But, above every ruin of hope, or pride, or affection, like an imperial

banner flung from "the outer wall," her imagination waved and triumphed.

"The clouds of glory" she trailed after her were dyed in spheres

unapproachable by death, or shame, or disappointment, and the gift

described in the Arabian story as conferred by the genii's salve when he

touched therewith the eyes of the traveler and caused him to see all the

wonders of the earth, its gems, its gold, its gleaming chrysolites, its

inward fires, unobscured by the interposition of dust and clay, which

veiled them from all the rest of humanity, may stand as a type of her

ideality.

CHAPTER VIII.

The six weeks which had been allotted to me as the term of my captivity

were accomplished, and still Mr. Basil Bainrothe came not--wrote not. I

had seen the month of August glide away, its progress marked only by the

changing fruits and flowers of the season, and the more fervent light

that pierced through the Venetian blinds when turned heavenward, for it

was through these alone that the light of day was permitted to visit my

chamber.

Where, then, was the place of my captivity situated? In the environs of

a great city, possibly, for the wind often blew, laden with fragrance as

from choice rather than extensive gardens, through my casement, and the

shadow of a tall tree impending over the skylight of the bath-room was,

when windy, cast so distinctly on its panes as to convince me of the

neighborhood of an English elm, the foliage of which tree I knew like an

alphabet.

And then, those fairy, Sabbath chimes! Were such musical bells

duplicated in adjacent cities? or was I, indeed, near our old, beloved

church, in which memory so distinctly revealed our ancient, velvet-lined

pew, my father's bowed head, and the venerable pastor rising white-robed

and saintly in his pulpit to bid all the earth keep silent before the

Lord! Conjecture was rife! Thus August passed away.

My birthday had gone by, and the equinox was upon us, with its rapid

changes of sun and storm, when one of these tempests, accompanied by

hail of unusual size, shattered to fragments the skylight of the

bath-room. This hail-storm was succeeded by a deluge of rain, which

flooded not only the adjacent closet, but the chamber I occupied, among

other evils completely submerging the superb Wilton carpet, concerning

the safety of which Mrs. Clayton felt immense responsibility.

A glazier came as soon as the weather permitted, who was carefully

escorted through my chamber by Mrs. Clayton to ascertain the repairs to

be made--a fresh-looking, white-aproned Irish lad, I remember (for a

human being was a novelty to me then), who found it necessary, in order

to repaint the wood-work, to bear the sash away with him, leaving behind

his tray of chisels and putty, and the light step-ladder he had brought

with him on his shoulder, and on whose return I vainly waited as a

chance for communication with the outer world.

While Dinah was busy with mops and brooms drying the carpet, and Mrs.

Clayton thoroughly occupied with her active superintendence of the

needful operations, little mischievous, meddlesome Ernie had made his

way, contrary to all rules, beneath and behind my bed, and torn off a

goodly portion of the gray and gilded paper which had so far effectually

aided to conceal a closed door situated behind the bed-head, from which

the frame had been removed. Then, for the first time since our

acquaintance, did I slap sharply those little, busy fingers which I

could have kissed for thankfulness, and, watching my opportunity, I

replaced the paper, unseen by Mrs. Clayton, with the remains of a

gum-arabic draught which had been prescribed for his cough. I knew that,

after experiencing such condign punishment, he would return no more to

the scene of his destruction, and that he might forget both injury and

discovery, I devoted myself to his amusement during that active, long,

rainy day with unhoped-for success.

The glazier had announced to Mrs. Clayton that his return might be

deferred for four-and-twenty hours, and, as the succeeding day was clear

and warm, I proceeded, in spite of broken sashes, to take my daily bath

as usual at twelve o'clock.

Mrs. Clayton, with her prison-key in her pocket, and her snuffbox at

hand, yielded herself to the delight of ginger-nuts and her

stocking-basket, and rested calmly after her fatigues of the preceding

day; and Ernie, attracted by the crunching noise--the sound of dropping

nuts, perhaps, which betrayed the presence of his favorite article of

food--hastened to keep her company--a thing he never did

disinterestedly, it must be confessed.

An opportunity now presented itself for observation which I knew might

not again occur during my whole captivity; and surely no sailor ever

ascended to the mast-head of the Pinta with a heart more heaved with

emotion than was mine, as I placed my foot on the last rung of the

ladder, and towered from my waist upward above the skylight. I had drawn

the bolt within, as I invariably did while bathing, and with a feeling

of proud security I stood and surveyed the scene beneath and around me.

The angle of vision did not, it is true, embrace objects immediately

below me, owing to the projecting cornices of the flat roof (a mere

excrescence from the original structure, as this was), but beyond this

the eye swept for some distance uninterruptedly.

Bathed in the golden light of that autumn noonday sun, I saw and

recognized a long-familiar scene, and for a moment I reeled on the

slender step as I did so, and all grew dark around me. But, with one of

those energetic impulses that come to us all in time of emergency, I

recovered my balance in time to save myself from falling; and eagerly

and wistfully, as looks the dying wretch on the dear faces he is soon to

see no more, I gazed upon the paradise from which fiends had driven me.

There, indeed, just as I had left it, lay the deep-green grassy lawn,

with its richly-burdened flower-pots, its laburnums, and white and

purple lilacs, and drooping guelder-rose bushes, and its great English

walnut-tree towering, like a Titan, in the centre. There was the

hawthorn-hedge my father's hand had planted, and the fountain-like

weeping-willow my mother had set, in memory of her dead, whose graves

were far away; and there towered the lofty elm-trees, with their long,

low, sweeping branches, meeting in friendly greeting, to two of which a

swing had once been attached as a bond of union--a swing in which it had

once been my childish pleasure to sway and read, while Mabel sat beside

me with her head upon my shoulder, held securely in her place by my

strong, loving, encircling arm.

Nor were these all to assure me that, after a year of melancholy and

eventful absence, I looked again upon the precincts of home. A little

farther on rose the gray wall and tower of the library and belfry, half

concealed by its heavy coating of ivy, glossy and dark, and shutting

away all other view of the mansion. Beyond these last was the pavilion

my father had built for the playhouse of his children, through the open

lattice-door of which I saw a girl seated at her work, with graceful,

bending neck, and half-averted face. A moment later, Claude Bainrothe

lounged across the sward, cigar in hand. At his approach, the face

within was turned, and I recognized, at a glance, that of my young

aurora-like companion of the raft, Ada Greene. Then gazing cautiously

around, as if to elude observation (never dreaming of the eye dropped

like a bird's upon him), he lifted the rosy face in his hand and kissed

it thrice right loverly!

I saw no more--I would not witness more--for had I not learned already

all that I asked or ought to know? Well might the dear old chimes ring

out their Sabbath welcome to one who had obeyed their summons from her

childhood up to womanhood! Well might the summer air bear on its wings

greeting of familiar odors, lost and found!

This was no idle dream, no mirage of a vagrant brain like that

sea-picture, or that wild vision at Beauseincourt, but sober, and sad,

and strange reality. I understood my position from that moment,

geographically as well as physically. I was a prisoner in the house of

Basil Bainrothe (while he, perchance, reigned lordly in my own); that

house whose hidden arcana I had never explored, and which, beyond its

parlor and exterior, was to me as the dwelling of a stranger.

Derisively deferential, he had resigned to me this secluded chamber in

the ell--his own particular sanctum, I remember to have heard--and

betaken himself, in all probability, to the more spacious mansion of his

former neighbor.

Far wiser, even if sadder, than I went up its rounds, did I descend that

ladder!

Half an hour after I had entered it, and with new hope, I emerged from

the bath-room as fresh as a naiad, having first abstracted from the

tool-box of the glazier two tiny chisels of different sizes, and a

small lump of putty, which I secreted, on my first opportunity, in my

favorite hiding-place--a hollow in the post of my bedstead--an

accidental discovery of mine, made during Mrs. Clayton's first illness,

since which I had always insisted on making up my own bed, much to her

relief.

My conscience so disturbed me on the score of this theft, that I

hastened to secrete my only remaining piece of gold in the glazier's

box; ill-judged, as this appeared to me on reflection. The boy was an

apprentice, evidently, and might else, I thought, at the time, have been

the loser. I feared to add a line, and dared not seek a passing word

with him, so carefully was I watched.

I next examined, with the eye of scientific scrutiny, two massive rulers

that lay on my table, one made of maple-wood, and the other of ebony,

and, having selected the first as most available for my purpose,

prepared to commence the most arduous undertaking of my life--the

careful shaping of a wooden key!

I had read somewhere that, during the French Revolution, a young

peasant-girl, by means of such an instrument, had set at large her

lover, or her brother, in _La Vendée;_ having taken with soft wax the

outline of the wards of the lock, in a moment of opportunity.

That day my work began--three times a failure, but at last successful.

With the aid of putty, gradually allowed to harden, I obtained the mould

I desired, in the dead of night, and afterward, whenever privacy, even

for a few minutes, was mine, I drew from my bosom my sacred piece of

sculpture, and worked upon it with knife and chisel alternately, as

devotee never worked on sculptured crucifix. Never shall I forget the

rapture, the ecstasy of that moment, in which, ensconced between my

bed-head and the wall, I slowly turned the key, first thoroughly soaked

in oil, in the morticed wards, and knew, by the slight giving of the

door, that it was unlocked.

Not Ali Baba, when he entered the robbers' cave, and saw the heaps of

gold--all his by the force of one magic word; not Aladdin, when the

genius of the lamp rose to his bidding, bearing salvers of jewels, which

were to purchase for him the hand of the sultan's daughter; not Sindbad,

when he saw the light which led him to the aperture of egress from the

sepulchre in which he had been pent up with his wife's body to die--knew

keener or more triumphant sensations than filled my bosom as I laid that

completed key next my heart, after turning it cautiously backward and

forward in my prison-lock!

I dared not, at that time, draw back the bolt above, that confined it

loosely yet securely, or turn the silver knob sufficiently to set it

even ever so little ajar; but I did both later, when oil had time to do

its subtle work, and I could effect my experiment in silence. Yet I

hazarded nothing of the sort when the quick ear of Mrs. Clayton held

watch in the adjoining room. I was obliged to take advantage of those

moments of rare absence, when, double-locking the doors of her chamber,

both inner and outer, she would descend, for a few minutes, to the

realms below, returning so suddenly and silently as almost to surprise

me, on one or two occasions, at my work.

About the time of the completion of my experiment, I became aware of

sounds in the room beneath my chamber, and sometimes on the great

stairway (of which I now knew the largest platform was situated very

near the head of my bed), that gave token of occupancy.

The rattling of china and silver might be discerned in the ancient

dining-room, at morn and night. The occupant probably dined elsewhere,

but the regularity of these meals was unmistakable.

I recognized, faintly, the step of Bainrothe on the stairway,

distinguishing it readily from any other, as it passed and repassed my

hidden door.

October had now set in, with a chilliness unusual to that bland season,

and I asked for and obtained permission to have a fire kindled in the

wide and gloomy grate of my chamber, hitherto unused by me.

About this household flame, Ernie, Mrs. Clayton, and I gathered

harmoniously; she with her unfailing work-basket, I with book or pencil,

the baby with his blocks and dominoes and painted pictures--the only

happy and truly industrious spirit of the group. My true work was

done--else might it never have been completed.

The presence of fire was indispensable to Mrs. Clayton, and, from the

time of its first lighting, she left me but seldom alone. Her rheumatic

limbs needed the solace that I had no heart to grudge her, distasteful

as she was to me, and becoming more so day by day--false as I now knew

her to be--false at heart.

How hatred grows, when we once admit the germ--not, like love,

parasitically--but strong, stanch, stern, alone throwing down fresh

roots, even hour by hour, like the banyan, monarch of the Eastern

forest. I am afraid I have a turn for this passion naturally, but for

love as well, ten times more intense--so that one pretty well

counterbalances the other.

To carry out the vine-simile, I might as well add at once that, in the

end, the parasitical plant has triumphed, and stifled the sterner

growth. In other words, Christianity has conquered Judaism.

"I suppose I may soon expect a visit from Mr. Bainrothe," I said one

day to Mrs. Clayton. "I think my birthday approaches; can you tell me

the day of the month? I know that of the week from remembering the

Sabbath chimes."

I thought she started slightly at this announcement, but she replied,

unflinchingly:

"The 5th, yes, I am quite sure it is the 5th of the month."

"Do you never see a newspaper, Mrs. Clayton, and, if so, can you not

indulge me with a glimpse of one? I think it would do me good--remind me

that I was alive, I have seen none since the account of Miss Lamarque's

safety, for which God be praised."[6]

"No, Miss Monfort, it is simply impossible. I should be transgressing

the rules of the establishment."

"Dr. Englehart's, I suppose, as if indeed there were such a person," I

said, impetuously--unguardedly.

"Do you pretend to doubt it?" she asked, slowly, setting her greedy eyes

upon my face, and dropping her darning-work and shell upon her knee.

"Why, what possesses you to-day, Miss Miriam?"

"I shall answer no questions, Mrs. Clayton--this right, at least, I

reserve--but, the fact is, I doubt every thing lately, except this

child and God. I do not believe my Creator will forsake me utterly--I

shall not, till the end." And tears rolled down my face, the first I had

shed for days. I had been petrified, of late, by the resolution I was

making, and the effort of mind it had cost me. I had felt, until now,

that I was hardening into stone.

"You desire to see Mr. Bainrothe, I suppose," she remarked, after a long

silence, during which she had again betaken herself to her occupation,

without lifting her eyes as she asked the question.

"I desire to look my fate in the face at once, and understand his

conditions," I replied, sullenly.

"But what if he is not here--what if Dr. Englehart--" lifting her eyes

to mine.

"I cannot be mistaken," I interrupted, with impetuosity. "I have heard

his step; he eats in the room below; I am convinced, for I know of old

that bronchial cough of his--the effect of gormandism--"

Then suddenly, Ernie, looking up, made a revelation, irrelevant, yet to

my ear terrible and astounding, but fortunately incomprehensible to my

companion. What did that little vigilant creature ever fail to remark?

"Mirry make tea," he said, or seemed to say, and my face paled and

flushed alternately, until my brain swam.

"Make tea?" said the voice of Mrs. Clayton, apparently at a great

distance. "No, I will make the tea, Ernie, as long as we stay together.

Mirry does not know how to draw tea like an Englishwoman."

Oh, fortunate misunderstanding! how great was the reaction it

occasioned! From an almost fainting condition I rallied to vivacity,

and, for long, weary hours, sat pointing out pictures to the boy, to win

him to oblivion, and persuade him to silence. Singularly enough, but

not unusual with him, he never resumed the topic. I had taken pains to

hide my work from his observing eyes; and how he knew it, unless he lay

silently and watched me from his little bed, when I worked at early dawn

in mine, I never could conjecture. A few days later Mrs. Clayton

announced to me that Mr. Bainrothe would call very shortly.

It was early morning, I remember, when she laid before me the card of

"Basil Bainrothe," with its elaborate German characters, on which was

written, in pencil, the addendum, "Will call at ten o'clock;" and,

punctual as the hand to the hour, he knocked at the dressing-room door

at the appointed time, and was admitted.

He entered with that light, jaunty step peculiar to him, and which I

have consequently ever associated in others with impudence and guile.

Hat and cane in the left hand, he entered; two fingers of the right

raised to his lips, by way of salutation (he clinched his glove in the

remainder), to be offered to me later, and ignored completely, then

waved carelessly, as if condoning the offense.

He was quite a picture as he came in--a fashion-plate, and as such I

coolly regarded him--fresh, fair, and smiling, looking younger, if

possible, than when we parted a year before, and handsome, as that

much-abused word goes, in his debonair, off-hand style of appearance.

He was dressed with even more than his usual care and trimness (wore

patent-leather boots, my aversion from that hour, for these were the

first I had ever seen), and lavender-colored pantaloons, very tightly

strapped down over them; a glossy black coat and vest, and linen of

unimpeachable quality and whiteness; while a chain of fine Venetian

gold held his watch, or eye-glass, or both, in suspension from his neck.

Yet no beggar in rags ever appeared to me half so loathly as did this

speckless dandy!

"You have come," I said, grimly, as he settled his shirt-collar to speak

to me, after formally depositing his hat and cane, and a roll of paper

he drew from his pocket, on the centre-table, and wiping his face

carefully with his cambric, musk-scented handkerchief, unspeakably

odious and unclean to my olfactories--"you have come at last; yet the

greatest wonder to me is, how you dare appear at all before me," and I

looked upon him right lionly, I believe.

"You were always inclined to assume the offensive with me, Miriam. Yet I

confess you have a little shadow of reason this time, or seem to have,

and I am here to-day for purposes of explanation or compromise" (bowing

gracefully), and he rubbed his palms together very gently and

complacently, looking around as he did so for a chair, which perceiving,

and drawing to the table so as to face me where I sat on the sofa, he

deposited himself upon, assuming at once his usual graceful pose.

It was _fauteuil_, and he threw one arm over that of the chair,

suffering his well-preserved white hand--always suggestive of poultices

to me--with its signet ring, to droop in front of it--a hand which he

moved up and down habitually, as he conversed, in a singularly soothing

and mechanical fashion--his "pendulum" we used to call it in old times,

Evelyn and I, when it was one of our chief resources for amusement to

laugh at "Cagliostro," our _sobriquet_ for this _ci-devant jeune homme_,

it may be remembered.

"Let me premise, Miriam," he began, "by congratulating you on your

improved appearance"--another benign bow. "You were so burned and

blackened by exposure, and so--in short, so very wild-looking when I

last saw you, that I began to fear for the result; but perfect rest and

retirement, and good nursing, have effected wonders. I have never seen

you so fair, so refined-looking, and yet so calm, as you are now

(calmness, my child, is aristocratic--cultivate it!); even if a little

thin and delicate from confinement, yet perfectly healthy, I cannot

doubt, from what I see. Do assure me of your health, my dear girl. You

are as dumb to-day as Grey's celebrated prophetess."

"All personal remarks as coming from you are offensive to me, Mr.

Bainrothe," I rejoined; "proceed to your business at once, whatever that

may be--a truce to preamble and compliments."

"You shall be obeyed," he remarked, bowing low and derisively. "Yet,

believe me, nothing but my care for your fair fame and my own have led

me to confine you in such narrow limits for a season which, I trust, is

almost over. As to my persecutions, which, I am told, you allege as a

reason for leaving your house and friends so precipitately, these are

out of the question henceforth forever, I assure you"--with a wave of

the velvet hand--"since I am privately married to a lady of rank and

fortune, who will soon be openly proclaimed 'my wife,' and who will be

found, on close acquaintance, worthy of your friendship."

While giving utterance to this tirade, Mr. Bainrothe was slowly

unwinding a string from around the roll of papers he had laid on the

table, and which he now proceeded to spread somewhat ostentatiously

before me, still mute and impassive to all his advances as I continued

to be.

"There are several," he said. "Your signature to each, will be

required, which, now that you are in your right mind again, and of age,

will be binding, as you know. My witnesses shall be called in when the

time comes. Dr. Englehart and Mrs. Clayton will suffice as proofs of

these solemnities--these and others likely to occur."

"Solemnities! Levities, mockeries rather!" I could not help rejoining.

He felt the sarcasm. His florid cheek paled with anger, his

yellow-speckled eyes glowed with lurid fire, he compressed his lips

bitterly as he said:

"Marriage is usually considered a solemnity, Miss Monfort; and, let me

assure you, it is only as a married woman I can conscientiously release

you from confinement. You have shown yourself too erratic to be

intrusted in future with your own liberties."

"Possibly," I rejoined. "Yet I mean to have the selection, let me assure

you, in return, of the controller of my liberties--nay, have already

selected him, for aught you know!"

My cool audacity seemed for a moment to paralyze even his own. He paused

and surveyed me, as if in doubt of his own senses.

"_Impayable!_" I heard him murmur, softly, and, turning to the

book-shelves, he left me for a time to master the contents of the three

documents over which I was bending.

I read them in order as they were numbered, and became more and more

indignant as their meaning opened upon my brain, and culminated at last

in a sharp, sudden exclamation of utter disdain.

I started from my chair and approached him, paper in hand. I think for

a few moments the idea of personal danger possessed him, and the vision

of a concealed dirk or pistol swam before his eyes, which he shielded

with his hand, while he placed a chair between us; and, truth to say,

there was murder in my heart, and in my eyes as well, I suppose, even if

the mistrust went no further.

I could have obliterated him from the face of the earth at that moment

as remorselessly as if he had been a viper in my path striking to sting

me. Yet I advanced toward him with no demonstration or intentions of

this kind, having the habits of lady-like breeding and usual innocence

of weapons, and ignorance of the use thereof as well, to restrain me.

I forget. Close to my heart lay one of the sharp, shining chisels I had

taken from the glazier in the bath-room.

"What is it you object to, Miriam?" he asked, in faltering tones, as his

hand fell and his glimmering eyes encountered mine.

From that day I have believed the legend which tells that, when the

Roman, helpless in his dungeon, thundered forth, "Slave! darest thou

kill Caius Marius?" the armed minion of murder turned and fled, dropping

the knife he held, in his panic, at the feet of the man he came to slay.

Almost such effect was for a time observable in Basil Bainrothe.

It made me smile bitterly. "All, every thing," I answered. "The whole

requisition, from first to last, is base, dastardly--crime-confessing,

too--if seen with discriminating eyes. Why, if innocent of fraud toward

me and mine, should you ask a formal acknowledgment on my part as to

your just administration of my affairs, and a recantation of all I have

said to the contrary, both with regard to yourself and Evelyn Erle?

Such are the contents of this first paper, the only one that I could,

under any possible circumstances, be induced to sign as a compromise

with your villainy; for, not to gain my own life or liberty, will I ever

put hand to the others, infamous as they are on the very surface."

"Miriam, this violence surprises me, is wholly unlooked for, and

unnecessary," he remarked, mildly. "From what Mrs. Clayton has told me,

I had supposed that my disinterested care and assiduity with regard to

your condition were about to meet their reward in your rational

submission to the necessities of your case and mine. Resume your seat, I

entreat you, and let us calmly discuss a matter that seems to agitate

you so unduly. Perhaps I may be able to place it before you in a better

light ere we have concluded our interview. You will sit down again,

Miriam, will you not?"

"Oh, surely, if you are alarmed; but, really, I should suppose, with

Mrs. Clayton and Dr. Englehart no doubt in call, you need not be so

tremulous. There, you are quite safe, I assure you, in your old place,

with the table between us;" and I pointed derisively to the _fauteuil_ he

had occupied so gracefully a few moments before, and into which he now

slowly subsided.

"Contemptuous girl," he broke forth at last, "you may yet live to regret

this behavior; so far, nothing has been denied you; no expense has been

spared for your comfort; in a tribunal of justice you could say this, no

more: 'My guardian, thinking me mad from his experiences of my conduct

and health, and regaining accidental possession of me at a time when,

under a feigned name, I was thought to be drowned, deemed it best,

before revealing my existence to the world, to try and restore me to

sanity by private measures, rather than bring upon my malady the eyes

of a mocking world. In doing this, he used all delicacy, all devotion,

surrounding me with comforts, and many luxuries, and even humoring my

insane whim to have the companionship of a year-old child found with me

on the raft under circumstances suspicious--if no more--'"

"Wretch!" I gasped, "dare only asperse me in thought, and"--the menace

hung suspended on my tongue. What power had I to execute it, even if

uttered?

"As to my name, I feigned none. It was my mother's, is my own, and from

her I inherited, or, from the race of which she sprang, the power to

remember and avenge my wrongs; to hate, and curse--and blast, perhaps,

as well--such as you and yours, granted to his chosen children through

the power of Almighty God!" And again I rose and confronted him; then

fiercely pointed down upon his ignoble head, now bowed involuntarily,

either from policy or nervous terror, I never knew, a finger quivering

and keen with scorn and rage, an index of the mind that directed it.

"I wonder you are not afraid to behave to me in this manner," he said,

at length, lifting his head with a spasmodic jerk, and raising to mine

his mottled, angry eyes, now cold and hard as pebbles, "seeing that you

are, so to speak, in the hollow of my hand;" and, suiting the action to

the word, he extended his long, spongy, right hand, and closed it

crushingly, as though it contained a worm, while he smiled and

sneered--oh, such a sneer! it seemed to fill the room.

"True, true--I am very helpless," I said, sitting down with a sudden

revulsion of feeling, and, clasping my hands above my eyes, I wept

aloud, adding, a moment later, as I indignantly wiped my tears: "Yes, if

the worst betide, there will only be one more martyr; and, what is

martyrdom, that any need shrink from it? The world is full of it!"

"Nothing, if you are used to it," he said, carelessly, "as the old woman

remarked of the eels she was skinning alive; I suppose you know all

about it by this time. But come, you are rational again, now, and I

don't wish to be hard on you, Miriam; I don't, upon my soul!"

"Your soul!" I murmured---"your soul!" I reiterated louder; and I smiled

at the idea that suggested itself--"have reptiles souls?"

"The memory of your father alone, my old, confiding friend, one of the

most perfect of men, as I always thought him, would incline me kindly to

his daughter, even if no other tie existed between us," he said calmly,

unmindful of my sarcasm. "But other ties do exist, mistaken girl! The

world looks upon us as one family--since the marriage of Claude and

Evelyn, that uncongenial union which, but for your caprice, would never

have taken place, and which is at the root of all our misfortunes, all

our fatal necessities."

"Necessities!" I muttered, between my clinched teeth, drumming with my

fingers impatiently on the table before me, and smiling scornfully a

moment later.

"You seem in a mood for iteration, to-day, Miss Monfort."

"I make my running commentaries in that way, Mr. Bainrothe. But a truce

to recrimination and reminiscence both. Let us adhere strictly to the

letter and verse of our affairs. These papers form the subject of your

visit, I believe. Know, at once, that the first I will sign, on certain

conditions, bitter and humiliating as I feel it to be obliged to do

this; but, that I will ever consent to yield the guardianship of my

sister wholly to Evelyn Erie and her husband, or divest myself of my

house and furniture, or my wild lands in Georgia, to you, here first

named to me, in consideration of expenses already incurred and to be

incurred for Mabel's education, and my own safe-keeping, during a long

attack of lunacy; or that I will, to crown the whole iniquitous

requisition, consent to give my hand in marriage to that scoundrel--Luke

Gregory!--are visions as vain as those of the child who tried to grasp a

comet or the moon--or, to descend in comparison, to catch a bird by

putting salt on its tail! There, you have my ultimatum; now go and make

the best of it!"

"I am prepared for your objections--prepared, too, to overcome them," he

said, coolly. "Take time to consider all this. I do not expect an answer

to-day, did not when I came, nor will I accept one signature without the

whole. There is no compromise possible. As to your marriage--it must be

accomplished before you leave this room. I, as a magistrate, can tie the

knot--fast enough to bind all the other agreements to certain

fulfillments, for Gregory is a friend of mine, and a man of honor, and

will see them carried out to the letter. He loves you, too, and proves

it, for he takes you penniless. Afterward a priest may complete the

ceremony if you have any scruples. Then, of course, it rests between you

and Gregory, whether you remain together or separate as wide as the

poles--I shall wash my hands of the whole affair thereafter, having

secured my good name and yours."

I stood with bowed head and moving lips before him--mutely, indignantly.

"I shall, however, make all this," he continued, "appear as well as

possible to your friends and mine, especially, believe me, Miriam! I

shall state, for your sake, that, after being rescued from the raft, you

were partially insane, but still sufficiently mistress of yourself to

coincide with me and your sisters in the wish to let your death as Miss

Harz pass current with the world, until you should redeem your errors"

(what errors?), "and be restored to health and perfect reason. You will

see that your acknowledgment of the last paper includes these

extenuating facts, when you have leisure to re-read it (for I saw how

hastily you glanced over that one in particular); you must do me the

favor to peruse it much more carefully," drawing on his gloves coolly,

"before you make your final decision. You are very comfortable here, my

dear girl," glancing around benignly, "but you have no conception of the

frame of mind, bare walls, utter solitude, a fireless hearth and a

frugal table, would bring about in a very few days or weeks, or even in

one as resolute and defiant as yourself. I should be loath to try such

an experiment _or deprive you of your child_--but _necessitous non habet

legem,_ the school-book says. I think you, too, studied a little Latin,

Miriam?"

"Monster!"

"Not a very relevant or polite remark, I must confess. By-the-by,

Miriam, as you stand before me with your well-poised figure--your

blazing eyes--your quivering nostrils--your curling, compressed

lip--your heaving chest (always a splendid feature in your _physique_),

your folded arms, and the color coming and going in your pale-olive

cheek, in the old flame-like way I used to admire so much in your

girlhood--you are a splendid creature, by Jove! I could find it in my

heart to love you still--there, it is out at last--if it were not for

Mrs. Raymond--" glancing, as he spoke, in the direction of Mrs. Clayton,

with a knowing smile, "It was your magnificent disdain that kindled the

torch before. Beware how you revive that fanaticism of mine!"

I turned for one moment with an involuntary feeling of appeal to Mrs.

Clayton, but her cold, green eyes were quivering in accordance with the

smile that stretched her thin lips to a line of mocking mirth. One

glimpse of sympathy would have carried me to her arms for

refuge--distasteful as she was to me in every way save one. She, like

myself, was a woman. But such perversion of all natural feeling

estranged me from her irreconcilably and forever.

I was alone; shame, humiliation, despair, possessed me; indignation, for

the insult I was forced to bear in her presence, filled my soul--I stood

with my head cast down, tears raining on my bosom, my arms dropped

nervelessly beside me, my hands clinched, my whole frame trembling with

excitement.

Slowly and one by one came those convulsive sobs--that rend and wrench

the physical frame as earthquakes do the earth. Then rose the sudden

resolve--born of volcanic impulse, irresistible to mind as is the

lava-flood to matter, sweeping before it all obstructions of reason,

habit, expediency.

If it cost me my life I would avenge myself on this tiger, thirsting for

my blood; I would anticipate him in his work of destruction, and the

strength of Samson seemed to permeate my frame.

It was strange that at that moment of cold, impetuous energy I forgot

the steel I carried in my bosom, and thought only of the power I bore in

my own hands. I determined to strangle him with my strong, elastic

fingers, of which I knew full well the powerful grasp.

The consequences were as cobwebs in my estimate--compared to the ecstasy

of such revenge--for all this flashed through my brain with the swift

vividness of lightning, and in less than thirty seconds after his last

remark this matter was matured. The woman prevailed over the lady.

I raised my eyes slowly and dashed away my tears, preparatory to the

onset. He was looking at me wonder-struck, and, perhaps, with something

like compunction in his face as I met his gaze. He must have read an

expression that appalled him in those dilated eyes of mine that

confronted his, for, as I sprang toward him, he bounded backward and

escaped through the door of Mrs. Clayton's chamber, which he shut after

him with undignified alertness. I stood smiling, and strangely cold,

leaning against the mantel-shelf, while my heart beat as though it would

have leaped from my throat, and I could feel the pallor of my face as

chill as marble.

Mrs. Clayton approached me, but I put her away with waving hands. "Go,

wretch!" I said, "woman no more, you have unsexed yourself. Leave me in

peace--your touch is poisonous."

She shrank away silently, and I stood for a while like one frozen; then

cast myself down on a chair and gave way to bitter weeping. The

flood-gates were open, and the "waters" had indeed "come in over my

soul." I had restrained my passionate inclinations until now, not only

from a sense of personal dignity, but from a determination not to play

into the hands of my enemies and captors, and all the more from such

long self-control was the revulsion potent and overwhelming.

The consciousness that Ernie was at my knee at last aroused me from the

indulgence of my grief, and I looked down to meet his compassionate and

inquiring eyes fixed upon me with a masterful expression I have never

seen in any other childish face. It thrilled me to the heart.

"What Mirry cry for--is God mad with Mirry?" he asked at length.

"It seems so, Ernie--yet oh, no, no! I cannot, will not believe in such

injustice on the part of the Most High!" I pursued in sad soliloquy,

with folded hands, and shaking head; and musing eyes fixed on the fire

before me: "My God will not forsake me!"

"Did the bad man hurt Mirry?" he asked, leaning with both arms on my lap

and putting up his hand to touch my face.

"Yes, very cruelly, Ernie."

"Big giant will come and kill him, and fayways put him in the river, and

the old wolf wat eat Red Riding Hood eat him, and then the devil will

roast him for his dinner."

I could but smile, albeit through my tears, at the climax of these

threats which seemed to delight and stir the inmost soul of Ernie. His

eyes flashed, his cheek crimsoned, his wide red mouth curled with

disdainful ire, disclosing the small, pointed pearls within; he seemed

transfigured.

"And Ernie! what will Ernie do for Mirry?" I asked, as I watched the

workings of his expressive face. "Will Ernie let the wicked man kill

Mirry?"

He looked at his small hands and arms, then extended them wistfully.

"Ernie will tell good Jesus," he said, "and he will make Ernie grow

big--ever so big--to tie the man and put him in a bag like Clayton's

cat."

The burlesque was irresistible, and none the less so that the child was

so direfully in earnest. To his infant imagination no worse disaster

than had befallen Clayton's cat could be devised. This animal, adored by

him, had been bagged and exiled, perhaps drowned for aught I know, for

stealing cheese from the cupboard sacred to Clayton, by that vengeful

potentate, to the despair of Ernie. The idolized kittens, too, which had

followed her, had disappeared with their mother, and days of infant

melancholy ensued, during which the canaries before referred to were

brought as substitutes. The faithful heart still clung to its feline

passion, it was evident, though for weeks the memory of that hapless cat

had been ignored and its name unmentioned.

I believe, after my momentary wrath was over, I should have been content

with the punishment suggested by the child, as sufficient even for Basil

Bainrothe.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: The raft on which Miss Lamarque and her family had found

refuge had been swept by the tempest of nearly every soul that clung to

it, after a terrible night of storm and rain, during which that

courageous lady--that Sybarite of society--sustained the fainting souls

of her companions by singing the grand anthems of her Church, in a voice

loud, clear, and sweet as that of a dying swan. One child was saved of

the nine little ones, and the brother and sister remained almost alone

on the raft. Let it be here mentioned that, at no period of her

subsequent life, a long and apparently prosperous one, could Miss

Lamarque bear to hear the circumstances of the wreck alluded to. Mr.

Dunmore and his companions found a watery grave.]

CHAPTER IX.

A nervous headache, that confined me to my bed for several days,

succeeded the degrading and exciting scene through which I had passed,

and, as Mrs. Clayton had at the same time one of her prostrating

neuralgic attacks, the services of Dinah were in active requisition.

During my own peculiar phase of suffering, the small racket of Ernie,

unnoticed in hours of health, grated painfully on my ear, and I caught

eagerly at the proposition of the negress to take him down-stairs for a

walk and hours of play in the sunshine, privileges he did not very often

obtain in these latter days.

I was much the better for having lain silently for a time, when he

returned with his hands filled with flowers, his lips smelling of

peppermint-drops, and his eyes, always his finest feature, dancing with

delight.

He had seen Ady, he told me, with eagerness, and she had kissed him, and

tied a string of beads about his neck--red ones--which he displayed; and

"Ady had a comb in her head, and her toof was broke"--touching one of

his own front teeth lightly, so that I knew he was not pointing out any

deficiency in the afore-mentioned comb. From this description, vague as

it was, I identified Ada Greene as the person intended to be described;

for I too had observed the imperfection he made a point of--a broken

tooth, impairing the beauty of otherwise faultless ones.

"And who gave you the flowers, Ernie?" I asked, receiving them from his

generous hands as I spoke, and raising the white roses to my nostrils to

inhale their delicate breath. "Did Ady give you these?"

"No--Angy!" he answered, solemnly.

"Tell me about Angy, Ernie--had she wings?"

"No wings! Poor Angy could not fly. She was walking in the garden with

Adam and Eve, with their clothes on," he said, earnestly.

"Mr. and Mrs. Claude Bainrothe, no doubt," I thought, smiling at the

strange mixture of the real and the ideal--the plates of the old Bible

evidently supplied the latter, from which many of his impressions were

derived--and the practical pair in question the former, quietly

perambulating together.

But "Angy!" Could I doubt for one moment to whom he applied that

celestial title? The face of one of the angels in the transfiguration

did, indeed, resemble Mabel's. I had often remarked and pondered over

it.

"Tell me about Angy, Ernie," I entreated. "O Heaven! to think her hands

have touched these flowers--her sweet face bent above him! Darling,

darling! to be divided and yet so near! It breaks my heart!" and tears

flowed freely while he tried to describe the vision that had so

impressed him, in his earnest way.

"Poor Angy got no wings," he began again; "bu hair, and bu eyes, and bu

dress"--every thing he admired was blue--"and she kissed Ernie and gave

him peppermint-drops. Then Adam and Eve laughed just so"--grinning

wonderfully--"and said, 'Go home, bad, ugly child, with a back on!' Then

Angy pulled flowers and gave Ernie!"

"It is only the little gal next door--I means de young lady ob de

'stablishment, wat de poor, foolish, humped-shouldered baby talking

about," Dinah explained. "He calls her 'Angy,' I s'pose, 'cause she's so

purty like; and you tells him 'bout dem hebbenly kine of people, so de

say, mos' ebbery night. Does you think dar is such tings, sure enough,

Mirry?"

"Certainly, Dinah--the Bible tells us so; but what is the name of the

pretty little girl of whom you speak? Tell me, if you know"--and I laid

my hand upon her arm and whispered this inquiry, waiting impatiently for

a confirmation of my almost certainty. For, that my darling _was_

Ernie's Angy, I could not doubt, and the thought moved me to tremulous

emotion.

"Dar, now: you is going to hab one ob dem bad turns agin--I sees it in

your eyes. You see," dropping her voice for a moment, "I darsn't dar to

speak out plain and 'bove-board heah, as if I was at home in Georgy!

Ebbery ting is wat dey calls a mist'ry' hereabouts; an' I has bin

notified not to tell ob no secret doins ob deirn to any airthly creeter,

onless I wants to be smacked into jail an' guv up to my wrong owners. My

own folks went down on de 'Scewsko;' an' I means to wait till I see how

dat 'state's gwine to be settled up afore I pursents myself as 'mong de

live ones. We is all published as dead, you sees, honey, an' it would be

no lie to preach, our funeral, or eben put up our foot-board.

He--he--he! I wonder wat my ole man'll say ef he ebber sees me comin'

back agin wid a bag full ob money? I guess it'll skeer de ole creeter

out ob a year's growfe; but dis is de trufe! Ef Miss Polly Allen gits de

'state (she was my mistis's born full-sister, an' a mity fine ole maid,

I tells you, chile!), wy, den Sabra'll be found to be no ghose; fur it's

easier to lib wid good wite folks Souf dan Norf. We hab our own housen

dar, an' pigs, an' poultry, an' taturs, an' a heap besides, an' time to

come an' go, an' doctors wen we's sick, an' our own preachin', an' de

banjo an' bones to dance by, an' de best ob funeral 'casions an'

weddin's bofe, an' no cole wedder, an' nuffin to do but set by de light

wood-fiah an' smoke a pipe wen we gits past work; an' we chooses our own

time to lay by--some sooner, some later, 'cordin' as de jints holes out.

But here it is work--work--work--all de time; good pay, but no

holiday, no yams, no possum-meat, an' mity mean colored siety!"

"But what has all this to do with the name of the little girl next door?

Whisper that, and tell me the rest afterward."

"But, if Master Jack Dillard gits de 'state," she proceeded, as though

she had not heard my eager question, "wy, den Sabra Smif am as dead as a

door-nail from dis time to de day ob judgment, an' de ole man'll have to

git anoder 'fectionate companion. I'se mity sorry for de poor ole soul,

but I a'n't gwine to put myself in Jack Dillard's claws, not ef I knows

myself. He's one ob dem young wite sort wat lubs de card-table, an'

don't scriminate atween ole an' young folks. You see, he's my masta's

nevy--for de ole folks had no chillun but Miss May Jane, an' she's bin

dead dis fifteen yeer, and bofe her chilluns dun follered her to de

grabe, so dere is only Miss Polly Ann lef, and--"

Here Mrs. Clayton groaned audibly, and, calling Dinah to her aid, broke

up the _tête-à-tête_ if such might justly have been called our

interview. It was not very long, however, before Dinah returned to my

bedside, by Mrs. Clayton's directions, to offer to comb out my hair,

which was tangled beyond my skill to thread in my prostrate condition.

Yet, to make an effort so far as to rise and have this done, I knew

would be of benefit to me.

We were sitting by the toilet, while the process of untangling my

massive length of locks was going on, and the upper drawer thereof was

half open, thus affording me a glimpse of its contents. Among these was

my silent watch with its chain of gold, its pencil and seal attached. I

wore it usually (though useless now in its silent condition--the

mainspring was broken) from habit and for safe keeping, but had laid it

there when I staggered to my bed, ill and weak after my terrible

interview with Mr. Bainrothe.

It caught the eye of Dinah and stirred her master-passion, avarice, and

she began to question me, I soon saw, with a view of getting it in her

own possession. The selfishness of the old negress had struck me on the

raft as something rare even in one of her shallow race, and my

conviction of her cowardice and coldness prevented me from taking

advantage of her cupidity, as I might have done otherwise.

She was fully capable, I felt convinced, of accepting my watch as a

bribe, and failing afterward to come up to her bargain. Yet, dear as it

was to me from association of ideas, I should not have weighed it an

instant against the merest probability of escape. I knew if I could gain

an hour upon my pursuers, I should be safe in the house of Dr.

Pemberton, or even in that of Dr. Craig, another friend of my father's.

I was comparatively at home anywhere in the city of my nativity,

acquainted as I was with its streets and people, and I fully determined,

when I found Sabra's avarice excited, to offer her as a reward this

golden treasure, should she first place me in circumstances to gain my

freedom.

"Dey calls you pore, honey," she said softly, "but wen I sees dat

bright gole watch and chain I knows better. Now I reckon dey would bring

enough bright silver dollars at a juglar's shop to buy my ole man twice

over agin! He is but porely, and our chilluns is all dead and gone,

anyway, all but one, way down in New Orleans, an' ef I could git his

free papers he might come here and jine his wife in freedom, even if

Massa Jack Dillard did heir masta's estate. How much would dat watch and

chain be worth, honey?"

"Two or three hundred dollars, I suppose, I don't know exactly; but

certainly enough to buy your old man at Southerners' value set upon aged

negroes; but whether it be or not--"

An apparition, of which I fortunately caught the reflection in the glass

before me, cut short the promise that hovered on my lips. It was that of

Mrs. Clayton, in her bed-gown and swathed in flannel, peering, peeping,

listening at the door of her chamber, as unlovely a vision, certainly,

as ever broke up an _entretien_ or dissolved a delusion.

I maintained my self-possession, though my agitation was extreme (the

crisis had seemed so favorable!), while she limped forward and accosted

me civilly, with a demand as peremptory as a highwayman's for my watch

and chain, of which I took no notice.

"I should be doing you great injustice in your condition," she added,

coolly, "to let you sell your watch, even to benefit Dinah and her old

man, benevolent as is your motive; so I must take possession of it, or

send for Dr. Englehart to do so, whichever you prefer."

"The watch is there," I said, rising haughtily, with my still unadjusted

hair falling about me. "It was my father's and is precious to me far

beyond its intrinsic value; and I shall hold you accountable for it some

day. Take it at once, though, rather than recall the person before me

with whose presence you menace me. Keep it yourself, however; I would

rather deal with you than the others, false as you have shown yourself

to every promise."

"I wish you would be reasonable," she said, "and do what your friends

ask of you. This confinement is wearing us both out; it will be the

death of me, and you will be to blame."

"The sooner the better," I rejoined, heartlessly.

"Ah, Miss Monfort, you have no better friend than I am, perhaps, but you

are ungrateful."

"I hope not; but some things of late have shaken, I confess, what little

faith I had in you; this confiscation of my property is one of them."

"You know why this is done; I need not explain, but I shall trust you

fearlessly in Dinah's society in future. I believe you have no other

treasure to bribe her with," and, smiling in her sardonic way, she

turned and limped to her bedroom, which it had cost her so great an

effort to leave. Her groans and moans during the remainder of the

evening were piteous, and Dinah could do nothing to comfort her. A

sudden determination possessed me. My own system recuperated rapidly,

and after a nervous headache I was always conscious of renewed vital

power and of keener sensations. I would try the experiment once

more--hazarded under circumstances so different that it made me

tremulous but to think of the vast abyss between my _now_ and then--and

essay, to magnetize Mrs. Clayton.

She could not sleep naturally, and she feared evidently to avail herself

of opiates, lest in her heavy slumber, perhaps, I should escape. In her

normal condition this seemed impossible, for she slept habitually as

lightly as a cat, or bird upon its perch, yet lying, and with her key

beneath her head (never dreaming of other outlet) she felt at ease. I

had already learned that since her illness there were additional

precautions taken to insure my safety, and, as she had alleged, her own

fidelity.

The Dragon was watched in turn by a Cerberus--no other than the

long-trusted colored coachman of Basil Bainrothe, of whom mention has

been made far back in these pages.

Thus secure and secured, Mrs. Clayton might have surrendered herself to

slumber with all serenity, one would suppose, had it not absolutely

refused to visit her eyelids, and the suggestion of an opiate, on my

part, was received for some reason in dumb derision.

I went to her at last, and said: "Mrs. Clayton, I hear you groaning

grievously, and I fancy I could relieve you. The laying on of hands is a

sort of gift of mine; let me try by such means to ease your pain."

"Thank you, Miss Monfort," very dryly, "you are very kind, indeed, but I

don't think you can relieve me. I have excruciating neuralgia in my

eyebones and temples, and my hands are cramped again. Dinah has been

rubbing, without bettering them, for the last half hour."

"Let me try," and, without farther parley, I sat down to my

self-appointed, loathed, and detested task, first quietly dismissing

Dinah to the next room, where Ernie was eating his supper, and I knew

would soon be wanting to be put to bed. We changed places for a time,

and it was not long before Mrs. Clayton pronounced the pain in her eyes

"almost gone." The experiment was a desperate one, and I bore to it all

the powers of my organization--mental and physical--and had the

satisfaction in less than an hour to see her sleeping profoundly. She

had been failing fast under her painful vigils, and I knew that a few

hours of refreshing sleep would be worth to her more than all the drugs

in the Pharmacopoeia. Now came the test which was to make this slumber

worth nothing or every thing to me. If she could be awakened from it

without my coincidence, it would prove, perhaps, only a snare to my

feet, but if her waking depended on my will, then might I indeed hope to

baffle my Dragon, and, as far as she was concerned, make sure of my

escape. I willed then earnestly that she should sleep until twelve

o'clock; and at ten, when Dinah became impatient to retire, I gave her

permission, in order to gain egress to try and arouse Mrs. Clayton.

In consequence of this immurement of our servant, I had remained

supperless--beyond the crusts of bread left by Ernie and some cold tea

in Mrs. Clayton's teapot, of which I partook with an appetite born of

exhaustion. Those who have undertaken this "laying on of hands," for the

purpose of soothing pain, will comprehend what the succeeding sensation

of nerveless prostration is--those only--and give me their sympathy.

From her errand to arouse our sleeper in quest of the key, of course

Dinah returned disconsolate. Greatly to my satisfaction, she stated that

it was "out ob de question to try to git her eyes open. Why honey," she

pursued, "ef I didn't know what a steady-goin' Christian creetur she

was, I mout suppose she had bin 'bibin' of whisky or peach-brandy--dat's

de sleepiest stuff goin', chile; but I does believe she has the fallin'

fits, caze, even wen I pulled open one corner of her eyes, dey was

rolled clean back in her head. Mebbe she's dyin', chile, an' ef she

is--but no!" she muttered, "dat ole creetur down-stairs nebber leaves

dem back-doors open one minute, you had better believe, even ef he

happens to turn his back a spell, an' it would be no use tryin' to git

out ob de 'stablishment dat way, but I knows whar she keeps her key, an'

I kin go to bed myself if you say so, an' you kin lock de do' inside,

an' lay de key back undernefe her pillow: you see dar's a bolt outside,

too, honey, an' I means to draw dat after me, as ole Caleb always does

ob nights wen he goes to bed."

Chuckling low at the manifest disappointment in my face, she

disappeared, to return almost instantly.

"I thought she must be possumin'," she said, "but I know she is as fas'

asleep now as de bar' in de hollow ob a tree in cole wedder, for she

made no 'sistance like wen I grabbed de key from undernefe her head, an'

here it is, chile, an' ef you wants to try your 'speriment you kin, but

I spec you'd better wait a spell," and she looked cunningly at me;

"dere's traps everywhar in dese woods!"

It occurred to me as well that Mrs. Clayton might be feigning slumber,

having penetrated my design of lulling and soothing her fitful spirit to

rest; and feeling, as I did, an utter want of confidence in Sabra, not

only as free agent but as watched attendant, I determined as far as in

me lay to disarm suspicion by duplicity. So I lifted up my voice in

testimony of deceit, and declared my weariness of bondage to be such

that I had determined to embrace Mr. Bainrothe's conditions, and that in

a few days I should be free again without assistance.

"So take the key, Dinah," I said, after observing it closely, and

perceiving that it was several sizes larger than that I had made, as

clumsy as that was, and, therefore, could be of no use to me. "Let

yourself out, and bolt the door behind you, and Mrs. Clayton shall see

that I will take no mean advantage of her slumbers."

This arrangement having been carried with speedy effect, I returned to

my own chamber after a close scrutiny of Mrs. Clayton's condition, and

employed myself at once in running my penknife around the door concealed

by my bed-head, and thus loosening the paper, pasted on cotton cloth,

that covered it, from that of the wall, with which it was connected so

intimately as to make the whole surface within the chamber seem to form

one partition.

Long before this I had cut that which surrounded the lock, so that it

lay like a flap, over it, fastened down lightly, however, with

gum-arabic (part of Ernie's draught for a catarrh), so as to baffle

slight inspection. My heart beat wildly as, after having effected this

preliminary step, I cautiously unlocked the door, which, for aught I

knew, might be, like that of Mrs. Clayton's closet, bolted without, so

as to frustrate all my efforts. It opened outwardly, and could have been

readily so secured.

In the great providence of God, it was not bolted. I sank on my knees,

weak and prayerful, I remember, as the door swung slightly back,

revealing the platform beyond, and the short stair that led from it up

to the second story. The hinges creaked a little, and these I hastened

to oil; then closing and relocking the door softly, I crept (without

pushing my bedstead back again the few inches I had wheeled it forward)

to look once more upon the sleeping face of Mrs. Clayton.

It was still calm and unconscious. Ernie, too, slumbered peacefully.

Every thing seemed propitious to my purpose. I threw on hastily the

famous, flimsy black silk and mantle that had been prepared for me on

shipboard, tied a dark veil over my head, and, with no other

precaution, went forth, as I hoped, to freedom.

My heart seemed to suspend its action as, cautiously unlocking and

opening the door, I stepped forth on the platform. It will be remembered

that I knew the topography of the lower part of the house of old

thoroughly.

I had been entertained there with my father more than once, when, as

heiress of my mother's great estate, I had commanded the reverence of my

hosts, and the situation of parlors, study, and dining-room, was

perfectly familiar to me.

It was what in those days was called a single house, though a

spacious-enough mansion; that is, all the rooms, with one exception,

were placed either on the same side of the wide hall of entrance, or

behind it in the ell. The study alone formed a small lateral projection

on the other hand. The door of this apartment opened at the foot of

that-stair, on the upper platform of which I now stood trembling,

weighing my fate by a hair. I had left the door ajar through which I had

crept quietly, so that, in case of failure, I might have a chance of

retreat before discovery should be made. It was well, perhaps, that I

did so on this occasion, for otherwise I should scarcely have had nerve

enough to avoid the sure and speedy detection which must have followed

the slightest delay or noise made in returning.

I lingered to reconnoitre some minutes on the platform before I ventured

to commence the wary descent of the broad, carpeted stairway. I had

convinced myself that the second story was empty, though a lighted lamp

swung in the upper entry, as well as in that below, throwing a flood of

radiance on the scene with which I would fain have dispensed.

I heard the sound of voices from the closed parlors, and saw reposing

on the rack before me several hats and canes, indicative of visitors.

From the study, however, there fortunately came no murmur, and I found

that it was dark. The front-door stood invitingly open; I could see the

opposite lamp-post without, and I had made up my mind to dart on and

downward, and reach at a bound the pavement, when the door of the first

parlor was suddenly thrown back, and left so, by a servant coming out

with a tray of wines and fruits which he had been evidently handing, and

I had just time to shrink into shadow, favored in my wish for

concealment by the black dress and veil I wore, when a once familiar

form appeared in the door-way of the front hall, which I recognized at a

glance as that of Gregory. Closing the door firmly after him, he

prepared to divest himself of hat and cape in the hall, without a look

in my direction. After the completion of which process he entered the

parlor by the nearest door, setting that also wide open as he did so,

with some exclamation about the heat of the apartment, which seemed to

meet with acquiescence from the powers within.

I caught a panoramic view of that interior before I fled swiftly,

noiselessly, hopelessly, back to my cage again, having lost my only

chance of escape by that fatal delay of five minutes on the platform. I

should have been out and away on the wings of the wind ere Gregory

entered the inclosure before the house, had I not hesitated. Yet, after

all, perhaps, I miscalculated. What if I had met him face to face--been

seized and dragged back again to captivity! Perchance it was better as

it was. Time would develop and determine this; but, in the interval, how

woful was my disappointment!

I had time to get to bed again, and in some degree recover my

composure; indeed, I had been in bed an hour when the clock in the

dining-room beneath me, which, since the evident occupancy of that

long-deserted hall, had been wound and put in running order, struck

twelve, with its deep-mouthed, melodramatic tones, and at the very

moment I heard sounds indicative of the resurrection of the mesmeric

sleeper.

She was evidently startled in some way on finding herself awake again,

or perhaps from having fallen so soundly asleep in hands like mine, for

she called aloud first for "Dinah," then, repeatedly, on "Miriam," both

without effect. In a few moments after these appeals had died away she

came in person, as I knew she would, to reconnoitre.

The bedstead had been pushed carefully and noiselessly back again on its

grooved castors against the door, from the lock of which the wooden key

had been removed, rewashed in oil, and hidden away in that hollow

aperture in the bedstead, which formed a perfect box, by the skillful

readjustment of one loosened compartment of the veneering of the massive

post.

She shook me slightly, and I rose in my bed with a start and shudder,

admirably simulated, I fancied, and which completely deceived her

evidently. "I am sorry to have startled you so," she said, hurriedly,

"but where is Dinah, Miss Monfort, and how did she get out?"

"I really cannot inform you where she is," I answered, petulantly. "I

scarcely think it was worth while to disturb me for the sake of asking

me a question you must have known my inability to answer."

"But how did she get out, Miss Harz?"

"By means of the key under your head, which you will find in the lock,

no doubt, where it was left. She promised me, insolently enough, to

bolt the door outside to prevent egress, and I, to prevent ingress,

locked it within."

"So she assured you we were both prisoners by night, did she? Well, I am

glad you have proof at last of what I told you."

"I have no proof; but, as I have made up my mind to come to terms of

some kind very soon, I thought it useless to investigate. Do you feel

better for my laying on of hands? You seem refreshed."

"Yes, greatly better; a good sleep was what I needed, and I fell into a

doze while you were beside the bed, I believe. I have heard of magnetism

before as a means of relief for pain; now I am convinced of its

efficacy."

"Magnetism! You don't think it amounts to that, do you? You flatter me;"

and I laughed.

"I do, indeed, and I am sure I am much obliged to you, Miss Monfort;

though, for that matter, you can never say, even when you come to your

own again--which you will now do shortly--that I have not been

considerate and attentive to you while in confinement."

"You need not be afraid of any complaint as far as you are concerned. I

think I comprehend you and your motives by this time. Let there be peace

between us from this hour." And I extended my hand to her, which, very

unexpectedly to me, she seized and kissed--a proceeding deprecated

loathingly. "I assure you," I added, laughingly, "I would rather even

marry Englehart than continue here."

"Then you will marry Mr. Gregory?"

"I do not know--either that or die, I suppose--whichever God pleases. I

am weary of being a prisoner--weary of you, of every thing about me. All

that I cared for is lost to me, and I might as well surrender, I

suppose; not at discretion, however!"

She turned from me silently, and sought her couch again; but I felt

instinctively that she slept no more; and so we lay, silently watching

one another, until morning. I dared not renew my efforts to escape, at

all events, in the night-time, when I knew the house was locked, and

watched without, as well as within--for this was the old habit of the

square.

One--two--three--four o'clock came, and passed, and were reported by the

deep-tongued clock in the room beneath me, before I slept, and then I

dreamed a vision so vivid, that I wakened from it excited--exhausted--as

though its frightful figments had been stern realities.

I thought that the noble dog Ossian came to me again and laid the

double-footed key upon my lap, as he had done at Beauseincourt--staining

my white dress with blood, not mud, this time, and that Colonel La Vigne

struck it furiously to the floor, and handed me instead the wooden one I

had carved, with the words of the proverb:

"The opportunity lost is like the arrow sped: it comes no more. Your

wooden key will fail you next time, as it has failed you this, and you

will be baffled--baffled--as you tried to baffle me! Miriam, unseen I

pursue you!"

Then he laughed horribly, and faded in the gray dawn, to which I awoke,

covered with cold dew, and trembling in every limb. Had he been there,

indeed, in spiritual presence? Was it his hand that had left that band

about my brow--that surging in my brain--that weight upon my heart? O

God! had I indeed become the sport of fiends? At last I wept, and in my

tears found sullen comfort. The image so often caviled at as false in

_Hamlet_ came to me then as the readiest interpretation of what I

suffered, and thus proved its own fidelity and truth. "A sea of sorrow"

did indeed seem to roll above me, against which I felt the vanity of

"taking arms."

My destruction was decreed, and I had nothing to do but suffer and

submit!

All the persecution I had sustained since my father's death, at the

hands of Evelyn and Basil Bainrothe--all my wrongs, beginning at the

heart-betrayal of Claude, and ending with the immurement I was suffering

now at the hands of his father--all my strange life at Beauseincourt,

with its episode of horror, its one reality of perfect happiness too

fair to last, its singular revelations, its warm and deep attachments,

my fearful and nightmare-like experience on the burning ship, the level

raft, with the green wares curling above it, the rescue, the snare into

which I had inevitably fallen, the Inquisition-walls closing around

me--all were there in one vivid and overwhelming mental summary!

I think if ever madness came near me in my life, it came that night, so

crushing, so terrific was this weight which, Sysiphus-like, memory was

rolling to the summit of the present moment, to fall back again by the

power of its own weight to the valley below--the valley of despair---

and destroy all that it encountered or found beneath it. Yet, by the

time the sun was up, my eyes were sealed again in slumber.

Before I close this chapter, it will be as well to describe the tableau

I had caught sight of through the open parlor-door when I tempted my

fate and failed.

Standing close in the shadow, so that, even if directed toward me

unconsciously, the glance of those within, I knew, could not penetrate

the mystery of my presence, I scanned with a sad derision, the scene

before me. With a glance I received the impression that it required

moments to convey in narrative.

On the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, his legs apart, his

coat-skirts parted behind him, stood Basil Bainrothe, monarch of all he

surveyed, with extended hand, evidently demonstrating some axiom to the

two visitors ensconced on the sofa near him, who, with the exception of

their booted feet, and the straps of their pantaloons, were beyond my

angle of vision. On the opposite side of the chimney from these

inscrutable guests sat two ladies, elaborately dressed and rouged, in

whom I recognized at a glance Evelyn Erle and Mrs. Raymond. Just before

I vanished, Claude Bainrothe, courteous in manner and elegant in

exterior, approached them from the other parlor, in time to witness the

_entrée_ of Gregory, to which I have referred, and to salute him

cordially. That these were all confederates I could not doubt, and

prepared to aid each other. How could I know that one pair of those

evident feet belonged to the invisible body of a man who was one of the

few whom I could have called to my defense from the ends of the earth,

had choice of champions been afforded me? It was not until long

afterward that I ascertained beyond a doubt that Major Favraud had

formed one of that company on the occasion of my fatal failure. Had I

dreamed of his presence, I should fearlessly have entered the parlor,

and thrown myself on his brotherly protection, secure of his best

efforts to rescue me, even though his own heart's blood had been the

sacrifice.

Alas! should I ever find another dart like that, never to be recalled,

to launch in the right direction, and fix quivering in the eye of the

target?--God alone could know.

CHAPTER X.

After the one hopeful excitement of my prison-life, my spirit drooped

deplorably for a season, and all occupation became distasteful to me. My

diary even was abandoned, the writing of which had so well assisted to

fill my time, and, although destroyed daily, to impress upon my memory a

faithful and sequent record of the monotonous hours, else remembered

merely as a homogeneous whole. Had it not been for poor Ernie and his

requirements, I should have sunk under this fresh phase of suffering, I

am convinced. My health, too, was giving way. My strength, my energy

were failing. I kept my bed, as I had never been willing to do before if

able to arise from it, until noon sometimes, for want of nervous

impulse, and my food was tasteless and innutritious, even when I forced

myself to eat a portion of what was placed regularly before me. It

seemed to me that, long ere this, Wardour Wentworth must have

ascertained my fate, and the thought that he might be passive when my

very soul was at stake, thrilled me with agony unspeakable.

This mood endured so long that even Mrs. Clayton grew alarmed. She

insisted on Dr. Englehart again, and, when I shook my head drearily for

all reply, begged that I would permit her to state my case to Mrs.

Raymond, who might in turn see some able physician about me and procure

remedies.

To this, at last, I consented.

The consequence was what I had hoped it might be: Mrs. Raymond came in

person, and I had at last the opportunity I had long desired of seeing

her alone. If thoughtless, if unrefined according to my views of good

breeding, she was still young, and vivacious, and perhaps kind-hearted;

besides this, sufficiently well pleased with herself to be generous to

one who could no longer be her rival.

Her approach was heralded by a note from Mr. Bainrothe, full of his

characteristic, guileful sophistry and cool impertinence. It ran as

follows (I still possess this billet with others of his inditing--along

with a snake's rattle):

"MIRIAM: I am glad to hear through Mrs. Clayton that reaction has

occurred, and that you manifest repentance for your recent violence

toward one who always means you well. A little jesting on the part of

your guardian, my dear girl, should meet with a very different

reception, and handsome women must submit to compliments with a good

grace, or run the risk of being called prudes or viragos. Not that I

mean to apply either term to you by any means. Your father's daughter

could not be other than a lady, even if she tried, but I must confess

your manners have deteriorated somewhat since you went into voluntary

banishment among those outlandish people. I have heard no very good

account of this old La Vigne who died in debt, it seems, and left his

children beggars. I have some curiosity to know whether he paid your

salary. 'Straws show,' you know, etc.

"It is now October; by the end of this month I hope you will have made

up that stubborn mind of yours (truly indomitable, as I often say to

Evelyn) to leave seclusion, and enter your family once more in the only

way you can do so respectably after what has occurred--as a married

woman.

"You remember the French song which I was always fond of humming, 'Où

est on si bien qu'au sein de sa famille?' How appropriate it seems to

your condition!

"You will be surprised to hear that your step-mother's brother has

appeared on the tapis, and that he has had the audacity to propose to

adopt Mabel, whom he claims as his niece.

"He seems a gentlemanly person enough, but may be an impostor for aught

I know. The young lady he was engaged to, Gregory tells me, perished in

the Kosciusko, which proves a relief, after all, as it is rumored he has

a wife in Europe. But such gossip can hardly interest you very vividly.

The man has gone to California, and will probably return no more.

"Did you, or did you not, meet this person at Colonel La Vigne's?

Favraud hinted something of the kind when he was here; but I can get no

satisfaction from Gregory.

"They all believe you were drowned in Georgia, and I thought it best for

the present not to undeceive Favraud, who laments your fate.

"The surprise will be all the more pleasant; and, of course, every thing

will be explained to the satisfaction of friends when you appear

publicly as the wife of Luke Gregory--'long secretly married!' You see,

it will be necessary to go back a little to save appearances, on account

of Ernie!"

The miscreant! I understood him now--oh, my God, for strength to tear

his cowardly heart from his truculent body! But no; let there be no

further unavailing anger. In God's good time all should recoil on his

own head. For the present, I must bear, and make myself insensible, if

possible; and yet, I would not willingly have had the living greenness

of my spirit turned to stone, as we are told branches are in some

strange, foreign rivers--crystal-cold!

Another extract, the closing one, and then forever away with Basil

Bainrothe and his flimsy letters:

"Again, I must congratulate you on the subdued and humbled temper you

manifest. Claude, and Evelyn, and I, had just been discussing a plan for

removing you to another asylum, where stricter discipline and less

luxurious externals are employed to conquer the otherwise unmanageable

inmates. Dr. Englehart, you know, holds up the theory of indulgence to

his patients, and I am rejoiced to find his measures have at last

prevailed over your frenzy. Mabel, like your other friends, believes you

dead, and is at home with Evelyn and Claude, and is growing in beauty

and intelligence every day.

"She was quite shocked at her uncle's wild behavior, and positively

refused to go with him, is fond of Mr. Gregory, and remembers you with

affection.

"Owing to my knowledge of your condition for the last year, my dear

child, I don't blame you for any thing that is past, not even for those

delusions with regard to my own acts and intentions which formed your

mania, nor for the misfortune and sense of shame which, no doubt, caused

your hasty flight, and whose evidences you brought with you from the

raft, in the shape of a nearly year-old child.

"I remain, faithfully yours,

"B.B."

The shameful accusations which brought the blood to my brow ought to

have been easier to bear than all the rest, because so easily confuted,

and because I knew not really believed; but they were not. The very idea

of shame humiliated me more than positive ill-treatment could have done;

and, spotless though I knew myself to be (as others knew me too--all I

loved and cared for), still my purity was shocked by such injustice.

I felt like one who had gone out to walk in fresh attire, and been

mud-pelted by rude urchins, so that the outward robes, at least, were

soiled, and a sense of degradation and uncleanness became the

consequence in spite of reason. But, after all, the dress could be

easily changed when opportunity should occur, and all be made clean

again, and the mud-pelting forgotten or overlooked, and the urchins

punished or dismissed in scorn.

Surely, God would not much longer permit this fiend to subjugate me. Had

I not suffered sufficiently? Alas I who but our Creator can judge of our

deserts, or measure our power to bear?

In my adversity and lonely trouble I had drawn near to Him and his

blessed Son--our Mediator, and example, and only strength. Dear as was

still the memory of that earthly love, the only real passion I had ever

known, could ever know, it came no longer to my spirit as a substitute

for religion. I had learned to separate my worship of God from my fealty

to man, yet was this last not weakened, but strengthened, by such

discrimination.

If only for the gift of grace it brought to me, let me bless my sad

captivity!

CHAPTER XI.

The dreary days rolled on; the health of Mrs. Clayton declined so

rapidly that a small stove was found necessary to the comfort of her

contracted bedroom, which freed me from the unpleasant necessity of her

actual presence. The stocking-basket was set aside, the gingerbread nuts

were neglected, and the noise of constant crunching, as of bones, came

no more from my dragon's den; nor yet the smell of Stilton cheese and

porter, wherewith she had so frequently regaled herself and nauseated me

between-meals, and in the night-season. I used to call her a chronic

eater--a symptom, I believe, of the worst sort of dyspepsia, as well as

too often its occasion.

I prefer, myself, the Indian notion of eating, seldom, and enough at a

time. After all, is there any despot equal to the stomach and its

requisitions? What an injustice it seems to all the rest of the organs,

the royal brain especially, that this selfish, sensual sybarite should

exact tribute, and even enforce concession, whenever denied its

customary demands!

There are human beings, the poor of the earth, as we know, who pass

their whole lives, merge their immortal souls in ministering to its

absolute necessities, who go cold, ill-clad, and ignorant, to keep off

the pangs of hunger; who sacrifice pride and affection at its miserable

altar. There are others, fewer in number, it is true, but scarcely less

to be pitied, who exceed this enforced servility in the most abject

fashion of voluntary adulation; who flatter, persuade, and bring rich

tribute to this smiling Moloch, only waiting his own time to turn upon

and destroy his idolaters. For the pampered stomach, like all other

spoiled potentates, is treacherous and ungrateful beyond belief.

Yet the philosophers tell us man's necessity for food lies at the root

of civilization, and that the desire for a sufficiency and variety of

aliment alone keeps up our energies! I cannot think so; I believe it is

the stone about our necks that drags us down, and is intended to do so,

and which keeps us truly from being "but a little lower than the

angels."

"Revenons à nos moutons!"

The good-hearted vulgarian, who, whatever she was, and however

detestable the part she was playing, was at least possessed of womanly

sympathy, came frequently to see me during those weary days. Her

engagement to Mr. Bainrothe was never by her acknowledged, or by me

alluded to, and she seemed to have taken up the impression in some way

that I was the victim of an unfortunate attachment to that subtle

person, which had degenerated into a morbid and causeless hatred on my

part, leading to mania.

Had she stated this conviction plainly, I might have been tempted to

undeceive her; as it was, I suffered the error to continue, knowing that

no condition of belief would influence her half so kindly toward me.

Women as a class have a sincere friendship for those who have undergone

slighting treatment at the hands of their lovers and husbands; and we

all know what a common trick of trade it is with men who have been

unsuccessful in their attempts to gain a woman's affections, or worse,

in their evil designs on her honor, to give out such mendacious

impressions!

Yet, to the end of time, the vanity and credulity of women will lead

them to lend credence to such statements, rather than look matters

firmly in the face, with the eyes of common-sense and experience. I, for

one, am a very skeptic on this subject of manly dislike growing out of

female susceptibility, and usually take the conservative view of the

question.

During one of these condescending visits of the "Lady Anastasia," whose

position toward Bainrothe I perfectly comprehended, through the

inadvertence, it may be remembered, of Mrs. Clayton, I ventured to ask

her whether she had met with her betrothed, as she had expected to do on

landing at New York, and when her marriage was to take place.

"Whenever you come out of this retirement, dear; not before. You see I

have set my heart on 'aving you for my bridesmaid, with your friends'

permission."

"Then Mr. Bainrothe has concluded to annul the condition of my marriage

before leaving the asylum."

"Oh, I had forgotten about that! Well, we will have the ceremony

performed together, if you prefer; down in Dr. Englehart's

drawing-rooms."

"You reside here, then?" I questioned; "you are at home in this house,

whosesoever it may be?"

"Oh, no, you quite misunderstand me. I am staying with friends, and Mr.

Bainrothe is over at home with his son and daughter-in-law"--with a jerk

of her head in the right direction--"in the other city, I mean; I am

such a stranger I. forget names sometimes. This, you know, is solely

Dr. Englehart's establishment."

"I suppose that gentleman is absent, as I have not seen him lately," I

continued.

"He has been absent, but has just returned. He speaks of calling, I

believe, very soon, to see you on the part of Mr. Gregory. How happy you

are to inspire such a passion in the heart of that splendid man!"--and

she rolled her eyes, and drew up her square, flat shoulders

expressively. "Do tell me where you knew him, and all about it; I am

sure he is much more suitable to you, in age and intellect,

than--than--even Mr. Bainrothe."

"There is no question of him now," I responded, gravely, purposely

misunderstanding her; "he has been married some time to my step-sister,

Evelyn Erie, and, I suppose, with many of my other friends, believes me

dead!"

"Oh, no, I assure you," she rejoined, with some confusion, "it is a

mistake altogether. Both Mr. and Mrs. Claude Bainrothe are perfectly

aware of your seclusion, and he, especially, recommended and contrived

it."

"There _was_ contrivance, then; you admit that!" I said, impressively.

At this juncture a feeble voice from the adjoining room was heard

calling aloud, and I listened to it, uplifted as it was, evidently, in

tones of remonstrance and reproof, for some moments afterward--the Lady

Anastasia having hastened, with dutiful alacrity, to the bedside of her

_soi-disant_ servant.

I became aware, after this visit, that Mrs. Raymond had become my jailer

as well as her mother's. She came regularly at supper-time thereafter to

superintend Dinah's arrangements, to give Mrs. Clayton her

night-draught, which did not assuage her direful vigilance one

particle, but rather seemed to infuse new powers of wakefulness in those

ever-watchful eyes, until sunrise, when, protected by the knowledge that

others besides herself were on the watch, she permitted sleep to take

possession of her senses.

I earnestly believe that no one ever so effectually controlled the

predisposition to slumber as did this woman.

After locking us up regularly for the night, the "Lady Anastasia"

withdrew, followed by Dinah; and I would hear, later, sounds of

festivity, in which her well-known laugh was blended, in the dining-room

below, where, with Bainrothe and his friends, she held wassail,

frequently, until after midnight. The groans of Mrs. Clayton would then

commence, and, with little intermission, last until morning's light.

Yet it was something to be rid of Mrs. Raymond's surveillance during

those very hours I had selected for my second effort to escape. This

must be hazarded, I knew, between eight and ten o'clock of the evening,

during which time I had reason to suppose the house-door remained

unlocked. The risk of encountering some one in the hall below--for there

was constant passing and repassing of footsteps during those

hours--constituted my chief danger; but, at all hazards, the experiment

must then, if at all, be made.

October was fast drifting away, and I knew that at its close my course

would be decided for me, should I not anticipate such despotism by

setting it at naught, in the only possible way--that of flying from the

scene of my oppression.

How to do this, and when, became the one problem of my existence; and it

was well for me that Mrs. Clayton was too great a sufferer to notice

beyond my external safety, or she might have seen clear indications of

some strange change at work, stamped upon my features.

My unsettled intentions were suddenly brought to a crisis by the

contents of a letter handed to me, as usual, in the shadows of the

evening, by the long-absent Dr. Englehart, who came in person, in

accordance with Mrs. Raymond's announcement (arriving, as it chanced,

while Mrs. Clayton slumbered), to deliver it.

Gregory wrote a large, clear hand, not difficult to decipher, even by

the dim light of a moonlight lamp; and, while Dr. Englehart stood

regarding me in the shadow, anxiously enough, I perceived, to keep me

entirely on my guard, I perused, with mingled derision and terror, this

truly characteristic epistle. My running commentaries, as I

read--entirely _sotto voce_, of course, for one does not care to rouse

the wrath of a tiger on the crouch, by flinging pebbles in the

jungle--may give some idea of the impression it made upon me, and the

emotions it excited.

"BELOVED MIRIAM" (insolent cur!)--"for by this tender title I am

permitted to address you at last" (by whom?)--"I cannot flatter myself

that, in concurring with the wishes of your friends, you return my

fervent passion" (you are mistaken there; I do return it with the seal

unbroken); "but will you not suffer me to hope that the deep,

disinterested devotion of months may undo the past, and dissolve those

bitter prejudices which I feel well aware were instilled into your heart

by one of the coldest and most time-serving of men" (of course, hope is

free to all; it is no longer kept in a box, as in the days of Pandora)?

"When I assure you that Wentworth, with a perfect knowledge of your

present situation, has repudiated the past, you will more perfectly

understand my reference" (I will believe this when he tells me so, not

before; your assertion simply reassures me). "It is not, however, to

place my own devotion in contrast with his perfidy, that I now address

you" (Nature drew the contrast, fortunately for him, without your

assistance), "but to beseech you, for your own sake, to let nothing turn

you from your recently-formed resolution" (I don't intend to let any

thing turn me, if I can help it, this time!). "It remains with you to

live a free and happy life, adored and indulged by one who would give

his heart's blood to serve you" (a poor gift, I take it), "or pass your

whole existence in the cell of a lunatic, cut off from every being who

could care for or protect you." (Great Heavens! what can the wretch

mean?) "Should you refuse to become my wife, and affix your signature to

the papers in your possession, I have reason to know that Bainrothe

designs to make, or rather continue, you dead, and imprison you in a

lonely house on the sea-coast, which he owns, where others of his

victims have before now lived and died unknown!" (Very melodramatic,

truly; but I don't believe Cagliostro would dare to do it.) "To convince

you of the truth of my allegations. Dr. Engelehart is instructed to

place in your hands a note recently intercepted by me from that

arch-conspirator to his son, which please return to him, my truest

friend" (direst enemy, you mean), "along with this letter, as I send you

both documents at my own peril, and dare not leave them in your hands"

(how magnanimous!); and here I dropped the letter on the table, and

extended my hand mutely to Dr. Englehart for the note, which was ready

for me, in the hollow of his pudgy palm.

It did, indeed, most clearly confirm the statement, true or false, of

the ubiquitous Gregory. Returning it to the physician _pro tem_., I then

continued the perusal of this singular love-letter to the end, in which

the lawyer and knave predominated in spite of Eros! Yet there was food

for consideration here, and extremest terror.

"How long before this ultimatum is proposed to me, which Mr. Gregory

seemed to anticipate, and with which you, no doubt, are acquainted?" I

asked, coldly, after consideration.

"Ten days will close up de whole transaction, as I understand," was the

no less cool reply, made in those husky, inimitable tones, peculiar to

the man of petty pills.

"Ten days! It would seem a short time wherein to get up a reasonable

trousseau, even!"

"True--true! but nosing of dat kind is necessaire under dese

circumstances--only your mos' gracious and graceful consent!" He spoke

eagerly, with bowed head and clasped hands, standing mutely before me

when he had concluded.

"If Mr. Gregory loved me truly, he would not limit me thus," I hazarded.

"He would give me time to learn to return his affection, as I must try

to do, and to forget the past! He would not strike hands with my

persecutors, but insist on my liberation--or obtain it, as he could

readily do, without their coöperation, through you, Dr. Englehart, who

seem to be his friend and ally, and who have already run such risks for

his sake in bringing me these two dangerous letters," and as I spoke I

pushed them across the table, to be gathered up and concealed with

well-affected eagerness.

How perfectly he played his part, and how cunningly Bainrothe had

contrived to convey to me his menace--real, or assumed for effect, I

could not tell which, for my judgment spoke one language, my cowardice

another! Yet, I confess, that the panic was complete, though I concealed

it from the enemy.

"Women usually, at least romantic and incredulous women like me, demand

some proof of a lover's devotion," I resumed, as coolly as I could,

"before yielding him their faith and fealty; but Mr. Gregory has given

me no evidence so far of the sincerity of his passion; I confess I find

it difficult, under the circumstances, to believe in its existence."

He drew near to me, bent eagerly above me, then again concealed himself,

as it was wise for him to do, in shadow; and I could hear his hissing

breath, as it passed between his closed teeth--like that of a roused

serpent. The impulse of the man came near betraying him, but he rallied

and refrained from an exposure, as he would have supposed it, that must

have been fatal to his success as a lover, even if it confirmed his

power of possession.

His tones, low and deep, were unmistakably those of suppressed passion

when he spoke again, and he had almost dropped his accent, so

wonderfully assumed.

"When shall he come to you, and speak for himself? Let me take to him

some word of encouragement from your lips--for de love of whom--he

languishes--he dies! All other passions of his life have proved like

cobwebs, compared to this--avarice, ambition, revenge, all yield before

it! He is your slave! Do not trample on a fervent heart, thus laid at

your feet! Have mercy on this unfortunate!"

"Strange language from a captor to a captive--mocking language, that I

find unendurable! Let Mr. Gregory remain where he is until the extreme

limit of the interval granted me by Basil Bainrothe--as breathing-space

before execution; and before hope expires in thick darkness--then let

him come and take what he will find of the victim of so much perfidy!"

"You do not--you cannot--meditate personal violence, self-murder?" He

spoke in a voice of agony, that could scarcely be restrained from

breaking into its natural tones.

"No--no--do not flatter yourselves that I could be driven by you--by

_any_ one to such God-offending," I hastened to say, for I felt the

importance of keeping this barrier of disguise, of ice, between Gregory

and myself as a means of safety for a season, and determined that he

should not transcend it, if I could prevent an _exposé_, such as his

excited feelings made imminent. "My hopes are dead--say this to Mr.

Gregory--and I have reason to believe I should fare as well in his hands

as in any other's, knowing him--as I know him to be--" and I hesitated

here for a moment--"gentle, compassionate, faithful, where his feelings

are fairly enlisted."

"He thanks you, through my lips, most lovely lady, for dis great proof

of consideration; dis' message, which I shall truthfully deliver, will

fill his heart with joy, long a stranger to his breast, for he has

feared your hatred."

"Now go, Dr. Englehart, and let no one come to me without previous

warning, for I need all my strength to bear me up in this emergency. Nor

would I meet Mr. Gregory without due preparation--even of apparel," and

I glanced at my dress of spotted lawn, faded and unseasonable as it

seemed in the autumn weather. "I know his fastidiousness on this

subject, and from this time it ought to, it must be my study to try to

please him."

Why was not the fate of Ananias or Sapphira mine after that false

utterance? Why did I triumph in the strength of guile that desperation

gave me, rather than sink abashed and penitent beneath it? And this was

the woman who had once lectured on duplicity and expediency, and deemed

herself above them!

Bitter and nauseous as was this bowl to me, I drank it without a

grimace; so much depended on the measure of deceit--hope, love, honor,

life itself perhaps--for my terrors whispered that even such warnings as

those Gregory had given were not to be disregarded where there was

question of success or failure to Basil Bainrothe! But one alternative

presented itself--escape! Delay, I scarce could hope for, and, even if

granted, how could it avail me in the end? Those words--"He will make

you dead!" rang in my ears, and seemed written on the wall. They

confronted me everywhere. It was so easy to do this--so easy to repeat

what the papers had already told the world--so easy to confine me in a

maniac's cell under an assumed name, and by the aid of my own gold, and

say, "She perished at sea!"

It would be to the interest of all who knew it, to preserve the secret,

except the poor ship's captain, and he had been a dupe, and would

scarcely recognize his folly, or, if he did, be the first to boast of

and publish it. Besides that, should the matter be inquired into, how

easy for Bainrothe to allege that my own family had sanctioned his

course to save my reputation! For innuendo was over on this disgraceful

subject. He had declared openly his base design.

Years might elapse before the final exposition, years of utter ruin to

my prospects and my hopes. Wentworth might be married by that time, or

indifferent, or dead; Ernie too old to make the matter of a year or two

of consequence in the carrying out of the nefarious scheme to sustain

which it would be so easy to summon and suborn witnesses.

All these possibilities represented themselves to me with frightful

distinctness; my mind became imbued with them to the exclusion of all

else--of reason even. I was literally panic-stricken, and nothing but

flight could satisfy my instinct, my impulse of self-preservation. I

must go, even if blown like a leaf before the gales of heaven; must fly,

if even to certainty of destruction. I had felt this necessity once

before, be it remembered, but never so stringently, so morbidly as now.

I was yielding under the agony, the anxiety incident to my condition; my

nervous system, too severely taxed, was breaking down, and it would

succumb entirely, unless relief came to me (of this I felt convinced),

before another weary month should roll away. Had I been imprisoned for a

certain term of years as an expiation for crimes, I think I could have

borne it better; but the injustice, the uncertainty of these proceedings

were more than I could sustain.

I fell asleep, I remember, on the night of my interview with

Gregory--_alias_ Englehart--to dream confusedly of Baron Trenck and his

iron collar, and the Princess Amelia and her unmitigated grief, and it

seemed to me that I was given to drink from a cup the poor prisoner had

carved (as memoirs tell us he carved and sold many such), filled with a

sort of bitter wine, by the man in the iron mask--so vividly did Fancy,

mixing her ingredients, typify the anguish of my waking moments, and

reproduce its anxieties, in dreams of night that could not be

controlled.

When I awoke in the morning it was to lie quietly, and listen to the

doleful voice of Sabra, for such had been Dinah's Congo name, uplifted

in what she called a "speritual" as she cleaned the brass mountings of

the grate and kindled its tardy fires. With very slight alteration and

adjustment, this picturesque and dramatic Obi hymn is given in this

place, just as I jotted it down in my diary, thus imprinting it on my

memory from her own dolphin-like lips and bellows-like lungs. Her

forefathers, she informed me with considerable pride, had been

snake-worshipers, and she certainly inherited their tendency to treat

the worst enemy of mankind with respectful adoration.

It served to divert my mind from its one fixed idea for a little time to

arrange this singular hymn, which, together with those she had given

voice to on the raft, proved her poetic powers. For Sabra assured me

that this gift of sacred song had come to her one day when she was

washing her master's linen, and that she had felt it run cold streaks

down her back and through her brain, and that from that time she was

uplifted to sing "sperituals" by spells and seasons. This, her longest

and most successful inspiration, I now lay before the reader:

SABRA'S SPERITUAL.

We's on de road to Zion,

We's on de paf' to Zion,

But dar's a roarin' lion,

For Satan stops de way.

Oh! lef' us pass, ole Masta,

Oh! lef' us pass, strong Masta,

Oh! lef' us pass, rich Masta--

It am near de break ob day!

We's on de road to Zion,

We's on de paf' to Zion,

But wid his red-hot iron

He bars de hebbenly gate!

Oh! lef' us pass, ole Masta,

Oh! lef' us pass, kin' Masta,

Oh! lef' us pass, sweet Masta,

For we is mighty late!

Does you hear de rain a-fallin'?

Does you hear de prophets callin'?

Does you hear de cherubs squallin'

Wat's settin' on de gate?

Oh! lef us pass, ole Masta,

Oh! step dis side, kin' Masta,

Unbar de do', dear Masta,

We _dar'_ no longer wait!

Does you hear de win' a blowin'?

Does you hear de chickens crowin'?

Does you see de niggars hoein'?

It am de break ob day!

Oh! lef us by, good Masta,

Oh! stan' aside, ole Masta,

Oh! light your lamp, sweet Sabiour,

For we done los' our way!

We'll gib you all our money,

We'll fotch you yams and honey,

We'll fill your pipe wid 'baccer,

An' twiss your tail wid hay!

We'll shod your hoofs wid copper,

We'll knob your horns wid silber,

We'll cook you rice and gopher,

Ef you will clar de way!

He's gwine away, my bredderin,

He's stepped aside, my sisterin,

He's clared de track, my chillun,

Now make de trumpets bray!

We tanks you kindly, Masta,

We gibs you tanks, ole Masta,

You is a buckra Masta,

Whateber white folks say!

CHAPTER XII.

During these last days of my captivity, Mrs. Clayton was truly a piteous

sight to see--swathed in flannel and helpless as an infant, yet still

perversely vigilant as she had been in her hours of health, and

determined on the subject of opiates as before. I sometimes think she

feared to place herself wholly in my hands, as she must have been under

the influence of a powerful anodyne, and that, in spite of her

professions of confidence, and even affection, she feared me as her foe.

God knows that, had it been to save my own life, I would not have harmed

one hair of her viperish head, as flat on top as if the stone of the

Indian had been bound upon its crown from babyhood, yet full of brains

to bursting around the base of the skull.

It was necessary for Dinah to be in constant attendance on my Argus, and

even to feed her, so helpless were her hands, with the mucilages which

now formed her principal diet, by the order of some celebrated physician

who wrote his prescriptions without seeing his patient, after the form

of the ancients, sending them daily through the hands of Mrs. Raymond.

Still those vigilant green eyes never faltered in their task, and lying

where--with the door opened between our chambers (as she tyrannically

required it to be most of the time) she could command a view of almost

every act of my life--I found her scrutiny more unendurable than when

she had at least feigned to be absorbed with her stocking-basket.

Ernie's noise, too, disturbed her, and I was obliged to keep him

constantly amused, for fear that her wrath might culminate in eternal

banishment.

The days slid on--November had passed through that exquisite phase of

existence (which almost redeems it from the reproach cast upon it

through all time, of being _par excellence_ the gloomy month of the

year), the sweet and balmy influences of which had reached us, even

through the walls of our prison-house, in the shape of smoky sunshine,

and balmy, odorous, and lingering blossoms, and was now asserting its

traditional character with much angry bluster of sleet, and storm, and

cutting wind. It was Herod lamenting his Mariamne slain by his own hand,

and making others suffer the consequences of his regretted cruelty, his

remorseful anguish. It was the fierce Viking making wild wail over his

dead Oriana.

No more to come until another year had done its work of resurrection and

decay, the lovely Indian Summer slumbered under her mound of withered

flowers and heaps of gorgeous leaves, unheeding all, or unconscious of

the grief of her stern bridegroom.

Cold and bitter and bleak howled the November blast, and ruthlessly

drove the sleet against the shivering panes, exposed without, though

shielded within by Venetian folding shutters, on that gray morning, when

a passing whisper from most unlovely and altogether unfaithful lips

nerved me paradoxically to sudden resolution.

False as I knew old Dinah to be--almost on principle--still, I could not

disregard the possible truth of her passing warning, given in broken

whisper first as she poured out my tea and afterward prepared my bath.

"Honey, don't you touch no tea nor coffee dis evening after Dinah goes

out ob here an' de bolt am fetched home; jus' make 'tence to drene it

down, like, but don't swaller one mortal drop, for dey is gwine to give

you a dose of laudamy"--nodding sagaciously and peering into the teapot

as she interpolated aloud; "sure enough, it is full ob grounds, honey!

(I heerd 'um say dat wid my own two blessed yers), for de purpose of

movin' you soun' asleep up to dat bell-tower (belfry, b'leves dey call

it sometimes)--he! he! he! next door, in dat big house, war de res' on

'em libs, de little angel gal too. You see, honey, der was an ossifer to

sarve a process writ about somebody here dis mornin', but dar was

something wrong about it, so dey all said, an' he is comin' to sarch de

house for you, I spec', to-morrow; for de hue an' cry is out somehow--or

mebbe it's me--he! he! he! (very faintly) an' dey is gwine to move you,

so dey says, to keep all dark, after you gets soun' asleep. But de

ossifer is 'bleeged to wait till mornin' (court-time, as I heerd 'em

say) comes roun' agin to git de _haby-corpy_ fixed up right, an' dat's

how he spounded hisself. Wat does dat mean, honey?"

"I can scarcely make you understand now, Dinah" (aside). "Don't ask

me--just go on, low, very low; how did you hear all this?" (Aloud) "More

cream, Dinah."

"Wid my ear to de key-hole, in de study, war dey axed de ossifer. My

'spicions was roused by de words he 'dressed to me wen I opened de front

do', for you see, dat ole nigger watch-dog ob dern, dat has nebber a

good word for nobody, was gone to market, an' Madame Raymond she hel' de

watch, an' she sont me from de kitchen to mine de front-do' bell.

"'Old dame,' says the ossifer (for so dey calls him), as pleasant as a

mornin' in May; 'has you a young gal locked up here as you knows ob? Now

tell what you choose, and don't be afraid of dese folks. Dis is a free

country for bofe black and white.'

"Den I answered him straightforward like de trufe: 'Dar's nobody in de

house heah but wat you kin see for axin' for 'em, as far as I knows on.

Wat young gal do you 'lude to, masta?--Bridget Maloney, I spose, dat

Irish heifer wat does de chambers ebery mornin' and goes home ob

ebenin's. Ef you means her, she's off to church to-day, an' sleeps at

her mammy's house.'

"'Does you feel willin' to swar to de trufe of your insertion, ole

dame?' he disclaims. 'I shall resist on dat'--fierce as a buck-rabbit,

holdin' up his right hand, an' blinkin' his little 'cute eyes.

"Sartin an' sure I does when de right time is come,' I sez. 'Jes' take

me to de court-hous' ef you doubt Dinah's word compunctionable. I neber

hab bin in dat place yit since I was sold in Georgy on de block befo' de

high, wooden steps; but I knows it is more solemn to lie dar dan in

Methody meetin'-house.'

"Den Mr. Bainrofe he cum out, hearin' de talk, in dat long-tailed,

satin-flowered gownd ob his'n, wid a silk rope tied roun' his waist, an'

gole tossels hangin' in front, jes' like a Catholic Roman or a king, an'

he sez, 'Walk in here, my fren, an' don't tamper wid my servants--dat

ain't gentlem'ly;' den he puts his han' on de ossifer's shoulder, an'

dey walked in together, an' I listened at de do', in duty boun', an' I

heerd him say, 'Plant a guard if you choose--do wateber you like--but,

till dat writ am rectified, you can't sarch through my house, for a

man's house is his castle here, as in de Great Britain, till de law

reaches out a long arm an' a strong arm.' Dat was wat Mr. Bainrofe

spounded to de ossifer, an' he 'peared 'fused-like an' flusterfied, for

I peeped fru de key-hole at 'em wen dey wus talkin'. 'An,' sez he, 'dis

heah paper does want de secon' seal, sure enough, since I 'xamine it,

wat you, is so 'tickiler 'bout; but dat can easily be reconstructified,

an' I'll be sartin sure to be here airly to-morrow morning. In de mean

while, my man, McDermot, shall keep de house in his eye, an' mus' hab de

liberty of lodgment.'

"Den Mr. Bainrofe he say, 'Oh, sartinly--your man, McDermot, am welcome

to his bite an' sup, an' all he kin fine out'--an' he laughed, an' dey

parted, mighty pleasant-like, and den he called Mrs. Raymun' and Mass'

Gregory, an' I listened again. Dat's our colored way for reformation,

child. An' I heerd 'em--"

"Dinah! Dinah! what are you muttering about--don't you hear Mrs. Raymond

knocking? Miss Monfort must be tired out of your nonsense. What keeps

you there so long?"

"I'se spounding another speritual to Miss Mirainy, an', wen I gits

'gaged in dat way, I disregards airthly knockin'. I'se listenin' to de

angels hammerin' overhead, an' Mrs. Raymun' will hab to wait a

spell--he! he! he!"

"Oh, go at once, Dinah, and open the door for Mrs. Raymond. I can write

your song down just as well another time," I remonstrated, taking up and

laying down my note-book as I spoke, so as to display my ostensible

occupation to the peering eyes of Mrs. Clayton (now sitting bolt upright

in her bed, looking like a Chinese bonze), for the purpose of sweeping

in my position definitively.

"That will do, Dinah. Now go and get Miss Monfort's bath ready," I

heard my dragoness say, after a short whispered communication from her

early visitor. It was the idea, probably, to remove me, as well as

Dinah, while the plot was being unfolded, and my bath-room, with its

closed door, promised security from quick ears and eyes to the brace of

conspirators now plotting their final blow.

Once in that belfry, and truly might the sense of Dante's famous

inscription become my motto for life: "Here hope is left behind."

I covered my eyes as I recalled that dreary, dreadful prison-house of

clock and bell, into which I had clambered once by means of a movable

step-ladder, rarely left there by the attendant, in order to rescue my

famished cat, shut up there by accident. I recollected the maddened look

of the creature, as it flew by me like a flash, frightened out of its

wits, Mrs. Austin had said, by the clicking of the machinery of the huge

clock, and the chiming of the responsive bell. Both were silent now, and

there was room enough for a prisoner's cot in that lonely and dismantled

turret as there once had been for a telescope and its rest, used for

astronomical purposes at long intervals by my father and a few of his

scientific friends, but finally dismantled and put aside forever.

I could imagine myself a denizen, at the will of Bainrothe, of that

weird, gray belfry, shut up with that silent clock, in company with a

bed, a chair, and table, denied, perchance, even the comfort of a stove,

for fear the flue might utter smoke, and, with it, that kind of

revelation, said proverbially to accompany such manifestations; denied

books, even writing-materials, the sight of a human face, and furnished

with food merely sufficing in quantity and quality to keep soul and body

together!

Could I resist this state of things? Could I sustain it and retain my

reason? No, I felt that the picture my fancy drew, if realized, would

make me abject and submissive, change me to a cowardly, cringing slave.

I was not made of the right stuff for martyrdom, only for battle, for

resistance, and would put forth my last powers in the effort to save

myself from the unendurable trials before me, even if destruction were

the consequence. A pistol-ball in my brain would be preferable to what I

saw awaiting me, should Bainrothe succeed in his stratagem, as I doubted

not he would do, if determined on it. I should know freedom in its true

sense never again, if that night were suffered to pass without its

redemption, if that belfry once were entered.