Ought I to tell him this? Ought I to say: "Your sullenness is uncalled for and your fierceness misplaced; Juliet is constant, and the Colonel means you nothing but good"? Perhaps; and perhaps, too, I should be a saint and know nothing of earthly passions and jealousies. But I am not. I hate this Orrin, hate himmore and more as every step brings us nearer to Juliet's house and the fate awaiting him from her weakness and the Colonel's generosity. So I hold my peace and we come to her gate, and the recklessness that has brought him thus far abandons him on the instant and he falls back and lets me go in several steps before him, so that I seem to be alone when I enter the house, and Juliet, who is standing in the parlor between the Colonel and her father, starts when she sees me, and breaking into sobs, cries:
"Oh, Philo, Philo, tell my father there is nothing between us but what is friendly and honorable; that I—I—"
"Hush!" commanded that father, while I stared at the Colonel, whose quiet, imperturbable face was for the first time such a riddle to me that I hardly heeded what the elder man said. "You have talked enough, Juliet, and denied enough. I will now speak to Mr. Adams and see what he has to say. Last night my daughter, who, as all the town knows, is betrothed to this gentleman"—and he waved his hand deferentially towards the Colonel—"wasdetected by me stealing out of the garden gate with a little packet on her arm. As my daughter never goes out alone, I was naturally startled, and presuming upon my rights as her father, naturally asked her where she was going. This question, simple as it was, seemed to both terrify and unnerve her. Stumbling back, she looked me wildly in the eye and answered, with an effrontery she had never shown me before, that she was flying to escape a hated marriage. That Colonel Schuyler had returned, and as she could not be his wife, she was going to her aunt's house, where she could live in peace without being forced upon a man she could not love. Amazed, for I had always supposed her duly sensible of the honor which had been shown her by this gentleman's attentions, I drew her into my study and there, pulling off the cloak which she held tightly drawn about her, I discovered that she was tricked out like a bride, and had a whole bunch of garden roses fastened in her breast. 'A pretty figure,' cried I, 'for travelling. You are going away with some man, and it is a runaway match I have interrupted.' She could not deny it, and justthen the Colonel came in and—but we will not talk about that. It remained for us to find out the man who had led her to forget her duty, and I could think of no man but you. So I ask you now before my trembling daughter and this outraged gentleman if you are the villain."
But here Colonel Schuyler spoke up quietly and without visible anger: "I was about to say when this gentleman's entrance interrupted my words that I had been convinced overnight that our first suspicions were false, and that Mr. Adams was, as your daughter persists in declaring, simply a somewhat zealous friend."
"But," hastily vociferated the old man, "there has been no one else about my daughter for months. If Mr. Adams is not to blame for this attempted escapade, who is? I should like to see the man, and see him standing just there."
"Then look and tell me what you think of him," came with an insolent fierceness from the doorway, and Orrin, booted and spurred, with mud on his holiday hose, and his hat still on his head, strode into our midst and confronted us all with an air of such haughty defiance that it half robbed him of his ruffianly appearance.
Juliet shrieked and stepped back, fascinated and terrified. The Colonel frowned darkly, and the old man, who had seemed by his words to summon him before us, quailed at the effect of his words and stood looking from the well-known but unexpected figure thus introduced amongst us, to the Colonel who persistently avoided his gaze, till the situation became unbearable, and I turned about as if to go.
Instantly the Colonel took advantage of the break and spoke to Orrin: "And so it is to you, sir, that I have to address the few words I have to say?"
"Yes, to him and to me!" cried little Juliet, and gliding from between the two natural protectors of her girlhood she crossed the floor and stood by Orrin's side.
This action, so unexpected and yet so natural, took away whatever restraint we had hitherto placed upon ourselves, and the Colonel looked for a moment as if his self-control would abandon him entirely and leave him a prey to man's fiercest and most terrible passions. But he has a strong soul, and before I could take a step to interpose myself between him and Juliet,his face had recovered its steady aspect and his hands ceased from their ominous trembling. Her father, on the contrary, seemed to grow more ireful with every instant that he saw her thus defiant of his authority, while Orrin, pleased with her courage and touched, I have no doubt, by the loving confidence of her pleading eyes, threw his arm about her with a gesture of pride which made one forget still more his disordered and dishevelled condition.
I said nothing, but I did not leave the room.
"Juliet!"—the words came huskily from the angry father's lips, "come from that man's embrace, and do not make me shudder that I ever welcomed the Colonel to my dishonored house."
But the Colonel, putting out his hand, said calmly:
"Let her stay; since she has chosen this very honorable gentleman to be her husband, where better could she stand than by his side?"
Then forcing himself still more to seem impassive, he bowed to Orrin, and with great suavity remarked: "If she had chosen me to that honor, as I had every reason to believe she had, it would not have been many moreweeks before I should have welcomed her into a home befitting her beauty and her ambition. May I ask if you can do as much for her? Have you a home for your bride in which I may look forward to paying her the respects which my humble duty to her demands?"
Ah then, Orrin towered proudly, and the pretty Juliet smiled with something of her old archness.
"Saddle your horse," cried the young lover, "and ride to the east. If you do not find a wee, fresh nest there, I am no prophet. What! steal a wife and not have a home to put her in!"
And he laughed till the huge brown rafters above his head seemed to tremble, so blithe did he feel, and so full of pride at thus daring the one great man in the town.
But the Colonel did not laugh, nor did he immediately answer. He had evidently not heard of the little cottage beyond both thicket and stream, and was consequently greatly disconcerted. But just when we were all wondering what held him so restrained, and what the words were which should break the now oppressive silence, he spoke and said:
"A wee nest is no place for the lady who was to have been my wife. If you will have patience and wait a month she shall have the home that has been reared for her. The great stone house would not know any other mistress, and therefore it shall be hers."
"No, no," Orrin began, aghast at such generosity. But the thoughtless Juliet, delighted at a prospect which promised her both splendor and love, uttered such a cry of joy that he stopped abashed and half angry, and turning upon her, said: "Are you not satisfied with what I can give you, and must you take presents even from the man you have affected to despise?"
"But, but, he is so good," babbled out the inconsiderate little thing, "and—and I do like the great stone house, and we could be so happy in it, just like a king and queen, if—if—"
She had the grace to stop, perhaps because she saw nothing but rebuke in the faces around her. But the Colonel, through whose voice ran in spite of himself an icy vein of sarcasm, observed, with another of his low bows:
"You shall indeed be like king and queen there. If you do not believe me, come there with me a month hence, and I will show you what a disappointed man can do for the woman he has loved." And taking by the arm the old man who with futile rage had tried more than once to break into this ominous conversation, he drew him persuasively to his side, and so by degrees from the room.
"Oh," cried Juliet, as the door closed behind them, "can he mean it? Can he mean it?"
And Orrin, a little awed, did not reply, but I saw by his face and bearing that whether the Colonel meant it or not was little to him; that the cottage beyond the woods was the destined home of his bride, and that we must be prepared to lose her from our midst, perhaps before the month was over which the Colonel had bidden them to wait.
I do not know through whom Dame Gossip became acquainted with yesterday's events, but everywhere in town people are laying their heads together in wonder over the jilting of Colonel Schuyler and the unprecedented magnanimity which he has shown in giving his newhouse to the rebellious lovers. If I have been asked one question to-day, I have been asked fifty, and Orrin, who flies into a rage at the least intimation that he will accept the gift which has been made him, spends most of his time in asserting his independence, and the firm resolution which he has made to owe nothing to the generosity of the man he has treated with such unquestionable baseness. Juliet keeps very quiet, but from the glimpse I caught of her this afternoon at her casement, I judge that the turn of affairs has had a very enlivening effect upon her beauty. Her eyes fairly sparkled as she saw me; and with something like her old joyous abandonment of manner, she tore off a branch of the flowering almond at her window and tossed it with delicious laughter at my feet. Yet though I picked it up and carried it for a few steps beyond her gate, I soon dropped it over the wall, for her sparkle and her laughter hurt me, and I would rather have seen her less joyous and a little more sensible of the ruin she had wrought.
For she has wrought ruin, as any one can see who looks at the Colonel long enough to notehis eye. For though he holds himself erect and walks proudly through the town, there is that in his look which makes me tremble and hold my own weak complainings in check. He has been up to his house to-day, and when he came back there was not a blind from one end of the street to the other but quivered when he went by, so curious are the women to see him who they cannot but feel has merited all the sympathy if not the homage of their sex. Ralph Urphistone tells me to-night that the workmen at the new house have been offered extra wages if they put the house into habitable condition by the end of the month.
For all his secret satisfaction Orrin is very restless. He has tried to induce Juliet to marry him at once, and go with him to the little cottage he has raised for her comfort. But she puts him off with excuses, which, however, are so mingled with sweet coquetries and caresses, that he cannot reproach her without seeming insensible to her affection, and it is not until he is away from the fascination of her presence, and amongst those who do not hesitate to say thathe will yet see the advantage of putting his brilliant bird in a cage suitable to her plumage, that he remembers his manhood and chafes at his inability to assert it. I am sorry for him in a way, but not so deeply as I might be ifhewere more humble and more truly sensible of the mischief he has wrought.
Orrin will yet make himself debtor to the Colonel. Something has happened which proves that fate—or man—is working against him to this end, and that he must from the very force of circumstances finally succumb. I sayman, but do I not meanwoman? Ah, no, no, no! my pen ran away with me, my thoughts played me false. It could have been no woman, for if it was, then is Juliet a—Let me keep to facts. I have not self-control enough for speculation.
To-day the sun set red. As we had been having gray skies, and more or less rain for a fortnight, the brightness and vivid crimson in the west drew many people to their doors. I was amongst them, and as I stood looking intently at the sky that was now one blaze ofglory from horizon to zenith, Orrin stepped up behind me and said:
"Do you want to take a ride to-night?"
Seeing him look more restless and moody than ever, I answered "Yes," and accordingly about eight that night he rode up to my door and we started forth.
I thought he would turn in the direction of the stone house, for one night when I had allowed myself to go there in my curiosity at its progress, I had detected him crouching in one of the thickest shadows cast by the surrounding trees. But if any such idea had been in his mind, it soon vanished, for almost the instant I was in the saddle, he wheeled himself about and led the way eastward, whipping and spurring his horse as if it were a devil's ride he contemplated, and not that easy, restful canter under the rising moon demanded by our excited spirits and the calm, exquisite beauty of the summer night.
"Are you not coming?" was shouted back to me, as the distance increased between us.
My answer was to spur my own horse, and as we rode once more side by side, I could not butnote what a wild sort of beauty there was in him as he thus gave himself up to the force of his feelings and the restless energy of this harum-scarum ride. "Very different," thought I, "would the Colonel look on a horse at this hour of night"; and wondered if Juliet could see him thus she would any longer wound him by her hesitations, after having driven him by her coquetries to expect full and absolute surrender on her part.
Did he guess my thoughts, or was his mind busy with the same, that he suddenly cried in harsh but thrilling tones:
"If I had her where she ought to be, here behind me on this horse, I would ride to destruction before I would take her back again to the town and the temptations which beset her while she can hear the sound of hammer upon stone."
"And you would be right," I was about to say in some bitterness, I own, when the full realization of the road we were upon stopped me and I observed instead:
"You would take her yonder where you hope to see her happy, though no other woman lives within a half-mile of the place."
"No man you should say," quoth Orrin bitterly, lashing his horse till it shot far ahead of me, so that some few minutes passed before we were near enough together for him to speak again. Then he said: "She loads me with promises and swears that she loves me more than all the world. If half of this is true she ought to be happy with me in a hovel, while I have a dainty cottage for her dwelling, where the vines will soon grow and the birds sing. You have not seen it since it has been finished. You shall see it to-night."
I choked as I tried to answer, and wondered if he had any idea of what I had to contend with in these rides I seemed forced to take without any benefit to myself. If he had, he was merciless, for once launched into talk he kept on till I was almost wild with hateful sympathy and jealous chagrin. Suddenly he paused.
The forest we had been threading had for the last few minutes been growing thinner, and as the quick cessation in his speech caused me to look up, I saw, or thought I saw, a faint glow shining through the branches before me, whichcould not have come from the reflection made by the setting sun, as that had long ago sunk into darkness.
Orrin who, as he had ceased speaking, had suddenly reined in his panting horse, now gave a shout and shot forward, and I, hardly knowing what to fear or expect, followed him as fast as my evidently weary animal would carry me, and thus bounding along with but a few paces between us, we cleared the woods and came out into the open fields beyond. As we did so a cry went up from Orrin, faintly echoed by my own lips. It was a fire that we saw, and the flames, which had now got furious headway, rose up like pillars to the sky, illuminating all the country round, and showing me, both by their position and the glare of the stream beneath them, that it was Orrin's house which was burning, and Orrin's hopes which were being destroyed before our eyes. The cry he gave as he fully realized this I shall never forget, nor the gesture with which he drove his spurs into his horse and flashed down that long valley into the ever-increasing glare that lighted first his flowing hair and the wet flanks of the animal hebestrode, and finally seemed to envelop him altogether, till he looked like some avenging demon rushing through his own element of fury and fire.
I was far behind him, but I made what time I could, feeling to the core, as I passed, the weirdness of the solitude before me, with just this element of horror flaming up in its midst. Not a sound save that of our pounding hoofs interrupted that crackling sound of burning wood, and when the roof fell in, as it did before I could reach his side, I could hear distinctly the echo which followed it. Orrin may have heard it too, for he gave a groan and drew in his horse, and when I reached him I saw him sitting there before the smouldering ashes of his home, silent and inert, without a word to say or an ear to hear the instinctive words of sympathy I could not now keep back.
Who had done it? Who had started the blaze which had in one half-hour undone the work and hope of months? That was the question which first roused me and caused me to search the silence and darkness of the night forsome trace of a human presence, if only so much as the mark of a human foot. And I found it. There, in the wet margin of the stream, I came upon a token which may mean nothing and which may mean—But I cannot write even here of the doubts it brought me; I will only tell how on our slow and wearisome passage home through the sombre woods, Orrin suddenly let his bridle fall, and, flinging up his arms above his head, cried bitterly:
"O that I did not love her so well! O that I had never seen her who would make of me a slave when I would be a man!"
The gossips at the corners nod knowingly this morning, and Orrin, whose brow is moodier than the Colonel's, walks fiercely amongst them without word and without look. He is on his way to Juliet's house, and if there is enchantment left in smiles, I bid her to use it, for her fate is trembling in the balance, and may tip in a direction of which she little recks.
Orrin has come back. Striding impetuously into the room where I sat at work, he drewhimself up till his figure showed itself in all its full and graceful proportions.
"Am I a man?" he asked, "or," with a fall in his voice brimmed with feeling, "am I a fool? She met me with such an unsuspicious look, Philo, and bore herself with such an innocent air, that I not only could not say what I meant to say, but have promised to do what I have sworn never to do—accept the Colonel's unwelcome gift, and make her mistress of the new stone house."
"You are—a man," I answered. For what are men but fools where women of such enchantment are concerned!
He groaned, perhaps at the secret sarcasm hidden in my tone, and sat down unbidden at the table where I was writing.
"You did not see her," he cried. "You do not know with what charms she works, when she wishes to comfort and allure." Ah! did I not. "And Philo," he went on, almost humbly for him, "you are mistaken if you think she had any hand in the ruin which has come upon me. She had not. How I know it I cannot say, but I am ready to swear it, and you mustforget any foolish fears I may have shown or any foolish words I may have uttered in the first confusion of my loss and disappointment."
"I will forget," said I.
"The fact is I do not understand her," he eagerly explained. "There was innocence in her air, but there was mockery too, and she laughed as I talked of my grief and rage, as though she thought I was playing a part. It was merry laughter, and there was no ring of falsehood in it, but why should she laugh at all?"
This was a question I could not answer; who could? Juliet is beyond the comprehension of us all.
"But what is the use of plaguing myself with riddles?" he now asked, starting up as suddenly as he had sat down. "We are to be married in a month, and the Colonel—I have seen the Colonel—has promised to dance at our wedding. Will it be in the new stone house? It would be a fitting end to this comedy if he were to dance inthat?"
I thought as Orrin did about this, but with more seriousness perhaps; and it was not tillafter he had left me that I remembered I had not asked whom he suspected of firing his house, now that he was assured of the innocence of her who was most likely to profit by its burning.
"Now I understand Juliet!" was the cry with which Orrin burst into my presence late this afternoon. "Men are saying and women whispering that I destroyed my own house, in order to save myself the shame of accepting the Colonel's offer while I had a roof of my own." And, burning with rage, he stamped his foot upon the ground, and shook his hand so threateningly in the direction of his fancied enemies that I felt some reflection of his anger in my own breast, and said or tried to say that they could not know him as I did or they would never accuse him of so mean a deed, whatever else they might bring against him.
"It makes me wild, it makes me mad, it makes me feel like leaving the town forever!" was his hoarse complaint as I finished my feeble attempt at consolation. "If Juliet were half the woman she ought to be she would come and live with me in a log-cabin in the woodsbefore she would accept the Colonel's house now. And to think that she,sheshould be affected by the opinions of the rest, and think me so destitute of pride that I would stoop to sacrifice my own home for the sake of stepping into that of a rival's. O woman, woman, what are you made of? Not of the same stuff as we men, surely."
I strove to calm him, for he was striding fiercely and impatiently about the room. But at my first word he burst forth with:
"And her father, who should control her, aids and encourages her follies. He is a slave to the Colonel, who is the slave of his own will."
"In this case," I quietly observed, "his will seems to be most kindly."
"That is the worst of it," chafed Orrin. "If only he offered me opposition I could struggle with him. But it is his generosity I hate, and the humiliating position into which it thrusts me. And that is not all," he angrily added, while still striding feverishly about the room. "The Colonel seems to think us his property ever since we decided to accept his, and asa miser watches over his gold so does he watch over us, till I scarcely have the opportunity now of speaking to Juliet alone. If I go to her house, there he is sitting like a black statue at the fireplace, and when I would protest, and lead her into another room or into the garden, he rises and overwhelms me with such courtesies and subtle disquisitions that I am tripped up in my endeavors, and do not know how to leave or how to stay. I wish he would fall sick, or his house tumble about his head!"
"Orrin, Orrin!" I cried. But he interrupted my remonstrance with the words:
"It is not decent. I am her affianced husband now, and he should leave us alone. Does he think I can ever forget that he used to court her once himself, and that the favors she now shows me were once given as freely, if not as honestly, to him? He knows I cannot forget, and he delights—"
"There, Orrin," I broke in, "you do him wrong. The Colonel is above your comprehension as he is above mine; but there is nothing malevolent in him."
"I don't know about that," rejoined his angry rival. "If he wanted to steal back my bride he could take no surer course for doing it. Juliet, who is fickle as the wind, already looks from his face to mine as if she were contrasting us. And he is so damned handsome and suave and self-forgetting!"
"And you," I could not help but say, "are so fierce and sullen even in your love."
"I know it," was his half-muttered retort, "but what can you expect? Do you think I will see him steal her heart away from before my eyes?"
"It would be but a natural return on his part for your former courtesies," I could not forbear saying, in my own secret chagrin and soreness of heart.
"But he shall not do it," exclaimed Orrin, with a backward toss of his head, and a sudden thump of his strong hand on the table before me. "I won her once against all odds, and I will keep her if I have to don the devil's smiles myself. He shall never again see her eyes rest longer on his face than mine. I will hold her by the power of my love till he finds himself forgotten, and for very shame steals away, leaving me with the bride he has himself bestowed upon me. He shall never have Juliet back."
"I doubt if he wishes to," I quietly remarked, as Orrin, weary with passion, ran from my presence.
I do not know whether Orrin succeeded or not in his attempts to shame the Colonel from intruding upon his interviews with Juliet. I am only sure that Orrin's countenance smoothed itself after this day, and that I heard no more complaints of Juliet's wavering fidelity. I myself do not believe she has ever wavered. Simply because she ought from every stand-point of good judgment and taste to have preferred the Colonel and clung to him, she will continue to cleave to Orrin and make him the idol of her wayward heart. But it is all a mystery to me and one that does not make me very happy.
I went up by myself to the new stone house to-day, and found that it only needs the finishing touches. Twenty workmen or more were there, and the great front door had just been brought and was leaning against the walls preparatory to being hung. Being curious to seehow they were progressing within, I climbed up to one of the windows and looked in, and not satisfied with what I could thus see, made my way into the house and up the main staircase, which I was surprised to see was nearly completed.
The sound of the hammer and saw was all about me, and the calling of orders from above and below interfered much with any sentimental feelings I might have had. But I was not there to indulge in sentiment, and so I roamed on from room to room till I suddenly came upon a sight that drove every consideration of time and place from my mind, and made me for a moment forgetful of every other sentiment than admiration. This was nothing less than the glimpse which I obtained in passing one of the windows, of the Colonel himself down on his knees on the scaffolding aiding the workmen. So, so, he is not content with hurrying the work forward by his means and influence, but is lending the force of his example, and actually handling the plane and saw in his anxiety not to disappoint Juliet in regard to the day she has fixed for her marriage.
A week ago I should have told Orrin what I had seen, but I had no desire to behold the old frowns come back to his face, so I determined to hold my silence with him. But Juliet ought to know with what manner of heart she has been so recklessly playing, so after stealing down the stairs I felt I should never have mounted, I crept from the house and made my way as best I could through the huge forest-trees that so thickly clustered at its back, till I came upon the high-road which leads to the village. Walking straight to Juliet's house I asked to see her, and shall never forget the blooming beauty of her presence as she stepped into the room and gave me her soft white hand to kiss.
As she is no longer the object of my worship and hardly the friend of my heart, I think I can speak of her loveliness now without being misunderstood. So I will let my pen trace for once a record of her charms, which in that hour were surely great enough to excuse the rivalry of which they had been the subject, and perhaps to account for the disinterestedness of the man who had once given her his heart.
She is of medium height, this Juliet, and her form has that sway in it which you see in a lily nodding on its stem. But she is no lily in her most enchanting movements, but rather an ardent passion-flower burning and palpitating in the sun. Her skin, which is milk-white, has strange flushes in it, and her eyes, which never look at you twice with the same meaning, are blue, or gray, or black, as her feeling varies and the soul informing them is in a state of joy, or trouble. Her most bewitching feature is her mouth, which has two dangerous dimples near it that go and come, sometimes without her volition and sometimes, I fear, with her full accord and desire. Her hair is brown and falls in such a mass of ringlets that no cap has ever yet been found which can confine it and keep it from weaving a golden net in which to entangle the hearts of men. When she smiles you feel like rushing forward; when she frowns you question yourself humbly what you have done to merit a look so out of keeping with the playful cast of her countenance and the arch bearing of her spirited young form. She was dressed, as she always is, simply, but there was infinite coquetry in the tieof the blue ribbon on her shoulder, and if a close cap of dainty lace could make a face look more entrancing, I should like the privilege of seeing it. She was in an amiable mood and smiled upon my homage like a fairy queen.
"I have come to pay my final respects to Juliet Playfair," I announced; "for by the tokens up yonder she will soon be classed among our matrons."
My tone was formal and she looked surprised at it, but my news was welcome and so she made me a demure little courtesy before saying joyously:
"Yes, the house is nearly done, and to-morrow Orrin and I are going up there together to see it. The Colonel has asked us to do this that we might say whether all is to our liking and convenience."
"The Colonel is a man in a thousand," I began, but, seeing her frown in her old pettish way, I perceived that she partook enough of Orrin's spirit to dislike any allusion to one whose generosity threw her own selfishness into startling relief.
So I said no more on this topic, but let mycourtesy expend itself in good wishes, and came away at last with a bewildering remembrance of her beauty, which I am doing my best to blot out by faithfully recounting to myself the story of those infinite caprices of hers which have come so near wrecking more than one honorable heart.
I do not expect to visit her again until I pay my respects to her as Orrin's wife.
It is the day when Orrin and Juliet are to visit the new house. If I had not known this from her own lips, I should have known it from the fact that the workmen all left at noon, in order, as one of them said, to leave the little lady more at her ease. I saw them coming down the road, and had the curiosity to watch for the appearance of Orrin and the Colonel at Juliet's gate but they did not come, and assured by this that they meditated a later visit than I had anticipated, I went about my work. This took me up the road, and as it chanced, led me within a few rods of the wood within which lies the new stone house. I had not meant to go there, for I have haunted the place enough,but this time there was reason for it, and satisfied with the fact, I endeavored to fix my mind on other matters and forget who was likely at any moment to enter the forest behind me.
But when one makes an effort to forget he is sure to remember all the more keenly, and I was just picturing to my mind Juliet's face and Juliet's pretty air of mingled pride and disdain as the first sight of the broad stone front burst upon her, when I heard through the stillness of the woods the faint sound of a saw, which coming from the direction of the house seemed to say that some one was still at work there. As I had understood that all the men had been given a half-holiday, I felt somewhat surprised at this, and unconsciously to myself moved a few steps nearer the opening where the house stood, when suddenly all was still and I could not for the moment determine whether I had really heard the sound of a saw or not. Annoyed at myself, and ashamed of an interest that made every trivial incident connected with this affair of such moment to me, I turned back to my work, and in a few moments had finished it and left the wood, when what was myastonishment to see Orrin coming from the same place, with his face turned toward the village, and a hardy, determined expression upon it which made me first wonder and then ask myself if I really comprehended this man or knew what he cherished in his heart of hearts.
Going straight up to him, I said:
"Well, Orrin, what's this? Coming away from the house instead of going to it? I understood that you and Juliet were expecting to visit it together this afternoon."
He paused, startled, and his eyes fell as I looked him straight in the face.
"We are going to visit it," he admitted, "but I thought it would be wiser for me to inspect the place first and see if all was right. An unfinished building has so many traps in it, you know." And he laughed loudly and long, but his mirth was forced, and I turned and looked after him, as he strode away, with a vague but uneasy feeling I did not myself understand.
"Will the Colonel go with you?" I called out.
He wheeled about as if stung. "Yes," he shouted, "the Colonel will go with us. Didyou suppose he would allow us the satisfaction of going alone? I tell you, Philo," and he strode back to my side, "the Colonel considers us his property. Is not that pleasant? Hisproperty! And so we are," he fiercely added, "while we are his debtors. But we shall not be his debtors long. When we are married—if wearemarried—I will take Juliet from this place if I have to carry her away by force. She shall never be the mistress of this house."
"Orrin! Orrin!" I protested.
"I have said it," was his fierce rejoinder, and he left me for the second time and passed hurriedly down the street.
I was therefore somewhat taken aback when a little while later he reappeared with Juliet and the Colonel, in such a mood of forced gayety that more than one turned to look after them as they passed merrily laughing down the road. Will Juliet never be the mistress of that house? I think she will, my Orrin. That dimpled smile of hers has more force in it than that dominating will of yours. If she chooses to hold her own she will hold it, and neither you nor the Colonel can ever say her nay.
What did Orrin tell me? That she would never be mistress of that house? Orrin was right, she never will; but who could have thought of a tragedy like this? Not I, not I; and if Orrin did and planned it— But let me tell the whole just as it happened, keeping down my horror till the last word is written and I have plainly before me the awful occurrences of this fearful day.
They went, the three, to that fatal house together, and no man, saving myself perhaps, thought much more about the matter till we began to see Juliet's father peering anxiously from over his gate in the direction of the wood. Then we realized that the afternoon had long passed and that it was getting dark; and going up to the old man, I asked whom he was looking for. The answer was as we expected.
"I am looking for Juliet. The Colonel took her and Orrin up to their new house, but they do not come back. I had a dreadful dream last night, and it frightens me. Why don't they come? It must be dark enough in the wood."
"They will come soon," I assured him, and moved off, for I do not like Juliet's father.
But when I passed by there again a half-hour later and found the old man still standing bare-headed and with craning neck at his post, I became very uneasy myself, and proposed to two or three neighbors, whom I found standing about, that we should go toward the woods and see if all were well. They agreed, being affected, doubtless, like myself, by the old man's fears, and as we proceeded down the street, others joined us till we amounted in number to a half-dozen or more. Yet, though the occasion seemed a strange one, we were not really alarmed till we found ourselves at the woods and realized how dark they were and how still. Then I began to feel an oppression at my heart, and trod with careful and hesitating steps till we came into the open space in which the house stands. Here it was lighter, but oh! how still. I shall never forget how still; when suddenly a shrill cry broke from one amongst us, and I saw Ralph Urphistone pointing with finger frozen in horror at something which lay in ghastly outline upon the broad stone which leads up to the gap of the great front door.
What was it? We dared not approach to see, yet we dared not linger quiescent. One by one we started forward till finally we all stood in a horrified circle about the thing that looked like a shadow, and yet was not a shadow, but some horrible nightmare that made us gasp and shudder till the moon came suddenly out, and we saw that what we feared and shrank from were the bodies of Juliet and Orrin, he lying with face upturned and arms thrown out, and she with her head pillowed on his breast as if cast there in her last faint moment of consciousness. They were both dead, having fallen through the planks of the scaffolding, as was shown by the fatal gap open to the moonlight above our heads. Dead! dead! and though no man there knew how, the terror of their doom and the retribution it seemed to bespeak went home to our hearts, and we bowed our heads with a simultaneous cry of terror, which in that first moment was too overwhelming even for grief.
The Colonel was nowhere to be seen, and after the first few minutes of benumbing horror, we tried to call aloud his name. But the criesdied in our throat, and presently one amongst us withdrew into the house to search, and then another and another, till I was left alone in awful attendance upon the dead. Then I began to realize my own anguish, and with some last fragment of secret jealousy—or was it from some other less definite but equally imperative feeling?—was about to stoop forward and lift her head from a pillow that I somehow felt defiled it, when a quick hand drew me aside, and looking up, I saw Ralph standing at my back. He did not speak, and his figure looked ghostly in the moonlight, but his hand was pointing toward the house, and when I moved to follow him, he led the way into the hollow entrance and up the stairway till we came to the upper story where he stopped, and motioned me toward a door opening into one of the rooms.
There were several of our number already standing there, so I did not hesitate to approach, and as I went the darkness in which I had hitherto moved disappeared before the broad band of moonlight shining into the room before us, and I saw, darkly silhouetted against a shining background, the crouching figure of theColonel, staring with hollow eyes and maddened mien out of the unfinished window through which in all probability the devoted couple had stepped to their destruction.
"Can you make him speak?" asked one. "He does not seem to heed us, though we have shouted to him and even shook his arm."
"I shall not try," said I. "Horror like this should be respected." And going softly in I took up my station by his side in silent awe.
But they would have me talk, and finally in some desperation I turned to him and said, quietly:
"The scaffolding broke beneath them, did it not?" At which he first stared and then flung up his arms with a wild but suppressed cry. But he said nothing, and next moment had settled again into his old attitude of silent horror and amazement.
"He might better be lying with them," I whispered after a moment, coming from his side. And one by one they echoed my words, and as he failed to move or even show any symptoms of active life, we gradually drifted from the spot till we were all huddled againbelow in the hollow blackness of that doorway guarded over by the dead.
Who should tell her father? They all looked at me, but I shook my head, and it fell to another to perform this piteous errand, for fearful thoughts were filling my brain, and Orrin did not look altogether guiltless to me as he lay there dead beside the maiden he had declared so fiercely should never be mistress of this house.
Was ever such a night of horror known in this town!
They have brought the two bruised bodies down into the village and they now lie side by side in the parlor where I last saw Juliet in the bloom and glow of life. The Colonel is still crouching where I left him. No one can make him speak and no one can make him move, and the terror which his terror has produced affects the whole community, not even the darkness of the night serving to lessen the wild excitement which drives men and women about the streets as if it were broad daylight, and makes of every house an open thorough-fare through which anybody who wishes can pass.
I, who have followed every change and turn in this whole calamitous affair, am like one benumbed at this awful crisis. I too go and come through the streets, hear people say in shouts, in cries, with bitter tears and wild lamentations, "Juliet is dead!" "Orrin is dead!" and get no sense from the words. I have even been more than once to that spot where they lie in immovable beauty, and though I gaze and gaze upon them, I feel nothing—not even wonder. Only the remembrance of that rigid figure frozen into its place above the gulf where so much youth and so many high hopes fell, has power to move me. When amid the shadows which surround me I seethat, I shudder and the groan rises slowly to my lips as if I too were looking down into a gulf from which hope and love would never again rise.
The Colonel is now in his father's house. He was induced to leave the place by Ralph Urphistone's little child. When the great manfirst felt the touch of those baby fingers upon his, he shuddered and half recoiled, but as the little one pulled him gently but persistently towards the stair, he gradually yielded to her persuasion, and followed till he had descended to the ground-floor and left the fatal house. I do not think any other power could have induced him to pass that blood-stained threshold. For he seems thoroughly broken down, and will, I fear, never be the same man that he was before this fearful tragedy took place before his eyes.
All day I have paced the floor of my room asking myself if I should allow Juliet to be laid away in the same tomb as Orrin. He was her murderer, without doubt, and though he has shared her doom, was it right for me to allow one stone to be raised above their united graves. Feeling said no, but reason bade me halt before I disturbed the whole community with whispers of a crime. I therefore remained undecided, and it was in this same condition of doubt that I finally went to the funeral and stood with the rest of the lads beside the open grave which had been dug for the unhappylovers in that sunny spot beside the great church door. At sight of this grave and the twin coffins about to be lowered into it, I felt my struggle renewed, and yet I held my peace and listened as best I could to the minister's words and the broken sobs of such as had envied these two in their days of joyance, but had only pity for pleasure so soon over and hopes doomed to such early destruction.
We were all there; Ralph and Lemuel and the other neighbors, old and young, all except that chief of mourners, the Colonel; for he was still under the influence of that horror which kept him enchained in silence, and had not even been sensible enough of the day and its mournful occasion to rise and go to the window as the long funeral cortege passed his house. We were all there and the minister had said the words, and Orrin's body had been lowered to its final rest, when suddenly, as they were about to move Juliet, a tumult was observed in the outskirts of the crowd, and the Colonel towering in his rage and appalling in his just indignation, fought his way through the recoiling masses till he stood in our very midst.
"Stop!" he cried, "this burial must not go on." And he advanced his arm above Juliet's body as if he would intervene his very heart between it and the place of darkness into which it was about to descend. "She was the victim, he the murderer; they shall not lie together if I have to fling myself between them in the grave which you have dug."
"But—but," interposed the minister, calm and composed even in the face of this portentous figure and the appalling words which it had uttered, "by what right do you call this one a murderer and the other a victim? Did you see him murder her? Was there a crime enacted before your eyes?"
"The boards were sawn," was the startling answer. "They must have been sawn or they would never have given way beneath so light a weight. And then he urged her—I saw him—pleaded with her, drew her by force of eye and hand to step upon the scaffold without, though there was no need for it, and she recoiled. And when her light foot was on it and her half-smiling, half-timid face looked back upon us, he leaped out beside her, when instantly came the soundof a great crack, and I heard his laugh and her cry go up together, and—and—everything has been midnight in my soul ever since, till suddenly through the blank and horror surrounding me I caught the words, 'They will lie together in one tomb!' Then—then I awoke and my voice came back to me and my memory, and hither I hastened to stop this unhallowed work; for to lay the victim beside her murderer is a sacrilege which I for one would come back even from the grave to prevent."
"But why," moaned the father feebly amid the cries and confusion which had been aroused by so gruesome an interference on the brink of the grave, "but why should Orrin wish my Juliet's death? They were to have been married soon—"
But piteous as were his tones no one listened, for just then a lad who had been hiding behind the throng stepped out before us, showing a face so white and a manner so perturbed that we all saw that he had something to say of importance in this matter.
"The boardshavebeen sawn," he said. "I wanted to know and I climbed up to see." Atwhich words the whole crowd moved and swayed, and a dozen hands stooped to lift the body of Juliet and carry it away from that accursed spot.
But the minister is a just man and cautious, and he lifted up his arms in such protest that they paused.
"Who knows," he suggested, "that it was Orrin's hand which handled the saw?"
And then I perceived that it was time for me to speak. So I raised my voice and told my story, and as I told it the wonder grew on every face and the head of each man slowly drooped till we all stood with downcast eyes. For crime had never before been amongst us or soiled the honor of our goodly town. Only the Colonel still stood erect; and as the vision of his outstretched arm and flaming eyes burned deeper and deeper into my consciousness, I stammered in my speech and then sobbed, and was the first to lift the silent form of the beauteous dead and bear it away from the spot denounced by one who had done so much for her happiness and had met with such a bitter and heart-breaking reward.
And where did we finally lay her? In that spot—ah! why does my blood run chill while I write it—where she stood when she took that oath to the Colonel, whose breaking caused her death.
A few words more and this record must be closed forever. That night, when all was again quiet in the village and the mourners no longer went about the streets, Lemuel, Ralph, and I went for a final visit to the new stone house. It showed no change, that house, and save for the broken scaffolding above gave no token of its having been the scene of such a woful tragedy. But as we looked upon it from across its gruesome threshold Lemuel said:
"It is a goodly structure and nigh completed, but the hand that began it will never finish it, nor will man or woman ever sleep within its walls. The place is accursed, and will stand accursed till it is consumed by God's lightning or falls piecemeal to the ground from natural decay. Though its stones are fresh, I see ruin already written upon its walls."
It was a strong statement, and we did not believe it, but when we got back to the village we were met by one who said:
"The Colonel has stopped the building of the new house. 'It is to be an everlasting monument,' he says, 'to a rude man's pride and a sweet woman's folly.'"
Will it be a monument that he will love to gaze upon? I wot not, or any other man who remembers Juliet's loveliness and the charm it gave to our village life for one short year.
What was it that I said about this record being at an end? Some records do not come to an end, and though twenty years have passed since I wrote the above, I have cause this day to take these faded leaves from their place and add a few lines to the story of the Colonel's new house.
It is an old house now, old and desolate. As Lemuel said—he is one of our first men—it is accursed and no one has ever felt brave enough or reckless enough to care to cross again its ghostly threshold. Though I never heard any one say it is haunted, there are haunting memories enough surrounding it for one to feel a ghastly recoil from invading precincts defiled by such a crime. So the kindly forest has takenit into its protection, and Nature, who ever acts the generous part, has tried to throw the mantle of her foliage over the decaying roof, and about the lonesome walls, accepting what man forsakes and so fulfilling her motherhood.
I am still a resident in the town, and I have a family now that has outgrown the little cottage which the apple-tree once guarded. But it is not to tell of them or of myself that I have taken these pages from their safe retreat to-day, but to speak of the sight which I saw this morning when I passed through the churchyard, as I often do, to pluck a rose from the bush which we lads planted on Juliet's grave twenty years ago. They always seem sweeter to me than other roses, and I take a superstitious delight in them, in which my wife, strange to say, does not participate. But that is neither here nor there.
The sight which I thought worth recording was this: I had come slowly through the yard, for the sunshine was brilliant and the month June, and sad as the spot is, it is strangely beautiful to one who loves nature, when as I approached the corner where Juliet lies, andwhich you will remember was in the very spot where I once heard her take her reluctant oath, I saw crouched against her tomb a figure which seemed both strange and vaguely familiar to me. Not being able to guess who it was, as there is now nobody in town who remembers her with any more devotion than myself, I advanced with sudden briskness, when the person I was gazing upon rose, and turning towards me, looked with deeply searching and most certainly very wretched eyes into mine. I felt a shock, first of surprise, and then of wildest recollection. The man before me was the Colonel, and the grief apparent in his face and disordered mien showed that years of absence had not done their work, and that he had never forgotten the arch and brilliant Juliet.
Bowing humbly and with a most reverent obeisance, for he was still the great man of the county, though he had not been in our town for years, I asked his pardon for my intrusion, and then drew back to let him pass. But he stopped and gave me a keen look, and speaking my name, said: "You are married, are you not?" And when I bowed the meek acquiescence which the subject seemed to demand, he sighed as I thought somewhat bitterly, and shrugging his shoulders, went thoughtfully by and left me standing on the green sward alone. But when he had reached the gate he turned again, and without raising his voice, though the distance between us was considerable, remarked: "I have come back to spend my remaining days in the village of my birth. If you care to talk of old times, come to the house at sunset. You will find me sitting on the porch."
Gratified more than I ever expected to be by a word from him, I bowed my thanks and promised most heartily to come. And that was the end of our first interview.
It has left me with very lively sensations. Will they be increased or diminished by the talk he has promised me?
I had a pleasant hour with the Colonel, but we did not talk ofher. Had I expected to? I judge so by the faint but positive disappointment which I feel.
I have been again to the Colonel's, but this time I did not find him in. "He is much outevenings," explained the woman who keeps house for him, "and you will have to come early to see him at his own hearth."
What is there about the Colonel that daunts me? He seems friendly, welcomes my company, and often hands me the hospitable glass. But I am never easy in his presence, though the distance between us is not so great as it was in our young days, now that I have advanced in worldly prosperity and he has stood still. Is it that his intellect cows me, or do I feel too much the secret melancholy which breathes through all his actions, and frequently cuts short his words? I cannot answer; I am daunted by him and I am fascinated, and after leaving him think only of the time when I shall see him again.
The children, who have grown up since the Colonel has been gone, seem very shy of him. I have noted them more than once shrink away from his path, huddling and whispering in a corner, and quite forgetting to play as long as his shadow fell across the green or the soundof his feet could be heard on the turf. I think they fear his melancholy, not understanding it. Or perhaps some hint of his sorrows has been given them, and it is awe they feel rather than fear. However that may be, no child ever takes his hand or prattles to him of its little joys or griefs; and this in itself makes him look solitary, for we are much given in this town to merry-making with our little ones, and it is a common sight to see old and young together on the green, making sport with ball or battledore.
And it is not the children only who hold him in high but distant respect. The best men here are contented with a courteous bow from him, while the women—matrons now, who once were blushing maidens—think they have shown him enough honor if they make him a deep curtsey and utter a mild "Good-morrow."
The truth is, he invites nothing more. He talks to me because he must talk to some one, but our conversation is always of things outside of our village life, and never by any chance of the place or any one in it. He lives at his father's house, now his, and has for his sole companion an old servant of the family, whowas once his nurse, and who is, I believe, the only person in the world who is devotedly attached to him.
Unless it is myself. Sometimes I think I love him; sometimes I think I do not. He fascinates me, and could make me do most anything he pleased, but have I a real affection for him? Almost; and this is something which I consider strange.
Where does the Colonel go evenings? His old nurse has asked me, and I find I cannot answer. Not to the tavern, for I am often there; not to the houses of the neighbors, for none of them profess to know him. Where then? Is the curiosity of my youth coming back to me? It looks very much like it, Philo, very much like it.
My daughter said to me to-day: "Father, do not go any more to the Colonel's." And when I asked her why, she answered that her lover—she has alover, the minx—had told her that the Colonel held secret talks with the witches, and though I laughed at this, it has set me thinking. He goes to the forest at night, and roamsfor hours among its shadows. Is this a healthy occupation for a man, especially a man with a history? I shall go early to the Schuyler homestead to-night and stay late, for these midnight communings with nature may be the source of the hideous gloom which I have observed of late is growing upon his spirits. No other duty seems to me now greater than this, to win him back to a healthy realization of life, and the need there is of looking cheerfully upon such blessings as are left to our lot.
I went to the Colonel's at early candle-light, and I stayed till ten, a late hour for me, and, as I hoped, for him. When I left I caught a sight of old Hannah, standing in a distant hallway, and I thought she looked grateful; at all events, she came forward very quickly after my departure, for I heard the key turn in the lock of the great front door before I had passed out of the gate.
Why did I not go home? I had meant to, and there was every reason why I should. But I had no sooner felt the turf under my feet and seen the stars over my head, than Ibegan to wander in the very opposite direction, and that without any very definite plan or purpose. I think I was troubled, and if not troubled, restless, and yet movement did not seem to help me, for I grew more uneasy with every step I took, and began to look towards the woods to which I was half unconsciously tending as if there I should find relief just as the Colonel, perhaps, was in the habit of doing. Was it a mere foolish freak which had assailed me, or was I under some uncanny influence, caught from the place where I had been visiting?
I was yet asking myself this, when I heard distinctly through the silence of the night the sound of a footstep behind me, and astonished that any one else should have been beguiled at this hour into a walk so dreary, I slipped into the shadow of a tree that stood at the wayside and waited till the slowly advancing figure should pass and leave me free to pursue my way or to go back unnoticed and undisturbed.
I had not long to wait. In a moment a weirdly muffled form appeared abreast of me, and it was with difficulty I suppressed a cry,for it was the Colonel I saw, escaped, doubtless, from his old nurse's surveillance, and as he passed he groaned, and the sad sound coming through the night at a time when my own spirits were in no comfortable mood affected me with almost a superstitious power, so that I trembled where I stood and knew not whether to follow him or go back and seek the cheer of my own hearth. But I decided in another moment to follow him, and when he had withdrawn far enough up the road not to hear the sound of my footfalls, I stepped out from my retreat and went with him into the woods.
I have been as you know a midnight wanderer in that same place many a time in my life; but never did I leave the fields and meadows with such a foreboding dread, or step into the clustering shadows of the forest with such a shrinking and awe-struck heart. Yet I went on without a pause or an instant of hesitation, for I knew now where he was going, and if he were going to the old stone house I was determined to be his companion, or at least his watcher. For I knew now that I loved him and could never see him come to ill.
There was no moon at this time, but the sound of his steps guided me and when I had come into the open place where the stars shone I saw by the movement which took place in the shadows lying around the open door of the old house, that he was near the fatal threshold and would in another moment be across it and within those mouldy halls. That I was right, another instant proved, for suddenly through the great hollow of the open portal a mild gleam broke and I saw he had lighted a lantern and was moving about within the empty rooms.
Softly as man could go, I followed him. Crouching in the doorway, with ear turned to the emptiness within, I listened. And as I did so, I felt the chill run through my blood and stiffen the hair on my head, for he was talking as he walked, and his tones were affable and persuasive, as if two ghosts roamed noiselessly at his side and he were showing them as in the days of yore, the beauties of his nearly completed home.
"An ample parlor, you see," came in distinct, suave monotone to my ear. "Room enough for many a couple on gala nights, as even sweetMistress Juliet will say. Do you like this fireplace, and will there be space enough here for the portrait which Lawrence has promised to make of young Madam Day? I do not like too much light myself, so I have ordered curtains to be hung here. But if Mistress Juliet prefers the sunshine, we will tell the men nay, for all is to be according to your will, fair lady, as you must know, being here. Pardon me, that was an evil step; you should have a quick eye for such mishaps, friend Orrin, and not leave it to my courtesy to hold out a helping hand. Ah! you like this dusky nook. It was made for a sweet young bride to hide in when her heart's fulness demands quiet and rest. Do the trees come too near the lattice? If so they shall be trimmed away. And this dining-parlor—Can you judge of it with the floor half laid and its wainscoting unnailed? I trow not, but you can trust me, pretty Juliet, you can trust me; and Orrin, too, need not speak, for me to know just how to finish this study for him. Up-stairs? You do not wish to go up-stairs? Ah, then, you miss the very cream of the house. I have worked with my own handupon the rooms up-stairs, and there is a little Cupid wrought into the woodwork of a certain door which I greatly wish you to pass an opinion upon. I think the wings lack airiness, but the workmen swear it is as if he would fly from the door at a whisper. Come, Mistress Juliet; come, friend Orrin, if I lead the way you need not hesitate. Come! come!"
Was he alone? Were those eager steps of his unaccompanied, and should I not behold, if I looked within, the blooming face of Juliet and the frowning brows of Orrin, crowding close behind him as he moved? The fancy invoked by his words was so vivid, that for a moment I thought I should, and I never shall forget the thrill which seized me as I leaned forward and peered for one minute into the hall and saw there his solitary figure pausing on the lower step of the stairs, with that bend of the body which bespeaks an obeisance which is half homage and half an invitation. He was still talking, and as he went up, he looked back smiling and gossiping over his shoulder in a smooth and courtly way which made it impossible for me to withdraw my fascinated eyes.
"No banisters, sweet Juliet? Not yet—not yet; but Orrin will protect you from falling. No harm can come to you while he is at your side. Do you admire this sweep to the stairs? I saw a vision when I planned it, of a pretty woman coming down at the sound of her husband's step. The step has changed in sound to my imagination, but the pretty woman is prettier than ever, and will look her best as she comes down these stairs. Oh, that is a window-ledge for flowers. A honeymoon is nothing without flowers, and you must have forget-me-nots and pansies here till one cannot see from the window. You do not like such humble flowers? Fie! Mistress Juliet, it is hard to believe that,—even Orrin doubts it, as I see by his chiding air."
Here the gentle and bantering tones ceased, for he had reached the top of the stair. But in another moment I heard them again as he passed from room to room, pausing here and pausing there, till suddenly he gave a cheerful laugh, spoke her name in most inviting accents, and stepped intothatroom.
Then as if roused into galvanic action, I roseand followed, going up those midnight stairs and gaining the door where he had passed as if the impulse moving me had lent to my steps a certainty which preserved me from slipping even upon that dank and dangerous ascent. When in view of him again, I saw, as I had expected, that he was drawn up by the window and was bowing and beckoning with even more grace and suavity than he had shown below. "Will you not step out, Mistress Juliet?" he was saying; "I have a plan which I am anxious to submit to your judgment and which can only be decided upon from without. A high step true, but Orrin has lifted you over worse places and—and you will do me a great favor if only—" Here he gave a malignant shriek, and his countenance, from the most smiling and benignant expression, altered into that of a fiend from hell. "Ha, ha, ha!" he yelled. "She goes, and he is so fearful for her that he leaps after. That is a goodly stroke! Both—both—Crack! Ah, she looks at me, she looks—"
Silence and then a frozen figure crouching before my eyes, just the silence and just the figure I remembered seeing there twenty yearsbefore, only the face is older and the horror, if anything, greater. What did it mean? I tried to think, then as the full import of the scene burst upon me, and I realized that it was a murderer I was looking upon, and that Orrin, poor Orrin, had been innocent, I sank back and fell upon the floor, lost in the darkness of an utter unconsciousness.
I did not come to myself for hours; when I did I found myself alone in the old house.
Nothing was ever done to the Colonel, for when I came to tell my story the doctors said that the facts I related did not prove him to have been guilty of crime, as his condition was such that his own words could not be relied upon in a matter on which he had brooded more or less morbidly for years. So now when I see him pass through the churchyard or up and down the village street and note that he is affable as ever when he sees me, but growing more and more preoccupied with his own thoughts I do not know whether to look upon him with execration or profoundest pity, nor can any man guide me or satisfy my mind as towhether I should blame his jealousy or Orrin's pride for the pitiful tragedy which once darkened my life, and turned our pleasant village into a desert.
Of one thing only have I been made sure; that it was the Colonel who lit the brand which fired Orrin's cottage.