As carelessly as I could I followed Dinah to the bath-room, ostensibly

to direct the temperature of the water, but really to draw out from her

all that was possible while the mood of communication possessed her, on

the subject so vital to me and my welfare. Life and death almost were

involved in her revelations, and I hastened to wind in the clew while it

lingered in my hand; for I knew that she was an eccentric as well as a

selfish creature, and might suddenly see fit to withdraw or snap its

thread.

"Now, tell me about McDermot, Dinah, what sort of a look has he? Is he

large or small, light or dark, and does he smoke a pipe'?"

"He is a great big man, honey, wid red har an' sort ob chaney-blue eyes;

mos while, sometimes he rolls em up in his head, an' he smells mighty

strong of whisky. I tells you all; his bref mos knocked me down, but I

didn't see no pipe?"

A discouraging account, truly; yet I persevered. It seemed my only hope

to enlist this man on my side, either through his sympathies or sense of

duty. I had no power to command his services on the side of his avarice.

The ring on my finger, the pledge of Wentworth's troth, a massive

circlet of chased gold, was all that remained to me in the shape of

valuables. I did not possess a stiver in that prison, nor own even the

clothes on my back.

"Could you not take him a message from me, Dinah? It is his duty, you

know, to assist me; it is on my account, doubtless, he is placed here;

and hereafter I can reward him liberally, and you too. Just now, you

know, I am penniless."

The woman stopped and looked at me, her small black irises mere points,

set in extensive, muddy-looking whites, not unfrequently suffused and

bloodshot.

"I dun told the ossifer dar wus no one here you knows, answerin' to your

perscription."

"But that was only a measure of safety for yourself; you surely do not

mean to take sides with my persecutors?"

"I has nuffin at all to do wid it, at all," hunching her back; "I has

gib you far warnin' 'bout de laudamy an' der retentions, an' you mus'

fight it out yourself, chile! I is afraid to go one step furder; but de

debble sort o' tempted me dis mornin' to make a clean breast of der

doins. Ef you mentions it, do; I is retermined to reny ebbery word of

your ramification, and in dis here country a nigger's word, dey tells

me, goes jus' as fur as a pore white gal's, if not furder; 'sides dat, I

is gwine to swar favorable for my 'ployers, in course, at de

court-house--unless"--hesitating and leering in my face--"you sees,

honey, dey have not paid me yit--and mebbe dey won't, ef I displeases

'em, an' your gole watch is gone; an' den, Dinah would be lef' on de

shelf."

"But I have other property, Dinah, other jewels, even. That watch was

very little compared to what I possess outside of these prison-walls,

and these possessions--"

"Whar is dey, honey? 'a bird in dis han' am worf two dozen in a bush,'

as my ole masta used to say, wen de traders cum up to buy his corn an'

cotton, an' I always sawed de dollars come down mighty quick after dat

sayin' of his'n; for I used to watch round the dinin'-room pretty

constant an' close in dem days, totin' in poplar-chips an' corn-cobs for

kin'lin' an' litin' masta's long clay pipes--none ob de common sort, I

tells you--an' brushin' up de harf an' keepin' off' de flies, and so

forf. You see I was a little shaver in dem days, an' masta liked my

Congo straction, an' petted me a heap, an' I never seed the cotton-field

till my ole masta died; den dey put me out ob de house, because Mass

Jack Dillard's father--dat was my ole mistis's own step-brother's secon'

son--he 'cused me ob stealin' his gole pencil-case wrongfully--like I

had any use fur his writin' 'tensils!" (indignantly).

"Dinah," I adjured, cutting short the stream of her narrative, "for

God's sake, see Mr. McDermot, and tell him of my situation! He shall

have a thousand dollars to-morrow, and you also shall have money enough

to buy your whole family, and bring them hither, if you will but assist

me to escape _this_ night. Don't stand and look at me, woman, but act at

once, if you have a human heart. You must help me now, or never."

"You mus' tink I's one ob de born fools, Miss Mirimy, to bl'eve all dat

stuff! Doesn't I know you loss all your trunks on de 'Scusco, an' wasn't

you a pore gal, teachin' white folks's chilluns fur a livin' before? I

has hearn all dat discounted since I come into dis 'stablishment. We

all knows as how teachers is de meanest kine of white trash gwine;

still, I specs you might'ly. You has been ob de quality; any nigger can

see dat wid half an eye open; an' you has got more sense in de end ob yo

little finger, ef you is crazy, dan all de res tied up in a bunch ob

fedders! Wat I does for you, chile, I does for lub ob yo purliteness"

(hesitating here). "You hasn't anoder ob dem gole-pieces anywhar, like

dat you gib me befo', has you? I'se bery bad off fur 'baccer, I is,

indeed, chile, an' de pay is mighty slow in dis house."

"I have not a five-penny bit, Dinah, not one copper cent, if it were to

save my life or yours."

"Is dat ring of yours good guinea gole, honey?" asked the mercenary

creature, leering at it. "It looks mighty bright and pretty, it does

dat! But mebbe its nuffin but pinchbeck, after all."

"It looks what it is, Dinah"--and, after a moment's consideration, I

drew it from my finger. "If I give you this, will you promise to deliver

my message to McDermot faithfully?"

"Sartain sure, honey, but tell me again wat it is; I forgits de small

patticklers."

"Get me my pencil and a scrap of paper, and let me write it down for him

to read; or no, this might involve observation, detection. I must rely

upon your memory, Dinah, which I have reason to know is good. Now,

listen and understand me. I promise to Mr. McDermot one thousand

dollars, to be paid down to-morrow morning, if he will help me to escape

to-night. And I promise you liberty for all of your family, and security

for yourself, if you will assist me, or even be silent, and let me go

without a word, without informing. Do you understand this, Dinah? If so,

repeat it to me low, yet distinctly."

She obeyed me, evincing wonderful shrewdness in her way of putting the

affair, as she said she meant to do, in approaching McDermot.

"And do you believe me, Dinah, now that I have promised so solemnly to

pay these rewards?"

"Dats neider here nor dar, Miss Mirim, so dat McDermot bleves you, dat's

enough; wat dis chile bleves am her own business. Dem Irish am mighty

stupid kine ob creeturs; dey swallows down mos' any thing you chooses to

tell 'em."

A voice without, uplifted at this juncture, as if it had long been

expending itself in ineffectual appeals, now summoned Dinah, harshly and

emphatically.

The Lady Anastasia had departed, after a brief interview, and Mrs.

Clayton, unable to leave her bed, felt naturally anxious to ascertain

the cause of Dinah's prolonged ministry on her fellow-prisoner.

I heard only the words, "De pattikalerest lady I ebber come acrost about

de feel of water, an' I is done tired out, I is--" The rest was lost, as

Dinah vanished from the apartment of the invalid. In the next moment, I

heard the key turned, and the outlet bolt drawn, and the growl of the

surly sable watch-dog without, who, in Mrs. Raymond's absence,

officiated as our jailer and Cerberus.

It was early evening when Dinah returned, for she brought to us but two

meals at this season, the necessary food for Ernie being always ready in

a closet. She came ushered in, as usual, by Mrs. Raymond, who bore with

her on this occasion what she called savory broth, concocted, by her own

fair hands, for the benefit of her suffering parent. While Clayton was

employed in supping this mutton abomination, with a loud noise peculiar

to the vulgar, and Mrs. Raymond whispering inaudible words above the

bowl, I was ostensibly employed in tearing a croquet to pieces with my

fork, while I interrogated Dinah, in a low, even voice, between each

shred, unintelligible, I knew, in the next room, through its monotony,

on the success of her mission, and caught her muttered rather than

murmured replies eagerly in return.

"Did you speak with him, Dinah?"

"Dere was no use, honey; Bainrothe done bought him up. I peaked fru de

key-hole, and seen de gole paid down wid my own two precious eyes. Dar's

no mistake about dat," shaking her head dolefully. "All you has to do

now, honey, is to keep wide awake, an' duly sober, as ole mast a used to

say, 'frain 'ligiously from de tea or coffee, one or de udder, dat she

will offer you 'bout eight o'clock dis ebenin', or mebbe dey will send

it up by me, I can't say yit. Howsomever, you needn't to drink dat stuff

arter wat you knows; an' ef dey goes to take you forcefully off to de

belfry in de night-time, you kin skreech ebbery step ob de way. Dat's de

bes plan, chile, wat I kin project for your resistance; but I'se afeard

dar is no hopin' you, any way we can fix it."

"Thank you, Dinah, you have done your best, no doubt; don't sell my

ring, though; I shall want it back some day."

"La, chile, I done 'sposed ob it aready, an' dey give me a poun of

backer an' a gole-piece fur it. It was good gole an' no mistake. I tells

you all," adding aloud, "an' now, Miss Mirim, I has tole you ebbery

syllable. I disremembered ob dat speritual ar. I is sorry you doesn't

like dese crockets, fur de madame made un wid her own clean red hands."

"Say white hands, you old limb of Satan, or I shall be after you with a

mop," cried the laughing voice of Mrs. Raymond from the side of the sick

woman's bed, betraying at once how she had divided her attention. Then,

advancing into my chamber, she added, as coolly as though she had been

suggesting a visit to the theatre:

"Excuse me, Miss Monfort, for intruding, but I am about to ask you

whether it would be agreeable to you to be married to-night at ten

o'clock? This seems very sudden, but circumstances have forced the

arrangement on us all, and I assure you, from the bottom of my heart, it

is for both of us the preferable alternative of evils, as poor Sir Harry

Raymond would have said. Alas, my dear! shall I ever again have such a

helpmate as he was: so kind, so generous, so considerate"--and she

clasped and wrung her large, rosy hands. "A second marriage is often a

great sacrifice, and, in any case, a hazard, as I feel, as the time

draws near, very sensibly. But you seem confounded, and yet you must

have been somewhat prepared for this condition of things after your last

interview with Dr. Englehart?"

The amazement of Dinah at this change in the programme, if possible,

exceeded my own. She did not understand, as I did, that it was a measure

prompted not only by humanity but self-interest, and that even the hard

heart of Basil Bainrothe preferred a compromise to such violence and

injustice as those he had otherwise meditated. Besides, what better or

more sensible mode than this could there be, according to his views, of

quashing the whole _esclandre_--quieting official inquiry as well as

public indignation? As the wife of Gregory, I should be, of course, a

_forçat_ for life, walking abroad with the concealed brand and manacle,

afraid and ashamed to complain and acknowledge my condition, and

willing to condone every thing.

I saw, at a glance, that my true policy was to feign a reluctant consent

to this proposition, and to determine later what recourse to take, as if

indeed any remained to me in that den of serpents. I would consider, as

soon as Mrs. Raymond was gone, what measures to pursue in order to elude

the vigilance of McDermot, the detective; and then, if all proved vain,

I could but perish! For I would have walked cheerfully over the burning

ploughshares of old, lived again through the hideous nightmare of the

burning ship and raft, nay, clasped hands with the spectre of La Vigne

himself, had it offered to lead me to purgatory, rather than have

married the knave, the liar, the half-breed Gregory!

My resolution was soon made.

"You will send me a suitable dress, I suppose," I said, calmly, "you

know I am a pauper here."

"Yes, fortunately I have two almost alike. Which shall it be, a chally

or barege?"

"It matters little, the color is all I care for. Let it be white; I have

a superstition about being married in colors."

"So should I have, were this the first time, but, being a widow, I shall

wear a lavender-satin, trimmed with blond, made up for a very different

occasion."

"Yes, that will be quite suitable. Well, the long agony is over at last,

and I am glad of it," and I drew a deep, free breath.

"You will have to sign the papers before you come down-stairs. Mr.

Bainrothe told me to say this to you, and to ask you to have them ready;

they will be witnessed below with the marriage, and at nine,

_precisely_, expect me to appear with your gown, and make your toilet."

"Will not Bridget Maloney do as well?" I asked, desperately. She, at

least, I thought, may be compassionate.

"It is strange you should know of her at all, or she of you. It is that

girl, then, who has given us all this trouble," going to the bed, "when

I did not suppose she knew of her existence. Explain this, Clayton, if

you can."

"I suppose Ernie, who is fond of her, has mentioned her name to Miss

Monfort; she thinks his mother is sick up-stairs, but knows no more, I

am certain; besides, it's Dr. Englehart's establishment--such things are

to be expected, and surprise no one of the attendants. Bridget is kept

busy among them all." The farce was to be kept up, it seemed, to the

end.

Old Dinah was evidently quaking in her shoes, and began to see her

error, as she glanced reproachfully at me, but no further revelation

seemed to be expected. It was, indeed, to divert, partly, immediate

suspicion from one I still hoped to make my tool, that I mentioned the

Irish girl at all, or craved her presence, but I soon found how futile

in one instance was this trust. No sooner had Mrs. Raymond turned to

depart, than Dinah followed her, protesting against being locked up the

whole evening with the invalid, and begging leave to go out for an hour

or two on business of her own, which she declared important.

"But Miss Monfort may need you in making her preparations," remonstrated

Mrs. Raymond, "and Clayton and Ernie will want your attention; besides,

fires will go down if not constantly mended, this cold evening."

"Dar's plenty of coal in de box, an' de tongs, wid claws, wat Ernie is

so fond of handling ready and waitin' for dem wat's strong enough to use

dem if dey choose, an' tea in de caddy, an' de kittle on de trivet, jes

filled up, de brass toastin'-fork on de peg in de closet, 'sides bread

an' butter, an' jam, an' new milk on de shelf, an' I is 'bliged to go

anyway, case my ticklerest friend am dyin' ob de numony--I is jes got

word; but at nine o'clock" (and she looked maliciously at me) "percisely

Dinah'll be in dis pickin' patch--he! he! he! can't possumbly cum no

airlier."

In a flash I saw the advantage her prolonged absence would give me,

unless, indeed, she had become my confederate, so I beheld her depart

with a feeling of relief which reacted in the next moment to positive

helplessness and terror as the bolt was drawn, behind her. What could I

do? What was there to be done? For a time I sat mute and crushed by

consideration; then casting myself on my bed I slept for half an hour,

the kind of slumber that confusion generates, and yet I woke refreshed,

calmed, comforted, and with a clearly-formed resolution and plan of

action. I rose and approached Mrs. Clayton, whose groans, perhaps,

aroused me, and, as I stood beside her bed, the clock in the dining

room-below struck six. I had still three hours for hope--for endeavor,

before the circle of flame should close hopelessly around me forever!

Three hours--were they not enough? Could I not compel them to

concentration?

A cup of strong tea was hastily drawn and swallowed--another made for,

and administered by my hand to, Mrs. Clayton, with toast _ad libitum_--a

tedious process--and afterward Ernie's supper prepared and eaten--all in

less than half an hour. By seven he was in bed and asleep, and I had

taken my seat by Mrs. Clayton, for the purpose, apparently, of merciful

ministry to her condition--a piece of self-abnegation, as it seemed, and

as she felt it, scarcely to be expected on my blissful marriage-night.

"I feel very sorry for you; you suffer so, Mrs. Clayton," I had said, as

I drew a chair beside her bed.

"And I for you, Miss Monfort; our fate seems equally hard, but we must

bear it;" and she groaned heavily and closed her eyes, evidently in

great pain.

"I have come to that conclusion, also, after a bitter struggle; physical

pain is not so easily borne, however; the body has little philosophy."

"I thought all this was over," she rejoined, abstractedly, "when my

hands were drawn as you see them by neuralgia ten years since. But I did

not suffer as much then, I believe, as I do now; besides, I was younger,

happier, better able to bear pain."

"Yes, that is true; the old should be at rest," at least my sense of

justice whispered this; then, after a pause: "Does my rubbing ease your

shoulder, Mrs. Clayton?"

"Somewhat--it is my head to-night, however, that troubles me chiefly. Be

good enough to press my temples. Ah, that is great relief! You are very

kind, Miss Monfort; yet, in reviewing the past, I hope you will not find

that I have been wanting to you in my turn. I trust we shall part in

peace and meet hereafter as friends. But you do not answer me."

"Pardon me, I was thinking. This is a crisis, you know--this night

decides my fate for good or ill, all rests with merciful God!"

"Yes, all--of ourselves we are helpless, of course. It is a comfort to

me, I confess, as I lie here, to feel that I have never willingly

injured a fellow-being; to think that I--but, bless my soul, Miss

Monfort, you must not hold me down in that way! you would not, I trust.

But even if you did--no key this time, the door is fast without!"

"Oh, not for worlds! be still, the pain will pass. I have the gift, you

know, of soothing physical suffering. There, rest, you must not stir;

give yourself up to me, if you can--slumber will come."

"It must not come--see, we are all alone!"

Her glazing eye--her slower breathing began already to attest the

influence of the electric fluid, so potent in my veins, so wanting in

her own, both from temperament and disease, yet she resisted bravely and

long, and, even when her limbs were powerless, her spirit rebelled

against me in murmured words of defiant opposition; but this, too,

yielded finally to silence and to stupor; and she slept the deep, calm,

unmistakable slumber caused by magnetism.

Then, again, I went through the experiment of the preceding night, and

strove to awaken her.

"Get up," I said, and yet without willing that she should do so. "Mrs.

Raymond is here to show you her marriage-dress, and Mr. Bainrothe

calls."

"Tell them to let me sleep; don't--don't--disturb me. I am so happy--so

peaceful. It is sweet, too, to think that she will be married at last.

Poor thing! it was no fault of hers, though--no fault. A young actress

is exposed to so many temptations, and it was better so--Harry Raymond's

mistress."

That secret would never have escaped her devoted lips had she been able

to retain it.

As carefully as the eyes of the dead are closed, I drew down her gaping

lids, and turned away. As I did so, the clock struck eight. Fatima never

listened more anxiously to the toll of parting time than I did that

night; but, alas for me! no sister Anne kept watch on the tower; no

brother hastened to arrest the sword. I was deserted by all save God and

desperation. One hour comprised my fate! Very quietly I closed the door

between Mrs. Clayton's room and my own. The bolt was on the other side,

so I could not secure my privacy, even for a moment, should she chance

to wake, or should Mrs. Raymond or Dinah return unexpectedly. As rapidly

as I could, I altered my dress--this time above my clothes--threw on the

black silk frock and mantilla prepared for me on shipboard, tied a dark

veil over my head, an old woolen scarf about my throat, provided for

Ernie's sore-throat and croup, and stood equipped for my enterprise.

Neither bonnet, nor gloves, nor boots, did I possess--Mrs. Raymond's

loan having long since been condoned on behalf of some one else, and my

clothing, in my captivity, had been contrived to suit my circumstances.

Wheeling the bedstead very gently on its noiseless castors a few inches

from the wall, I insinuated myself between them, and, sheltered by the

head-board, loosened again the slightly-adhering covering of paper that

concealed the door, and fitted into the key-hole the well-oiled wooden

key, which once before had proved its efficiency. It did not fail me

now, in my hour of extremity, for a moment later I had turned and

removed it from its socket, stepped forth upon the landing, and relocked

without the door of my prison; but, perhaps, with too much of nervous

haste, too little caution, for, to my inexpressible confusion, the

handle of the instrument of my emancipation remained in my hand, broken

off at the lock, and useless forever more.

In delaying probable pursuit from within, I had cut off all possibility

of my own retreat in case of failure. My bridges were literally burned

behind me, and I had no alternative left between flight and detection.

And yet there was something in the situation that, inconsistently

enough, made me smile, albeit with a trembling heart.

I shook my head drearily, as a couplet from Collins's "Camel-Driver,"

with its strange appropriateness, irresistibly crossed my brain.

Why is it that, in times like these, such conceits beset us, such

comparisons arise? Does the quality called presence of mind find root in

the same source that impels us to apt quotation?--

"What if the lion in his rage I meet?

Oft in the dust I see his printed feet."

I gained fresh heart from that trivial diversion of thought, and stood

quietly contemplating alternately the hall below and that above (both of

which were visible from my place on the intermediate platform; all was

still in both of these wide corridors), to make sure of the safety of my

enterprise; and now, once more my foot was on the brink of those

mysterious stairs which led, I felt, to doom or to liberty. I commenced,

very cautiously, to descend them. The study-door at their foot was

closed, and all seemed silent within. The murmur of voices, and the

remote rattling of china proceeding from the ell behind the hall,

encouraged me to believe that on this bitter night the family was

concentrated, for greater comfort, in the supper-room.

With my hand on the baluster, pausing at every step, I crept quietly

down the stairway; then, as if my feet were suddenly winged with terror,

I darted by the study-door, flew lightly over the carpeted hall, and

found myself, in another moment, secure within the small enclosed

vestibule into which the door of entrance gave. My worst misgivings had

never compassed the terrific truth. At this early hour of the evening,

not only was the front door locked, but the key had been withdrawn. This

was despair.

My knees gave way beneath me, and I sank like a flaccid heap in the

corner, against one of the leaves of the small folding-door that divided

the arched vestibule from the long entry, and which was secured to the

floor by a bolt, while the other one was thrown back. Crouched in the

shadow, powerless to move or think, I heard, with inexpressible terror,

the door of the study open, and the voice and step of Bainrothe in the

hall, approaching me.

Had he heard me? Would he come? Was I betrayed?

I felt my hair rise on my head as these questions rang like a tocsin

through my brain, and I think, at that moment, I had a foretaste of the

chief agony of death.

They were answered by Bainrothe himself, as he paused midway between the

study-door and my place of refuge; and again I breathed--I lived.

"I was mistaken, 'Stasia, it is not he! the wind, probably; and that

marble looks so cold--so uninviting--shall not explore it. He has a key,

you know, and can come when he likes; for my part, I shall go in to

supper while the oysters are hot. Do as you like, though."

"Had we not better wait? You know he is sure to come to-night, bad as

the weather is, on account of that affair. It was late when Wentworth

notified him."

This was the rejoinder made from within the study, in which I

recognized the voice of Mrs. Raymond, clear and shrill.

"Well, have it as you please. If you prefer courtesy to comfort, you

shall be gratified; but what's the use of ceremony with Gregory? He will

be here in twenty minutes, Mr. Bainrothe; but don't wait. I shall have

time to sup with him before I go up-stairs, you know. I believe I will

stay where I am until he comes, and finish taking in the poor thing's

wedding-gown. Well, any thing is better than removal to the belfry"--and

I thought I heard a sigh.

"A matter of mere temporary necessity, you know, only she might have

frozen in the interval," said Bainrothe, jauntily, as he walked up the

hall to the door of the dining-room, which I heard him open and let fall

against its sill again. It closed with a spring, and in the next moment

the study-door was also softly shut, and all was still.

My resolution was promptly taken. The folding leaves of the inner

door--that which divided the marble-paved vestibule from the carpeted

entry--against one of which I had been, leaning, I well knew worked to

and fro on pulleys which obeyed the drawing of a cord and tassel hanging

at one side, and thus they could readily be closed with a touch by any

one standing in the vestibule as they opened out into the hall on which

side was the latch and bolt. I recalled this quaint arrangement with a

quickness born of emergency, as one that might serve me now, and

speadily possessed myself of the tassel at the extremity of the

controlling cord. Thus armed, and praying inwardly for strength and

courage, and wherewith to carry out my scheme successfully, I took my

stand in one of the two niches (just large enough for the purpose) in

the door-frame, preferring, of course, that next to the lock, prepared

to darken the vestibule at the first approach of the expected guest (I

was afraid to do it before, lest attention might be called to it from

within the house), and make my escape by rushing past him ere he could

recover himself as he entered in the gloom.

The hazard was extreme, the result uncertain, the effort almost

foolhardy, it may be thought; but the storm and darkness were in my

favor, and I was fleet of foot, as were not all of my pursuers, as far

as I could foresee who these might be.

Momently I grew cooler, more determined, more calm, more desperate, more

regardless of consequences; and now the culmination of endeavor

approached in the shape of the sound of stamping feet upon the icy

platform of the steps which they had softly ascended, and the uncertain

fitting of a dead-latch key in its dark socket, the feeling for the knob

with half-frozen fingers, and finally the sudden and violent throwing

forward and open of the door into the darkened vestibule, for I had

drawn the cord at the first symptoms of Gregory's advent, which yet took

me by surprise. I had closed the inner doors, it is true, but paralyzed

with sudden terror I had taken no advantage of the darkness thus evoked,

and, as the tall form of the expected and expectant bridegroom staggered

in, literally blown forward by the tempest, with introverted umbrella,

and wet and streaming garments (dimly discerned in the gloom) that

brushed against me as he passed, I continued to stand transfixed to

stone in the niche I still occupied.

The dream in which La Vigne had prophesied my failure flashed over me

like lightning, and my knees trembled beneath me, yet I still clung

spasmodically to the cord I held, and with such desperate force that,

when Gregory pushed against the door, he believed it latched within, and

so desisted from further effort.

"Dark as Erebus," he muttered, "and on such a night! Confound such

hospitality! I suppose I must go back and ring;" and in pursuance of

this idea he again suddenly opened the front-door, which, swinging

violently back as he turned his face within, once more afforded me the

golden opportunity so lately lost. Quick as thought I dropped the cord I

held, and in the sudden gust the leaves of the inner door, thus

released, flew open and impelled my foe irresistibly forward. With his

flapping coat and hat he drifted into the lighted hall before the

driving blast, and, roused to instantaneous action, I slid from the

niche I filled to the icy platform without, and swift and silent as a

spectre sped down the sleety steps to the outward darkness. I was free!

A moment after, I heard the door slammed heavily after me, while I

crouched by the gate-post for concealment.

Rising up, I mutely blessed the friendly portal that made me an outcast

in the storm-swept streets from which the very dogs shrank terrified.

One moment, one only, I paused as I passed by my father's gate-way,

crowned with stone lions that glimmered in the gloom. The force of

association and of contrast shook me with emotion--I could not enter

there. My own roof afforded me no shelter from the biting blast; but

squares away, with a comparative stranger, I must seek (if I ever gained

it on that dreadful night) a refuge from the storms and sure protection

from my foes.

I moved rapidly along toward the tall street-lamp that diffused a dim

and murky light from its frost-crusted lantern at the corner of the

square, and before I reached it I encountered the first danger of my

undertaking.

Protected, fortunately, by the shadow of the high stone-wall near which

I walked rapidly, I met Dinah, so nearly face to face that the whiff of

the pipe she was smoking was warm upon my cheek. Wrapped in her old

cloth shawl and quilted hood, she muttered as she went, and staggered

too, I thought, though here the northeast wind, that swept her along

before it, might have been at fault, while, blowing in my face, it

retarded my progress.

I passed her unchallenged, but, glancing back just as I turned the

corner, I became aware that she was retracing her steps. I fled rapidly

on until I reached the shelter of a friendly nook between two houses

(well remembered of old), when, turning again to gaze, I saw her

standing immovable as a statue beneath the lamp-post, evidently looking

in the direction I had taken. There seemed no way of escape now save in

persistent flight. My place of concealment might be too readily detected

by a cautious observer, a savage on the war-trail. Should Dinah herself

pursue me, I knew my speed would distance her; but, that prompt pursuit

of some kind was imminent, I knew from that moment.

My aim was to reach the house of Dr. Pemberton, no intermediate one

presenting itself as that of an acquaintance of whom I could ask

shelter, and belief in the truth of my assertions. Of this house I

remembered the position with tolerable accuracy. It formed one, I knew,

of a long block of buildings extending from one street to another, and

was near the centre.

I had been there only on rare occasions, when his niece abode with him,

for he dwelt ordinarily in widowed solitude, although, our intimacy was

that of relatives rather than of patient and physician.

For this desired goal I strained every nerve, every muscle, every

faculty, on that never-to-be-forgotten night of bitter, freezing cold,

and driving sleet and blast, which seemed to proclaim itself, in every

howling gust, "The wind Euroclydon!"

CHAPTER XIII.

At first, excitement and terror winged my feet; but even these refused,

after I had gone a few squares, to do their friendly office.

Bareheaded, but for a filmy veil, soon thoroughly drenched through;

barehanded and almost barefooted, for my thin silk slippers and

stockings formed not, after my first few steps, the slightest impediment

to wet or cold, I felt that I must perish by the wayside. The sleety

storm drove sharply in my face, rendered doubly sensitive to its rigor

by long absence from outward air. My insufficient clothing clung closely

about me, freezing in every fold, and I glided rather than walked along

the icy pavement, scarcely lifting my stiffened feet, or having power to

do so.

One stern hope--it almost seemed a forlorn one--now possessed me to the

exclusion of all else; one prayer trembled on my quivering lips--that I

might reach my destination, if only to tell my story and drop dead a

moment after.

Yet I think, in spite of this resolve--this prayer--that, had a friendly

door been opened on the way, an area even emitting light and warmth, I

should have instinctively turned aside and, at any risk, pleaded for

shelter, both from storm and foeman.

In those days that seem far back in the march of luxury, because of

the vast impetus of human momentum, stores were closed early, and the

primitive family tea-table still existed which marked the assemblage of

the household around the evening comet and hearth.

I remember the closed, inhospitable look of the houses past which I

sped--the solid wooden shutters, then universal, which, closed from the

wayfarer every evidence of internal life, and the cold sheen of the

icy-white marble steps, made visible by dim lamp-light.

I gained a street-corner not very far, as it seemed to me, from my place

of destination. Yet, until I glanced across the way, I was uncertain,

and, but for the friendly refuge this opportunity presented, I think I

must have faltered and perhaps fallen and frozen to death on the

road-side.

To my bewildered and disordered brain, Aladdin's palace seemed suddenly

to rise before me in that wilderness of sealed houses and uninhabited

streets; for, as I have said before, the very dogs had crept away that

night into secure corners, and not even a pariah chimney-sweep, with his

dingy blanket drawn close around him, nodded and dozed by a watch-box or

slept on a door-step.

I crept across the space that divided me from this cynosure of warmth

and luxury, as a poor, draggled moth might do, to bask in the

revivifying light of an astral lamp, attracted beyond my power to

resist, to pause before the resplendent window, rich in green and purple

and amber rotund vases, whose transparent contents were set forth and

revealed by fiery jets of gas, toward which I feebly stretched my

half-frozen fingers.

There was a splendid vision, also, of goldfish, in glass globes, jars of

leaden rock-work, baskets of waxen fruits and flowers, crystal bottles

containing rose and amber essences; but, above all, there was

light--there was heat.

With one greedy, insatiate gaze my eyes swept in the details of this

mimic Eden, and, in another moment, my hand turned the knob of the

ground-glass door near the window, and I found myself in paradise!

Rest, shelter, heat--these must I have or perish, and, but for the

timely refuge of this thrice-blessed apothecary's shop, I might have

left this retrospect unwritten!

I staggered to a chair, and seated myself, unbidden, by the almost

red-hot stove, and cowered above it for a time, oblivious of all else.

Then I looked timidly around me.

The master of this Eden was standing, at the moment when he first caught

my eyes, holding up a bottle, scrutinizingly, between his face and the

light, one of many of the same sort that a lad, in a long, white apron,

was engaged in washing.

The odor of the various drugs and essences over which he presided formed

an aromatic atmosphere singularly suggestive of incense, as did his

costume, that of a high-priest of the temple; but, very soon discarding

a gray-linen cape or talma, worn for the protection of his speckless

coat, and tossing a bundle of corks rather disdainfully to his

assistant, the head of the establishment came politely forward, standing

on the other side of the stove, with clasped hands, expectantly.

"You will tell me your errand here when you are quite ready," he said,

kindly. "Do rest and warm yourself first. The stove has a narcotic

tendency when one has just come out of cold like this! The thermometer

has fallen twenty degrees since noonday; but that is only half the

trouble. Hem! This sleet and wind are beyond any former experience of

mine at this season."

I heard the words of the speaker as if bound in a dreadful dream, but

they were clearly understood, and now I made an effort at utterance, but

failed, until after repeated endeavors, to enunciate one word. Yet I

noted distinctly, and even with a nice discrimination of scrutiny, the

red-haired and bright-eyed man, portly and somewhat pompous-looking,

with his plump hands folded over his vest, who stood before me, looking

pityingly down on my suffering face.

After a time I gathered up my forces sufficiently to inquire, being

quite thawed and comforted by the reviving heat of the apartment, how

far it might be to the house of Dr. Pemberton, who resided in the block

of houses known as Kendrick's Row, on Maple Street.

"It is nearly a square and a half, miss, by street measurement just now,

as, on account of changes, this is impassable," was the prompt reply.

"Scarcely half a square by the alley that runs from my back-door, after

a short turn, straight through to Maple Street; and, if it is only

question of a message, I can send Caleb, so that you may await the

coming of the doctor in comfort, in this emporium. He always uses his

gig for night-visits, and will, no doubt, be happy to carry you home in

his wolfskin."

"Thanks--there is no question of a medical visit. I have very important

business with him. I must see him in his own house. I will go without

further delay. But, perhaps"--lingering a moment--"you would be so good

as to suffer Mr. Caleb to show me the short way you spoke of? I shall

not mind going through the alley at all."

I rose prepared to depart, and glanced beseechingly at Caleb, who laid

down his bottle uncorked, and folded his arms with an approving knightly

bow, unperceived by his employer.

"We have just had a similar inquiry as to Dr. Pemberton's locality; I

mean," said the master of the emporium, without replying to my request,

"on the part of a very distinguished-looking personage--I might say,

well got up in the fur and overcoat line--and, had you come in a few

moments earlier, you might have had his escort; or perhaps you are on

his track now--probably one of his party?" hesitatingly. "No! Well, it

is a strange coincidence, to say the least--very strange--as the doctor

is so well known hereabouts. As to going out in the storm again, I have

my misgivings, miss, for you, when I look at the flimsiness of your

attire and its drenched condition. I can't see, indeed, how a

delicate-looking lady like yourself ever held her own against this

terrific wind. Eolus seems to have lost his bags! But, perhaps you had

an escort to the corner?"

"No--no--no--I came quite alone! Oh, for pity's sake, put me on my way

and let me go! My business is most urgent!" I hesitated--my heart sank.

Had Bainrothe been before me to spirit the doctor away by some feigned

message of need, of distress, to which no inclemency of weather could

close that benevolent medical ear? And did he lie in wait for me on the

way?"

"Perhaps I had, after all, better go alone," I continued; "it might be

too great an inconvenience"--and I moved toward the ground-glass door.

"Not if you will accept my services, miss," said Caleb, timidly, pushing

away the remaining corks as he spoke, and glancing furtively at his

master.

"How often must I remind you, Caleb Fink," said the owner of the

emporium, "that your sphere is circumscribed to your duties? Attend to

those phials, and drain them well before you bottle the citrate of

magnesia. The last was spoiled by your unpardonable carelessness. I have

not forgotten this!"

And again, with a deprecatory look at me, Caleb Fink subsided into a

nonentity.

"Truly has the great and wise Dr. Perkins remarked that 'the women of

America are suicidal from the cradle to the grave!' I will give you one

of his pamphlets, miss, to take away with you, and you will be convinced

that slippers are serpents in disguise in winter weather! The wooden

shoes of Germany rather! Ay, or even the _sabot_ of France! You must not

stir another step in those. Be seated, pray, and I will not detain you

long, while I procure a substitute or protection for such shams, worth

nothing in such Siberian weather.--Caleb, a word with you;". and he

whispered to his apprentice, who glided away, to return in a trice with

a pair of India-rubber overshoes, into which benign boats he proceeded

to thrust my unresisting feet, as I stood leaning on the counter; after

which a muffler was tied about my ears, and a heavy honey-comb shawl

thrown over my shoulders by the same expeditious hands.

"Could you be always as spry, Caleb! Your gloves now--I shall need my

own"--and a pair of stalwart knitted mits were forthwith drawn over my

passive hands, in which my fingers nestled undivided and warm.

"Now you look something like going for the doctor! My overcoat,

Caleb--gloves--fur-cape--cane! All hanging near the bed. There, we are

ready now for old Borealis himself, if he chooses to blow! But I

forget--God bless me, you are as pale as the ghost of Pompey, at

Philippi!--Caleb, the Perkins elixir--a glass!--Now, young lady, just

take it down at a gulp. It is the only alcoholic preparation that

Napoleon Bonaparte Burress ever suffered to pass his temperate lips.

Father Matthew does not object to it at all, I am told, on emergencies.

It may be had at this repository very low, either by the gross or

dozen"--speaking the last words mechanically, and he tendered me a small

glass of some nauseous, bittersweet, and potent beverage, that coursed

through my veins like liquid fire.

"Thank you; it is very comforting," I gasped, and, setting the glass

down on the counter, I covered my face with my hands and burst into

tears.

The whole forlornness of my outcast and eleemosynary condition rushed

over me simultaneously with the flood of warmth caused by the Perkins

elixir, which nerved me the next moment for the encounter with the

elements.

I saw the kindly master of the emporium turn away, either to conceal his

own emotion or his observation of mine, and Caleb stood trembling and

crying like a girl before me.

I had shrunk, it may be remembered, from the description Sabra gave me

of McDermot, when I heard of his red hair and "chaney-blue eyes;" but to

this red-haired, hazel-eyed man I yearned instinctively, for there are

moral differences discernible in the temperament greater than any other,

and, when a red-haired man is tender-hearted, he usually usurps the

womanly prerogative, and gushes.

But Caleb's sympathy touched me even more.

"We will go now, if you please," I said, recovering myself by a strong

effort, and Napoleon B. Burress mutely tendered me his stout,

overcoated arm. "The short way you mentioned--let us go that way, if not

disagreeable to you," I pleaded.

"Oh, no; it will be an absolute saving of time to me; but, I warn you,

the alley is narrow and dark!"

"Never mind; I prefer the short cut, be it what it may. Time is every

thing to me."

We passed through the shop, threaded a narrow entry, opened a back-door,

which gave upon a strip of paved yard, leading in turn to a back-gate,

through which we emerged into a dark and dirty-looking alley.

But first the work of unlocking a padlock, which confined a chain, had

to be effected, and, while Mr. N.B. Burress was thus unfastening his

back-gate preparatory to egress, I stood gazing back, Eurydice-like, in

the place I had left, for the doors of the long entry stood open,

revealing the shop beyond and its illuminated window.

Standing thus, I saw, as through a vista and in a perfect ecstasy of

terror, the ground-glass shop-door open, and two well-known forms in

succession block its portals--those of Gregory and Bainrothe! Would

Caleb send them on our track, or would the better part of valor come to

his aid and save me from their clutches?

A thought occurred to me. "Mr. Burress," I said (I had retained his name

with its remarkable prefix), "will you not lock the gate outside? I can

wait patiently until you secure your premises--and--and bring away the

key."

"I had meant to leave it here until my return, but you are right,"

speaking indulgently. "I suppose burglars are abroad on nights like

this," and he quietly relocked the alley-gate. "You are very

considerate," he said, dryly, after we had gone a few yards in profound

silence, "but had I not better return for a lantern?"

"Oh, not for worlds! Faster--faster, Mr. Burress, and Heaven will reward

you! Never mind the stones--the snow--the mud--so that we get there

first! Yes, I see where the lane turns; I see very well in the

dark--never fear--only do not delay--I am so glad you locked the

alley-gate. They cannot come that way."

"Of whom are you afraid, poor young lady? Nobody would harm you, I am

sure; such a gentle, tender thing as you seem to be!"

"Oh, yes! Fiends are on my track! Don't let them get possession of me

again, Mr. Burress. I am pursued--yes--faster--faster!"

"But what has startled you, poor thing, since we left the Repository?

You seemed quite calm after the Perkins elixir--and those tears. Ah! I

understand!" and he coughed several times significantly. The doctor will

set all right, I suppose, when I give you into his hands. I am glad I

came with you myself--courage, we shall soon be there!"

"Yes--yes--he is my only hope! I will explain all when we are safe with

him. It is not as you think! I have no strength now. Don't question me

further, it exhausts me to talk. Just drag me along."

And silently and valiantly did he betake himself to his task. The

noisome alley was threaded, and again we emerged into the sleety,

lamp-lit street, a few doors from the corner of that block, in the

centre of which Dr. Pemberton resided.

As we approached the friendly threshold, the exact situation of which

was familiar to my companion, he pointed it out triumphantly with his

stick.

"We shall soon be there," he reiterated, "no need for hurry now." But

as he spoke I saw a carriage turn the corner we were facing, and again I

urged on my lagging escort to his utmost speed. I ran up the sleety

steps in advance of him, and rang the bell with convulsive energy. Its

summons was answered promptly, but not a second too soon, for, as the

door opened to admit me, the carriage paused before the door, and two

men leaped from it, one of whom, the taller, thrusting Burress aside,

rushed up the steps after me with outstretched arms.

I had found refuge in the vestibule, and slammed the door in his

face--closing, as it did, with a spring-lock--before he reached the

platform. Then turning to his companion, he fled down to the street

again, with the cry that reached my ear distinctly, of "Baffled, by

God!" on his profane lips, and the twain drove off as rapidly as they

had come.

A moment later a feeble ring at the door, and a voice from without,

assuring the inmates that it was only N.B. Burress, and conjuring them

not to be alarmed, caused him to be admitted at once by the house-maid,

and shown into the same small front study into which she had conducted

me to await the doctor's appearance.

"What name shall I give? The doctor is engaged," said the house-maid,

lingering.

"None at all, merely let me know when he is ready to see me. I am tired

and cold, and can wait patiently by this good fire."

"It may be some time, miss; would you like a cup of hot coffee, you and

this gentleman? The doctor has just had his supper, and there is a pint

or more left in the urn."

"Thanks--nothing could be more welcome," and the house-maid disappeared.

"That is the way of this house--patients are always entertained, if in

need of refreshment," said Mr. Burress, advancing to the chimney, while

he rubbed his hands in a self-gratulatory manner, then expanded them

before the bright glare that filled every pore with warmth.

I was tremulous, and silent, and half exhausted, and he seemed to take

this in at a friendly glance, for he made none of those inquiries that I

knew were burning on his inquisitive lips; but after a few moments of

further enjoyment before the grate, and having duly turned himself as on

a spit, so as to absorb every ray of heat possible, he betook himself to

an arm-chair and a book, near the drop-light on a corner table, the soft

rustling of the turning leaves of which had a most soothing effect on my

nerves.

"I shall only stay a few minutes," he said, apologetically. "I wish,

however, to see you safe in Dr. Pemberton's hands before I leave you, as

a sort of duty, you know, you being a charge of mine, and should you

need further escort--"

"Oh, thank you, kindly; you have surely had enough trouble on my account

already."

"Not a particle--only a pleasure, miss; but the push I got from your

pursuer upset me on the pavement and made sparks fly out of my eyes,

and, before I could gather myself up, they were back again in the

carriage and off. You will have to give me the mans name, miss--you

will, indeed, on my own account, when all your fatigue and fright are

over. Such favors are generally returned by me with compound interest."

"Oh, be thankful you have not a compound fracture, Mr. Burress, and let

the fellow go. He is beneath contempt. But I shall not be satisfied

until Dr. Pemberton tells me himself that you are uninjured."

"A lump as big as a potato--that's all, miss; not worth minding, I

assure you;" and he raised his hand to his occipital region. "An

application, before retiring to bed, of 'Prang's Blood and Life

Regenerator,' will make all right again. An astonishing remedy, miss,

which no family should be without, and which may be obtained cheaply by

the gross or dozen at my emporium. You have heard of Hercules Prang?"

These were the last words I heard distinctly from the lips of Napoleon

B. Burress; nor were they answered, even by the brief "Never" which

might have proclaimed my ignorance of the very existence of that

demi-god of charlatanry, who, for the benefit of suffering mankind, had

condescended to compel his genius into the shape of a "revivifying

balsam."

I had, with the aid of the house-maid, divested myself of my wet

overshoes and wrappings before the advent of my companion, and had

already ensconced myself in a deep Spanish chair, that stood invitingly

and with extended arms in one corner of the fireplace, when he advanced

to place himself on the rug for a general roasting.

It was precisely twenty minutes past ten, Mr. Burress told me later,

when he detected, by stealing on tiptoe to my chair, and bending above

me, that I was sound asleep, and the mantel clock was on the stroke of

eleven when I awoke.

In one corner of the room sat a stern statue of Silence, in the shape of

N.B. Burress, watching my repose, and from the adjoining office came the

murmur of voices that proved that the long interview between Dr.

Pemberton and his patient was still in progress.

At this moment, one of the walnut-leaves of the small folding-door,

that formed a communication between the study and office of the good

physician, swung itself gently on its noiseless hinges, into the

position distinguished in description as "slightly ajar," and thus

remained fixed, after a fashion that spiritual mediums might have been

able to account for, on supernatural principles.

The low murmur of voices then readily resolved itself into shaped words

and sentences, and, but for my deep languor, and the delightful sense of

security that possessed me, I should have risen and closed the obliging

door, to shut out unintentional communications.

As it was, I lingered and listened, as one might do to the dash of

waves, or the rustling of branches, until suddenly the tones and meaning

of the principal interlocutor caused me to rise to my loftiest sitting

posture, and clasp the arms of the chair I occupied, while the strained

ear of attention drank in every syllable of the remainder of the

narrative, evidently drawing near its close.

The low monotony of a continued discourse pervaded the voice, the manner

of the speaker, the thread of whose story was no longer interrupted, as

before, by the comments or questions of his companion, intent upon the

vital interest of the tale.

"So I turned back at Panama," said the _raconteur_, probably, of a

series of adventures, "and abandoned my project altogether. The man

spoke with an air and tone of truth: the sketch was unmistakably hers.

The whole thing was full of _vraisemblance_, so to speak, and bore me

completely off my feet. The initials beneath the sketch of Christian

Garth were identical with her own.

"He referred me to Captain Van Dome for confirmation of the saving of

the few remaining passengers on the raft, and her presence in the ship

Latona, together with that of the child and negress.

"I have seen Captain Van Dorne, and he admits the part he played, on the

representation of Bainrothe; and, through the evidence of a newspaper

advertisement, of the previous autumn, which had met his eye, to satisfy

the puerile scruples of this really good but ignorant man--going no

deeper than the surface in his code of morals--they were obliged to tear

out the record of their names, and take refuge temporarily in the

long-boat, before he would swear to Miriam, in her state-room, that

Bainrothe was not on board.

"As to the _habeas corpus_ which would have gone into effect to-day, and

which the wretch managed to defeat by requiring an error to be corrected

in the writ, that no guiltless man would have observed, I fear sometimes

it will prove ineffectual if we wait for the morrow. My plan was to go

at midnight with a party of my friends to the house of this miscreant,

and take the law in my own hands; but, in this I could not stir, for the

reasons I have given you. Besides that, it was risking too much--her

safety and reputation.

"She cannot be secretly removed, of course, for we have a detective in

the house able and strong, besides the old well-paid negress, both of

whom--"

"Have played you false," I interrupted, rising impetuously, and throwing

back the loose leaf of the door, "and I am here to tell you this. O

friends, have you forgotten me?"

And, rushing forward, I threw an arm around each of those dear necks,

weeping alternately on the shoulder of one and the other of the two men

I loved best in the world, and who, for some moments, sat silent and

amazed!

Then Wentworth rose mutely, and clasped me to his breast, and silence

prevailed between us. It comprehended all.

I think, when we meet again in heaven, after that severance which is

inevitable to those who wear a mortal shape, we may feel as we did then,

but never before! The rapture--the relief--the spiritual

ecstasy--surmounting, as on wings of fire, pain, fatigue, suspense,

anguish of mind and body--were in themselves lessons of immortality

beyond any that book or sage has issued from midnight vigil or earthly

tabernacle.

Not until a new order of things is established, and we have done with

tribulation, tears, and death, shall we again know such sensations; nor

is it indeed quite certain that human heart and brain could twice

sustain them here below!

CHAPTER XIV.

Reaction came at last! Life is full of bathos as well as pathos. An hour

later, we four companions in the rejoicing over this redemption, if

chiefly strangers before, were partaking cheerfully together of hot

coffee and oysters. The services of Mrs. Jessup had been called in--the

doctor's excellent old Quaker house-keeper--and, amid many "thous" and

"thees," she had served us a capital and expeditious supper.

No one enjoyed the festive occasion more than Mr. Burress, who, on the

point of stealing lightly away after witnessing from the front study the

scene of recognition and meeting, had been arrested on the threshold by

Dr. Pemberton himself.

Either to allow a full explanation between two long-parted lovers, or to

conceal his own emotion and get back his customary calm, our dear doctor

had seen fit to step into the front-study for a few minutes, and he

checked Mr. Burress, with his hand on the door knob, with some very

natural questions as to the mode and time of our meeting, and ended by

requiring his presence at the slight collation he ordered at once.

The part the worthy apothecary had played' in my closing adventure; the

certainty that to his zeal and promptness I owed my immunity from

further captivity--for, had I walked around the square in the usual

way, the men at watch from the carriage-windows must have espied and

seized me--or, had we loitered in the alley, and arrived a moment later

at the central house of Kendrick Row, there is no doubt that they would

have been there to await my arrival, nor could Mr. Burress have saved me

from their clutches--the whole thing seemed especially providential;

but, as the efficient medium of such mercy, Napoleon B. Burress did,

indeed, seem to all present crowned with a perfect nimbus of glory. Dr.

Pemberton led him back to my presence with his arm encircling his

shoulder; Captain Wentworth shook his hand mutely but long, with his

eyes dimmed with tears, and words that found imperfect utterance, at

last compelling him to strange silence.

"I thank you, I bless you," he said, at last. "I do not hope to be able

to return such services, but, what I _can do_, command."

"And I to think that she was crazy all the time; escaped from the great

asylum a mile away. Sweetest creature, too, I ever saw in my life; and

Caleb thought so, too."

The speaker brushed a briny drop or two from his eyes with the back of

his hand as he spoke; then, smiling archly, asked:

"Can you forgive me, miss, for belying you so, even in thought? You see,

I have made a clean breast of it now; but such a pity!"

"Forgive you?" And I advanced toward him, and put both my hands in one

of his large white extremities, and, before I knew what I was doing, I

had stooped over and kissed it, and was bathing it with my tears.

"O miss! this is too much; it is, indeed!" said Napoleon B., blushing

to the roots of his hair, and withdrawing his hand with a

slightly-mortified air; "you nonplus me completely."

"You see she was too much overcome, Mr. Burress, to speak otherwise than

this," said Wentworth, drawing me to his bosom. "You must honor this

expression of feeling as I do."

"O sir! it is the greatest honor I ever received in my life; and she,

poor thing, like Penelope, tangled up in a web so long, and free at

last! Well, it is a great joy to me to think I helped a little to cut

the ropes."

"Helped! Why, I owe every thing to you. Listen," and then as briefly as

I could I recounted the trials in store for me that very night--the

compulsory marriage, or the removal to the belfry-tower--one or the

other inevitable, and either of which must have made the proposed rescue

of the following day, on the part of Captain Wentworth and his friends,

in one sense or the other unavailing. As the wife of Gregory, or as the

prisoner of the turret, I should in one case have been morally, and in

the other physically, dead or lost forever!

Mutely, and tearfully even, was my skill in setting forth the magnitude

of the wrong, from which Mr. Burress had been instrumental in saving me,

acknowledged by my audience, not excepting Jenny the house-maid, who,

arrested on the threshold, stood wiping her eyes with her neat cotton

apron in token of sympathy.

"Caleb will be wondering what has become of me, and tired out of

watching if I don't go home at once," said Mr. Burress, after his

emotion had subsided, and accepting gracefully the civic crown with

which he had been metaphorically rewarded. Mine was in store, but how

could he dream of this?

A statue of the Greek Slave, a copy made by a master-hand, soon adorned

his window, and his bride wore pearls of price, the joint gift of Miriam

and Wardour Wentworth, a twelvemonth later, when a mistress of the

emporium was brought home, much to the solace of Caleb, who was

remembered by us also, let me not forget to add.

Truly kind and benevolent as he was, Napoleon Burress had a despotic

manner, which relaxed beneath the genial smile of Marian March.

"I must go, indeed, my dear sir" (to Dr. Pemberton), "but this night

will be memorable in my annals. God bless you all! Farewell. Afraid of

an encounter? Not I. Like Horatio Cockleshell of old, I learned to carry

pistols constantly about me when I had to pass the bridge every night as

a youngster. My parents lived in Hamilton village. I still keep up the

custom, and therefore pay my fine yearly to the council."

"When at last we separated, the clock was on the stroke of one, and I

went to a clean and quiet chamber above the little study, where a bright

fire was burning, but whence the smell of lavender, which always

accompanies the fresh sheets of Quakerhood, still prevailed with a

summer-like fragrance. The attentive house-maid disrobed me, and bathed

my chilled and frosted feet and swollen hands in water tempered with

alcohol. Then arraying me in a mob-cap and snowy cotton gown, the

property of good Mrs. Jessup, placed me in the soft nest prepared for

sojourners beneath that homely but hospitable roof.

"I hope thee is comfortable, Miriam Monfort," said Mrs. Jessup, after I

was ensconced in bed. "Why, thy face is the same, after all, that I

remember when thou wert a very little girl, and used to walk out with

Mrs. Austin. She is well, I hope?" settling the bed-cover.

"I cannot tell you, Mrs. Jessup. I must rather ask such questions of

you. When did you see her last? and Mabel--do you know my little

sister?"

"Oh, yes, I know her perfectly well by sight. Let me see, it was Sabbath

before last that, just as I was coming out of Friends' meeting-house, I

saw Mabel Monfort, a pretty maiden, truly, walking with her step-sister,

I think, and a tall and stately gentleman. But Mrs. Austin I have not

seen since last rose-time, and then only in passing. She seemed well,

but wore a troubled face."

"Yes, yes; she was troubled, no doubt, things were so altered; and, if

her heart had not turned to stone, she must have thought of me sometimes

regretfully. But all bids fair now, Mrs. Jessup, both for me and her,

and for Mabel. For the rest, let them go--they are fiends!"

"Thee has a very flushed and hot cheek, Miriam, now that I see thee

closely and touch thy face"--doing so lightly with the back of her hand

as she spoke. "A bowl of sage-tea would, no doubt, be of service to

thee; shall I--"

"Oh, no, Mrs. Jessup; I never could drink that wise stuff in the world.

I have just had a good supper, and am excited, that is all. Jenny will

tell you what she overheard concerning my escape of to-night, and that

will account for all."

"Good-night, then, Miriam; may the Lord have thee in his care this

night"--and she withdrew, followed by Jenny, eager, no doubt, to

commence the recital of my adventure, or to hear what more Captain

Wentworth and Dr. Pemberton had to say on the subject.

It was nearly daylight when they parted, one to snatch a few hours of

needful slumber before setting out on his professional tour, the other

to go at once to the officers of justice, and, at the very earliest hour

possible, obtain the authority to arrest the brace of arch-conspirators,

still protected by the shadows of the dawn.

For Justice has its time of sleeping and waking in large cities, and

will not be denied its meals, its hours of rest, and even recreation. So

it was seven o'clock in the cold November morning before the proper

ceremonials could be accomplished which placed it in the power of

Wentworth to arraign Basil Bainrothe and Luke Gregory.

He occupied one seat in the hackney-coach, which was otherwise filled by

the officers of the law; but, when he rang a sonorous peal on the portal

bell of Bainrothe's residence, it was unanswered, and, though the house

had been watched since daylight by an armed police force, who had no

connection with McDermot, it was found, when an entrance had been

effected, that the only inhabitants of the mansion were a sick woman, an

old negress, and a child, apparently, from its puny size, about a

twelvemonth old. The woman could not be aroused from the coma in which

she seemed to have fallen, either as a crisis of her disease or a

precursor of death (medical opinion was divided), until suddenly, about

noon, she waked, perfectly clear in mind and comfortable in body, and

called loudly for nourishment!

I had slept profoundly until that hour, and my first thought in waking

was of Mrs. Clayton and her probable condition; then came the

concentrated effort necessary for her release; and she, too, awoke, as I

have shown, to consciousness and physical ease.

Her surprise, her indignation, at being thus deserted, surpassed even

her disappointment at my escape, and her involuntary somnolency was a

theme of self-reproach and marvel both. But all yielded in turn to

terror when she found herself under arrest in her own chamber, in

company with her fellow-conspirator Sabra.

The child was brought to me, at my earnest request, and, during the few

days of my sojourn under Dr. Pemberton's roof, managed to make friends

of all around him. His deformity soon became a matter of interest and

medical examination, and it was decided that it was not beyond the reach

of surgical skill.

The process would be very gradual, Dr. Pemberton thought, of

straightening the spinal curvature; but, should the health of the child

prove good after his tardy and difficult dentition, much might be hoped

from the aid of Nature herself. This was joyous intelligence to me.

The noble soul of Ernie should still wear a fitting frame, and the

stature of his kind be accorded to him! The "picaninny" wicked old Sabra

had gloated on as a dainty morsel, on the raft, might live to put Fate

itself to shame; for had I not marveled that his mother even should care

to preserve a thing so frail and wretched, when we sat hand-in-hand

together on the burning ship? And, later, had I not pondered over the

wisdom of his preservation? Who, then, shall penetrate the mysteries of

divine intention?

Claude Bainrothe had been arrested, but, after close and thorough

examination, was dismissed as irresponsible for and ignorant of his

father's acts and designs, a sentence afterward revoked, as far as

public opinion was concerned.

Evelyn, Mabel, and Mrs. Austin, were, of course, beyond suspicion--the

last two deservedly so; and if, indeed, Evelyn had been guilty of

coöperation, I knew it had been through the force of circumstances

alone, too potent for her egotism and vanity. She never wished to

destroy, only to govern me, and make my being and interests subordinate

to her own. Mrs. Austin and Mabel received me with earnest joy, and

Evelyn even manifested a decent sense of sisterly gratulation.

I never saw Claude Bainrothe nor entered my father's house until after

he had left it and forever--accompanied not by his wife, who lingered

behind in distress and wretched dependence, most bitter to a spirit like

hers, neither loving to give or receive favors--for, gathering up all of

his own and his father's valuables, and drawing from the bank every

dollar he could command, this worthy son of an unprincipled sire fled to

join his parent, with his minion, Ada Greene. Evelyn had been for some

time sensible of his infatuation, and striven vainly to combat it by

every means in her power, forbearance having been her first alternative,

vivid reproach her last. But experiments had failed. The first only

fostered guilt beneath her own roof--the last urged it to its

consummation.

Still young and beautiful, she was deserted by the only man she had ever

loved--the being for whom she had ruthlessly sacrificed the welfare of

her sisters and every sentiment of honor; to whom she had given up her

liberty to pander to his and his father's ignominy, and her home to

their desecration.

In her great grief she retired to the solitude of her own chamber, and

refused to see any face save that of Mrs. Austin, who from this period

became her sole attendant, even after time had somewhat ameliorated the

first agony incident to her condition.

For there came to her another phase of being which made this attendance

no less a necessity than her present form of bitter and helpless grief.

Hope revived, but in a form that promised no fruition, and which later

will be made plainer to the reader. Just now I must continue my

_résumé_.

Old Martin was dead of paralysis, after praying vainly to be spared to

see his master's child return and take possession of her own, for he had

never believed in my suicide, an idea that Bainrothe had taken pains to

propagate. Nor did he lend any faith to my demise; knowing what he did,

he believed that I had gone to England to get assistance from my

mother's relatives--and Mrs. Austin had shared his opinion; she had

nursed him to the last, faithfully, and Evelyn had been tolerant of his

presence. This, at least, was a consolation.

Sabra and Mrs. Clayton were not prosecuted, and I did, perhaps, the most

inexorable act of my life when I refused to see either of them again, or

assist them to more than a mere subsistence until health could be

restored to the one and her "owners" written to in order that the other

might be reclaimed to bondage, in which condition alone she, and such as

she, can be restrained from wrongdoing. "For there are devils on the

earth," says Swedenborg, "as well as angels, and they both wear human

guise--but by this may we know them, that no mortal ties bind them, no

sphere confines them. They walk abroad, the one solely to evil for its

own sake, the other to universal good for the Father. Such as these die

not, but are translated, the one to hell, the other to heaven."

Do we not right, then, to confine and enslave devils while they abide

with us, or, if we can, to destroy them utterly? And if we discern them,

shall we not adore God's angels?

These dwell not long among us, and their eyes are fixed always with a

far, pure yearning for some sphere in which we have no part. We feel

this in our daily intercourse with them, for angels like these dwell

often in the lowliest form about us, and our common contact with them

thrills and awes us, though we scarcely realize that it is from them we

have these sensations, or what renders them so far, though near at hand!

Little children, submissive slaves, sad women, unresisting men, patient

physicians, great patriots, persistent preachers, martyr poets--all

these forms and phases in turn do our associate angels enter into and

inform.

But ever the sign is there! They are not ours! Among us, but not of

us--set apart, here for a season be it, longer or shorter, ready at any

time to spread their wings! My sister was of these--I did not recognize

this truth in the time of my great sorrow, when the parting plumes had

not revealed themselves to my undiscerning eyes.

A mighty touchstone has been applied to these earthly orbs since then,

and the power to discriminate has been given to my soul. As Gregory and

Sabra were devils, I verily believe, so was Mabel one of Swedenborg's

angels. Who shall gainsay me? Who knows more than I on this subtle

subject? Not the wisest theologian that lives and breathes this earthly

air! Only those who never speak to enlighten us, and who have passed

into infinite light and knowledge through the portals of the grave.

When I knelt beside Wardour Wentworth in the old church of chimes a

fortnight after my emancipation from the thraldom of demons, I acquired

with this new allegiance of mine a more Christian and forbearing spirit

than had ever before possessed me; but the pearl of great price came not

yet. Into the deeps of sorrow was my soul first compelled to enter, a

diver in the great ocean, whence alone all such precious pearls are

borne.

Notice had been given to Claude Bainrothe to evacuate my father's

premises before my return from the brief wedding-trip which comprised

business as well as recreation. Captain Wentworth took me with him to

Richmond and to Washington, to both of which places his affairs led him.

In the last I had the pleasure of grasping Old Hickory by his honest

hand. He was my husband's patron and benefactor, and as such alone

entitled to my regard; but there was more. As patriot, soldier,

gentleman in the truest sense of the word, I have not seen his peer.

It was a great delight to me, in spite of the shadow Evelyn's grief

threw over our threshold, to stand once more as mistress in my father's

house, even in the wreck of fortune, and control the education and

destiny of my young sister. Little Ernie, too, had his place in the

household as son by adoption, and grew daily stronger and more vigorous

in our sight, the thoughtful, loving, and reticent child, heralding the

man of power, affection, and principle, that he has become.

The employment of my husband lay near the city of my nativity. He was

occupied in making the great railroad through Jersey that was the

pioneer of engineering progress, and a mighty link between two kindred

States. He was in this way, though often absent, never for any length of

time, and his return was always a fresh source of joy to his household.

Mabel worshiped him; Ernie silently revered; Evelyn with all of her

growing peculiarities acknowledged he had merit; and Mrs. Austin

regarded him with mingled awe and affection, for to her he was

singularly kind and affectionate.

"To grow old in servitude," he would say, "what sadder fate can befall

any being, or more entitle him or her to forbearance and respect? What

life-long hardships does this condition not impose? And this is a field

for universal charity, which costs not much, only a little patience and

a few kind words and smiles."

Ours was a happy household; no cloud rested upon it, save for a few

brief days of illness or discomfort, until the great blow fell. In her

seventeenth year and on the eve of her marriage with Norman Stansbury

(again our neighbor, at intervals, when he came to visit his relatives,

a man of noble qualities and singularly devoted to my sister), Mabel

died suddenly of some secret disease of the heart which had simulated

radiant health and bloom.

I had sometimes observed with anxiety a slight shortness of breath, a

gasping after unusual exercise, and called the attention of physicians

to this state of things in my sister, who regarded it merely as a

nervous symptom, and this was all to indicate that the fell destroyer

was silently at work. She had just laid a bunch of white roses on her

toilet, and crossed the chamber for water to place them in, when she

called my name in a strange, excited way, that brought me speedily to

her side from the adjoining room. She was lying white and speechless on

her bed, beside which the crystal goblet lay in fragments.

The waters of her own existence had flowed forthwith those prepared for

her flowers, and before assistance could be summoned she expired

peacefully in my arms, without a struggle. She had inherited her

mother's malady.

The anguish, and disappointment of the lover, and my own despair, maybe

better imagined than portrayed. My baby died a few weeks later--partly,

I think, from the effect of my own condition on her frail organization,

and the hope of years was blighted in this fragile blossom--the first

that had blessed our union.

The little Constance slumbered by Mabel's side, and a slip from that

bunch of white roses, the last my sister had gathered, shadows the

marbles that guard both of those now-distant, yet not neglected graves.

Thus death at last entered our happy household!

A great shadow fell over me, which I vainly strove to dispel with all

the effort of my reason and my will. Physicians, remembering my mother's

inscrutable melancholy--a part of that mysterious malady that consumed

her life--whispered their warnings in my husband's ears, and he

resolved, with that energy which belongs to men of his nature, to lay

the axe at once to the root of this evil in the only way that presented

itself to his mind--as possible of accomplishment.

At first I resisted faintly the coincidence of his will, which he knew

was sure to come sooner or later; and to the very last it was agony

unspeakable to me, to think that my father's house should pass into the

hands of strangers, and that the place that knew me should know me no

more!

Very resolutely and calmly did Wardour endure and stem my opposition.

Swift and strong as the current of my will flowed naturally, he was ever

its master, as the stone dam can stay and lull the fiercest rivers. He

persisted, knowing well what was at stake, and to my surprise Dr:

Pemberton and Mr. Gerald Stansbury cooperated with his decision. Nor did

Mr. Lodore oppose it, though losing thereby one of his most liberal

parishioners.

A great struggle was going on in my heart just then--that I think

would have perished in darkness, had I not found myself free and

emancipated from all fetters of custom and observance by our change of

residence.

From the shallow streams of conventional Christianity, moving with tardy

current, and full of shoals and sandbanks, I was drifting down, slowly

but surely, with that great ocean of deep and unsounded religion, to

which all profound natures, that have suffered, do, I believe--if left

to themselves--inevitably tend.

In this new land of promise--the golden California--lying like a bride

by the side of her bridegroom--the great Pacific Ocean--and shut away

by deserts and mountains, from all old conventional cliques and

prejudices of our Eastern cities, my soul took wing. What poetry was in

me found its outlet; what religious capacity God had endued me with,

went forth from the clash of cymbals and the sound of the sackbut, that

ever had reminded me, in all seasons of sorrow, or even of joyous

excitement, that I was one of an ancient people, astray in foreign

pastures--went forth (even as the compromise was made at first by Christ

and his apostles with the magnificent but soulless worship of the Jews)

to merge these sounds of ancient rite and form in the deep roll of the

organ, that fills the churches where the Host is present.

I needed this abiding miracle to stay my faith--to give it a new

rapture, never experienced before--to sustain me in my sorrow. In the

presence of the holy Eucharist--in the sweet belief that saints communed

with me, and that the Mother of God, who, like me, had wept and

suffered, interceded for me at the throne of Christ, I regained the

vitality that seemed gone forever.

There is no cup like this for the lips of the parched and weary

wayfarer--none!

CHAPTER XV.

Let me go back a little in this retrospect, into which I am compelling

into a small space much that would take time in the telling, as a

necessary retrenchment for too much affluence of description in the

beginning.

The mind of the narrator, like the stone descending the shaft, gathers

accelerated velocity with its momentum toward the last, and so expends

itself in a more brief and sententious manner than in the commencement.

It should be also, but rarely is, more powerful, and more condensed as

it nears its _finale_.

Why these things do _not_ go more uniformly together, as according to

popular opinion they invariably must, is better understood by the artist

than his readers.

Details are requisite to fill up a mental picture, and impress it on the

memory, and, though brevity is certainly the soul of wit, it cannot be

said to be infallible in enforcing description to do its duty--that of

painting a panoramic picture on the brain.

Life is full of pre-Raphaelitism, and so is fiction, if indeed it

resembles life--such as we know it, or such as it might be. The art of

verisimilitude is found alone in detail.

Let me go back, then, for a brief summary of some of the principal

events and personages of Monfort Hall and Beauseincourt, the earlier

portions of this retrospect. I will begin with the La Vignes.

George Gaston, in one of the brief pauses of his stormy political

career, wooed and married Margaret La Vigne, the year before her mother

espoused in second nuptials her early lover (the brother of that saintly

minister who came to her rescue in the first days of her widowhood), and

in this marriage she has been happy and prosperous.

They continue to reside under the same roof, and Bellevue awaits its

master. It will be empty, I think, if I understand George Gaston's

character, so long as Major Favraud is a wanderer on the face of the

Continent of Europe, and held, for his especial benefit and return, in

readiness.

Vernon and his sweet wife Marion spent the first season of their happy

married life under my lintel-tree, and are now our nearest neighbors in

our new land of sojourn. A slender iron fence divides our grounds from

theirs. A golden cord of affection binds our lives together. Our

interests, too, are the same.

Vernon is leagued with my husband in the great engineering projects

which have enriched them both--the capital to enlist in which sphere

of enterprise was furnished by the sale to a company of our

"gold-gashed" lands in Georgia--revealed to my knowledge, as it may be

remembered, by the inadvertence of Gregory.

The career of Bertie La Vigne had been a varied one, as might have been

foreseen perhaps from her early manifestations and proclivities.

She came to me, while still we dwelt in the city of my birth, when she

was approaching her seventeenth year, and remained a twelvemonth under

my roof, engaged in the study of Shakespeare with that accomplished

_artiste_ Mr. Mortimer. She intended to pursue what gift she had of

voice and histrionic talent as a means of livelihood, she told me from

the first, and to get rid of the ineffable weariness and monotony of her

life at Beauseincourt as well.

The two motives seemed to me to be worthy of all praise. There are,

indeed, abodes that kill the soul as well as the body, and this was one

of them in my estimation, yet I remembered as a seeming inconsistency

that, when, in her sixteenth year, it was proposed that Bertie should

come to me for the purpose of attending schools for the accomplishments,

she steadily refused to do so.

Her sense of duty might have been at the root of this firm and

persistent refusal to accept from my hand a gift richer far than "jewels

of the mine"--the power of varied occupation--but something had secretly

whispered to me that this was not all on which her apparent

self-abnegation was based, and I think that I was right in my

conjecture.

Have you seen a plant, scathed by frost, that has made a strong and

successful effort to live, and still in its struggling existence bears

the mark of the early blight on leaf and blossom?

Such was the impression made on my mind by Bertie La Vigne after three

years of separation, and yet she had grown into majestic stature and

into comparative beauty since we parted at Beauseincourt.

Tall, slender, straight as a young palm-tree, with exquisite

extremities, and a face of aristocratic if not Grecian proportions,

there still was wanting in her step, her eye, her smile, that wonderful

_abandon_ that had formed her chief charm in her earlier years.

She had been crystallized, so to speak, by some strange process of

suffering, into a cold and dull propriety, never infringed on save at

times when she found herself alone with me, and when the old

frolic-spirit would for a little time possess her. It was not dead, but

sleeping.

"And what, my dear Bertie," I said, one day, when Mr. Mortimer had

departed, and she came to throw herself down on the sofa in my chamber

and _rest_, "what has reconciled you to the old Parrot, as you used to

call our sublime Shakespeare?"

"Sublime! I shall think you affected, Miriam, if you apply that word

again to that old commonplace. If he were sublime, do you suppose all

the world would read him or go to see his plays? Do reserve that epithet

for Milton, Dante, Tasso, Schiller, and the like inaccessibilities. Yes,

I do revere 'Wallenstein' more than any thing Shakespeare ever

spouted"--in answer to my gently-shaking head--"I should break down over

_Thekla_, I should, indeed."

"Do you think his bed was soft under the war-horses?"--and she waved her

hand--"O God! what a tragedy; what a love!" and she covered her face

with her quivering palm.

"Bertie, you are still too excitable. I am sorry to see it."

"Philosopher, cure thyself."

"Yes, I know that was always a fault of mine."

"That is why you married the man in the iron mask, you know. I could

never have loved that person."

"Describe the man you think you could have loved, Bertie La Vigne."

"Could have loved? That time is past forever, child. 'Frozen, and dead

forever,' as Shelley says. _He_ was my affinity, I believe, only he died

before I was born. What a pity! I would rather be his widow than the

wife of any man living."

"_She_ would like to hear that, no doubt, Bertie."

"Well, she may hear it if she chooses when I go to England to read the

old Parrot in the right way, under their very noses, Kembles and all.

I'll let Mrs. Shelley know I'm there," and she laughed merrily.

"And what is your idea of the way to read Shakespeare, Bertie dear?" I

asked, playfully.

"As one having authority, a head and shoulders above him and all his

prating, just as you would talk to your every-day next neighbor, read

him without any fear of his old deer-stealing ghost? Why, Miriam, he

knew himself better than we knew him. He had no more idea of being a

genius than you have! He was a sort of artesian well of a man, and could

not help spouting platitudes, that was all. Besides, he had eyes to see

and ears to hear, and a very Yankee spirit of investigation. It is the

fashion to crack him up like the Bible, both encyclopaedias, that's all!

Every man can see himself in these books, and every man likes a

looking-glass, and that's the whole secret of their success."

"Bertie, you are incorrigible."

"No, I am not; only genuine. I do think there is a good deal in both of

the works in question, but their sublimity I dispute. They are homely,

coarse, commonplace, as birth and death."

There was something that almost froze my blood in the way she said those

last words, lying back upon the sofa with far-off-looking eyes and hands

clasped beneath her head.

"Miriam," she said, after a while, "life is a humbug. I have thought so

for some time."

"Poor child, poor child!"

"Ay, poorer than the poorest, Miriam Harz," and, laying aside my work, I

went to and knelt beside her, and kissed her brow.

"I have no soul to open! I am as empty as a chrysalis-case, that the

butterfly has gone out of to dwell amid sunshine and flowers. Yet I

believe I had one once"--in ineffably mournful accents--"but two men

killed it; and yet, neither intended the blow! O Miriam! I understand at

last what Coleridge meant by his 'life in death.' There is such a

thing--and that great necromancer found it out! I am the breathing

impersonation of that loathly thing, I believe. Listen"--and she sat up

with one raised finger and gave the poet's words with rare expression:

"'The nightmare--life in death was she,

That chilled men's blood with cold.'

"Doesn't that describe me as I am, Miriam?"

"You are, indeed, much changed, Bertie; perhaps it would be well could

you confide in me."

"No, it would not be well! I never could keep any thing wholly to

myself, neither can I tell it wholly, even to such as you--reticent!

merciful! But this believe, I have done nothing wrong, nothing to be

ashamed of, to wear sackcloth and ashes for, and I am preparing to put

my foot on it all. Ay, from the snake's head of first discovery to the

snake's tail of the last disappointment, ranging over half a dozen

years! A long serpent, truly!" laughing. "But I mean to be galvanized

and get back my life. I am determined to be famous, rich, beautiful!"

and she nodded to me with the old sweet sparkle in her eye, the glad

smile on her lip.

"You laugh at the last threat!--laugh on! 'He who laughs best, laughs

last!' says the old proverb. There is such a thing as training one's

features, isn't there, as well as one's setters? Miriam, I shall develop

slowly; I am still in my very downiest adolescence as to looks. You will

see me when I have filled out and ripened, and when I put on my grand

Marie Antoinette _tenu_, some day! Hair drawn back, _à la Pompadour_,

powdered with gold-dust; a touch of rouge, perhaps, on either cheek;

ruffles of rich lace at shoulders and elbows; pink brocade and emeralds,

picked out with diamonds! Mr. Mortimer's teachings in every graceful

movement! It will be all humbug, for I have no real beauty, not much

grace; but people will think me beautiful and graceful for all that,

while I wear my costumes. They are several--this is only one--all highly

becoming! I have a vision of a sea-green dress and moss-roses; of a

violet-satin robe, trimmed and twisted everywhere with flowers of yellow

jasmine; of pale-gold and tipped marabouts in my hair; also of an azure

silk with blond and pearls and a tiara on my forehead" (she laughed

archly). "You don't know my capabilities, my dear, for appearing to look

well--they are wonderful!"

"The very prospect transfigures you, Bertie. I am glad you are so

courageous."

"Were you courageous when you clung to your ropes on the sea-tossed

raft! No, Miriam! that was instinct--nothing more; and I, too, have very

strong intuitions of self-preservation. Heaven grant that they may be

successful! Let us pray."

And, with moving lips and down-drawn lids, from beneath which the large

tears stole one by one, like crystal globes, this suffering spirit

communed with its God, silently.

So best, I felt! Bertie was only a lip-deep scoffer. Her heart was open

to conviction yet, and, when the time came, I believed that the seed

sown in old days would germinate and bear good harvest. All was chaos

now!

Shall I keep on with Bertie, now that the theme has possession of me,

and go back to the others when she is finally dismissed? I think this

will be wisest, especially as my space is small, and mood concentrative

rather than erratic.

Let us pass over, then, five eventful years, during which the sorrows

and changes I have spoken of had taken place, and Wentworth had fixed

his home in the vicinity of San Francisco.

I had heard of Bertie in the interval as a successful _débutante_ as a

reader of Shakespeare, and had received her sparse and sparkling letters

confirming report, truly "angel visits, few and far between."

At last one came announcing her intention of visiting California

professionally, and sojourning beneath my roof while in San Francisco.

It was to be a stay of several weeks.

She was accompanied and sometimes assisted by Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer,

professional readers both--the last distinguished more for grace and

beauty, even though now on the wane of life, than she ever had been for

talent, but eminently fitted, both by education and character, for a

guide and companion.

An English maid, as perfect as an automaton in her training and

regularity, accompanied Bertie, to whom were confided all details of

dress, all keys and jewels, with entire confidence and safety. An

elaborate doll seemed the red-and-white and stupidly-staring Euphemia.

Yet was she adroit, obedient, and expert, just to move in the groove of

her requirements.

I have spoken only of her accessories; but now for Bertie herself.

"Is she not magnificent?" was my exclamation when alone with my husband

on the night of her arrival, after our guest, with her sparkling face

and conversation, her superb toilet and bearing, her graceful,

nymph-like walk, had retired to her chamber, attended by the mechanical

"Miss Euphemia."

The Mortimers, with their children and servants, remained at the

principal hotel.

"The very word for her," he replied; "only that and nothing more."

"Wardour!"

"Well, love!"

"How little enthusiasm you possess about the beautiful! Now, if there

were question of a new railroad-bridge, the vocabulary would have been

exhausted."

"What would you have me say, dear? Is not that word a very comprehensive

one? The lady above-stairs is indeed magnificent; but, Miriam, where is

Bertie?" and he laughed.

"Ah! I understand; you find her artificial."

"She is too fine an actress for that, Miriam; only transfigured."

"Yes, I see what you mean" (sadly). "Bertie _is_ wholly changed. Whom

does she resemble, Wardour? What queen, bethink you, whose likeness you

have seen? Not Mary Queen of Scots--not Elizabeth--"

"No, surely not; but she is, now that you draw my attention to it,

strikingly like Marie Antoinette."

"She said she would be, and she has succeeded!" and I mused on the

wonderful transition.

Four years more, and we heard of Bertie in England, as the

rarely-gifted and beautiful American reader, "Lavinia La Vigne." Out of

the _répertoire_ of her family names she had fished up this

alliteration, and "Bertie" was reserved for those behind the scenes.

It was declared also in the public sheets, what great and distinguished

men were in her train; how wits bowed to her wit, and authors to her

criticisms! But, when she wrote to me, she said nothing of all this,

only telling of her visit to Mrs. Shelley, who had received her kindly,

and to the tomb of Shakespeare, whose painted effigy she especially

derided. "It looks indeed like a man who would cut his wife off with an

old feather-bed and a teakettle," was one of her characteristic remarks,

I remember; but there was a little postscript that told the whole story

of her life, on a separate scrap of paper meant only for my eye I

clearly saw, and committed instantly to the flames after perusal:

"Ah, Miriam, this is all a magic lantern! The people are phantoms, the

realities are shadows, and I a wretched humbug, duller than all! Two men

have lived and breathed for me on the face of this earth--two only. One

was my much-offending and deeply-suffering father. The other--O, Miriam,

to think of him is crime; but in his life, and that alone, I live. I

send you Praed's last beautiful little song--'Tell him I love him yet.'

It will tell you every thing. An answer I have scribbled to it as if

written by a man. Keep both, and when I am dead, should you survive me,

dear, lay them if you can in my coffin, close, close to my heart!"

Three years more, and Bertie is in Rome, independent, at last, through

her own exertions, and able to gratify her tastes. I receive thence

statues, and pictures, and cameos, all exquisite of their kind, her

princely gifts, her legacies. Then comes a long silence. She knew what

faith was mine when she last abode, beneath my roof and made herself a

little impertinently merry at my expense in consequence of this new

order of things.

Now comes a letter (a paper envelope accompanying it)--Bertie La Vigne

has entered the Catholic Church, through baptism and confirmation, so

briefly states the letter written in her own hand and of date some

months back, retained; no doubt, through forgetfulness, until reminded.

The paper, of recent issue, tells of the ceremony at St. Peter's, which

admitted to the novitiate several noble ladies, native and foreign, and

among the rest an _artist_ of merit, Miss Lavinia La Vigne, of Georgia,

United States of America.

On the margin of the paper were a few penciled words in her own

handwriting: "I have found the reality." This was all.

I shall never see her again unless I go to Rome, and then only through a

grating, or in the presence of others like herself, for she has taken

the black veil, and retired behind a shadow deep as that cast from the

cypress-shaded tomb. Yet, under existing circumstances, and in

consideration of her early experiences which no success nor later future

could obliterate, or render less unendurable, I believe she has chosen

the wiser part.

Peace be with thee, Bertie, whether in earth or in heaven![7]

Our home overlooks the calm bay of San Francisco, standing, as it does,

on an eminence, surrounded with stately forest-trees, and dark from a

distance with evergreens which trail their majestic branches over roods

of lawn.

These trees have ever been a passion with me. I love their aromatic

odors, reminding one of balm and frankincense, and the great Temple of

Solomon itself, built of fine cedar-wood. I admire their stately

symmetry, and the majesty of their unchanging presence, and stand well

pleased and invigorated in their shadow.

Our house is built of stone, and faced with white marble brought from

beyond the seas. Its architectural details are composite, and yet of

dream-like beauty and perfection.

There are statues and blooming plants in the great lower corridors and

porticos, and vast hall of entrance, oval and open to the roof, with its

marble gallery surrounding it and suspended midway, secured by its

exquisite and lace-like screen of iron balustrading. Pictures of the

great modern masters adorn the walls.

The skylight above floods the whole house with sunshine at the touching

of a cord, which controls the venetians that in summer-time shade the

halls below; and the parlors, and saloon, and library, and dining-room,

and the quiet, spacious chambers above-stairs, are all admirably

proportioned and finished, and furnished as well, for the comfort of

those that abide in them--hosts and guests.

In one of the most private and luxurious of these apartments abode, for

some years, a pale and shadowy being, refusing all intercourse with

society, and vowed to gloom and hypochondria. It was her strange and

mournful mania to look upon all human creatures with suspicion, nay,

with loathing.

The fairest linen, the whitest raiment, the most exquisite repast,

whether prepared by human hands, or furnished by divine Providence

itself, in the shape of tempting fruits, if touched by another, became

at once revolting and unpalatable. Thus, with servants to relieve her of

all cares, and Mrs. Austin as her devoted attendant, she preferred, by

the aid of her own small culinary contrivance, to prepare her fastidious

meals, to spread her own snowy couch, so often a bed of thorns to her,

to put on her own attire, regularly fumigated and purified by some

process she affected, as it came from the laundry and touched only with

gloved hands by herself, as were the books into which she occasionally

glanced for solace.

Most of her time was spent in gazing from her window, that overlooked

the bay, and dreaming of the return of one who had long since

heartlessly deserted her, leaving her dependent on those she had

injured, and from whom she bitterly and even derisively received

shelter, tender ministry, and all possible manifestations of compassion

and interest.

Her mind had been partially overthrown at the time of her husband's

desertion and her dead baby's birth--events that occurred almost

conjointly; and it was the wreck of Evelyn Erie we cherished until her

slow consumption, long delayed by the balmy air of California,

culminated mercifully to herself and all around her, and removed her

from this sphere of suffering.

Whither? Alas! the impotence of that question! Are there not beings who

seem, indeed, to lack the great essential for salvation--a soul to be

saved? How far are such responsible?

Claude Bainrothe is married again, and not to Ada Greene, who, outcast

and poor, came some years since as an adventuress to California, and

signalized herself later, in the _demi-monde,_ as a leader of great

audacity, beauty, and reckless extravagance. The lady of his choice (or

heart?) was a fat baroness, about twenty years his senior, who lets

apartments, and maintains the externes of her rank in a saloon fifteen

feet square, furnished with red velveteen, and accessible by means of an

antechamber paved with tiles!

He has grown stout, drinks beer, and smokes a meerschaum, but is still

known on the principal promenade, and in the casino of the German town

in which he resides, as "the handsome American." He is said, however, to

have spells of melancholy.

The "Chevalier Bainrothan," and the "Lady Charlotte Fremont," his

step-daughter, for as such she passes, for some quaint or wicked reason

unrevealed to society, with their respectable and hideous house-keeper,

Madame Clayton, dwell under the same roof, and enjoy the privilege of

access to the _salon_ of the baroness, and a weekly game of _écarté_ at

her _soirées_, usually profitable to the chevalier in a small way.

All this did Major Favraud, in his own merry mood, communicate to us on

the occasion of his memorable visit to San Francisco, when he remained

our delighted guest during one long delicious summer season. Of Gregory,

we never heard.

"I had hoped to hear of your marriage long before this," I said to him

one day. "Tell me why you have not wedded some fair lady before this

time. Now tell me frankly as you can."

"Simply because you did not wait for me."

"Nonsense! the truth. I want no _badinage_"

"Because, then--because I never could forget Celia--never love any one

else."

"She was one of Swedenborg's angels. Major Favraud--no real wife of

yours. She never was married"--and I shook my head--"only united to a

being of the earth with whom she had no real affinity. Choose yours

elsewhere."

"I believe you are half right," he said, sadly. "She never seemed to

belong to me by right--only a bird I had caught and caged, that loved me

well, yet was eager to escape."

"Such, was the state of the case, I cannot doubt; a more out and out

flesh-and-blood organization would suit you better. Your life is not

half spent; the dreary time is to come. Go back to Bellevue, and get you

a kind companion, and let children climb your knees, and surround your

hearth. You would be so much happier."

"Suggest one, then. Come, help me to a wife."

"No, no, I can make no matches; but you know Madame de St. Aube is a

widow now. You were always congenial."

"Yes, but"--with a shrug of his shoulders, worthy of a Frenchman--"_que

voulez vous_? That woman has five children already, and a plantation

mortgaged to Maginnis!"

"Maginnis again! The very name sends a chill through my bones! No, that

will never do. Some maiden lady, then--some sage person of thirty-four

or five."

"I do not fancy such. I'll tell you what! I believe I will go back and

court Bertie on some of her play-acting rounds, and mate a decent woman

of that little vagabond. Because she was disappointed once, is that a

reason? Great Heavens! this tongue of mine! Cut it out, Mrs. Wentworth,

and cast it to the seals in the bay. I came very near--"

"Betraying what I have long suspected. Major Favraud. Who _was_ that

man?"

"Don't ask me, my dear woman; I must not say another word, in honor. It

was a most unfortunate affair--a sheer misunderstanding. He loved her

all the time; I knew this, but you know her manner! He did not

understand her flippant way; her keen, unsparing, and bitter wit; her

devoted, passionate, proud, and breaking heart; and so there was a

coolness, and they parted; and what happened afterward nearly killed

her! So she left her home."[8]

"I must not ask you, I feel, for you say you cannot tell me more in

honor, but I think I know. The man, of all the earth, I would have

chosen for her. Oh, hard is woman's fate!"

To the very last I have reserved what lay nearest my heart of hearts.

Three children have been born to us in California, and have made our

home a paradise. The two elder are sons, named severally for my father

and theirs, Reginald and Wardour.

The last is a daughter, a second Mabel, beautiful as the first, and

strangely resembling her, though of a stronger frame and more vital

nature. She is the sunshine of the house, the idol of her father and

brothers, who _all_ are mine, as well as the fair child of seven

summers herself.

Mrs. Austin presides, in imagination, over our nursery, but, in reality,

is only its most honored occasional visitor, her chamber being distinct,

and my own rule being absolute therein, with the aid of a docile

adjunct.

Ernest Wentworth, our adopted son--so-called for want of any other

name--is the standard of perfection in mind and morals, for the

imitation of the rest of the band of children.

He has gained the usual stature of young men of his age, with a slight

defect of curvature of the shoulders that does but confirm his scholarly

appearance.

His face, with its magnificent brow, piercing dark eyes, pale

complexion, and clustering hair, is striking, if not handsome.

He has graduated as a student of law, and, should his health permit,

will, I cannot doubt, distinguish himself as a forensic orator.

George Gaston and Madge have promised a visit to the Vernons; but I

cannot help hoping, rather without than _for_ any good reason, that they

will not come! I love them both, yet I feel they are mismated, even if

happy.

My husband is noted among his peers for his liberal and noble-minded use

of a princely income, and his great public spirit. He unites

agricultural pursuits with his profession, and has placed, among other

managers, my old ally, Christian Garth and his family, on the ranch he

holds nearest to San Francisco.

Thence, at due seasons, seated on a wain loaded with the fruits of their

labor, the worthy pair come up to the city to trade, and never fail in

their tribute to our house.

The immigrant possessed of worth and industry, however poor; the

adventurous man, who seeks by the aid of his profession alone to

establish himself in California; the artist, the man of letters, all

meet a helping hand from Wardour Wentworth, who in his charities

observes but one principle of action, one hope of recompense, both to be

found in the teachings of philanthropy:

"As I do unto you, go you and do unto others." This is his maxim.

Our lives have been strangely happy and successful up to this hour, so

that sometimes my emotional nature, too often in extremes, trembles

beneath its burden of prosperity, and conjures up strange phantoms of

dark possibilities, that send me, tearful and depressed, to my husband's

arms, to find strength and courage in his rare and calm philosophy and

equipoise.

Never on his sweet serene brow have I seen a frown of discontent, or a

cloud of sourceless sorrow, such as too often come--the last especially

to mine--born of that melancholy which has its root far back in the

bosoms of my ancestors.

Such as his life is, he accepts it manfully; and in his shadow I find

protection and grow strong.

Reader, farewell!

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: EDITOR'S NOTE.-- ... Some years after the closing of Miriam

Monfort's Retrospect, the civil war broke out in the United States, and

Pope Pius IX. was pleased to grant permission to several American nuns,

Southern ladies, whose vocation was religious, to visit their own

States, and lend what succor, spiritual and physical, they could to the

wounded and dying, on the battle-fields and in the Confederate camps.

Among these came the Sister Ursula, from the convent of the Carthusians,

known once as Lavinia, or Bertie La Vigne. She was particularly fearless

and efficient, and was killed by a cannon-ball at Shiloh while kneeling

beside a dying officer, ascertained to be her sister's husband, the

gallant George Gaston of the Seventh-Georgia. By order of Colonel

Favraud, they were buried in one grave. He best knew wherefore this was

done....]

[Footnote 8: This was previous to Bertie's visit.]