looked not for it in a bride. I sought for one in whom I might confide
every thought, and in finding Isabel my happiness was complete.
“Why should I delay telling the story of my love? Day after day found me
at the cottage of Isabel, and day after day I grew more enraptured with
her artlessness. Together we read in the mornings; and together we
wandered out amidst the beautiful scenery around; and together we sat in
the still evening twilight, when my greatest pleasure was to hear her
sing some of those simple little lays of which her memory preserved such
a store. Ah! those were happy hours,—hours, alas! which can never come
again. From such meetings I would loiter home beneath the summer moon,
with a thousand bright and joyous, yet undefined feelings, thrilling on
every nerve of my frame. And often, as I turned to take a last look at
the little white cottage, embowered in its trees, I thought I could
detect the form of Isabel, standing where I left her as if she still
followed me with her eye.
“It was not long before I declared my love to Isabel, and found that it
was returned with all the fervor and purity of her guileless heart. Oh!
with what rapturous emotions did I hear the first confession of her
sentiments—with what delight did I clasp her hand in mine, as her head
lay upon my bosom—what tumultuous feelings thrilled my soul, as her
dark eyes looked up into my own, with all that purity and depth of
affection which tell that the soul of the gazer is in the look.
“Well, we were married. It was that season of the year in which all
nature puts on her autumn glory, and when hill and plain and valley are
clothed with a garmenture as of a brighter world. The corn was yellowed
for the harvest; the wild flowers were fading from the hill-sides; the
grapes hung down in purple clusters from the old, twisted vines in the
woods; and the birds, that had been used to sing for us, in every grove,
were one by one disappearing, as they took flight for the sunny south.
But could I miss their music while Isabel was by to whisper in her fairy
voice, or cheer me with her low and witching minstrelsy? Was I not
happy—wholly, supremely happy? It was as if I dwelt in an enchanted
land. I forgot, almost, that I was a member of society; saw but little
company; and spent the day with Isabel in rambling around the mountain,
or when confined by the weather to the house, in a thousand little
fireside amusements. We talked of the past, of our plans for the future,
of the hollowness of the great world without, and of that mutual love
for each other which we felt could not be eradicated by the power of a
universe. Isabel was all I had imagined her in my fondest moments. Like
myself, she turned away from the companionship of a selfish world, and
sought only to spend life afar from human strife, secure in the
possession of the one she loved. Alas! little did she think that the
thunder-cloud was hanging, dark and lowering, above us, which would
eventually burst, and bring ruin on our unsheltered heads.
“We saw but little company, I have remarked; but among that little was
one with whom, as subsequent events developed, my destiny was
inextricably woven. He was an old classmate in the University, whom I
had casually met at the neighboring county-town; where he resided in the
capacity of a medical man. Our former intimacy was revived; for Robert
Conway was really a fascinating man. It was not long before he became
intimate with our little family, and, seduced by his plausible demeanor,
I not only engaged him as my family physician, but entrusted him with
the nearest and dearest secrets of my heart. I felt the warmest
friendship for him, and, next to Isabel, there was no one for whom I
would have done so much. I have told you of the poetic nature of my
character; you may have also noticed its warmth; and, in the present
instance, believing I had found a really disinterested friend, I was
hurried away into an infatuation from which I awoke only to find that I
had clasped an adder to my bosom, and that—oh! my God—all my hopes of
life were blasted forever.
“The winter had already set in, when I received a short letter from my
town agent, requesting my immediate presence in the city on business of
the last importance to my fortune. As Isabel was in a weak state of
health, and would not be able to accompany me, I returned an answer,
stating my inability to comply with the summons, and declaring my
willingness to suffer even some pecuniary loss, rather than leave her at
that time.
“In less than a fortnight, however, I received a still more pressing
letter from my correspondent, declaring that my absence had already
prejudiced my fortune, and that nothing but my personal presence could,
in the then distracted state of monetary affairs, preserve myself from
beggary. This was an appeal which, for Isabel’s sake, I could not
resist. That the being whom I loved above myself should be subjected to
the miseries of poverty, was a supposition too harrowing to entertain.
“Never shall I forget the eve of the morning on which I departed. It was
one of surpassing beauty. The landscape without was covered with a
mantle of snow, and the trees were laden with icicles spangled in the
star-light. The heavens were without a cloud, and the innumerable worlds
above, glittered on the blue expanse like jewels on the mantle of a
king. It was, in short, one of those clear, cold nights in early
February, when the very ringing of a sleigh-bell can be heard for miles
across the still expanse of the landscape.
“As Isabel and I stood looking through the casement at the brilliancy of
the starry hosts on high, a melancholy foreboding suddenly shot across
my mind that we were parting to meet no more. I know not how it was, but
the same feeling pervaded the thoughts of Isabel; for as a meteor-star
darted across the sky, and instantly disappeared, she heaved a sigh,
and, turning toward me, said, as she leaned upon my arm, and gazed
confidingly up into my face,—
“‘Do you know, George, that, during all the evening I have been tortured
with a foreboding that our happiness is destined, like yonder
shooting-star, to last only for a while, and then pass away forever? It
may be that this is our last evening. I cannot tell in what shape the
impending evil will come,’ she said, ‘but this I know, that be it what
it may, we shall always love each other, shall we not, George?’
“‘Yes, dearest!’ I replied, kissing her, ‘but dismiss these gloomy
thoughts; they arise only from your ill-health. Believe me, we shall
continue for long, long years to enjoy our present felicity.’ Ah! me,
little did my own feelings coincide with what I said. ‘Cheer up,
dearest, I shall return in a fortnight or so, and by that time shall be
able to assure you that I shall leave you no more.’
“With words like these I attempted to remove the forebodings of Isabel,
but though she smiled faintly in return, I found that I could not wholly
dispel the melancholy of her thoughts. I dreaded the parting on the
morrow, and accordingly, having deceived her as to the hour of my
setting forth, I rose at day-break, kissed her as she lay calmly
sleeping, and, tearing myself from her, entered the mail-stage, and
before the hour when we usually arose, was miles away from our
habitation.
“I reached the city, and found my fortune, indeed, trembling on the
verge of ruin. For some days its preservation engaged every faculty of
my mind, and I found time for nothing else, unless it was to read and
answer the letters I daily received from my sweet wife. The times were
critical. Stocks of every kind—and nearly my whole fortune was vested
in them—were undergoing a fearful depreciation; and one or two heavy
loans which had been made out of my estate, and which completed the
balance of my wealth, were in a most precarious situation. I soon found
it would not only be impossible to settle my affairs so as to rejoin
Isabel at the end of the fortnight, but that I must undertake a journey,
personally, to a southern city, which would delay me at least a month
more; and, accordingly, I penned a hasty note to her on the eve of my
setting out, bidding her look forward, at the expiration of this new
term, to a happy meeting, and informing her at what post-towns I should
look for letters from her.
“I set forth on the ensuing day, but, though I enquired at the various
post-offices along my route, where I expected letters, yet I did not
receive a line from Isabel; and the first epistle which I obtained was a
letter which I found lying for me, on my arrival at the port of my
destination. It had come from P——, and was written prior to Isabel’s
knowledge of my second journey. I have it still by me; every line of it
is graven on my heart; my only prayer is that it may be buried with me,
for alas!—it is the last letter I ever received from Isabel.
“As day after day rolled by without receiving any intelligence from her,
I grew more and more uneasy, until, as the term of my absence drew
toward a close, my sensations approached to agony. A few disappointments
I had borne with fortitude, if not with calmness, for I knew that the
mail was not always regular; but when days grew into weeks, and weeks
had almost grown into months, without the arrival of a single line from
Isabel, either directly from our residence, or indirectly by the way of
P——, nay fears grew insupportable. I was like Prometheus chained to a
rock, and subject to a torture from which there was no escape. At length
I could endure it no longer, but hastily bringing my business to a
close, even at a considerable sacrifice, I set out by rapid journeys
toward my home, without even passing by P——, such was my eagerness to
know what could have been the cause of Isabel’s silence.
“It was on an evening in the latter part of the month of March, when my
jaded horses drew up before the gate of my dwelling. Hastily alighting,
I entered the little lawn, and was soon at my long-sought-for threshold.
But I started back at the sight that met my eyes. The windows were dark
and cheerless; the grass was covered with leaves and broken twigs; the
knobs upon the door were soiled for want of burnishing; and everything
around wore that appearance of loneliness and desolation which marks an
uninhabited house. With a fainting heart I lifted the knocker. The
sounds echoed with hollow distinctness through the house; but no one
replied to the summons. Again and again I repeated it; and again and
again I was unsuccessful. With a heart wild with the most terrible fears
I passed to the back part of the house; but there, too, I found the same
silence and desolation. It was like the house of the dead. Unable longer
to contain myself I rushed back to my carriage, and with an air that
made the coachman believe me insane, ordered him to drive to a
neighboring farm-house.
“‘Who’s there?’ asked a female voice from inside of the cottage, in
answer to my impetuous knock.
“‘I, madam, do you not know me? But where, in heaven’s name, is Isabel?
where is my wife?’ I exclaimed, seeing by the astonished looks of the
woman, that she, too, believed me out of my senses, ‘what is the matter
at my house, that I find it closed?’
“‘Oh! la,’ answered the woman, curtseying as she held the candle to my
face, ‘you are the gentleman that lived at the big house nigh to the
stage-road, across the creek. Gracious me! how wild you look. But, sit
down, sir; we ain’t very nice just now, for baby’s sick, and we can’t
afford help—’
“‘Woman,’ I exclaimed, vehemently interrupting her, and seizing her
fiercely by the arm, ‘in God’s name tell me all. Answer me at once—is
my wife dead?’ and though my voice grew husky, it trembled not, as I put
the fearful question.
“‘Dead! why indeed I don’t know, sir,’ she answered, tremblingly, awed
by my wild demeanor, ‘for it’s been nigh a month since she left here to
join her husband.’
“‘To join _me_!’
“‘Yes, sir. Why didn’t you,’ she asked, perceiving surprise in every
feature of my countenance, ‘write for her? The neighbors all say so, and
Dr. Conway went to see her safe to town; though it’s queer, now, since I
think on’t, that he ain’t got back agin by this time.’
“‘My God,’ I exclaimed, staggering back, as a fearful suspicion flashed
across my mind, ‘was I reserved for this? Oh! Isabel, Isabel—’ But I
could say no more. My brain reeled; my temples throbbed to bursting; a
strange, swimming sensation was in my ears; every thing appeared to
whirl around and around me; and, losing all consciousness, I fell back,
senseless, on the floor.
“When I recovered my recollection, I was leaning against the bed, and a
group, composed of the woman to whom I had been speaking, her husband,
and a farm boy, stood around me. My cravat was untied, and my brow was
wet with water.
“‘My good woman,’ I said faintly, ‘I feel better now. Go on with your
story; I can bear to hear the worst. God help me, though,’ I continued,
placing my hand upon my forehead, ‘it has well nigh drove me mad.’
“She had, however, but little to tell, beyond what I knew already. But
her husband added, that after my departure, he had noticed that not a
day passed without his seeing the vehicle of Dr. Conway in front of my
house; and that, too, long after the returning health of my wife
rendered professional visits unnecessary. He had thought, he said, it
singular, but, as he was not given to gossip, he had kept silence. About
a month since, he added, the house had been shut up, and, under pretence
of rejoining me, Isabel had set out, no one knew whither, with my old
classmate.
“Oh! who can tell the feelings that, during this recital, and for days
after, raged in my bosom? The evidence was unquestionable, irresistible,
damning in its character. And yet I could not—though every one else
did—believe Isabel to be guilty. She was too pure, too artless, too
ardently attached to me. But, then again, how could I resist the
testimony staring me in the face? The visits of Conway; his fascinating
manners; the false report of my having written for her; and her flight
with the seducer, no one knew whither, were circumstances which my
reason could not answer, whatever my assurance of her love might
persuade me. Who knows not the pangs, the torments of uncertainty? And
day after day, while my enquiries of the fugitives were being pushed in
every quarter, did I fluctuate between a confidence in Isabel’s purity,
and the most fearful suspicions of her faith. It was a terrible
struggle, that one in her favor. But at length, as every successive
informant brought new proofs of her infidelity, I settled down into the
agonising belief of her ruin.
“Yet I did not give up my pursuit of the fugitives. No—my God! how
could I forget my shame? The dearest hopes of my heart had been
overthrown, and she, in whom I had trusted as man never before trusted,
had wantonly deserted me—aye! even while my own kisses were still, as
it were, warm upon her cheek. I had sacrificed everything at the shrine
of her love; was this the return my devotedness had met with? What! she
whom I had pressed to my bosom as a wife,—she whom I had made the
incarnation of all ideal loveliness, to be—oh! that I should have to
speak the word—a mere wanton. God of my fathers! was this the destiny
to which I was condemned?
“I am calmer now. I must hurry on, for my breath is rapidly failing me.
My brow burns: bathe it—there, that will do. And open the window. There
is something in this gentle, balmy breeze, fragrant with a thousand
odors, which calls back the memory of happy days, and almost makes me
weep. God grant that none of you may ever suffer as I have suffered.
“I pass by three months, three long and weary months, during which I
received no tidings of the fugitives. They had never been in P——; even
my epistle announcing my departure to the south had never been received
by Isabel, but had been sent, with most of the ensuing ones, as a dead
letter to Washington. I traced the fugitives only for a single stage;
there every clue to them was lost. At length I was about giving over in
despair, when chance revealed what I had so long sought for in vain.
“Did you ever visit an Insane Hospital? You start. Ah! you know nothing
of its horrors unless you have seen your dearest friend writhing beneath
the keeper’s lash, or chained like a felon by his infernal fetters. Do
you understand me? No! the truth is too horrible for you to suspect.
Well, then, it was in visiting one of these loathsome prison-houses that
I saw and recognised, in one of its miserable victims, my own, my lost,
my now suffering Isabel.
“You need not think that I shall grow phrenzied by this harrowing
recital. I have thought of it too often, and endured subsequent agonies
too great, to suffer myself now to lose my reason in reciting it. But
neither will I dwell upon that awful meeting. Suffice it to say that all
my anger against Isabel departed when I saw her, who had once lain pure
and trusting on my bosom, confined as a maniac, in a public hospital.
Oh! I would give worlds could I shut out that horrid sight.
“I soon learnt all from the keeper. Isabel had been placed there nearly
_four_ months before, by a woman I instantly recognised from his
description, to be the one I had procured at my marriage to wait upon
Isabel. She had stated that the patient was a half sister, and had left
an address where she might be found.
“As the rules of the establishment precluded all hope of my removing
Isabel, in spite of my protestations that I was her husband, unless I
brought her pretended relative, to corroborate my account, I was
compelled to rest satisfied with the melancholy pleasure of knowing,
that her disease should receive at my expense, the attention of the best
physicians, and with the renewed hope of discovering her waiting woman,
and thus removing my wife from what I felt was worse than death. Guilty
as she was, she was still my wife, and I could not utterly desert her.
“I entertained little doubt of discovering this woman, although as might
have been supposed, her address was fictitious. I had, in fact, a means
of finding her out which I did not scruple to adopt. She had been an
English woman, and had often boasted of rich relations across the
Atlantic, to whom in her simple vanity, she one day expected to be
heiress. As I knew that, at most, she could only have connived at my
wife’s disgrace, and as I knew also that money was the touch-stone of
every avenue to her heart, I had no doubt whatever as to the success of
the scheme I intended to put in execution. It was simply this: I caused
an advertisement to be extensively circulated, describing her and her
relationship to her English cousin, and informing her that if she would
apply at a certain office in P——, she would hear of something to her
advantage. The bait took. She came in person; I was instantly sent for,
and confronted her. But to come at once to the conclusion of this part
of my story; she owned, upon my threats, and promises of forgiveness
with a large sum of money if she would confess all, that she could
satisfy every particular as yet unknown to me, of this melancholy
tragedy.
“She stated, in effect, that Conway, from the first moment he had beheld
Isabel, had entertained a passion for her, which neither the favor he
had received from me, nor her own purity, nor the impassable barriers
against its gratification, had enabled him to conquer. Indeed it is
questionable if he ever cared to do so. Wilful, headstrong, remorseless,
and careless of every thing but the gratification of his desires, he was
perhaps one of the most hardened villains that ever cursed mankind; a
villain the more dangerous, because his fascinating manners enabled him
to wear the guise of virtue, and perpetrate his infamous designs without
suspicion. But in laying himself out to seduce Isabel, he capped the
climax of his villainy. For a long time, however, he only attempted to
gain the good will of Isabel, and to seduce by large presents, her
waiting woman to his side. As yet he had not ventured to breathe a word
of his unholy passion to its object. But my departure opened new hopes.
Flattered and deceived by the attentions paid him by Isabel,—attentions
which I now learned with the wildest joy, were only paid to him because
he was my friend,—he now resolved to make a bold throw in his perilous
game. He knew my writing well. In a word, he forged a letter purporting
to be from me, to Isabel, requesting her to join me in P——, under his
escort; and by these means he placed my unhappy wife wholly in his
power. As she would not travel without her waiting woman, he was forced
to make her his confidant, and purchase her secrecy by large sums of
money. But why linger on this awful history? Demons themselves would
shudder at its relation. I cannot—yes! I must tell it. Repulsed by
Isabel with scorn, when, on the second day, he ventured to declare his
passion, he told her, with the mockery of a fiend, as he pointed to the
lonely inn where they then were, that resistance was useless.
Yes!—here, hold down your ear, closer, let me whisper it only; he used
force; God of heaven, there was none to save her from the monster’s
fangs!
“There—there—it is over: unhand me I say. But forgive me: I am well
nigh crazed: I know not what I do. Some of that drink. Bless you for
fanning my poor, aching brow; I believe sometimes that I am becoming a
child again. Those tears have relieved me. I am so weak now that they
come involuntarily into my eyes, but time was when it seemed as if they
had been dried up forever at their fountain, and when, in my unutterable
agony, I would have given worlds to weep.
“I forgot to tell you that I felled that hag to the ground like an ox,
when she told me that fearful tale. I could not help it. A woman! and
stand by merciless! Oh! my God it was too much.
“And Isabel then was innocent. Aye! it had driven her mad. Oh! I could
have crept on my hands and knees to her feet, for a whole life-time; if
by so doing I could only have won from her forgiveness, for suspecting
for a single moment, her angel purity. But it was not so to be. It was
my fitting punishment. In the inscrutable designs of that Providence,
before whose bar I shall so soon appear, it was decreed that I should
never more see Isabel in the possession of her reason. She died. I had
only time to hurry from that strange recital to behold her last moments.
Never, never shall I forget that sight.
“She was evidently in the last stage of her malady when I entered the
chamber where she lay; and as she turned her wild, and wasted, but still
beautiful countenance toward me as the door opened, I burst into a flood
of tears, and could scarcely stagger to a seat at her bedside. I
suffered more—will you believe it?—in that moment than I had ever done
before. Our first meeting; our early love; our auspicious union; our
days of after felicity; that long to be remembered night of our
separation; and all the hideous succession of ensuing events whirled
through my brain as if a wild, shadowy phantasmagoria was revolving,
with the swiftness of thought, around me. But more than all my injustice
toward her smote me to the heart. Could I look upon that emaciated face,
in every line of which was stamped sufferings the most extreme, and not
feel its silent though unconscious reproaches? I bent over and kissed
her cheek. As I did so a hot tear-drop fell upon her face.
“‘Who is it weeps?’ faintly said my dying wife, looking vacantly into my
face, ‘ah! I know you not. You are not him. When will he come, when will
he come?’ she continued, in a plaintive tone, drawing tears from every
eye. She was dreaming still that she awaited my return at our
far-off-home. Thank heaven! all else was forgot.
“At this moment one of the physicians entered the room. Noiseless as he
was, her quick ear detected his footstep. She turned quickly around: a
look of disappointment stole over her face. She shook her head
mournfully.
“‘Why don’t he come?’ she murmured, ‘ah! he has forgotten Isabel. Well,’
she continued, in a tone that almost broke my heart, ‘he may desert me,
but never can I desert him.’
“‘Isabel—Isabel,’ I ejaculated, unable longer to contain myself, ‘for
the love of heaven speak not so. Isabel, dear Isabel, do you know me?
Oh! you do. Say, only say you do: one word. Oh! my God, she will never
awake to reason.’