The paths of glory lead but to the grave.—Gray's Elegy.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.—Gray's Elegy.
Mr. Shingles had an acquaintance among the gentlemen of the press; and, chancing to meet his quill-driving friend, he told him Morton's story. It appeared, accordingly, beautifully embellished, in one of the evening papers, and was copied, the next morning, into several others. Consequently, Morton had scarcely risen from breakfast, when he was visited by half a dozen persons, editors and others, eager to hear his adventures, for the gratification of their own curiosity, or that of the public. As he detested such visitations, and as several of his callers, from their countenances alone, inspired him with an earnest longing to kick them down stairs, he hastened to avoid the nuisance by escaping into the street. Since the tidings he had heard from Shingles, his native town had lost all attraction for him; in fact he shrank from going thither, and willingly lingered another day in New York.
Going to Buckland's lodgings, he renewed his persuasions of the evening before, and strongly urged him to leave New York. Buckland assented to every thing he said; and, hearing of a ship about to sail for the East Indies, Morton went with his friend to the merchant to whom she belonged, and induced him to engage a passage in her.
Returning to his hotel at about two o'clock, a waiter brought him a card, telling him that a boy had just left it for him. It was Rosny's; and on it were scrawled with a pencil the following concise and characteristic words:—
Dear M.: Uncle Sam in a deuse of a hurry. Ordered to the island this afternoon. Off for Mexico to-morrow. Sorry not to see you, but haven't a minute to spare. Good luck.—Au revoir.Yours till doomsday,ROSNY.
Yours till doomsday,ROSNY.
Morton went to the recruiting office where he had been with Rosny on the day before, learned the time and place of the embarkation, was on the spot at the hour named, and in a few minutes saw Rosny striding down the wharf in most unmilitary haste, his hair fluttering in the wind. He was so engrossed in making certain arrangements, and issuing his mandates to the soldiers who were to row him and some other officers to Governor's Island, that he did not observe Morton, who stood quietly leaning against a post.
"Hallo, Dick," said the latter at length. "Haven't you eyes to see your friends?"
Rosny turned, in great surprise, and greeted him most emphatically.
"Come, Morton," he said, as he was stepping into the boat, "you'll change your mind after all,—won't you?—and meet me at Vera Cruz."
"I'll sit at home, and read your exploits in the papers," replied Morton.
"Well; a wilful man must have his way. Adieu."
"Good by. May you live to be a general, or any thing else you like, short of the presidency."
"Why, shouldn't I make a good president?"
"No."
"What? too progressive,—too wide awake,—too enlightened, ey?"
"Yes, and too pugnacious."
"There you are again, Boston all over. I'll be president yet, if only to spite the Bostonites. You shall write my life, and I'll give you an office for it. Farewell."
Morton watched the receding boat till it was almost out of sight, waved his hat to Rosny, who waved his own in return, and walked back to the hotel, wondering what would be the issue of his old classmate's ambitious schemes.
How, among a throng of brave men, Rosny gained a name for determined daring;—how, on every occasion that offered, he displayed the fire of the Frenchman, and the stubborn mettle of the Saxon, whose blood mingled in his veins;—how, though sick and wounded, he dragged himself from the hospital at Puebla, and, mounting his horse, pushed forward with the advancing columns;—how gallantly, under the murdering storm of musketry and grape, he led his intrepid blackguards up the rocks of Chapultepec;—how, while shouting among the foremost, he climbed the hostile rampart, a bullet plunged into his brain, and dashed him, quivering and dead, to the foot of the scaling ladders;—all this, and more likewise, is it not written in the New York Herald?
About a year after Rosny's departure, Morton chanced to be again in New York, when, in going out one morning, he beheld all the symptoms of some impending solemnity. Flags, festooned with crape, were strung across Broadway from building to building. The shops were half closed, and the streets were fast filling with people. Patriot citizens, exchanging the yardstick for the sword, strode the sidewalk in gorgeous panoply; and now and then a mounted warrior cantered along the pavement, struggling to keep his balance on his fiery coach horse. In an hour or two more, the pageant was in full operation. Looking from his hotel window Morton beheld a radiant river of shining bayonets, many colored plumes, and martial millinery, solemnly flowing down the middle of Broadway, to strange and lugubrious music, between melancholy shores of black broadcloth and beaver hats. At length a train of hearses appeared slowly advancing to the wailing music of the bands, encircled by the harmless sabres of the civic warriors, playing soldier, around the remains of those who had borne the part in tragic earnest. Over every hearse the national flag was drooping, and upon each was inscribed the name of its unconscious tenant. They were officers slain in battle during the last Mexican campaign. Four of the hearses passed. Morton read the names. They were all unknown to him; but as the fifth approached, he looked, started, and looked again; for wrought in white upon the sable drapery he saw, distinct and clear, the name of Rosny. Descending to the street, he joined the procession; he even underwent the funeral oration at the City Hall; and when it was over, shouldering through the crowd, he stood by the side of all that remained of his old classmate. Rosny's cap, and the sword he had used so well, lay on the lid of the coffin; and Morton turned away, with eyes not quite dry, as he recalled his many genial traits and his undaunted spirit.
To resume. On returning to his hotel after taking leave of Rosny, Morton found a note awaiting him, directed in a female hand. He opened it, and read the signature,—Ellen Ashland,—the name of a lady whom he had well known in Boston, and who, just before he had sailed for Europe, had been married to an eminent lawyer of his acquaintance. She wrote that she had seen an account of his escape from prison, and arrival in New York, in the morning paper,—expressed an earnest wish to see him, and invited him to visit her at the New York Hotel, where she was spending a few days with her husband.
As the time named was almost come, Morton called a coach, and drove up town. His friend received him with a peculiar warmth and earnestness of manner. Morton had known her as a person of marked character and strong but strictly governed emotions, not always permitting the expression of a feeling to keep pace with the feeling itself. He greatly liked and esteemed her, and her presence disarmed him, in a great degree, of his usual reserve.
Her husband had been absent all day in Brooklyn, and would not return till late in the evening.
"It is five years since I have spoken to a lady," said Morton, as he seated himself at the tea table.
As he was not scrupulous to wear a mask before her, she quickly discovered the depressed condition of his mind; and on her charging him with being very much out of spirits, he admitted that he was so.
"One would think," she observed, "that after the sufferings that you have passed, you would have come home in a different mood of mind."
"And so I did," said Morton.
"You seem in no great haste to see your friends and relations in Boston."
"I have no near relations there."
"But you have friends."
"Yes; I have heard from them. I met an acquaintance yesterday."
"You have heard, then——" And she bent her eyes upon his face, with a look searching but full of kindness, as if studying his thoughts.
"Five years," she continued, "is a long time. Great changes may have taken place."
"Changeshavetaken place," said Morton.
"You have lost none of your intimate friends, as far as I know them; but some have left Boston, and some are married."
Morton did not look up; but an undefined expression passed across his face, like the shadow of a black cloud. When, a moment after, he raised his eyes, he saw those of Mrs. Ashland fixed upon him with the same earnest gaze as before. Such scrutiny from another would have been intolerable to him; but in her it gave him no uneasiness.
A servant entering changed for a time the character of their conversation. A quarter of an hour afterwards they were again alone, and Morton was seated near the window, when his friend approached him, her features kindling with a look of ill-suppressed feeling, laid her hand on his shoulder, and said, "Vassall,"—she had always before addressed him as Mr. Morton,—"my heart bleeds for you—for you and for Edith Leslie."
Morton looked up till he met her eyes. The surprise, the sudden consciousness that she was privy to his grief, the warm and heartfelt woman's sympathy that he read in every line of her face, were too much for his manhood, and he burst into tears.
Morton's evening with Mrs. Ashland, and the story which she told him, removed at least one pain from his breast. He learned that Edith Leslie was not in fault; and that, great as his misfortune might be, his idol was not turned to clay.
His friend's narrative, however, was very defective. She could give results merely, not knowing, or suspecting, the hidden springs which produced them; and Morton was left to form his own conclusions. The following is a more explicit statement.
Morton embarked for Europe, and the return steamer brought, in due course, a letter to Edith Leslie. With the next steamer came another; with the next, a third; all as absurd epistles as the most exacting mistress could desire. The succeeding mail was silent. She wondered and hoped; but when the next arrived, and brought no tidings, her heart began to fail. The winter wore away, and still no letter came. She was living, at that time, with her father, at his country seat. Leslie's health was declining, and when Vinal returned from his short European tour, he consigned to his hands the care of his affairs, and spent the greater part of his time at Matherton; for he had a strong love for the home of his boyhood.
Spring returned, and blossomed into summer; but nothing was heard of Morton. The season ripened; the fringed gentian sprang in the meadow, and the aster by the roadside; but no word came. In the forests, the October frosts began their gorgeous work. The ash put on its purple; the oak its varied coloring; the sumach its blood-red glare; and at evening, the sun went down in cold, stern splendors behind the painted mountains. Dry leaves whirled upon the ground; chill clouds mustered in the sky; and flakes of snow, the harbingers of storm, were blown along the frozen road. Then winter sank upon the landscape, and deeper winter on the heart of the unhappy girl.
Time passed on, and the hope of Morton's return grew fainter. Leslie, seeing his daughter's deep distress, made a journey to Europe; but his search was fruitless. Meredith, who spent a year on the continent, pursued the same inquiries, but could trace his friend no farther than the town of Neuburg, in Bavaria. Morton, before his departure, had made his will, and in the ardor of his attachment, had left the bulk of his property to his betrothed, distributing a comparatively small residue among a number of poor relations, none of whom had either the means or the worldly knowledge to take measures for ascertaining his fate.
Meanwhile, Leslie had fallen into a decline; and there was no hope that his life could be protracted beyond a year or two. He became more than ever dependent upon Vinal, who now assumed nearly the whole charge of his affairs, acquitting himself with great ability, and, in this instance, with entire faithfulness. A rickety manufacturing concern, which for years had been a drain upon Leslie's purse, began, under Vinal's control, to yield a good profit; and the former saw all his resources quickened and replenished, as if by an infusion of new life.
Vinal was mounting very high in the general esteem. His polished address,—a little too precise, however,—his acknowledged scholarship, his character for honor and integrity, and his energy and capacity for business, commended him to all classes. He passed current alike in ball rooms and on change. Men of the world never doubted him; and, after all, this confidence was not quite groundless, for Vinal, who had a sage eye to his own interest, had embraced the maxim that, in matters of business, a course of absolute integrity is, under all ordinary circumstances, the only wise policy.
As, in process of time, the conviction of Morton's death was confirmed, Leslie's old wish for a union between his daughter and Vinal began again to grow strong within him. Some two years after her lover's disappearance, he ventured to speak to her of this favorite plan; but it was long before he dared allude to it again. Meanwhile, Vinal's attentions had been assiduous and constant, yet so tempered as to convey the idea that he despaired of any other reward than the continuance of her friendship. At length, however, certain of her father's countenance, and assuming Morton's death as now beyond a doubt, he began, with all possible delicacy and caution, to renew his former addresses. He was not long in discovering that his cause was quite hopeless, unless he could produce some positive proof that Morton was no longer alive.
During the third summer of the latter's absence, Vinal went, for two or three months, to Europe, the state of his health being the alleged motive. While in Paris, he tried to find his former confederate, Speyer, but could only learn that he was no longer in that city. On returning to America, he told Leslie that he had inquired after Morton, on all sides, without the least success, but had taken measures which, he thought it not impossible, might in time lead to some discovery. In various parts of Germany, there was, as he affirmed, a class of travelling merchants and commercial agents, who, from the nature of their avocations, had every facility for making inquiries within the districts which they frequented. He had taken pains, he said, to become acquainted with a large number of these men, to whom he had stated the case of Morton's disappearance, and promised a reward for any information concerning him.
Some time after this, he told Leslie that he had had word from one of these correspondents. The latter, he affirmed, had heard that a young man, said to be an Englishman, had died very suddenly three or four years before, in an unfrequented part of Bohemia. The German declared himself ready, if desired, to go to the district in question, and inquire into the matter. Leslie was anxious that the inquiry should be made; upon which Vinal, though seeming not at all sanguine as to any result, gave him the name of his imaginary correspondent, and advised that he should write to him. Leslie, however, as Vinal had foreseen, desired that the latter should carry on the correspondence. He accordingly wrote a letter, directed to Jacob Hatz. This he showed to Leslie, and mailed it in his presence, consigning it to a long repose in some continental dead letter office. At the same time, he secretly despatched another letter, directed to Henry Speyer; for he had meanwhile discovered the address of this serviceable person. This letter was as follows:—
Dear Sir: You cannot have forgotten some interviews and correspondence which formerly passed between us concerning a person who soon after was unfortunate enough to fall under the notice of the Austrian police. Nothing has since been heard of him, and it is commonly believed here that he is dead. It is my desire to have this opinion confirmed; and having found you honorable and efficient on another occasion, I cannot doubt that I shall find you so in this. May I beg your services in the following particulars?
1st. To take an imaginary journey into Bohemia, Moravia, or parts adjacent.
2d. To discover that, three years or more ago, a young man, an American, named —— ——, travelling alone on horseback in an unfrequented part of the country, (this was his habit,) was attacked by cholera, or any other violent disease prevalent thereabouts, which carried him off in less than three days.
3d. That he died at a small village inn; that a Lutheran clergyman took charge of his effects, and wrote to his friends; but that the letter may have miscarried, or the clergyman may have played false, and kept the windfall that had come to him.
4th. That two years ago, the clergyman removed into Hungary, but that the innkeeper, a stupid, beetle-headed fellow, showed you a headstone in the Protestant burial ground, with ——'s name upon it. The innkeeper may describe him as a young man of twenty-four, or less, but must not remember too much, as this might attract further inquiry.
This is the outline, and will serve to indicate the kind of thing required. Vary it, in respect to details, as your judgment and your knowledge of the customs of the country may suggest. Names are omitted. Please observe the ciphers which stand in their places. You will soon receive, through another channel, means to supply the deficiency, if, indeed, your memory will not do so unaided.
Sign your letterJacob Hatz. There is another point, which I beg you to observe particularly. Mention that on the gravestone, besides the name, was carved a figure, like an urn or cup, with a large ball above it. Date of death, also;—December 7, 1841.
I herewith enclose five hundred francs. On receiving your reply,with this letter enclosed, I shall immediately send you five hundred more. If I were not a poor man, and expecting always to be so, I could remunerate your services better.
With the fullest reliance on your honor and discretion, I remain,
Yours, truly, —— ——.
Yours, truly, —— ——.
P. S. For your better direction, I subjoin a formula to be followed in the beginning of your letter. You can word the rest in your own way. Write in French.
Vinal, if he had dared, would gladly have forged such a letter as he required, instead of trusting to another person; but art or nature had not gifted him with the needful skill; and he was anxious, moreover, to have the foreign postmarks stamped upon it in form.
In due time, Speyer's answer came. He had neglected to return Vinal's letter, as desired; but in other respects, his performance gave his employer ample satisfaction. The latter showed it to Leslie, who seemed convinced by it; while his daughter, on reading it, abandoned at once the hope to which she had hitherto clung, that Morton might still be living.
"I remember this Hatz very well," said Vinal; "he seemed to be a plain, honest sort of man,—an agent, I believe, of a merchant in Strasburg. And yet the reward I promised might have been too great a temptation."
"Then," said Leslie, "you would not receive this as a proof of Mr. Morton's death?"
"No, I would not: that is, I should not but for one thing;—it is so very much like Vassall Morton to be travelling alone, on horseback, in an out-of-the-way part of the country."
"Did you observe," pursued Leslie, "what he says of figures of an urn and ball cut on the gravestone?"
"I saw it, but did not observe it particularly."
Leslie gave him the letter, and Vinal read the part referred to.
"What can it mean?" asked Leslie.
"I can't conceive," replied Vinal.
"It is the vase and sun," said Edith Leslie; "the device of his mother's family, the Vassalls."
"Ah," exclaimed Vinal, looking up with a face of mournful interest, "you must be right; the same figures are carved on the tomb of the Vassalls, in the old churchyard at Cambridge."
"They were cut," pursued Miss Leslie, "on a garnet ring, which he always used as a seal."
"I remember his showing me that ring," said her father, "and telling me that it was older than the voyage of the Mayflower. It was a kind of heirloom, which his mother had left him."
"Yes," suggested the sympathizing Vinal, who had long known that Morton used no other seal than this ring; "and the device on it was supposed to be his armorial bearing, and so cut on the gravestone, as it is on the Vassall tomb at Cambridge."
All doubt of Morton's death was now dispelled. His betrothed stored his image in her thoughts, as that of one lost for this world; and Vinal saw the field clear before him. Leslie was failing fast; and, as his life ebbed, his wish for his daughter's marriage with Vinal grew and strengthened. He urged her, daily, to listen to his suit; extolling his favorite's talents, energy, acquirements, and unimpeachable character—praises which she believed to be wholly just. Vinal, on his part, seconded these parental efforts with most earnest, beseeching, not to say abject importunities. The compassion which he contrived to excite, an idea of duty, and an urgent wish to gratify her dying father, at length prevailed with her; and laying before Vinal the true state of her feelings, she consented, on such terms, to accept his suit.
Vinal had gained his point; but he had scarcely done so, when his spirits were dashed by an untoward incident, the nature of which may be guessed hereafter. And, as it never rains but it pours, this reverse of luck was soon followed by a second, of another kind.
One afternoon, returning from his customary constitutional ride, he was in the act of turning the upper corner of a street which slopes downward somewhat steeply till it meets a main thoroughfare of the town. A small ragamuffin boy was standing on the curbstone, with a blade of grass between his thumbs, through which he blew with might and main, evidently to startle Vinal's horse, whose head was within a yard of him. He succeeded to his complete satisfaction. Vinal switched at the youngster with his whip; but this only made matters worse. The horse galloped down the street at a rate which his rider's weak arm could not check; and, at the corner of the main street, wheeling suddenly to the left, he slipped on the wet pavement, and fell with a crash on his side. Horse and man lay motionless, till a city teamster, running up, raised the former by the bridle. Two or three passers by came to Vinal's aid; but as they lifted him, he set his teeth with pain. The horse had fallen on his left leg, breaking it above the knee.
Vinal was timid to excess in time of danger; but he could bear pain with the firmness of a stoic. While he felt himself run away with, and at the moment of his fall, he had been greatly confused. He no sooner saw that the worst was over, than he rallied his faculties, and asserted his usual self-mastery. His face was fast growing pale with violence of pain; but he was quite himself again.
A crowd gathered about him, as he lay leaning on the steps of the neighboring church.
"Shall we carry you to the —— Hotel?" asked a gentleman.
"Yes, if you please. But first be kind enough to bring a shutter. They will give you one at the school round the corner. When a man is killed, drunk, or maimed, there is nothing like a shutter. How do you do, Edwards?"—to a man whom he recognized in the crowd.
"I hope you are not badly hurt."
"My leg is broken."
"Are you in great pain?"
"Yes; a bad business, I think. Will you oblige me by seeing that my horse is led to the stable in —— Street?"
The shutter was soon brought.
"Thank you. Lift me very gently."
As they moved him he clinched his teeth again in silent torture.
"All right. Now one take the shutter at the head, and one at the feet. You'll find me a light weight."
And thus, between two men, escorted by a procession of schoolboys just let loose, Vinal was carried to the hotel.
The event justified his presage. He was forced to lie motionless for weeks, suffering greatly from bodily pain, and no less from certain anxieties which of late had harassed him. Leslie, on his part, was in great distress at the disaster. He felt, or fancied himself, near his end; and the wish next his heart was to see the marriage accomplished before he died. It was therefore determined that, notwithstanding the inauspicious plight of the bridegroom, it should take place at the time before fixed upon, four months after the beginning of the engagement.
The ceremony was very private. None were present but two or three friends of Miss Leslie, the dying father, borne thither in a chair, the disabled bridegroom, and the pale and agitated bride; for that morning, standing before Morton's picture, a strange misgiving and a dark foreboding had fallen upon her, and the sun never shone on a bride more wretched. Her nearest friend, Mrs. Ashland, was at her side. She was the only person, besides her father and Vinal, who knew of her engagement to Morton, and, indeed, had been her confidante from first to last. Soon after Morton's disappearance, an accident had brought them together, reviving an old school intimacy; and Edith Leslie, in her suspense and misery, was but too glad to find a friend in whom she could trust without reserve.
The rite was ended, and Edith Leslie was Edith Vinal. Days and weeks passed; Leslie slowly declined, and Vinal slowly recovered. She divided her time between them, passing the greater part of the day with the latter, and returning at evening to watch by her father's bed or rest within sound of his voice. At length, three weeks after her marriage, on a morning the horror of which remained scarred always in her memory, Morton's letter from Genoa was put into her hands; and the long-disciplined patience with which she had armed herself, the religion which she had called to her aid, all the guards and defences of her mind, were borne down, for a time, by the resistless flood of passion, which, like a river bursting its barriers, swept all before it.
"Good morning, Ned," said Morton to his friend Meredith. He had come to Boston the day before, and had already seen Meredith more than once.
"Going already? Sit down, man. Why are you in such a hurry?"
"I shall look in again before night."
"You are not well. I never thought you could look so worn and haggard."
"Try the prison of Ehrenberg for four or five years, and see how you will look when you get out. It's nothing, though. A little rest will make all right again."
"You are not very likely to get it. You are a lion now, and people will not leave you alone."
"They shall. I am not in the humor for balls and dinner parties."
He went to the house of Mrs. Ashland, whom he had accompanied homeward from New York.
"Have you the letter for me?"
The letter was that which had come from Europe with the story of his death. On hearing Mrs. Ashland's account, he had at once conjectured that this was but another stroke of Vinal's diplomacy; but he had been careful not to intimate to his friend the least suspicion against the latter.
The commission of obtaining from Edith the letter in question was far from an agreeable one; but Mrs. Ashland had accomplished it, and now placed the paper in Morton's hands.
The signature was not that of Speyer; but at the first glance, Morton was sure that the small, neat handwriting was the same with that of the treacherous notes of introduction given him by Vinal at Paris. As he studied the letter, reading and re-reading it, his companion, who remembered him chiefly as a frank, good-humored young man, was startled at the stern and almost fierce expression which once or twice came over his features, and seemed to be banished by an effort. A vague suspicion of some mystery rose in her mind, but Morton hastened to divert her.
"I hope that Edith will not refuse a visit from me."
Here, again, Mrs. Ashland promised to mediate for him, and in the afternoon he received a note from her, saying that Vinal's wife would see him on the next morning.
At the hour named, he rang at the door, forced his lips to inquire for "Mrs. Vinal," gave his name to the servant, and was shown into the drawing room.
It was nearly five years since he had last seen that well-remembered room. Nothing was changed. It remained precisely as he had known it when he stood prosperously on the farther verge of that dreary chasm of time; and as each familiar object met his eye, such a flood of bitter recollection came upon him, that for a moment he bent his head upon his breast.
He raised it, and started as he did so. Reflected in the mirror at the end of the room, as if the art of some new Cornelius had evoked it, stood, pale as marble, the form that had so long attended his sleeping and waking dreams. Morton turned quickly, and saw Edith standing motionless in the doorway.
He advanced towards her, and took her hand in both his own. She raised her eyes to his face in silence. He tried to speak, but tried in vain. At length he found utterance.
"I know it all. Ellen Ashland has told me every thing. I do not blame you;—no one can blame you."
"Thank God that you think so."
"Yes, thank God; for when I thought that you had forgotten me——"
"Then youdidthink so?"
"For a time; and it seemed to me as if no more constancy were left on earth; as if it had been sapped and undermined in its very citadel."
"Do not believe that I forgot you for a single hour; or that I can ever forget you. You and I have been joined at least in an equal sorrow and suspense. We have walked through depths together, and drank the same gall and bitterness."
"That one month—four miserable weeks—should have worked all this! One month sooner, and this black picture of our lives would have been bright again as the sunshine. I could believe that some infernal power had taken the reins of our fate."
"Do not say so, nor think so. You have fronted death; you have braved despair; and now bear this blow victoriously as you have borne the rest."
"The crowning blow is the heaviest of all."
"Look into my heart,—if you could look into it,—and see on which of us it has fallen with the more sickening and withering force."
Morton looked into her face. It was like a deep lake becalmed, into which strong springs are boiling up from rocks at the bottom. The surface is still; but looking more closely, one may discern faint gliding undulations and trembling lines, which betray the turmoil below. Morton saw them, and felt their purport.
"I would to God," he said, "I could bear your burden for you."
Edith buried her face, and burst into a flood of weeping.
Grief, mixed with more ardent emotion, wrought with such violence in Morton's breast, that he scarcely restrained his impulse to throw himself at her feet. In a few moments, she raised her head.
"Do not think from this, that I am not resigned to what has fallen on us. It is best. Incomprehensible as it is, it is best for us both."
A passionate denial rose to Morton's lips; but he did not utter it.
"I overrated my strength. I am weaker than I hoped to have found myself. You wish to bear my burden! You have had enough to bear of your own, Vassall; but with you, endurance is not the whole. You still have youth, health, vigor. To one of your instincts, the world has noble tasks enough. With a heart steeled by dangers, refined by sufferings, tempered in fires of anguish, what path need you fear to tread? Forget the past;—no, do not forget it; only forget all in it that may damp your courage or weaken your hand. When I knew you first, you were full of zeal in a worthy and generous enterprise. Cling to it still. Let me see the tree which I knew in its blossoming bear a full fruit at maturity. Let me see the ardent and earnest spirit which I knew in the beginning, not quelled or flagging by the way, but holding on its course to the end. The pure chivalry of your heart which constrained me to love you, the instinct which turned towards honor and nobleness as a tree turns its branches to the sun,—do not part from it; keep it unstained for my sake, and let it brighten and strengthen all your life."
"If preachers could speak with your tongue," exclaimed Morton, "the world would forget itself and grow virtuous. The love that I have lost on earth I will set among the stars. It shall be my beacon till the day I die."
"We are too delicate and timorous to bear a part in the active struggles of life; but it is a woman's office to raise and purify the thoughts of those who do. You, whose strong natures are formed for warfare, cannot be so sensitive as we are to every spot that dims the brightness of your armor. It is easy for me, before one whom I have loved as I have loved you, to hold this tone, and be borne up for a time above the thought of grief and renouncement. But it is a different task to still, through all a lifetime, the longings of a woman's heart, and the impatient surgings of a woman's temperament. This is the task assigned me, and I accept it. Life—action—are before you. Patience is my medicine; the slow talisman which must open in the end my door of promise."
Morton pressed her hand to his lips.
"'There is some soul of goodness in things evil.' A sorrow under which, feebly borne, the mind would wither to the earth, borne well will lift it above the clouds. Do not believe that I have deceived any one. He knows on what terms he takes me. I feel respect, esteem, confidence, warm friendship for him."
"May you never be undeceived," thought Morton to himself.
"But for any more ardent love,—that, I told him, was buried in the grave with you."
She was silent for a moment, and then went on.
"It will not be wise, or right, for us to see each other often. In time, you will meet some one with whom you can forget the pain of this separation."
Morton shook his head.
"Yes—at least I trust you will. But we can never forget what we have been to each other. Our reality is melted into a dream, but we must not allow it to remain a dream. Let it be to us a fountain of high thoughts, whose streams may water all our lives."
"You are an alchemist, Edith," said Morton; "you have found the secret to change lead and iron into pure gold. And yet you make me feel, more than ever, if that can be, what a crown I have lost."
When Morton left the house, after a half hour's interview, the agitation with which he had entered it had sunk into quiet; for an influence had fallen upon him as soothing and elevating as if he had been listening to the paschal music in the chapel of the choir at St. Peter's. And as an aeronaut, tossed among tempestuous clouds, is borne of a sudden above the turmoil, and floats serene in a calmer sky, so the troubled mind of Morton felt itself buoyed up for a space above the tumult of passionate and bitter thought.
On the next morning he was walking near the Court House, when a man accosted him, touching his hat with one hand, and holding out the other in the way of friendly salutation. Morton, however, was at a loss to recognize him. He had an air which may most conveniently be described asraffish, a hat set on one side of his head, and a good-natured, easy, devil-may-care face.
"Richards is my name," said the stranger. "I met you at Paris, just before you went into Austria."
This was quite enough. Morton, who had repeatedly revolved all the circumstances connected with his arrest, at once recalled the accident by which he had discovered Richards and Vinal, on their way together to visit Speyer. Morton determined to cultivate this new acquaintance; which, however, seemed likely to grow without much tillage.
"I went on two or three excursions about the city with you, Mr. Vinal, and the rest. Perhaps you have not forgotten it."
"Not in the least; but you are changed since then."
"Yes," said Richards, touching the place where his moustaches had once grown, "I cut them off when I went into practice here in Boston. I found they were ruining my character as a professional man."
"How long were you in Paris after I saw you?"
"Two years, off and on. I wish I were there now." And taking Morton's arm, he proceeded to catechize him touching his imprisonment and escape, of which he said he had first read in the New York Herald. Morton satisfied his curiosity, taking care to give him no suspicion of Speyer's connection with the affair, and allowing him to infer that the arrest was caused by an accidental concurrence of suspicious circumstances. Richards, at the end, broke out into a savage, red republican tirade against Metternich and the Austrian government.
"By the way," said Morton, when his companion's heat had subsided, "do you happen to remember a man called Speyer, or something like it,—a republican propagandist, at Paris? I believe you knew him."
"I never knew any body else," replied Richards, adopting a cis-Atlantic figure of speech for which rhetoricians have as yet found no name.
"Do you know where he is now?"
"What, have you lent money to Speyer, too?"
"He is heavily in my debt," said Morton, evasively.
"That's odd. He seems to have been borrowing money all round. I remember, about a year or more ago, I met Mr. Vinal, and he began to talk about Paris. 'By the way,' said he to me, 'do you happen to remember a man named Spires, or Speyers, or some such thing? I lent him five hundred francs.' 'I wish you may get it,' said I. 'Well,' said Vinal, 'I have a friend going to Paris, who will try what can be done for me.' So I set him on the track. I don't know whether he got his money or not, but I saw him talking with Speyer in the street, one evening last spring, and Vinal looked as sour as if he had swallowed a bottle of vitriol."
"Talking with Speyer last spring!" repeated Morton; "has he been to Paris?"
"Speyer has come out to America. There is not a country in Europe but has grown too hot for him. He was under surveillance in Paris, all the time I knew him."
"When did he come?"
"Six or eight months ago."
"Where is he to be found?"
"In New York, chiefly. If you could have caught him when he was here in Boston, in the spring, you might have got something out of him; for he seemed flush of money."
"What, after you saw him with Vinal?"
"Yes."
"Have you seen him more than once in Boston?"
"Yes, two or three times."
"Is he in New York now?"
"I suppose so; but I would not advise your trying to do any thing with him. You had better pocket your loss, and let him go. However, if you want to try, I can refer you to a man who can probably help you to find his whereabouts."
"Thank you; there's no harm in making the attempt. I don't know Speyer well. What kind of man is he?"
"Well, I will draw his portrait for you. He is sly as a fox; always contriving, plotting, and working under ground. Intrigue is his native element. He takes to it like a chameleon to air, or a salamander to fire."
"An artful, managing fellow, not bold enough to make a direct attack?"
"Bold! There is nothing on the earth, or under it, that he fears. He will not make a direct attack, if he can help it, because it is against his instinct; but press upon him—crowd him a little—and he will show his teeth like a Bengal tiger. He is always in hot water; for he never could be happy out of it. He has his weaknesses, though. A woman whom he takes a fancy to can turn him round her finger. I never knew a man so desperate in that way, or such a devil incarnate when a fit of jealousy seizes him."
"You draw a flattering likeness of your friend," said Morton."
"O," said Richards, laughing, "I cut half my foreign acquaintance, now that I am at home."
Before leaving his new companion, Morton obtained from him the name and direction of the person of whom he had spoken as likely to know where Speyer was to be found. Left alone at length, he pondered on what he had heard:—
"So Vinal applied to Richards, to learn Speyer's address, when he wrote to him to report me dead. Speyer in America!—having interviews with Vinal!—and flush of money! Can it be possible that this agent of his villany has become the instrument of his punishment?—that the Furies are already on his track? If Speyer kept Vinal's letter, as, under the circumstances, such a calculating knave would be apt to do, he has that in his hands which would make my friend open his purse strings; yes, make him coin his life blood, to satisfy him. It is past doubting; Vinal has it now; this cormorant is preying upon him."
That afternoon Morton took the night train to New York, in search of Speyer.