RECORDS SOME STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS.
The gentleman caller referred to in the last chapter was closeted with
Mrs. Goddard for fully two hours, when he quietly left the house.
A few moments later, however, he returned, accompanied by two other
men--clerks from a neighboring drug store--whom he admitted with a
latch-key, and then conducted them up to Mrs. Goddard's boudoir.
The strangers did not remain long; whatever their errand, it was soon
finished, and they departed as silently as they had come.
Mr. Clayton remained some time longer, conversing with the mistress of
the house, but their business being finally concluded, he also went
away, bearing a package of papers with him.
Emil Correlli returned just in season for dinner, which, however, he
was obliged to partake of alone, as Mr. and Mrs. Goddard did not make
their appearance at the table.
The young man paid slight heed to ceremony, but after eating a hasty
meal, sought his sister and informed her that he was going to start
for New York on the late evening train.
The woman gave him one wild, startled glance, and seemed strangely
agitated for a moment over his announcement.
He could not fail to notice her emotion, and that she was excessively
pale.
"You look like a ghost, Anna," he remarked, as he searched her face
with some anxiety. "What is the matter with you? I fear you are going
to be ill."
"I am ill," she said, in a hoarse, unnatural tone.
"Then let me call your physician," said her brother, eagerly. "I am
going out immediately, and will leave a message for him."
"No, no," she nervously replied; then with a hollow laugh that smote
heavily upon her companion's heart, she added: "My case is beyond the
reach of Dr. Hunt or any other physician."
"Anna, have you been quarreling with Gerald again?"
"Yes," was the brief response.
"Well, of course I can understand that such matters are beyond the
skill of any physician," said the young man, with a half-impatient
shrug of his shoulders; "neither have I any business to interfere
between you," he added; "but my advice would be to make it up as soon
as possible, and then try to live peaceably in the future. I do not
like to leave you looking so white and miserable, but I must go. Take
good care of yourself, and I shall hope to find you better and happier
when I return."
He bent down to give her a farewell caress, and was amazed by the
passion she manifested in returning it.
She threw her arms around his neck and held him in a convulsive
embrace, while she quivered from head to foot with repressed emotion.
She did not utter one word of farewell, but a wild sob burst from her;
then, as if she could bear no more, she pushed him from her and rushed
into her chamber, shutting and locking the door behind her.
Emil Correlli left the boudoir, a puzzled expression on his handsome
face; for, although his sister was subject to strange attacks, he had
never seen her like this before.
"Anna will come to grief some day with that cursed temper of hers," he
muttered, as he went to his room to pack his portmanteau, but he was
too intent upon his own affairs to dwell long upon even the trouble of
his sister, and a couple of hours later was on his way to New York to
begin his search for his runaway bride.
The next morning Mrs. Goddard was "too ill to rise," she told her
maid, when she came at the usual hour to her door. She would not admit
her, but sent word to her husband that she could not join him at
breakfast.
He went up later to see if she would allow him to call a physician for
her, but she would not see him, simply telling him she "would do well
enough without advice--all she needed was rest, and she did not wish
to be disturbed by any one until she rang."
Feeling deeply disappointed and depressed by her unusual obstinacy,
the wretched man went downstairs and shut himself into the library,
where he remained all day, while there was such an atmosphere of
loneliness and desolation about the house that even the servants
appeared to feel it, and went about with solemn faces and almost
stealthy steps.
Could any one have looked behind those closed doors he could not have
failed to have experienced a feeling of pity for the man; for if ever
a human being went down into the valley of humiliation, Gerald Goddard
sounded its uttermost depths, while he battled alone with all the
powers of evil that beset his soul.
When night came he was utterly exhausted, and sought his couch,
looking at least ten years older than he had appeared forty-eight
hours previous.
He slept heavily and dreamlessly, and did not awake till late, when
an imperative knock upon the door and a voice, calling in distress,
caused him to spring suddenly from his bed, and impressed him with a
sense of impending evil.
"What is it, Mary?" he inquired, upon recognizing the voice of his
wife's maid.
"Oh, sir! come--come to madam; she is very ill!" cried the girl, in a
frightened tone.
"I will be there immediately. Send James for the doctor, and then go
back to her," commanded her master, as he hurriedly began to dress.
Five minutes later he was in his wife's room, to find her lying upon
the lounge, just as he had seen her thirty-six hours previous.
It was evident that she had not been in bed at all for two nights, for
she still had on the same dress that she had worn at the Copley Square
Hotel.
But the shadow of death was on her white face; her eyes were glazed,
and though only partially closed, it was evident that she saw nothing.
She was still breathing, but faintly and irregularly. Her hands were
icy cold, and at the base of the nails there was the unmistakable
purple tint that indicated approaching dissolution.
Gerald Goddard was shocked beyond measure to find her thus, but he
arose to the occasion.
With his own hands and the assistance of the maid, he removed her
clothing, then wrapped her in blankets and put her in bed, when he
called for hot water bottles to place around her, hoping thus by
artificial heat to quicken the sluggish circulation and her failing
pulses.
But apparently there was no change in her, and when the physician came
and made his examination, he told them plainly that "no effort could
avail; it was a case of sudden heart failure, and the end was but a
question of moments."
Mr. Goddard was horrified and stricken with remorse at the hopeless
verdict, for it seemed to him that he was in a measure accountable for
the untimely shock which was fast depriving of life this woman who
had loved him so passionately, though unwisely.
He put his lips to her ear and called her by name.
"Anna! Anna! You must try to arouse yourself," he cried, in a voice of
agony.
At first the appeal seemed to produce no effect, but after several
attempts he thought he detected a gleam of intelligence in the almost
sightless eyes, while the cold fingers resting on his hand made an
effort to close over his.
These slight signs convinced him that though she was past the power of
speech, she yet knew him and clung to him, in spite of the clutch
which the relentless enemy of all mankind had laid upon her.
"Doctor, she knows me!" he exclaimed. "Pray give her some stimulant to
arouse her dormant faculties, if only for a moment."
"I fear it will be of no use," the physician replied, "but I will
try."
He hurriedly prepared and administered a powerful restorative; then
they waited with breathless interest for several moments for some sign
of improvement.
It came at last; she began to breathe a trifle more regularly; the set
features became a little less rigid, and the pulse a shade stronger,
until finally the white lids were lifted and the dying woman turned
her eyes with a pitiful expression of appeal upon the man whom, even
in death, she still adored.
"Leave us alone!" commanded Gerald Goddard, in a hoarse whisper, and
physician and servants stole noiselessly from the room.
"Anna, you know me--you understand what I am saying?" the wretched man
then questioned.
A slight pressure from the cold fingers was the only reply.
"You know that you are dying?" he pursued.
Again that faint sign of assent.
"Then, dear, let us be at peace before you go," he pleaded, gently.
"My soul bows in humiliation and remorse before you; for years I have
wronged you. I wronged you in those first days in Rome. I have no
excuse to offer. I simply tell you that my spirit is crushed within me
as I look back and realize all that I am accountable for. I would have
been glad to atone, as far as was in my power, could you have lived to
share my future. Give me some sign of forgiveness to tell me that you
retract those last bitter words of hate--to let me feel that in this
final moment we part in peace."
At his pleading a look of agony dawned in the woman's failing eyes--a
look so pitiful in its yearning and despair that the strong man broke
down and sobbed from sorrow and contrition; but the sign he had begged
for was not given.
"Oh, Anna! pray show me, in some way, that you will not die hating
me," he pleaded. "Forgive--oh, forgive!"
At those last words those almost palsied fingers closed convulsively
over his; the look of agony in those dusky orbs was superseded by one
of adoration and tenderness; a faint expression of something like
peace crept into the tense lines about the drawn mouth, and the
repentant watcher knew that she would not go out into the great
unknown bearing in her heart a relentless hatred against him.
That effort was the last flicker of the expiring flame, for the white
lids drooped over the dark eyes; the cold fingers relaxed their hold,
and Gerald Goddard knew the end had almost come.
He touched the bell, and the physician instantly re-entered the room.
"It is almost over," he remarked, as he went to the bedside, and his
practiced fingers sought her pulse.
Even as he spoke her breast heaved once--then again, and all was
still.
Who shall describe the misery that surged over Gerald Goddard's soul
as he looked upon the still form and realized that the grandly
beautiful woman, who for twenty years had reigned over his home, was
no more--that never again would he hear her voice, either in words of
fond adoration or in passionate anger; never see her again, arrayed in
the costly apparel and gleaming jewels which she so loved, mingling
with the gay people of the world, or graciously entertaining guests in
her own house?
He felt almost like a murderer; for, in spite of Dr. Hunt's verdict
that she had died of "sudden heart failure," he feared that the proud
woman had been so crushed by what she had overheard in Isabel
Stewart's apartments that she had voluntarily ended her life.
It was only a dim suspicion--a vague impression, for there was not the
slightest evidence of anything of the kind, and he would never dare to
give voice to it to any human being; nevertheless, it pressed heavily
upon his soul with a sense of guilt that was almost intolerable.
A message was immediately sent flying over the wires to New York to
inform Emil Correlli of the sad news, and eight hours later he was
back in Boston crushed for the time by the loss of the sister for whom
he entertained perhaps the purest love of which his selfish heart was
capable of experiencing.
We will not dwell upon the harrowing events of the next few days.
Suffice it to say that society, or that portion of it that had known
the brilliant Mrs. Goddard, was greatly shocked by the sudden death of
one of its "brightest ornaments," and gracefully mourned her by
covering her costly casket with choicest flowers; then closed up its
ranks and went its way, trying to forget the pale charger which they
knew would come again and again upon his grim errand.
The day following Anna Correlli's interment in Forest Hill Cemetery,
Mr. Goddard and his brother-in-law were waited upon by the well-known
lawyer, Arthur Clayton, who informed them that he had an important
communication to make to them.
"Two days previous to her death I received this note from Mrs.
Goddard," he remarked, at the same time handing a daintily perfumed
missive to the elder gentleman. "In it you will observe that she asks
me to come to her immediately. I obeyed her, and found her looking
very ill, and seemingly greatly distressed in body and mind. She told
me she was impressed that she had not long to live--that she had an
affection of the heart that warned her to put her affairs in order.
She desired me to draw up a will at once, according to her
instructions, and have it signed and witnessed before I left the
house. I did so, calling in at her request two witnesses from a
neighboring drug store, after which she gave the will into my keeping,
to be retained until her death. This is the document, gentlemen," he
remarked, in conclusion, "and here, also, is another communication,
which she wrote herself and directed me to hand to you, sir."
He arose and passed both the will and the letter to Mr. Goddard, who
had seemed greatly agitated while he was speaking.
He simply took the letter, remarking:
"Since you are already acquainted with the contents of the will, sir,
will you kindly read it aloud in our presence?"
Mr. Clayton flushed slightly as he bowed acquiescence.
The document proved to be very short and to the point, and bequeathed
everything that the woman had possessed--"excepting what the law would
allow as Gerald Goddard's right"--to her beloved brother, Emil
Correlli, who was requested to pay the servants certain amounts which
she named.
That was all, and Mr. Goddard knew that in the heat of her anger
against him she had made this rash disposition of her property--as she
had the right to do, since it had all been settled upon her--to be
revenged upon him by leaving him entirely dependent upon his own
resources.
At first he experienced a severe shock at her act, for the thought of
poverty was anything but agreeable to him.
He had lived a life of idleness and pleasure for so many years that it
would not be an easy matter for him to give up the many luxuries to
which he had been accustomed without a thought or care concerning
their cost.
But after the first feeling of dismay had passed, a sense of relief
took possession of him; for, with his suspicions regarding the cause
of Anna's death, he knew that he could never have known one moment of
comfort in living upon her fortune, even had she left it unreservedly
to him rather than to her brother.
Emil Correlli was made sole executor of the estate; and, as there was
nothing further for Mr. Clayton to do after reading the will, he
quietly took his departure leaving the two men to discuss it at their
leisure.