"Strange man!" thought Willie, as he walked towards his hotel. "How warmly he shook my hand at parting! and how affectionately he bade me farewell, notwithstanding the cold reception he gave me, and the pertinacity with which I rejected his opinions and repelled his advice!"
"Miss Gertrude," said Mrs. Prime, opening the parlour-door, putting her head cautiously in, looking round, and then advancing with a stealthy pace—"my! how busy you are! Lor's sakes alive, if you an't rippin' up them great curtains of Mrs. Graham's for the wash! I wouldn't be botherin' with 'em, Miss Gertrude; she won't be here this fortnight, and Mrs. Ellis will have time enough."
"Oh, I have nothing else to do, Mrs. Prime; it's no trouble." Then, looking up pleasantly at the old cook, she added, "It seems very cosy for us all to be at home—doesn't it?"
"It seems beautiful!" answered Mrs. Prime; "and I can't help thinking how nice it would be if we could all live on jist as we are now, without no more intrusions."
Gertrude smiled and said, "Everything looks as it used to in old times, when I first came here. I was quite a child then," continued she, with a sigh.
"Gracious me! What are you now?" said Mrs. Prime. "For mercy's sake, Miss Gertrude, don't you begin to think about growin' old. There's nothin' like feelin' young to keep young. There's Miss Patty Pace, now——"
"I have been meaning to ask after her," exclaimed Gertrude; "is she alive and well yet?"
"She!" replied Mrs. Prime; "Lor', she won't never die! Old women like her, that feel themselves young gals, allers live for ever; but the baker's boy that fetched the loaves this mornin' brought an arrant from her, and she wants to see you the first chance; but I wouldn't hurry either about goin' there or anywhere, Miss Gertrude, till I got rested; for you an't well, you look so kind o' tired out."
"Did she wish to see me?" asked Gertrude. "Poor old thing! I'll go and see her this very afternoon; and you needn't feel anxious about me, Mrs. Prime—I am quite well."
Gertrude went. She found Miss Patty nearly bent double with rheumatism, dressed with less than her usual care, and crouching over a miserable fire. She was in tolerable spirits, and hailed Gertrude's entrance by a cordial greeting. Innumerable were the questions she put to Gertrude regarding her own personal experiences during the past year.
"So you have not yet chosen a companion," said she, after Gertrude had responded to all her queries. "That is a circumstance to be regretted. Not," continued she, with a little smirk, "that it is ever too late in life for one to meditate the conjugal tie, which is often assumed with advantage by persons of fifty or more; and certainly you, who are still in the bloom of your days, need not despair of a youthful swain. Existence is twofold when it is shared with a congenial partner; and I had hoped that before now, Miss Gertrude, both you and myself would have formed such an alliance; for the protection of the matrimonial union is one of its greatest advantages."
"I hope you have not suffered from the want of it," said Gertrude.
"I have, Miss Gertrude, suffered incalculably. But the keenest pangs have been the sensibilities; yes, the sensibilities—the finest part of our nature, and that which will least bear wounding."
"I am sorry to hear that you have been thus grieved," said Gertrude. "I should have supposed that, living alone, you might have been spared this trial."
"Oh, Miss Gertrude!" exclaimed the old lady, lifting up both hands, and speaking in a pitiable tone—"Oh, that I had the wings of a dove, wherewith to fly away from my kindred! I fondly thought to have distanced them, but during the past year they have discovered my retreat, and I cannot elude their vigilance. Hardly can I recover from the shock of one visitation—made for the sole purpose of taking an inventory of my possessions and measuring the length of my days—before the vultures are again seen hovering round my dwelling. But," exclaimed she, raising her voice and chuckling as she spoke, "they shall fall into their own snare; for I will dupe every one of them yet!"
"I was not aware that you had any relations," said Gertrude; "and it seems they are such only in name."
"Name!" said Miss Pace, emphatically. "I am glad at the thought that they are not honoured with a cognomen which not one of them is worthy to bear. No, they pass by a different name—a name as plebeian as their own coarse souls. Three of them stand to each other in a fraternal relation, yet they are alike hateful to me. One, a contemptible coxcomb, comes here to overawe me with his presence, which he conceives to be imposing; calls me aunt—aunt; thus testifying by his speech to a consanguinity which he blindly fancies makes him nearer akin to my property!" The old lady almost shrieked the last word. "And the other two are beggars! always were—always will be; let 'em be—I'm glad of it!"
"You hear me, Miss Gertrude; you are a young lady of quick comprehension, and I will avail myself of your contiguity, which, although you deny the charge, may shortly be interrupted by some eager lover, to request at your hands a favour, such as I little thought once I should ever feel compelled to seek. I sent for you to write (Miss Patty whispered) the last will and testament of Miss Patty Pace."
The poor woman's trembling voice evinced a deep compassion for herself, which Gertrude could not help sharing; and she expressed a willingness to comply with her wishes as far as was in her power, at the same time declaring her utter ignorance of all the forms of law.
To Gertrude's astonishment, Miss Patty announced a perfect acquaintance with all the legal knowledge which the case demanded; and in so complete a manner did she dictate the words of the important instrument that, being afterwards properly witnessed, signed, and sealed, it was found in a few months—at which time Miss Patty died—free from imperfection and flaw, and proved a satisfactory direction for the disposal of the inheritance.
It may be as well to state here, however, that he who was pronounced sole heir to the valuable property never availed himself of the bequest, otherwise than to make a careful bestowal of it among her relatives. The solo inheritor of her estate was William Sullivan, the knight of the rosy countenance, who with chivalrous spirit captivated Miss Patty's virgin heart, and gained her lasting favour. But that chivalrous spirit accepted not a reward so disproportioned to the slight service he had rendered the old lady.
Gertrude found it no easy task to gather and transfix in writing the exact idea which the old woman's rambling dictation was intended to convey; and it was two or three hours before the manuscript was completed.
The sky was overcast, and a drizzling rain began to fall, as she walked home; but the distance was not great, and the only damage she sustained was a slight dampness to her garments. Emily perceived it, and said, "Your dress is quite wet, you must sit by the parlour fire. I shall not go down until tea-time, but father is there, and will be glad of your company; he has been alone all the afternoon."
Gertrude found Mr. Graham sitting in front of a pleasant wood fire, half-dozing, half-reading. She took a book and a low chair and joined him. But to avoid the heat she went to the sofa. Soon there was a ring at the front door bell. The housemaid, who was passing by the door, opened it, and immediately ushered in a visitor. It was Willie!
Gertrude rose, but trembling from head to foot, so that she dared not trust herself to take a step forward. Willie advanced to the centre of the room, looked at Gertrude, bowed, hesitated, and said, "Miss Flint!—is she here?" The colour rushed into Gertrude's face. She attempted to speak, but failed. It was not necessary. The blush was enough. Willie recognised her, and starting forward, eagerly seized her hand.
"Gerty! is it possible?"
The perfect naturalness and ease of his manner, the warmth with which he took and retained her hand, reassured the agitated girl. The spell seemed partially removed. For a moment he became in her eyes the Willie of old, her dear friend and playmate, and she found voice to exclaim, "Oh, Willie, you have come at last! I am so glad to see you!" The sound of their voices disturbed Mr. Graham, who had fallen into a nap. He turned round in his easy chair, then rose. Willie dropped Gertrude's hand and stepped towards him. "Mr. Sullivan," said Gertrude, with a feeble attempt at a suitable introduction.
They shook hands, and then all three sat down.
And now all Gertrude's embarrassment returned. It is often the case that when the best of friends meet after a long separation they salute or embrace each other, and then, notwithstanding the weight of matter pressing on the mind of each—sufficient, perhaps, to furnish subjects of conversation for weeks to come—nothing of importance presents itself at once, and a pause ensues, which is finally filled up by some trivial question concerning the journey of the newly-arrived party. She had seen Willie before; she was aware of his arrival; knew even the steamer in which he had come; but was anxious to conceal from him this knowledge. She could not tell him, since he seemed so ignorant of the fact himself, that they had met before; and she was at an utter loss what to do or say under the circumstances. Her embarrassment soon communicated itself to Willie; and Mr. Graham's presence, which was a restraint to both, made matters worse. Willie, however, first broke the momentary silence.
"I should hardly have known you, Gertrude. I did not know you. How——"
"How did you come?" asked Mr. Graham, abruptly, apparently unconscious that he was interrupting Willie's remark.
"In theEuropa," replied Willie. "She got into New York about a week ago."
"Out here, I mean," said Mr. Graham, rather stiffly. "Did you come out in the coach?"
"Oh, excuse me, sir," replied Willie; "I misunderstood you. No, I drove out from Boston in a chaise."
"Did anyone take your horse?"
"I fastened him in front of the house."
Willie glanced out of the window (it was now nearly dusk) to see that the animal was still there. Mr. Graham settled himself in his easy chair and looked into the fire. "You are changed, too," said Gertrude, in reply to Willie's unfinished comment. Then, fearing he might feel hurt at what he must know to be true in more ways than one, the colour which had retreated mounted once more to her cheeks. But he did not seem to feel hurt, but replied, "Yes, an Eastern climate makes great changes; but I think I can hardly have altered more than you have. Why, only think, Gerty, you were a child when I went away! I suppose I must have known I should find you a young lady, but I begin to think I never fully realised it."
"When did you leave Calcutta?"
"The latter part of February. I passed the spring months in Paris."
"You did not write," said Gertrude in a faltering voice.
"No, I was expecting to come across by every steamer, and wanted to surprise you."
Gertrude looked confused, but replied, "I was disappointed about the letters; but I am very glad to see you again, Willie."
"You can't be so glad as I am," said he, lowering his voice and looking at her with great tenderness. "You seem more and more like yourself to me every minute that I see you. I begin to think, however, that I ought to have written and told you I was coming."
Gertrude smiled. Willie's manner was so unchanged, his words so affectionate, that it seemed unkind to doubt his friendliness, although to his undivided love she felt she could have no claim. "No," said she, "I like surprises. Don't you remember, I always did?"
"Remember? Certainly," replied he; "I have never forgotten anything that you liked."
Just at this moment Gertrude's birds, whose cage hung in the window at which Willie sat, commenced a little twittering noise which they always made just at night. He looked up. "Your birds," said Gertrude; "the birds you sent me."
"Are they all alive and well?" asked he.
"Yes, all of them."
"You have been a kind mistress to the little things. They are very tender."
"I am very fond of them."
"You take such care of those you love, dear Gerty, that you are sure to preserve their lives as long as may be." His tone still more than his words betrayed the deep meaning with which he spoke. Gertrude was silent.
"Is Miss Graham well?" asked Willie.
Gertrude related, in reply, that her nerves had been recently much disturbed by the terrible experiences through which she had passed; and this led to the subject of the recent disaster, at which Gertrude forebore to mention her having been herself present. Willie spoke with feeling of the sad catastrophe, and with severity of the reckless carelessness which had been the cause of it; and said that he had valued friends on board the boat, but was unaware that Miss Graham, whom he loved for Gertrude's sake, was among them.
Conversation between Gertrude and Willie had by this time assumed something of their former familiarity. He had taken a seat near her on the sofa, that they might talk unrestrainedly; for although Mr. Graham might have dropped asleep again, yet it was not easy to forget his presence. There were many subjects on which it would have seemed natural for them to speak, had not Gertrude avoided them. The causes of Willie's sudden return, his probable stay, his future plans in life, and his reasons for having postponed his visit until he had been in the country more than a week—all these were inquiries which curiosity would have suggested; but to Gertrude they all lay under embargo. She neither felt prepared to receive nor willing to force the confidence on matters which must be influenced by his engagement with Miss Clinton, and therefore preserved silence on these topics. And Willie, deeply grieved at this strange want of sympathy on her part, forebore to thrust upon her notice these seemingly neglected circumstances.
They talked of Calcutta life, of Parisian novelties, of Gertrude's school-keeping, and many other things, but not a word of matters nearest to the hearts of both. At length a servant announced tea. Mr. Graham rose and stood with his back to the fire. Willie rose also and prepared to take leave. Mr. Graham, with frigid civility, invited him to remain, and Gertrude urged him to do so; but he declined with such decision that the latter understood that he felt the neglect with which Mr. Graham had treated him and his visit. In addition to the fact that the old gentleman disliked young men as a class, and that Willie had intruded upon the privacy in which he was indulging, there was the bitter recollection that Gertrude had once forsaken himself and Emily (for so he in his own mind styled her conscientious choice between conflicting duties) for the very family of which their visitor was the only remaining member—a recollection which did not tend to conciliate the prejudiced man.
Gertrude accompanied Willie to the door. The rain had ceased, but the wind whistled across the piazza. It was growing cold. Willie buttoned his coat, and promised to see Gertrude on the following day.
"You have no overcoat," said she; "the night is chilly, and you are accustomed to a hot climate. You had better take this shawl;" and she took from the hat-tree a heavy Scotch plaid. He thanked her and threw it over his arm; then, taking both her hands in his, looked her steadily in the face for a moment, as if he would fain have spoken. But, seeing that she shrank from his affectionate gaze, he dropped her hands and, with a troubled expression, bade her good-night.
Gertrude stood with the handle of the door in her hand until she heard the sounds of the horse's hoofs as he drove down the road; then retired to her own room. Well as she had borne up during the longed-for yet much-dreaded meeting, calmly as she had sustained her part, her courage all forsook her now, and in looking forward to days, weeks, and months of frequent intercourse, she felt that the most trying part of the struggle was yet to come.
Had Willie changed to her? No; he had come back as he went—generous, manly, and affectionate. He had manifested the same unaffected warmth of feeling, the same thoughtful tenderness, he had ever shown. In short, he was the Willie she had thought of, dreamed of, imagined, and loved. There was a light tap at her door. Thinking it a summons to the tea-table, she said, "Jane, I do not wish for any supper."
"It isn't that," said the girl; "but I have brought you a letter." Gertrude sprang up and opened the door.
"A little boy handed it to me and then ran off," said the girl, placing a large package in her hand. "He told me to give it to you straight away."
"Bring me a light," said Gertrude.
The girl went for a lamp, while Gertrude wondered what a package so large could contain. She thought no letter could so soon arrive from Mr. Amory. While she was wondering, Jane brought a lamp, by the light of which she detected his handwriting; and, breaking the seal, she drew from the envelope several closely-written pages, whose contents she perused with the greatest eagerness and excitement.
"My Daughter,—My loving, kind-hearted girl. Now that your own words encourage me with the assurance that my first fear was unfounded—now that I can appeal to you as to an impartial witness, I will disclose the story of my life; and, while I prove to you your parentage, will hope that my unprejudiced child at least will believe, love, and trust her father, in spite of a world's injustice.
"I will conceal nothing. I will plunge at once into those disclosures which I most dread to utter, and trust to after explanation to palliate the darkness of my tale.
"Mr. Graham is my step-father, and my blessed mother, long since dead, was, in all but the tie of nature, a true mother to Emily. Thus allied to those whom you love best, I am parted from them by a heavy curse; for, not only was mine the ill-fated hand (oh, hate me not yet, Gertrude!) which locked poor Emily up in darkness, but I stand accused in the eyes of my fellow-men of another crime, deep, dark, and disgraceful. And yet, though living under a ban, wandering up and down the world a doomed and broken-hearted man, I am innocent as a child of all intentional wrong, as you will learn, if you can trust to the truth of the tale I am about to tell.
"Nature gave and education fostered in me a rebellious spirit. I was the idol of my invalid mother, who, though she loved me with a love for which I bless her memory, had not the energy to subdue the passionate and wilful nature of her boy. But I was neither cruelly nor viciously disposed; and though my sway at home and among my school-fellows was alike indisputable, I made many friends, and not a single enemy. But a sudden check was at length put to my freedom. My mother married, and I soon came to feel bitterly the check which her husband, Mr. Graham, was likely to impose upon my boyish independence. Had he treated me with kindness, had he won my affections (which he might easily have done, for my sensitive and impassioned nature disposed me to every tender and grateful emotion), great would have been his influence in moulding my yet unformed character.
"But his behaviour towards me was that of chilling coldness and reserve. He repelled with scorn the first advance on my part which led me, at my mother's instigation, to address him by the paternal title—an offence of which I never again was guilty. And yet, while he seemed to ignore the relationship, he assumed its authority, thus wounding my pride and exciting opposition to his commands.
"Two things strengthened my dislike for my overbearing step-father. One was the consciousness of my dependence upon his bounty; the other a hint, which I received through a domestic, that Mr. Graham's dislike to me had its origin in an old enmity between himself and my own father—an honourable and high-minded man, whom it was ever my greatest pride to be told that I resembled.
"Great as was the warfare in my heart, power rested with Mr. Graham; for I was yet but a child, and necessarily subject to government—nor could I be deaf to my mother's entreaties that, for her sake, I would learn submission. It was only, therefore, when I had been most unjustly thwarted that I broke into direct rebellion; and even then there were influences ever at work to preserve outward harmony in our household. Thus years passed on, and though I did not love Mr. Graham more, the force of habit, the interest afforded by my studies, and increasing self-control, rendered my life less obnoxious to me than it had once been.
"I had one great compensation for my trials—the love I cherished for Emily, who responded to it with equal warmth on her part. It was not because she stood between me and her father, a mediator and a friend; nor because she submitted to my dictation and aided me in all my plans; it was because our natures were made for each other, and, as they grew and expanded, were bound together by ties which a rude hand only could rend asunder. This tenderness and depth of affection became the life of my life.
"At length my mother died. I was at that time, sorely against my will, employed in Mr. Graham's counting-house, and an inmate of his family. And now, without excuse, my step-father began a course of policy as unwise as it was cruel; and so irritating to my pride, and so torturing to my feelings, that it angered me almost to frenzy. He tried to rob me of the only thing that sweetened and blest my existence—the love of Emily. I will not here recount the motives I imputed to him, nor the means he employed. But they were such as to change my former dislike into bitter hatred and opposition.
"Instead of submitting to his tyrannical interference, I sought Emily's society on all occasions, and persuaded the gentle girl to lend herself to my schemes for thwarting her father's purposes. I did not speak to her of love; I did not seek to bind her to me by promises; I hinted not at marriage; a sense of honour forbade it. But, with a boyish independence, which I fear was the height of imprudence, I sought every occasion, even in her father's presence, to maintain that constant familiarity of intercourse which had been the growth of circumstances, and could not, without force, be restrained.
"At length Emily was taken ill, and for six weeks I was debarred her presence. When sufficiently recovered to leave her room, I sought and at last obtained an opportunity to see her. We had been together in the library more than an hour when Mr. Graham suddenly entered, and came towards us with a face whose severity I shall not soon forget. I did not heed an interruption, for the probable consequences of which I believed myself prepared. But I was little prepared for the attack actually made upon me.
"That he would accuse me of disobedience to wishes which he had hinted in every possible way, and even intimate more plainly his resolve to place barriers between Emily and myself, I fully expected, and was ready with my replies; but when he burst forth with a torrent of ungentlemanly abuse—when he imputed to me mean and selfish motives, which had never occurred to my mind—I was struck dumb with surprise and anger.
"Then, in the presence of the pure-minded girl whom I worshipped, he charged me with a horrid crime—the crime of forgery—asserting my guilt as recently discovered, but positive and undoubted. My spirit had raged before—now it was on fire. I lifted my hand and clenched my fist. What I would have done I know not. Whether I should have found words to assert my innocence, and refute a charge utterly false—or whether, my voice failing me from passion, I should have swept Mr. Graham from my path, perhaps felled him to the floor, while I strode away to rally my calmness in the open air—I cannot now conjecture; for a wild shriek from Emily recalled me to myself, and, turning, I saw her fall fainting upon the sofa.
"Forgetting everything but the apparently dying condition into which the horror of the scene had thrown her I sprang forward to her relief. There was a table beside her and some bottles upon it. I hastily snatched what I believed to be a simple restorative, and in my agitation emptied the contents of the phial in her face. I know not what the exact character of the mixture could have been; but its matters not—its effect was too awfully evident. The fatal deed was done—and mine was the hand that did it!
"Brought suddenly to consciousness by the intolerable torture that succeeded, the poor girl sprang screaming from the sofa, flung her arms wildly above her head, rushed in a frantic manner through the room, and crouched in a corner. I followed in an agony scarce less than her own; but she repelled me with her hands, uttering piercing shrieks. Mr. Graham, who for an instant had looked like one paralysed by the scene, now rushed forward like a madman. Instead of aiding me in my efforts to lift poor Emily from the floor, and so far from compassionating my situation, which was only less pitiable than hers, he, with a fierceness redoubled at my being the sole cause of the disaster, attacked me with a storm of cruel reproaches, declaring that I had killed his child. With words like these, which are still ringing in my ears, he drove me from the room and the house; a repulsion which I, overpowered by contrition and remorse, had neither the wish nor the strength to resist.
"Oh! the terrible night and day that succeeded! I wandered out into the country, spent the whole night walking beneath the open sky, endeavouring to collect my thoughts and compose my mind, and still morning found me with a fevered pulse and excited brain. With the returning light, however, I began to realise the necessity of forming some future plan of action.
"Emily's sad situation, and my intense anxiety to learn the worst effects of the fatal accident, urged me to hasten with the earliest morning, either openly or by stealth, to Mr. Graham's house. Everything also which I possessed—all my money, the residue of my last quarter's allowance, my clothing, and a few valuable gifts from my mother—were in the chamber which I had occupied. There seemed to be no other course left for me than to return thither, and I retracted my steps to the city, determined, if it were necessary in order to gain the desired particulars concerning Emily, to meet her father face to face. But as I drew near the house I hesitated and dared not proceed. Mr. Graham had exhausted upon me every angry word, had threatened even deeds of violence should I again cross his threshold; and I feared to trust my own fiery spirit to a collision in which I might be led on to an open resistance of the man whom I had already sufficiently injured. In the terrible work I had but yesterday done—a work of whose fatal effect I had even then a gloomy foreshadowing—I had blighted the existence of his worshipped child, and drawn a dark pall over his dearest hopes. It was enough. I would not for worlds be guilty of the sin of lifting my hand against the man who, unjust as he had been towards an innocent youth, had met a retaliation far too severe.
"Still, I knew his wrath to be unmitigated, was well aware of his power to excite my hot nature to frenzy, and resolved to beware how I crossed his path. Meet him I must, to refute the false charges he had brought against me; but not within the walls of his dwelling, the home of his suffering daughter. In the counting-house, where the crime of forgery was said to have been committed, and in the presence of my fellow-clerks, I would publicly deny the deed, and dare him to its proof. But first I must either see or hear from Emily before I met the father at all. I must learn the exact nature and extent of the wrong I had done him in the person of his child. For this, however, I must wait until, under cover of the next night's darkness, I could enter the house unperceived.
"So I wandered about all day in torment, without having food or rest, the thought of my poor, darling, tortured Emily ever present to my wretched thoughts. The hours seemed interminable. I remember that day of suspense as if it had been a whole year of misery. But night came at last, cloudy, and the air thickened with a heavy fog which, as I approached the street where Mr. Graham lived, concealed the house until I was opposite to it. I shuddered at the sight of the physician's chaise standing before the door; for I knew that Dr. Jeremy had closed his visits to Emily more than a week previously, and must have been summoned to attend her since the accident. Thinking it probable that Mr. Graham was in the house, I forbore to enter, but stood concealed by the mist, and watching my opportunity.
"Once or twice Mrs. Ellis, the housekeeper, passed up and down the staircase, as I could distinctly see through the sidelights of the door, and Dr. Jeremy descended, followed by Mr. Graham. The doctor would have passed hastily out, but Mr. Graham detained him, to question him regarding his patient, as I judged from the anxiety depicted on my step-father's countenance. The doctor's back was towards me, and I could only judge of his replies by the effect they produced on the questioner, whose haggard appearance became more distressed at every syllable that fell from the honest and truthful lips of the medical man, whose words were oracles to all who knew his skill.
"I needed, therefore, no further testimony to force the conviction that Emily's fate was sealed; and as I looked with pity upon the afflicted parent, and shudderingly thought of my agency in the work of destruction, I felt that the unhappy father could not curse me more bitterly than I cursed myself. Deeply, however, as I mourned, and have never ceased to repent, my share in the exciting of that storm wherein the poor girl had been so cruelly shipwrecked, I could not forget the part that Mr. Graham had borne in the transaction, or forgive the wicked injustice and insults which had so unmanned me as to render my hand a fit instrument only of ruin; and as, after the doctor's departure, I watched my step-father walk away, and saw by a street-lamp that the look of pain had passed from his face, giving place to his usual composed and arrogant expression, and, understood by the loud and measured manner in which he struck his cane upon the pavement, that he was far from sharing my humble, penitent mood, I ceased to waste upon him a compassion which he seemed so little to require or deserve; and, pitying myself only, I looked upon his stern face with a soul which cherished for him no other sentiment than that of unmitigated hatred. Do not shrink from me, Gertrude, as you read this frank confession of my passionate and deeply stirred nature. You know not, perhaps, what it is to hate; but have you ever been tried as I was?
"As Mr. Graham turned the corner of the street, I approached his house, drew forth a pass-key of my own, by means of which I opened the door, and went in. It was perfectly quiet, and no person was to be seen in any of the lower rooms. I passed noiselessly upstairs, and entered a little chamber at the head of the passage which communicated with Emily's room. I waited here a long time, hearing no sound and seeing no one. But fearing that Mr. Graham would shortly return, I determined to ascend to my own room, collect my money and a few articles of value, and then make my way to the kitchen, and gain what news I could of Emily from Mrs. Prime, the cook, a kind-hearted woman, who would, I felt sure, befriend me.
"The first part of my object was accomplished; and I had descended the back staircase to gain Mrs. Prime's premises, when I suddenly met Mrs. Ellis coming from the kitchen, with a bowl of gruel in her hand. She was acquainted with all the particulars of the accident, and had been a witness to my expulsion from the house. She stopped short on seeing me, gave a slight scream, dropped the bowl of gruel, and prepared to make her escape, as if from a wild beast, which I doubt not that I resembled; since wretchedness, fasting, suffering, and desperation must all have been depicted in my features. I placed myself in her path, and compelled her to stop and listen to me. But before my eager questions could find utterance, an outburst from her confirmed my worst fears.
"'Let me go!' she exclaimed. 'You villain! you will be putting my eyes out next!'
'Where is Emily?' I cried. 'Let me see her!'
"'See her!' replied she. 'You horrid wretch! No! she has suffered enough from you. She is satisfied herself now.'
'What do you mean?' shouted I, shaking the housekeeper violently by the shoulder, for her words seared my very soul, and I was frantic.
"'I mean that Emily will never see anybody again; and if she had a thousand eyes, you are the last person upon whom she would wish to look!'
"'Does Emily hate me, too?' burst from me then, in the form of a soliloquy rather than a question. The reply was ready, however. 'Hate you? Yes—more than that; she cannot find words bad enough for you! She mutters, even in her pain, 'Cruel!—wicked!' She shudders at the sound of your name; and we are all forbidden to speak it in her presence.' I waited to hear no more, but rushed out of the house. That moment was the crisis of my life. The thunderbolt had fallen upon and crushed me. My hopes, my happiness, my fortune, my good name, had gone before; but one solitary light had, until now, glimmered in the darkness. It was Emily's love. I had trusted in that—that only. It had passed away, and with it my youth, my faith, my hope of heaven.
"From that moment I ceased to be myself. Then fell upon me the cloud in which I have ever since been shrouded, and under which you have seen and known me. In that instant the blight had come, under the gnawing influence of which my happy laugh changed to the bitter smile; my frank and pleasant speech to tones of ill-concealed irony and sarcasm; my hair became prematurely grey, my features sharp and severe; my fellow-men, to whom I hoped to prove some day a benefactor, were henceforth the armed hosts of antagonists, with whom I would wage endless war—and the God whom I had worshipped—whom I had believed in, as a just and faithful friend and avenger—who was He?—where was He?—and why did He not right my cause? What direful and premeditated deed of darkness had I been guilty of that He should thus desert me? Alas!—I lost my faith in Heaven!
"I know not what direction I took on leaving Mr. Graham's house. I have no recollection of any of the streets through which I passed, though doubtless they were all familiar; but I paused not until, having reached the end of a wharf, I found myself gazing down into the deep water, longing to take one mad leap and lose myself in everlasting oblivion! But for this final blow, beneath which my manhood had fallen, I would have cherished my life, at least until I could vindicate its fair fame; I would never have left a blackened memory for men to dwell upon and for Emily to weep over. But now what cared I for my fellow-men! And Emily!—she had ceased to love, and would not mourn; and I longed for the grave. There are moments in human life when a word, a look, or a thought, may weigh down the balance in the scales of fate and decide a destiny.
"So it was with me. I was incapable of forming any plan for myself; but accident, as it were, decided for me. I was startled from the apathy into which I had fallen by the sudden splashing of oars in the water beneath, and in a moment a little boat was moored to a pier within a rod of the spot where I stood. I also heard footsteps on the wharf, and, turning, saw by the light of the moon, which was just appearing from behind a heavy cloud, a stout seafaring man, with a heavy pea-jacket under one arm and an old-fashioned carpet-bag in his left hand. He had a ruddy, good-humoured face, and as he was about to pass me and leap into the boat, where two sailors, with their oars dipped and ready for motion, were awaiting him, he slapped me on the shoulder, and exclaimed, 'Well, my fine fellow, will you ship with us?' I answered as readily in the affirmative; and, with one look in my face, and a glance at my dress, which seemed to assure him of my station in life and probable ability to make compensation for the passage, he said, in a laughing tone, 'In with you, then!'
"To his astonishment—for he had scarcely believed me in earnest—I sprang into the boat, and in a few moments was on board of a fine bark, bound I knew not whither. The vessel's destination was Rio Janeiro—a fact which I did not learn till we had been two or three days at sea, and to which I felt wholly indifferent. There was one other passenger beside myself—the captain's daughter, Lucy Grey, whom during the first week I scarcely noticed, but who appeared to be as much at home, whether in the cabin or on deck, as if she had passed her whole life at sea. I might have made the entire passage without giving another thought to this young girl—half child, half woman—had not my strange behaviour led her so to conduct herself which surprised and finally interested me. My wild and excited countenance, my constant restlessness, avoidance of food, and indifference to everything about me, excited her wonder and sympathy. She believed me partially deranged, and treated me accordingly. She would take a seat on deck directly opposite mine, look in my face, either ignorant or regardless of my observing her, and then walk away with a heavy sigh. Occasionally she would offer me some little delicacy, begging that I would eat; and as, touched by her kindness, I took food more readily from her hand than any other, these little attentions became at last habitual. As my manners grew calmer and I settled into a melancholy which, though equally deep, was less fearful than the feverish torment under which I had laboured, she became reserved, and when I began to appear somewhat like my fellow-men, went regularly to the table, and, instead of pacing the deck all night, spent a part of it quietly in my state-room, Lucy absented herself wholly from that part of the vessel where I passed the greater portion of the day, and I seldom exchanged a word with her, unless I purposely sought her society.
"The stormy weather drove me to the cabin, where she usually sat on the transom reading or watching the troubled waves; and, as the voyage was long, we were thrown much in each other's way, especially as Captain Grey, who had invited me to ship with him, and who seemed to take an interest in my welfare, good-naturedly encouraged an intercourse by which he probably hoped I might be won from a state of melancholy that seemed to grieve the jolly ship-master almost as much as it did his kind-hearted, sensitive child.
"Lucy's shyness, therefore, wore gradually away, and before our tedious passage was completed I ceased to be a restraint upon her. She talked freely with me; for while I maintained a rigid silence concerning my own past experiences, of which I could scarcely endure to think, she exerted herself freely for my entertainment, and related with simple frankness almost every circumstance of her past life. Sometimes I listened attentively; sometimes, absorbed in my own painful reflections, I would be deaf to her voice and forgetful of her presence. Then I often observed that she had suddenly ceased speaking, and, starting from my reverie and looking quickly up, would find her eyes fixed upon me so reproachfully that, rallying my self-command, I would try to appear, and sometimes became, seriously interested in the artless narratives of my little entertainer. She told me that until she was fourteen years old she lived with her mother in a little cottage on Cape Cod, their home being only occasionally enlivened by the return of her father from his long absences at sea. They would visit the city where his vessel lay, pass a few weeks in great enjoyment, and then return to mourn the departure of the cheerful sea-captain, and patiently count the weeks and months until his return. She told me how her mother died; how bitterly she mourned her loss, and how her father wept when he came home and heard the news; how she had lived on shipboard ever since; and how sad and lonely she felt in time of storms when she sat alone in the cabin listening to the roar of the winds and waves.
"Tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of these things, and I would look upon her with pity as one whom sorrow made my sister. Trial, however, had not robbed her of an elastic, buoyant spirit; and when, after the completion of some eloquent tale of early grief, the captain would approach unseen and surprise her by a sudden joke or sly piece of mischief, thus provoking her to retaliate, she was always ready for a war of wits, a laughing frolic, or even a game of romps. Her tears dried up, her merry voice and playful words would delight her father, and the cabin would ring with peals of laughter; while I, shrinking from a mirth sadly at variance with my own happiness, and the sound so discordant to my sensitive nerves, would retire to brood over miseries for which it was hopeless to expect sympathy which could not be shared, and with which I must dwell alone.
"Such a misanthrope had my misfortunes made me that the sportive raillery between the captain and his merry daughter, and the musical laugh with which she would respond to the witticisms of two old sailors, grated upon my ears like something scarce less than personal injuries; nor could I have believed it possible that one so little able as Lucy to comprehend the depth of my sufferings could feel any sincere compassion for them had I not once or twice been touched to see how her innocent mirth would give place to sudden sadness of countenance if she chanced to encounter my woe-begone face, rendered doubly gloomy when contrasted with the gaiety of herself and of her companions.
"But I must not linger too long upon the details of our life on shipboard. I must forbear giving account of a terrific gale that we encountered, during which, for two days and a night, poor Lucy was half frantic with fear; while I, careless of outward discomforts and indifferent to personal danger, was afforded an opportunity to requite her kindness by such protection and encouragement as I was able to render.
"Captain Grey died. We were within a week's sail of our destination when he was taken ill, and three days before we were safely anchored in the harbour of Rio he breathed his last. I shared with Lucy the office of ministering to the suffering man, closed his eyes at last, and carried the fainting girl in my arms to another part of the vessel. With kind words and persuasions I restored her to her senses; and then, as the full consciousness of her desolation rushed upon her, she sunk at once into a state of hopeless despondency painful to witness. Captain Grey had made no provision for his daughter. Well might the poor girl lament her sad fate! for she was without a relative in the world, penniless, and approaching a strange shore, which afforded no refuge to the orphan. We buried her father in the sea; and that sad office fulfilled, I sought Lucy and endeavoured to arouse her to a sense of her situation and advise with her concerning the future; for we were now so near our port that in a few hours we might be compelled to leave the vessel and seek quarters in the city. She listened to me without replying. I hinted at the necessity of my leaving her, and begged to know if she had any plans for the future. She answered me only by a burst of tears. I begged her not to weep.
"And then, with many sobs, and interrupting herself by frequent exclamations of vehement sorrow, she threw herself upon my compassion, and, with child-like artlessness, entreated me not to leave her or, as she termed it, to desert her. She reminded me that she was alone in the world; that the moment she stepped foot on shore she should be in a land of strangers; and, appealing to my mercy, besought me not to leave her to die alone.
"What could I do? I had nothing on earth to live for. We were both alike orphaned and desolate. There was but one point of difference. I could work and protect her; she could do neither for herself. It would be something for me to live for; and for her, though but a refuge of poverty and want, it was better than the exposure and suffering that must otherwise await her. I told her how little I had to offer; that my heart even was crushed and broken; but that I was ready to labour in her behalf, to guard her from danger, to pity, and perhaps in time learn to love her. The unsophisticated girl had never thought of marriage; she had sought the protection of a friend, not a husband; but I explained to her that the latter tie only would obviate the necessity of our parting; and, in the humility of sorrow, she finally accepted my unflattering offer.
"The only confidant to our sudden engagement, the only witness of the marriage, which within a few hours ensued, was an old, weather-beaten sailor, who had known and loved Lucy from her childhood—Ben Grant. He accompanied us on shore and to the church. He followed us to the humble lodgings with which we contrived for the present to be contented, and devoted himself to Lucy with self-sacrificing, but in one instance, alas! (as you will soon learn), with mistaken and fatal zeal.
"After much difficulty, I obtained employment from a man in whom I accidentally recognized an old and valued friend of my father. He had been in Rio several years, and was actively engaged in trade, and willingly employed me as a clerk, occasionally despatching me from home to transact business at a distance. My duties being regular and profitable, we were soon raised above want, and I was enabled to place my young wife in a situation of comfort.
"The sweetness of her disposition, the cheerfulness with which she endured privation, the earnestness with which she strove to make me happy, were not without effect. I perseveringly rallied from my gloom; I succeeded in banishing the frown from my brow; and the premature wrinkles, which her hand would softly sweep away, finally ceased to return. The few months that I passed with your mother, Gertrude, form a sweet episode in the memory of my stormy life. I came to love her much—not as I loved Emily;—that could not be expected—but, as the solitary flower that bloomed on the grave of all my early hopes, she cast a fragrance round my path; and her child is not more dear to me, because a part of myself, than as the memento of the cherished blossom snatched hastily from my hand and rudely crushed.
"About two months after your birth, my child, and before your eyes had ever learned to brighten at the sight of your father, who was necessarily much from home, the business in which I was engaged called me in the capacity of an agent to a station some distance from Rio. I had been absent nearly a month, and had written regularly to Lucy, informing her of all my movements (though I suspect the letters never reached her), when the neighbourhood in which I was stationed became infected with a fatal malaria. For the sake of my family I took every measure to ward off contagion, but failed. I was seized with fever, and lay for weeks near death. I was cruelly neglected during my illness; for I had no friends near me, and my slender purse held out little inducement for mercenary service; but my sufferings and forebodings on account of Lucy and yourself were far greater than any which I endured from my bodily torments, although the latter were great. I had all sorts of imaginary fears; but nothing, alas! which could compare with the reality that awaited me when, after my dreadful illness, I made my way, destitute, ragged, and emaciated, back to Rio. I sought my former home. It was deserted, and I was warned to flee from its vicinity, as the fearful disease of fever had nearly depopulated that and the neighbouring streets. I made every inquiry, but could obtain no intelligence of my wife and child. I hastened to the charnel-house where, during the raging of the pestilence, the unrecognized dead were exposed; but among the disfigured remains it was impossible to distinguish friends from strangers. I lingered about the city for weeks in hopes to gain some information concerning Lucy; but could find no one who had ever heard of her. All day I wandered about the streets and on the wharves—the latter being places which Ben Grant (in whose faithful charge I had left your mother and yourself) was in the habit of frequenting—but not a syllable could I learn of any persons that answered my description.
"My first thought had been that they would naturally seek my employer, to learn, if possible, the cause of my prolonged absence; and on finding my home empty I had hastened in search of him. But he too had, within a recent period, fallen a victim to the prevailing distemper. His place of business was closed and the establishment broken up. I continued my inquiries until hope died within me. I was told that scarce an inmate of the fatal neighbourhood where I had left my family had escaped; and convinced, finally, that my fate was still pursuing me with an unmitigated wrath, of which this last blow was but a single expression, that I might have foreseen and expected, I madly agreed to work my passage in the first vessel which promised me an escape from scenes so fraught with harrowing recollections.
"And now commenced a course of wretched wandering. With varied ends in view, following strongly contrasted employments, and with fluctuating fortune, I have travelled over the world. My feet have trodden almost every land. I have sailed on every sea and breathed the air of every clime. I am familiar with the city and the wilderness, the civilized man and the savage. I have learned the sad lesson that peace is nowhere, and friendship, for the most part, but a name.
"Once during my wanderings I visited the home of my boyhood. Unseen and unknown I trod a familiar ground and gazed on familiar, though time-worn faces. I stood at the window of Mr. Graham's library; saw the contented, happy countenance of Emily—happy in her blindness and her forgetfulness of the past. A young girl sat near the fire endeavouring to read by its flickering light. I knew not then what gave such a charm to her thoughtful features, nor why my eyes dwelt upon them with a rare pleasure; for there was no voice to proclaim to the father's heart that he looked on the face of his child. I am not sure that the strong impulse which prompted me then to enter, acknowledge my identity, and beg Emily to speak to me a word of forgiveness, might not have prevailed over the dread of her displeasure; but Mr. Graham at the moment appeared, cold and implacable as ever; I gazed an instant, then fled from the house.
"Although in the various labours which I was compelled to undertake to earn a decent maintenance, I had more than once met with such success as to give me temporary independence, and to enable me to indulge in expensive travelling, I had never amassed a fortune; indeed, I had not cared to do so, since I had no use for money, except to employ it in the gratification of my immediate wants. Accident, however, at last thrust upon me a wealth which I could scarcely be said to have sought.
"After a year spent in the wilderness of the west, amid adventures the relation of which now would seem to you almost incredible, I gradually continued my retreat across the country, and after encountering innumerable hardships, which had no other object than the indulgence of my vagrant habits, I found myself in that land which has recently been termed the land of promise, but which has proved to many a greedy emigrant a land of deceit. For me, however, who sought it not, it showered gold. I was among the earliest discoverers of its treasure-vaults—one of the most successful, though the least laborious, of the seekers after gain. Nor was it merely, or indeed chiefly, at the mines that fortune favoured me. With the first results of my labours I purchased an immense tract of land, little dreaming at the time that those desert acres were destined to become the streets and squares of a great and prosperous city. So that without effort, almost without my own knowledge, I achieved the greatness which springs from untold wealth. But this was not all. The blessed accident which led me to this golden land was the means of disclosing a pearl of price—a treasure in comparison with which California and all its mines shrink, to my mind, into insignificance. You know how the war-cry went forth to all lands, and men of every name and nation brought their arms to the field of fortune. Famine came next, with disease and death in its train; and many a man, hurrying on to reap the golden harvest, fell by the wayside, without once seeing the waving of the yellow grain.
"Half scorning the greedy rabble, I could not refuse in this, my time of prosperity, to minister to the wants of such as fell in the way; and now for once my humanity found its own reward. A miserable, ragged, half-starved, and apparently dying man crept to the door of my tent and asked in a feeble voice for charity. I did not refuse to admit him into my narrow domicile and to relieve his sufferings. He was the victim of want rather than disease, and, his hunger appeased, the savage brutality of his coarse nature soon manifested itself in the dogged indifference with which he received a stranger's bounty and the gross ingratitude with which he abused my hospitality. A few days served to restore him to his strength; and then, anxious to dismiss my visitor, whose conduct had already excited suspicions of his good faith, I gave him warning that he must depart; at the same time placing in his hand a sufficient amount of gold to insure his support until he could reach the mines which were his professed destination.
"He appeared dissatisfied, and begged permission to remain until the next morning, as the night was near, and he had no shelter provided. To this I made no objection, little imagining how base a serpent I was harbouring. At midnight I was awakened from my light and easily-disturbed sleep to find my lodger busily engaged in rifling my property and preparing to take an unceremonious leave of my dwelling. Nor did his villainy end here. Upon my seizing and charging him with the theft, he snatched a weapon and attempted the life of his benefactor. But I was prepared to ward off the stroke, and succeeded in a few moments in subduing my desperate antagonist. He now crouched at my feet in such abject submission as might be expected from so vile a knave. Well might he tremble with fear; for the Lynch-law was then in full force for criminals like him. I should probably have handed the traitor over to his fate; but, ere I had time to do so, he held out to my cupidity a bribe so tempting that I forgot the deservings of my knavish guest in the eagerness with which I bartered his freedom as the price of its possession.
"He freely emptied his pockets at my bidding, and restored to me the gold, for the loss of which I never should have repined. As the base metal rolled at my feet, there glittered among the coins a jewel as trulymineas any of the rest, but which, as it met my sight, filled me with greater surprise than if it had been a new-fallen star.
"It was a ring of peculiar design and workmanship, which had once been the property of my father, and after his death had been worn by my mother until the time of her marriage with Mr. Graham, when it was transferred to myself. I had ever prized it as a precious heirloom, and it was one of the few valuables which I took with me when I fled from my step-father's house. This ring, with a watch and some other trinkets, had been left in the possession of Lucy when I parted with her at Rio, and the sight of it once more seemed to me like a voice from the grave. I eagerly sought to learn from my prisoner the source whence it had been obtained, but he maintained an obstinate silence. It was now my turn to plead; and at length the promise of instant permission to depart, 'unwhipped by justice,' at the conclusion of his tale, wrung from him a secret fraught to me with vital interest.
"This man was Stephen Grant, the son of my old friend Ben. He had heard from his father's lips the story of your mother's misfortunes; and the circumstance of a violent quarrel which arose between Ben and his vixen wife at the young stranger's introduction to their household impressed the tale upon his recollection. From his account it appeared that my long-continued absence from Lucy, during the time of my illness, was construed by her honest but distrustful counsellor and friend into cruel desertion. The poor girl, to whom my early life was all a mystery which she had never shared, and to whom much of my character and conduct was inexplicable, began soon to feel convinced of the correctness of the old sailor's suspicions and fears. She had already applied to my employer for information concerning me; but he, who had heard of the pestilence to which I was exposed, and fully believed me to be among the dead, forbore to distress her by a communication of his belief, and replied to her questionings with an obscurity which served to give new force to her hitherto uncertain surmises. She positively refused, however, to leave our home; and, clinging to the hope of my final return thither, remained where I had left her until the terrible fever began its ravages. Her small stock of money was by this time consumed; her strength both of mind and body gave way; and Ben, becoming every day more confident that the simple-hearted Lucy had been betrayed and forsaken, persuaded her at last to sell her furniture, and with the sum thus raised flee the infected country before it should be too late. She sailed for Boston in the same vessel in which Ben shipped before the mast; and on reaching that port her humble protector took her to the only home he had to offer.
"There your mother's sad fate found a mournful termination; and you, her infant child, were left to the mercy of the cruel woman who, but for consciousness of guilt and her fear of its betrayal, would doubtless have thrust you at once from the miserable shelter her dwelling afforded. This guilt consisted in a foul robbery committed by Nan and her infamous son upon your innocent mother, now rendered, through her feebleness, an easy prey to their rapacity. The fruits of this vile theft, however, were not participated in by Nan, whose promising son so far exceeded her in duplicity and craft that, having obtained possession of the jewels for the alleged purpose of bartering them away, he reserved such as he thought proper, and appropriated to his own use the proceeds of the remainder.
"The antique ring which I now hold in my possession, the priceless relic of a mournful tragedy, would have shared the fate of the rest but for its apparent worthlessness. To the luckless Stephen, however, it proved at last a temporary salvation from the felon's doom which must finally await that hardened sinner; and to me—ah! tome—it remains to be proved whether the knowledge of the secrets to which it has been the key will bless my future life or darken it with a heavier curse! Notwithstanding the information thus gained, and the exciting idea to which it gave rise, that my child might be still living and finally restored to me, I could not yet feel any security that these daring hopes were not destined to be crushed in their infancy, and that my newly-found treasure might not again elude my eager search. To my inquiries concerning you, Gertrude, Stephen, who had no longer any motives for concealing the truth, declared his inability to acquaint me with any particulars of a later period than the time of your residence with Trueman Flint. He knew that the lamplighter had taken you to his home, and was accidentally made aware, a few months later, of your continuance in that place of refuge from the old man's being such a fool as to call upon his mother and voluntarily make compensation for the injury done to her windows in your outburst of childish revenge.
"I could learn nothing more; but it was enough to inspire all my energies to recover my child. I hastened to Boston, had no difficulty in tracing your benefactor, and, though he had been long dead, found many a truthful witness to his well-known virtues. Nor, when I asked for his adopted child, did I find her forgotten in the quarter of the city where she had passed her childhood. More than one grateful voice was ready to respond to my questioning, and to proclaim the cause they had to remember the girl who, having experienced the trials of poverty, made it both her duty and her pleasure of prosperity to administer to the wants of a neighbourhood whose sufferings she had aforetime both witnessed and shared. But, alas! to complete the sum of sad vicissitudes with which my unhappy destiny was already crowded, at the moment when I was assured of my daughter's safety, and my ears were greeted with the sweet praises that accompanied the mention of her name, there fell upon me like a thunderbolt the startling words, 'She is now the adopted child of sweet Emily Graham, the blind girl.'
"Oh, strange coincidence! Oh, righteous retribution! which, at the very moment when I was picturing to myself the consummation of my cherished hopes, crushed me once more beneath the iron hand of a destiny that would not be cheated of its victim! My child, my only child, bound by the gratitude and love of years to one in whose face I scarcely dared to look, lest my soul should be withered by the expression of condemnation which the consciousness of my presence would inspire!
"The seas and lands which had hitherto divided us seemed not, to my tortured fancy, so insurmountable a barrier between myself and my long-lost daughter as the dreadful reflection that the only earthly being whose love I had hoped in time to win had been reared from her infancy in a household where my name was a thing abhorred.
"Stung to the quick by the harrowing thought that all my prayers, entreaties, and explanations could never undo her early impressions, and that all my labours and all my love could never call forth other than a cold and formal recognition of my claims, I half resolved to leave my child in ignorance of her birth and never seek to look upon her face, rather than subject her to the terrible necessity of choosing between the friend whom she loved and the father from whose crimes she had learned to shrink with horror and dread. After struggling long with contending emotions, I resolved to make one effort to see and recognize you, Gertrude, and at the same time guard myself from discovery. I trusted to the change which time had wrought in my appearance to conceal me effectually from all eyes but those which had known me intimately, and therefore approached Mr. Graham's house without the slightest fear of betrayal. I found it empty and apparently deserted.
"I now directed my steps to the well-remembered counting-house, and here learned from the clerk that the whole household, including yourself, had been passing the winter in Paris, and were at present at a German watering-place. Without further inquiry I took the steamer to Liverpool, thence hastened to Baden-Baden—a trifling excursion in the eyes of a traveller of my experience. Without risking myself in the presence of my step-father, I took an early opportunity to obtain an introduction to Mrs. Graham, and, thanks to her unreserved conversation, learned that Emily and yourself were left in Boston, and were under the care of Dr. Jeremy.
"On my return voyage, immediately undertaken, I made the acquaintance of Dr. Gryseworth and his daughter—an acquaintance which proved of great value in facilitating my intercourse with yourself. Once more arrived in Boston, Dr. Jeremy's house looked as if closed for the season. A man making some repairs about the door-step informed me that the family were absent from town. He was not aware of the direction they had taken, but the servants were at home and might acquaint me with their route. Upon this I boldly rung the door-bell. It was answered by Mrs. Ellis, who nearly twenty years ago had cruelly sounded in my ears the death-knell of all my hopes in life. I saw that my incognito was secure, as she met my piercing glance without shrinking or taking flight, as I fully expected she would do at sight of the ghost of my former self.
"She replied to my queries as coolly as she had done during the day to some dozen of the doctor's disappointed patients—telling me that he had left that morning for New York, and would not be back for two or three weeks. Nothing could have been more favourable to my wishes than the chance thus afforded of overtaking your party and, as a travelling companion, introducing myself gradually to your notice.
"You know how this purpose was effected; how, now in the rear, and now in advance, I nevertheless maintained a constant proximity to your footsteps. To add to the comfort of yourself and Emily, to learn your plans, forestall your wishes, secure to your use the best of rooms, and bribe to your service the most devoted of attendants—I spared neither pains, trouble, nor expense. For much of the freedom with which I approached you and made myself an occasional member of your circle, I was indebted to Emily's blindness; for I could not doubt that otherwise time and its changes would fail to conceal from her my identity, and I should meet with a premature recognition. Nor until the final act of the drama, when death stared us all in the face, and concealment became impossible, did I once trust my voice to her hearing.
"How closely, during those few weeks, I watched and weighed your every word and action, seeking even to read your thoughts in your face, none can tell whose acuteness is not sharpened and vivified by motives so all-engrossing as mine; and who can measure the anguish of the fond father who day by day learned to worship his child with a more absorbing idolatry, and yet dared not clasp her to his heart?
"Especially when I saw you the victim of grief and trouble did I long to assert a claim to your confidence; and more than once my self-control would have given way but for the dread inspired by the gentle Emily—gentle to all but me. I could not brook the thought that with my confession I should cease to be the trusted friend and become the abhorred parent. I preferred to maintain my distant and unacknowledged guardianship of my child rather than that she should behold in me the dreaded tyrant who might tear her from the home from which he himself had been driven.
"And so I kept silent; and sometimes present to your sight, but still oftener hid from view, I hovered around your path until that dreadful day, which you will long remember, when, everything forgotten but the safety of yourself and Emily, my heart spoke out and betrayed my secret. And now you know all—my follies, misfortunes, sufferings, and sins!
"Can you love me, Gertrude? It is all I ask. I seek not to steal you from your present home—to rob poor Emily of a child whom she values perhaps as much as I. The only balm my wounded spirit seeks is the simple, guileless confession that you will at least try to love your father.
"I have no hope in this world, and none, alas! beyond, but in yourself. Could you feel my heart now beating against its prison bars, you would realize, as I do, that unless soothed it will burst ere long. Will you soothe it by your pity, my sweet, my darling child? Will you bless it by your love? If so, come, clasp your arms around me, and whisper to me words of peace. Within sight of your window, in the old summer-house at the end of the garden, with straining ear, I wait listening for your footsteps."