother's knee, that should have been implanted before any earthly desire had taken root in her flexile soul, had never been given to her. The "sign to angels known," had not marked her baby-forehead, holy hands had not overshadowed her before the strife began, all her goodness and strength were of the earth, earthy, and the prince of this world won an easy victory over them. When temptation came, it found her careless, secure. How was it a possible thing for her to fall? Why need she renounce what was but a pleasant dream, as innocent as it was secret. She was promised to one whom she had meant to love; she had, perhaps, loved him at first, but with a shade too much of awe to make it perfect love, and the weakness and timidity of her nature made her shrink involuntarily from what was higher and stronger, and cling to what was lower, and nearer to her own level. And so she yielded, little by little, to the fascinations of an intercourse that, had she listened to it, even her own weak heart would have told her was a sin. She was bound by betrothal, her tempter was bound by marriage; if the glamour of destruction had not been over her already, she could have seen the madness of such an intimacy, the sure perdition that such a violation of right, even in thought, must lead to. But it was the very impossibility and security that ensnared her, that blinded those around her. Richard's dearest friend, the most desired and welcome guest at her father's house, the most accomplished and refined gentleman she knew, how could she see in him the traitor that he was? She, almost a child in years and inexperience, and he, a man of the world, with the world's worst principles, and withal, so wily, so eloquent, so impassioned, was it strange that before she dreamed of danger, she was snared beyond redemption. The destruction of her principles had been so gradual, the instilling of his so artful, that the work was nearly done before the lost girl saw her peril. Then, no one can tell the struggles of her tempted soul; duty and reason against sinful love and guilty passion; but who can question for a moment which way the balance turned? There was none of whom she could ask counsel. She had deceived and outraged all she loved, so shamefully, by the very thought of what now tempted her, that it was worse than death to betray in the least her misery. The one to whom at last she turned, was the one least fitted to direct her; her companion, governess and friend was only less worldly and thoughtless than her charge; she loved her with all her heart, would have sacrificed anything to serve her; she never dreamed of the danger she was in till too late; terrified, she strove to bring her back to reason, but in vain. Alice's was the stronger will, and she weakly yielded to it, and became the reluctant tool in the hands of the seducer.
In one awful moment it burst upon the proud old man that his name was branded with disgrace, his daughter fled, his love outraged, his honor stabbed a deadly blow; all that he had lived for lost; all that he had hoped for blighted.
In that household there was such amazement and wrath and desolation as are horrible but to imagine. Love outraged most cruelly, friendship betrayed most vilely, all that was pure turned into sin, all that was true turned false. In one short hour, the pride of that ungodly home was humbled to the dust, its fair name stained with shame, its very life's blood oozing from that cruel wound. "Therefore revenge became it well?" Therefore the agony that nothing else could allay, should seek to dull itself in vengeance, should hunt to the very death the shameless traitor? Should hurl blighting curses on the head of her who had brought this ruin on her home?
But God stayed the impotent wrath of man. He took the vengeance that alone is His, in His own hands; the curses that the outraged father called down on his erring child, clustered, a black and ghastly troop, around his own dying bed, and shut off the last ray of mercy. Before a hand could be raised to deal vengeance, death struck down the father, and but few days and nights of anguish and solicitude had passed before his heir lay dead beside him, and the life of the boy who alone of all survived, lay trembling in the balance. For a long while it seemed uncertain whether God had not forgotten the race that had so long forgotten Him; whether He had not turned away His face, and they should all die and turn again to their dust; whether the memory of them should not be rooted off of the earth, and their name perish from among the children of men. For a long while, the boy lay between life and death, but when at last life conquered, and he came back to the changed and desolated world, it was with but little gratitude for the boon that had been granted him, with almost a loathing of the life that had been spared to him.
It is not necessary to the purposes of my story nor will it further its elucidation, to repeat the history of the years that followed. It is sufficient that they were years of misanthropy and misery, almost of infidelity. Travel, change, society, neither attracted nor soothed him; the life he led it suited no one to join him in, and in the midst of the world he lived unmolested by it and regardless of it. At last—what need to tell when or how—there came an awakening; he saw the truth he had been so long shutting his eyes from, he saw God's mercy and his own sin, and rousing from his apathy he bent himself to the work that lay before him. We know what that work was, and how well he fulfilled it; from the misanthropic recluse, he became the Christian. I knew all this, and much more, that he did not tell me.
"The story has been too long already, I will leave you now," said Mr. Rutledge with a sudden change of voice; "I have finished my office ofraconteur, you have listened well; almost I could swear to having seen a tear glisten in your eye, almost I could take my oath you have not once thought of yourself and your young lady sensibilities, but have been absorbed to forgetfulness of them all by the story of one who is almost a stranger to you, quite a stranger, indeed, you said not long ago."
"I did not mean that when I said it, Mr. Rutledge, I repented of it a minute afterward. And I want to say to you now—I am sorry from my heart for that, and the many other hypocrisies you know I have been guilty of. You don't know all, you would despise me if you did; if you knew how cowardly I have been, and how deceitful. I have not meant it; I have said a hundred things that I have cried for afterward, that I never would have said if I had not been too proud and too angry to have controlled myself. But believe me, I am miserably sorry now. Will you forgive me?"
He leaned forward for a moment on the table, and shading his eyes with his hand, fixed them on my face. "Forgive you?" he said in a low, clear tone, "Forgive you? no—not yet—you must not ask it yet! When I have conqueredmypride andmypassion, you may ask me to forgive you, but not now—not now!"
"Aunt Edith, do you want me?" I faltered, starting up. Mrs. Churchill moved from where she stood beside the doorway and entered the room.
"You have been absent a long while," she said in a soft voice, "we have been wondering where you were. Mr. Rutledge, how have you managed to amuse my listless anddistraiteyoung niece so long? Have you been studying a map of France with her, or poring over a chart of the Atlantic? For such pursuits are all, I believe, that have any interest for her now."
"Miss Emerson, who sent me to entertain the young lady, did not confine me to those topics," he answered, rising, "and I have ventured to go beyond them. She will pardon me, I know, if I have not succeeded in my attempts to interest her." And Mr. Rutledge bowed and withdrew.
"I have a few words to say to you," said Mrs. Churchill, with muffled hatred in her low tones. "You have withdrawn yourself from my confidence, and from my affections; but remember, you cannot withdraw yourself from my authority. It is perfectly useless for you to attempt to deceive me; from the first night you came under my roof, I have known you thoroughly. You are a care and a vexation to me daily; your coquetry, your vanity, your boldness, I have hitherto tried to see unmoved, knowing I was unable to influence you; but where influence fails, authority may step in. And authority, for your own sake, for the sake of the man you are engaged to, for my own dignity, I shall use to prevent the recurrence of such evenings as this."
"The authority you hold, Aunt Edith," I returned with a steadiness of tone and manner she was quite unprepared for, "the authority you hold over me, I beg to remind you, is very limited. Don't fancy I am unacquainted with the circumstances that have placed me in your care. I know every word of my mother's will, I have known it from a child. My fortune is placed at my own disposal after I am eighteen; till then I am recommended—recommended, Aunt Edith, to your care, and naturally devolve on you, but I know that I am free: I know that after next December I am my own mistress, and till that time, no one has any right but that of seniority and affection to dictate to me. So we understand each other, Aunt Edith, you say rightly, and why waste words? You cannot influence me; you have lost the only power you ever had over me. I came to you an affectionate, trusting child; you did not care to win my affection, you took no pains to make me trust in you. I threatened unconsciously to interfere in the plans you had for Josephine, and you, without a scruple, sacrificed me to her: you sacrificed my happiness, my peace, to the ambition you had for her; you have misled, thwarted, tortured me to make the path clear for her; you have done what in the sight of heaven will one day be a millstone round your neck to sink you to perdition! Oh! if I had but seen it all as clearly a few short weeks ago, as now I see it, you would not have had your triumph as near as you think you have it now! But because I was a foolish, trusting child, it was not hard to deceive me; because I looked to you for direction, you had the power to mislead me; because I had strong feelings it was all the easier to ensnare me. Let me say what I have to say now; this is our reckoning—I never want to have another explanation; we have understood each other perfectly since we came to Rutledge, this plain talk we scarcely needed, and let us end it. As long as I can endure to stay with you, just so long will I stay, and not a moment beyond it. As long as I must stay, you must bear the vexation and the trial of my presence, but you may be sure, your release will not be very distant. I am not bound to you nor to your children by one tie of gratitude or affection, and those that restrain me of custom and convenience, don't cost much in the snapping!"
"All this tirade has wandered very far of the mark. I began to give you a caution and a command which my duty required me to give, and your duty required you to heed; and you fly angrily off on some unmeaning invectives which are very harmless because of their unmeaningness; if it were not the case, I should call you sternly to account for your words, and make you retract them."
"Unmeaning or not, Aunt Edith, they are sown in your memory, and nothing can root them out. They will bear bitter fruit some day, I promise you. They will yield a rich harvest, when the early growths of ambition and worldliness have died down, and left you only the withered husks and stalks of remorse and regret to satisfy your hunger withal. And now unless you want to publish this, will you go into the parlor and let me follow you?"
"I have something more to say to you"——
"There comes Miss Emerson; if it is anything that will bear being said before her, pray continue."
"Ah! Is it not delightful!" cried our pretty hostess. "Mr. Rutledge and the other gentlemen have been out, holding a post-mortem examination of the storm, and they have decided that it has left so black a state of heavens and so wet a state of roads that it is impossible to think of your going home to-night, so you will have to stay till to-morrow,bongré malgré. And I am so charmed. Ah!youare not, though, I see plainly enough, you want to go back to that tiresome Rutledge. What can it be, Mrs. Churchill? What is the matter with her. Though to be sure, the pale cheeks are gone now; I think I prescribed well. Mr. Rutledge must have said something very exciting all the while he was in here, to have given you such a bright color and such flashing eyes."
"A very little excitement brings that result, Miss Emerson. She has not learned much self-possession or self-control yet; we must excuse her."
"Oh! by all means. I am only glad she looks brighter than when I left her. But will you come into the parlor? Miss Josephine is going to give us one more song before we go to our rooms."
Josephine's song was gay and brilliant, her voice was rich and full, but they failed to drive the dreary echo of Victor's last words out of my mind, that deepened and strengthened as the night advanced: "You shall be freed! Be sure you shall be freed!" The lights shone clear and soft on the gay groups that peopled the rooms around me; but instead of them, I seemed to see, far nearer and more distinct, the deserted chamber at Rutledge, where the guilt of the Past and the crime of the Present, kept awful watch together.
"My care is like my shadow in the sun,Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it;Stands and lies by me, does what I have done,This too familiar care does make me rue it."QUEEN ELIZABETH.
Late breakfast, long lingering at the table, delay in ordering the horses, lengthened adieux, all combined to retard our starting for home on the following morning. I had stood ready on the piazza, waiting for the others to come out, for fifteen minutes; every new delay increased unbearingly my nervousness. "Spare that innocent vine," said Phil, arresting my riding-whip. "You have beaten that cluster of roses to fragments." "Will they never come!" I ejaculated. "It is so tiresome to wait for all those adieux. Can't we start?"
"Certainly," said he, signalling the man who held our horses. "We can ride forward; they will soon overtake us, and McGuffy can accompany the carriage as far as the cross-road. He is going to Brandon, I believe, this morning."
I stepped back. "After all, it would hardly be polite to go, as he was of the riding party. There they come from the greenhouse. They must be ready now."
At last, we were mounted, and our companions arranged for the drive, our last good byes said; but the understanding was, as we parted, that the whole party of Masons and Emersons should adjourn to Rutledge for the evening, where a grand finale, in the shape of a supper and a dance, should wind up the festivities of the season. The pretty Janet whispered, as I went down from the saddle to exchange a parting word with her, "I have not given up the visit yet, Papa promises to take Mrs. Churchill by storm this evening, and you must consent."
As we rode along, I gave a sigh to the impossibility of this; nothing could give me pleasure now, but this seemed more like it than anything else. To be quietly with Janet, and to learn to love her, and to unlearn the terrible lesson of the last few weeks, looked almost like peace. But I knew too well what my aunt's answer would be, as she was to be appealed to, and without throwing off the mask of deference that I still preserved and wished to preserve, I could not resist her decision. I well knew the programme sketched out for me, for the rest of the summer: in the thrice empty dreariness of Gramercy Park I was to be immured, while the others whiled away the pleasant weeks at Newport and Nahant. The Wynkars, Capt. McGuffy and Phil had consented to make their plans agree with the Churchills, and Mr. Rutledge had promised to join them in the course of a fortnight. He had made his arrangements to leave home on the same day that we did, and accompany us part of the way; business in the western part of the State would occupy him for some ten days; but, at the end of that time, he proposed rejoining the party at Newport. Nothing had been said to me about my plans, but I knew from something that escaped inadvertently, that the subject had been canvassed, and it had been decided that the income allowed me would not warrant such an expense, and that, with Frances, I was to be dropped at home, while mamma's maid should serve also for Josephine and Grace for the remainder of the summer. I should have loathed the gaiety of Newport, the crowd and the excitement would have been insupportable to me; but the prospect of being smothered in that silent, dark house in the hot city, hateful with memories of my recent illness, and with trials that I could never forget, was even harder to anticipate. But I had to submit. What a future for seventeen.
"Wait till December," whispered Hope, just stirring his wounded, drooping wings, just trembling with a faint life that for days had seemed extinct. "Yes," I thought, with a bitter sigh, "in December I shall be of age, it will be a glorious thing to be my own mistress! To begin the world when I've lost all interest in it—to do as I please when there's nothing on earth that pleases me—to be free from restraint and authority, and from all human love and care! To beindependent!God help me! What a glorious thing it will be. All hope points to December!"
But my release, such as it was, was nearer than December. I might have spared myself the hateful anticipations with which I blackened the fresh summer morning. I had not seen any further into futurity than the rest of the human family, who fret about their fate and look whole years ahead, and put the misery of a lifetime into the present, and torture themselves about what they know is, and fear is to be, till the flood of God's judgment comes and sweeps all away, and leaves them bewildered in the midst of a strange desolation and a new terror.
"Phil," said Capt. McGuffy, as we rode slowly along through the loveliest, freshest country, washed by last night's rain; and gleaming in the morning sun—of which I had not seen one beauty, in my absorbing anxiety—"Phil, may I trust this young lady to you, if I leave you at the cross-road? I want to ride over to Brandon for half an hour before dinner."
"Oh, Captain McGuffy!" I exclaimed, startled out of future fears by present dangers, "why do you take that tiresome ride this morning? It will be sunny and disagreeable before you get back to Rutledge; wait till after dinner."
The captain still leaned to the idea of accomplishing it all "under one head," and having the rest of the day at home I didn't dare to press the subject, but seeing my only chance lay in engrossing their attention to the exclusion from their memories of the Brandon project, I worked faithfully to accomplish my design, and succeeded in a great measure. Before we had gone another half mile, I had enticed the captain into the enthusiastic description of a bull-baiting in Mexico, at which Phil and he had "assisted," and into the recollection of which they both seemed to enter with great ardor. We were on the top of Ridgway Hill—the road for a good mile stretched away at its foot, while on the left, branched off the Brandon turnpike.
"Heaven send they may forget it!" I ejaculated, bending forward to renew my questions about the bull-baiting. The carriages were coming close behind—the bull-fight soon began to flag.
"Phil," began the captain again.
"Capt. McGuffy," I cried, "Madge is fairly beside herself this morning, I can hardly hold her; we have been creeping all the way from the Grove, what do you say to a race, a bona fide race, and I'll ask no favor. It's a clear road from here to Rutledge, and he's the best fellow who clears the park gate first!"
"Done!" cried the captain, catching fire from my eyes; and before another minute, we were off on the maddest race I ever ran or hope to run. For a while, the three straining beasts were nearly neck and neck, the three dilated nostrils and fiery eyes were nearly on a line; then gradually, very gradually, Madge's black head gained an inch or so upon them, an inch or so, and then we were a foot in advance. Phil drove the spurs into his horse—he sprang forward, but soon fell back again—the captain urged Vagabond on with lash and oath; I did not move the loosened bridle on Madge's neck—steady and unswerving she kept the road, each spring as even and as sure as if measured and done by rule—no relaxing of the eager neck—no gasping in the even breath. I only saw, with a heartfelt sigh of relief, that the Brandon turnpike lay unnoticed far behind us, and Madge might take us where she liked: but when I dashed through the park gate, half a dozen yards in advance of Phil, and the captain in a fury with Vagabond, perfectly blown, quarter of a mile in the rear, I was quite helpless and weak from excitement.
"I don't know which to be proudest of, the young lady or the mare," said Stephen, as he lifted me down. "I wouldn't have missed seeing you come in for considerable money."
I hurried into the house and upstairs, leaving Phil to make all explanations and apologies: Kitty had seen me, and followed close behind me.
"Well?" I asked, breathlessly, as she closed the door.
"Nothing, Miss, nothing has happened. Do lie down and rest; you look fit to drop."
"But he is well? What did he say—has nothing happened?"
"Nothing has happened. I only saw him for a moment yesterday. Mrs. Roberts kept me close at marking linen all the rest of the day and evening; and this morning I had only a few moments to speak to him when I went in, for her door was open a crack, and I didn't dare to stay: you look so tired—won't you let me undress you?"
"But how did he seem? what did he say about my being away?"
"Oh!" returned Kitty, rather uneasily, "he asked why the house was so quiet, and whether you'd got back yet: he looks a little pale and badly, but I'm sure that's natural enough. Anybody would get pale and gloomy shut up day after day in that awful room, among all poor Miss Alice's books and pictures and things, all looking so dusty and dismal; it gives me a shudder only to go inside the door."
"But he doesn't know anything about her; you've never told him anything about the room?"
"I didn't mean to, Miss; I had no thought of opening my lips about it; but he made me tell him—he wouldn't be satisfied till I had told him every word I knew about the family troubles. What put it into his head to ask, I think was something he had come across in a French book he had been reading; it was a little note that had marked the place. He held it in his hand as I came in, and he looked so white and strange, I was almost frightened. Oh, so many questions as he put me! so eager as he was! He seemed to look so through and through me with those black eyes of his, I didn't dare to keep back anything I knew. And then he asked me about master; if he had really loved his sister—if he had grieved for her, and tried to find her out, or if he held her memory in contempt—if he tried to forget that she had ever lived, and hated to hear her name."
"You didn't tell him that he did, Kitty?"
"How could I help it, Miss? You would not have had me tell hima lie. I had to tell him how it was. I had to tell him that her name was forbidden here—that no one dared for their lives to breathe a word about those times to the master—that her picture, and all that belonged to her, was put out of sight forever—that her room was shut up and hid as much from the living, as the poor lady was herself in her lonesome grave beyond seas. And he clenched his hand till the blood sprung under his nails, and his very lips were white like the wall; he said so low I could just hear him, 'but he shall not forget!' I am no coward, Miss, but I confess I was right glad when I got outside again."
All that wretched day I watched for a chance to see him. Kitty, nearly as anxious as I was myself, hovered around to try to clear the way for me, but in vain. No other day had the upper hall been so favorite a resort. Josephine had ordered her trunks to be put out there, and Ella's also, and Frances was packing them. Ellerton and Grace, lounging on the stairs, watched the operation, Mrs. Churchill sat with her door open. I cannot possibly describe the misery it gave me to know what danger might arise from this delay. I knew too much already of Victor's morbid jealousy, to imagine it was not brooding now over this long neglect. The hours were leaden-winged and fiery-footed; each slow passing one seemed to burn into my very soul.
Kitty wiped away frequent tears as she busied herself about my packing; there were no tears in my eyes as I walked quickly up and down the room, or lay, face downward on the bed, trying to stifle thoughts that I could not endure.
"There's dinner!" said Kitty, ruefully. "And there's no hope of any more chance after it. Mrs. Roberts is at her eternal knitting in the hall window, and Frances won't stop packing these four hours yet. But don't you worry, Miss; I'll manage it, somehow. Go down to dinner, anddon'tfret!"
Of course not, why should I? What was there in my circumstances to occasion it? Nothing, of course; and nothing, either, to fret about in Josephine's taunts and Grace's sauciness, in the cold eyes of my aunt, in Ella's supercilious scorn; nothing to fret about when the captain talked of the murder and the evidence, the state of the public mind, and the state of his own private mind, in regard to it; when Ellerton talked about the news from town, and the letters he had just received from some of his inestimable chums there resident, and of the inexplicable nature of the fact that none of them had spoken of meeting or seeing Victor before he sailed, and of his own conviction that it was very strange we had heard nothing from him since he left,verystrange.
"Oh!" cried Grace, "that's the way, they say, with these foreigners, adventurers, may be. You mustn't be astonished, my dear (turning pleasantly to me), you mustn't be astonished if you shouldn't hear from him 'never no more.' These French meteors, they say, sometimes flash through society in that way, and dazzle everybody, then sink into their native night again. And you know it is just possible our Victor may be of that order; but, of course, I don't want to distress you, only it's as well you should be prepared."
"Grace, hush! you are a saucy child; but really itisodd that we have never heard a word from him since he left."
"Did you expect to, Josephine? I didn't suppose you had made any arrangements to correspond. I am sorry I didn't know how deep your interest was, I might have relieved your mind before. Mr. Viennet is very well. I have heard from him more than once since we parted."
An exclamation of surprise went round the table; I was overwhelmed with questions and reproaches.
"You might have told us, really, now I think," said Ellerton.
"Why did you not ask me, then?"
"Why, we thought you'd tell, to be sure. We didn't know how sacred you considered his epistles."
"What sort of a journey did he have? What day did he get in town?"
"He didn't say much about his journey. I fancy from something he said that he met with some detentions."
"Didn't he send any messages to anybody?"
"None that I remember."
"Ungrateful rascal!"
"He succeeded, I suppose, in getting a state-room? He had some fears that he would be too late."
"He didn't say a word about it."
"Absurd! what did he talk about, then?"
"Not about his journey, nor his stateroom, nor you, Josephine; but you know there are more things, and as interesting, in heaven and earth, to us both, strange as it may seem to you."
"Pardon!I had forgotten!"
"You won't hear again before the Persia is in, will you?"
"That will be in three weeks, will it not?"
"Yes; that will be after we are at Newport. To whose care do your letters come addressed?"
"Really, Mr. Wynkar, you are too kind. Your interest is so unexpected!"
"Let us all drink to hisbon voyage," said the captain, filling my glass.
"Avec plaisir," cried Josephine, and Phil said heartily, as he poured her out a glass:
"Victor's a good fellow; he has my best wishes on land or sea."
"And mine," said Mr. Rutledge, very low.
Why was there a hush around the table as that toast was drunk? Why did a sort of shade creep over the careless mirth of the company? Not surely because they guessed that he whose health they drank was within hearing, almost, of their words, nor because they knew how fallen and how wretched he was; but because, perhaps unconsciously, the gloom on their host's face, and the misery on mine, damped for a moment their gaiety and confidence.
"The last day at Rutledge!" murmured Josephine, with a pretty sigh, as we left the dining-room. "I cannot bear to think of it. I never had so happy a fortnight in my life. Shall any of us ever forget this visit?"
"It doesn't seem as if we'd been here a week," said Ella, "does it?"
"A week! It seems to me a year!" I exclaimed, involuntarily.
"That doesn't speak well for your enjoyment, at all events; Mr. Rutledge will never ask you to come again. Will you, Mr. Rutledge?"
"I am afraid, Miss Wynkar, that it will be out of my power to enjoy the honor of any one's society here for a long while to come. I am going abroad in the course of a month, and"——
"You, Mr. Rutledge!" exclaimed more than one voice, and Josephine's color suffered a shade of diminution.
"It is a sudden determination, is it not, sir?" asked Phil.
"No, I have been thinking of it for some weeks, but I have not till recently had much idea of the time I should start."
"Mr. Rutledge does not look upon crossing the Atlantic for a few months, as any way more formidable than going to town for a night, he has been such a traveller," said Mrs. Churchill, with admirable composure; butIknew the effort that it cost her. "You do not think of being absent long, I suppose?"
"It is uncertain; I shall make my arrangements to be gone for about two years, but something may occur to detain me longer, in which case I can easily settle all things here by letter. I have trusty persons in my employ, and I think there is no chance of my presence being necessary at home for a long while to come."
"I envy you," said Ellerton; "I wish I could run off for a year or two."
I saw Josephine's lips move, but she could not command her voice, and, bending down, she caressed Tigre with a nervous hand. I could not but pity her; I had not realized before how much her heart had been set upon this match; and wounded pride is next in sting to wounded love.
The gentlemen lit their cigars, and talked of Mr. Rutledge's plans; we all lounged idly about the north end of the hall; the doors were all open, and a fine fresh breeze came in. I had been listening anxiously to a faint sound overhead,whereI knew too well; a hasty stride from one end to the other of the room above us.
"Hark!" cried Grace, "what's that? I heard the same sound this morning."
Every one stopped talking, and listened.
"The house is haunted, you may depend," said Josephine. "There have been strange noises next my room for the last three nights."
"That's a peculiar sound. What do you make of it, Mr. Rutledge?" said Ellerton, walking toward the stairs.
"It is nothing," he returned, advancing that way too. "Some of the servants are up there now, perhaps; I will go and see. Don't trouble yourself, Mr. Wynkar."
"I'll go," I cried, starting forward. "Perhaps it's Kitty, she may be waiting for me."
Ellerton paused and listened; Mr. Rutledge passed up before him, followed closely by Tigre. I brushed past Ellerton and kept close to Mr. Rutledge. Mrs. Roberts was standing at the head of the stairs.
"Mrs. Roberts," said Ellerton, "we're investigating an unusual noise up here. Can you account for it?"
Now, Mrs. Roberts never could abide the insinuation that anything might possibly be going on of which she was ignorant; if she had nosed anything herself, she did not, as we have seen, lack zeal in ferreting it out, but it was impossible to put her on a new scent; she refused to acknowledge any other sagacity than her own. So, on the present occasion, as she had heard no noise, she utterly scouted the idea, and assigned some trifling cause for it; the girls, she said, had been in the attic, clearing out an old store-room; probably that was what Mr. Rutledge had heard. Ellerton hurried down to inform the ladies of the explanation, and Mr. Rutledge, crossing the hall, was going toward his dressing-room, when Tigre, who had been exploring the neighborhood, now rushed whining along the hall, with his nose to the floor. The attention of all was attracted to him; he darted under the wardrobe, and began scratching and growling earnestly at the door of Victor's hiding-place. I followed Mr. Rutledge's quick glance from my face to the wardrobe, and, starting forward, I tried to call off Tigre.
"Come here, sir! Come here, I say!" But he was too intent upon his discovery to heed me.
"He is a little nuisance," said Mrs. Roberts. "I never approved having him allowed to come upstairs."
"Tigre, what are you after, sir?" said Mr. Rutledge, as he walked down the hall toward him.
"Oh, nothing, I'm sure, sir, nothing!" I cried, following him. "Don't scold him. Tigre, come out, you rascal! come out, I say!" and I stamped vehemently on the floor.
"He will not mind you," said Mr. Rutledge, in a low voice. "He will obey his instincts, and persevere till he has reached the object of his search."
"He isn't searching for anything," I exclaimed, dropping down on my knees and stooping till I could see under the wardrobe. "If I could only reach him. Tigre—you torment—if you don't come, I'll whip you,so!Here, here,poorfellow! Come here, my pet!"
Tigre desisted a moment from his whining, and wavered in his determination. I thrust my arm under the wardrobe, seized him, and drew him, yelping, out; then, springing up, ran across the hall, and almost threw him into my room. Mr. Rutledge watched me silently with a contracted brow, and crossing over to his own room, shut himself into it.
Not a very faithful index, certainly of the real feelings of men and women, is to be obtained from their outward and visible emotions. A very gay party, no doubt, the visitors who came that night to Rutledge, thought they found there. They little guessed how unhappy and disappointed a man their courteous host was, nor that Mrs. Churchill, serene and charming, was looking in the face the failure of the hopes of years, nor that the pretty Josephine's smiles were in ghastly contrast with the bitterness of her spirit; nor that Phil, who knew her face too well to be deceived by them, was smarting under the realizing sense it gave him of her ambition and worldliness. And if they had guessed the interpretation ofmygaiety!
There were just enough of us to make the dancing spirited, and to keep every one on the floor. We had before always danced in the parlors, but some evil spirit prompted Grace to propose that we should try a double set of Lancers in the hall. Everybody, encouraged, doubtless, by their attendant evil spirits, seemed to think nothing could be more delightful than the hall, and urged the moving of the piano out there; and there we adjourned. I tried not to remember how plainly we could be heard in a certain room at the end of the hall above; how the laughing and the music would grate on the jealous ears there. If he caught the tones of my voice, he would not know that I laughed because I must keep pace with the captain's jokes, and encourage him in punning and joke-making, to keep him from the hideous topic that he always turned to when left to himself; and to drive away the suspicion that sharpened Mr. Rutledge's eyes, and to keep Mr. Mason my admirer, and no more.
"Like the lady of 'Old Oak Chest' memory, 'I'm weary of dancing,'" I cried at length, "let's amuse ourselves some other way."
"Play hide-and-seek, like that ancient party?" asked Phil, throwing himself on the lowest step of the stairs.
"That's not a bad suggestion!" exclaimed Grace. "This is just the place for such an adventure. I don't mean that I want anybody to be smothered in a chest exactly, but lost for a little while, and hunted for, you know. It would be so jolly."
"So it would!" echoed Ellerton.
"And there's no end of capital hiding-places about the house, so many odd rooms where you'd never expect them; and acres of attic, beyond a doubt!"
"Come!" cried Josephine, "we're all ripe for adventure. Let's have a game of hide-and-seek."
"Delightful!" cried the youngest Miss Mason.
"I'm ready for anything," said Phil, getting up and shaking himself.
"I'm afraid you will not find any oak chests," said Mr. Rutledge, discouragingly.
"Oh! yes, we will," cried Grace, "chests, and crannies, and closets, and wardrobes, and trap-doors without number. A regiment of soldiers might be hid away in this house and nobody the wiser."
Everybody was in the spirit of it now, and it was useless to oppose.
"Who shall hide first?" demanded Grace.
"Oh, your cousin, of course!" cried the captain. "She proposed the game."
I was voted in by acclamation.
"And you must take somebody with you, it will make it more exciting, but you must hide in separate places," added Grace.
"Very well; the captain must go out with me, and you must all go into the parlor, and promise, on your honor, to stay there five minutes by the clock, and then we give you leave to find us."
"We promise," said Ellerton; "but remember, you are to hide somewhere in the house, and to surrender yourselves in half an hour if you are not found before."
"Always provided," said the captain, shutting the parlor-doors upon them, "that we're not smothered in some old chest in the meantime."
"Sweetest lips that ever were kissed,Brightest eyes that ever have shone,May sigh and whisper, andhenot list,Or look away, and never be missedLong or ever a month be gone."
"Where shall we go?" said the captain, in a whisper, as we paused in the hall irresolutely.
"What do you think of the dining-room, behind the tall clock for one of us?"
The captain shook his head.
"They'll look there the first thing; it will not do. But in the second story, there's a huge old wardrobe that I've noticed at the north end, that would be a capital place for one."
"Yes, I know where you mean, but I think it's locked, and we haven't the key, and it would take too long to hunt up the housekeeper and get it. There's the lower part of a bookcase in the library empty. Captain McGuffy, if you only could get into it! Not even Mr. Rutledge knows about it. Mrs. Roberts only cleared the books out of it last week, and you'd be as safe as possible. Do try if you can't arrange it, and I'll go somewhere upstairs; I know a place."
Captain McGuffy consented, and we hurried to the library. The hiding-place was not so large as I had fancied, but still my companion agreed to risk it. He doubled up like a jack-knife; it was perfectly wonderful to me how he ever got his long limbs into so small a compass.
"Are you comfortable?" I asked, smothering a laugh.
"Don't shut the door tight," he whispered, hoarsely. "I can't stand this long."
I had no time for more lengthened condolences, but hurried off to dispose of myself. The second story was entirely clear; the servants were all downstairs; Mrs. Roberts was busy about supper. I resolved to hide behind the linen-press outside her door; but first, I thought, if I were quick, I could go one instant to Victor's door, whisper my excuses, and promise to come back when they were all gone. It was rather a dangerous thing to do, but the moment I heard the parlor-door open, I could fly to my hiding-place; I dared not lose this chance.
Moving aside the wardrobe with some effort, I tapped low at the door. Again—and no answer. "Victor," I whispered at the key-hole, "come to the door one moment;" but not a sound from within.
Apprehension of I do not know what new danger overcame my prudence, and I wasted the few precious seconds I had to spare in irresolution. When it was too late to effect my escape, I heard the door of the parlor burst open, and Josephine's voice crying, "Allons!" They separated to all parts of the house, Grace, Janet, and Ellerton flying up the stairs. There was but one thing for me to do: I hurriedly pulled the wardrobe after me into its place, opened the door, entered, and closed it stealthily behind me. Only when I was in it, did I realize the folly of what I had done. The room was as dark and silent as the grave; such a silence and such a darkness as would have chilled a stouter heart than mine. I whispered Victor's name—there was no answer. Had he fled, then, and was I alone in this horrid room—shut up in it for hours perhaps? No! I would risk all and grope my way out, no matter if I encountered them all. I could endure this no longer. All Kitty had told me—all I ever fancied of the ghastly terrors of the room—crowded into my mind, and, starting forward, I attempted to find the door, but in my bewilderment and the utter blackness around me, I must have turned away, instead of toward it. My outstretched hand struck against an icy surface; I screamed and started back, my foot slipped and I fell, striking my temple heavily against some projection. The fall and the blow stunned me for awhile; then returning consciousness suggested all that they had mercifully absolved me from. Alice Rutledge's neglected, dishonored room—Alice Rutledge's sin-troubled spirit haunting it—the curses that had been spoken in it—the agony that had been endured in it—the years of silence that had passed over it—and now, a murderer's hiding-place—a murderer with crime fresh upon him. And oh! the horror of that crime! It seemed almost as if it had been me instead of Victor who had done it. My brain seemed reeling—had I not been there—had I not seen—heard—that of which I never lost the memory—or was it only haunting me from another's lips? Wasthatavenging ghost here, too—within the limits of this dreadful room? Was that a touch of human hand upon my breast?—was it fancy, or—or—was that a breath upon my cheek? A thousand horrid whispers—hollow laughter—dying shrieks—filled the air; within these accursed walls, it was weird and unearthly all; without, I heard, but as through triple dungeon walls, the voices of those I had left behind; I heard their steps overhead, their searching, high and low, in every nook and corner for me; I heard them call my name, and pause for answer. I tried to call, but a nightmare stifled my voice. As one might feel who had buried himself yet living—who had pulled the coffin-lid down on his own head, and heard the devils eagerly filling the grave up and laughing at their work—and at each new shovelful of heavy clay had felt the distance between him and life grow shorter, and felt the weight press heavier and heavier, and the horror and the darkness grow tighter and tighter around him, and the remorse, and the helplessness, and the terror—so I felt that hideous night, and so I feel whenever I remember it.
The house quieted, I heard the carriages drive away, then the faint good-nights, and the closing of the many doors, and all grew into repose. That was cruel; they had forgotten me—they had given me up easily! But I would make them hear—I would get out of this sepulchral place, and I started to my feet. Just then the handle of the door turned, and a ray of light streamed across the room. It was Mr. Rutledge who entered; but the sternness and whiteness of his face repressed the cry of joy with which I had started forward. The light, though, had put all the ghastly train to flight, and I breathed freer as I looked around and saw that he and I were alone in the room. He closed the door, and pressing his hand for a moment before his eyes, looked up and around the apartment. I suppose he had never been in it since it had been closed upon the flight of his sister, and since his father's curse had doomed it to desolation. I followed his glance around the dim and dusky walls—the familiar pictures—the disordered, time-stained ornaments—the tall, canopied bed—the open wardrobe. A low groan escaped his lips, and sinking on a chair, he bowed his head in his hands upon the table. Some sound from me at last aroused him, and looking up, he said:
"I knew I should find you here. What evil spirit brought you to this place! Are you alone?"
"Yes," I faltered, coming to him, "I am alone. Take me out, for the love of heaven! I have been in such terror—Victor is not here—I have"——
I stopped, with an exclamation of alarm. I had betrayed my secret.
"It is better that he has gone," he said, but without any surprise; "it could not have been kept up much longer. I hope, for your sake, he may be safe. Flight would have been better a week ago. I could have managed it, but you would not trust me. Did you really think," he continued, rising slowly from his seat, and looking at me with an expression compounded of bitterness, and tenderness, and sadness, "did you really think I did not know you were hiding your lover in my house—that you were dying a thousand deaths in the midst of this careless crowd? Why, child," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, and looking into my eyes, "I know every expression of this face better than I know my own. I know its flashes of fear, its white mantle of despair, and its crimson glow of love, too well to be deceived. If I had needed confirmation of my suspicions on the morning after Dr. Hugh's murder, that Victor Viennet was the guilty man, I should have had only to have looked in your face. And from that dreadful day to this, I have read there each event as it has come to pass. I have helped you in your lover's cause, though you did not know it. I have worked day and night to mislead his persecutors, to allay the suspicions and blind the eyes of the authorities; and I have nearly succeeded. There is very little danger now, if he is prudent and dexterous in his flight. Do not tremble so; you need not fear for him. By this time he is probably beyond the only part of his journey that was attended with much risk."
I burst into tears; it was so hard to hear him say all this, and talk to me as if I had nothing to be miserable about, now that Victor was safe. Ah! this was but the beginning. A life-time lay before me full of such hours as this.
"It is a heavy fate, poor child," he said, compassionately. "I would have saved you from it if I could."
"You don't know half how heavy!" I sobbed. "If you did, you wouldn't think it a sin for me to pray to die."
"Take the harder penance, and submit to live. Death doesn't always come for the asking. God has sent you a terrible trial, but he will help you through it if you will only keep that in mind."
"No, no. God did not send it. I have brought it on myself—it is all my own deed! Oh! if you only knew"——
"I do know. I know you are disappointed in the man you love—that you have found weakness where you fancied strength: but I know that, woman-like, you still love, if possible, more tenderly than before your idol was shattered, and that you are shrinking now from the prospect of a long and uncertain separation. I pity you, believe me, I pity you; but these are griefs that time has a cure for. Do not talk of despair till you have felt what it is to be unloved and unblest—to be without an interest on earth, with but a slender right to hope in heaven—to be thwarted in all you undertake, balked of all you desire—till you have seen another and an unworthier hand take down your crown of life, and wear it careless in your sight."
"Perhaps I know all that as well as you," was on my lips, but I only hid my face and turned away. He did not understand the gesture, and said sadly, after a pause:
"Why are you so wretched? I have assured you there is little danger, and what is there so insupportable in the separation of a year or two? Or is it something in the manner of parting; were you unprepared to find him gone? Did he leave no good bye?"
"No," I said, glad to have some excuse for my tears; "I never dreamed of his going—it is too unkind! And I shall never forgive myself either; when I saw him last, there was some misunderstanding, and I have not explained it to him! He has gone away in despair and in anger! Oh, I shall never, never forgive myself!"
"You may overrate the cause," said my companion, "perhaps he may have found it more prudent to fly now, and could not wait to see you. Look about the room, there may be a letter somewhere, or he may have left one with Kitty."
"Kitty knows nothing of it, and I do not see any letter."
"What is that little package—beyond you—there on the table?"
I seized it, and, bending eagerly over the light, read my name upon it. My hand trembled so that I could hardly open it. Within the first paper there was a letter; my eyes glanced hurriedly over it, but from another wrapping something dropped, one sight of which served to make me grasp the table for support, and drop the letter on the floor.
"What is it?" cried my companion, starting forward, and picking up my letter, leading me to a chair.
"Read it to me—I can't—I don't understand," I faltered, putting back the letter in his hand. He looked at me hesitatingly a moment, then read it aloud:
"I promised you freedom. Well! I have been a coward not to have given it to you sooner; but when you read this, there will be such a gulf between us, that you may well grant a little pity to the cowardice that only feared death as a separation from you—that only clung to life as sweetened by your love.
"It is trite to tell you of my love—to tell you to be happy—to say I forgive the coldness that you strove to hide—and to ask forgiveness for the pain I have given you. You know all this—better, much better than at this dreadful hour I can tell you—and though you can never know in its fullness the agony that the parting inflicts on me, there is no need that you should realize it: I have done enough to make you miserable already. Forget all this black dream; it will soon be over, and be again the happy girl I found you.
"But one thing more. Would you know who it is to whom you had affianced yourself—to whose life you had promised to unite yours—whose name you had promised to bear? It is a good name—mon ange—an ancient name—an honorable! Ask your proud host if it is not; ask him if there is a better in the country, or one that a woman need be prouder to bear. It is no new name to your ears; it isRutledge;the only name I have any claim to, though, perhaps, my host would say that was but a slender one: did his sister lose the ancient and honored name she was born with, when she lost her honor, when she stepped down from her high place, and stooped to sin? Or did she drag down that name with her in her fall? Did it cling to her, like a robe of mockery and scorn, only making her shame the greater; did it descend with the heritage of infamy, to the child of her shame? Or did it die with her, and has her neglected grave the only right to bear the record of it? Ask our host—he can tell you more of it than I. But tell him I am not inclined to dispute it with him: I am not as proud of the name as he; tell him I loathe—I execrate it! I could almost wish to live to show him my contempt for it—to show him what a low wretch could share with him his inheritance and his pride. If he doubts it—if he questions whether the same blood runs in our veins, show him the only souvenir I have to leave you—the picture of my father. Ask him if he remembers Alice Rutledge's lover. He will not need more damning proof; it came to me like a message from the dead—it may go to him as such. Tell him that a murderer wrenched it from his victim's dying grasp; that it has struck awe to his guilty soul at every glance; that it has hurried him on to perdition. But if he longs to be more certain, show him these two letters; one that I have worn next my heart for years—the other, that I found between the leaves of a forgotten book in this ghastly room.