Neville returned home--he paused at the drawing-room door--a slight
noise indicated that his father was within--his hand was on the lock,
but he retreated; he would not intrude uncalled for--he wandered through
the dark, empty rooms, till a bell rang. Sir Boyvill inquired for
him--he hurried into his presence--he devoured the expression of his
countenance with his eyes, trying to read the thought within. Sir
Boyvill's face was usually stamped with an unvarying expression of cold
self-possession, mingled with sarcasm. These feelings were now at their
height--his aged countenance, withered and deep lined, was admirably
calculated to depict the concentrated, disdain that sat upon his lips
and elevated his brows. He pointed to the papers before him, and said in
a composed, yet hollow voice, "Take these away--read, for it is
necessary you should--the amplified confession of the murderer."
Gerard's blood ran cold. "Yet why call it a confession," continued Sir
Boyvill, his assumed contempt rising into angry scorn; "from the
beginning to the end it is a lie. He would varnish over his unparalleled
guilt--he would shelter himself from its punishment, but in vain. Read,
Gerard--read and be satisfied. I have wronged your mother--she was
innocent--murdered. Be assured that her vindication shall be heard as
loudly as her accusation, and that her destroyer shall die to expiate
her death."
"Be that my task," said Gerard, trembling and pale from the conflict of
passion; "I take the office of vengeance on myself--I will meet Mr.
Falkner."
"Ha! you think of a duel!" cried his father. "Remember your promise,
young man--I hold you strictly to it--you do nothing without first
communicating with me. You must read these papers before you decide; I
have decided--be not afraid, I shall not forestall your purpose, I will
not challenge the murderer: but, in return for this pledge, give me your
word that you have no communication with the villain till you see me
again. I will not balk you of your revenge, be sure of that; but you
must see me first."
"I promise," said Gerard.
"And one word more," continued Sir Boyvill; "is there any possibility of
this man's escape? Is he wrapped in the security which his lie affords,
or has he even now fled beyond our vengeance?"
"Be his crimes what they may," replied Neville, "I believe him to
entertain a delicate sense of worldly honour. He has promised to remain
in his home till he hears from me. He doubtless expects to be
challenged, and I verily believe desires to die. I feel convinced that
the idea of flight has not crossed his mind."
"Enough; good-night. We are now one, Gerard; united by our love and
honour for your wronged mother's memory, and by our revenge; dissimilar
only in this, that my desire to repair her injuries is more vehement
even than yours." Sir Boyvill pressed his son's hand, and left him. A
few minutes afterward, it would seem, he quitted the house.
"Now to my task," thought Neville; "and O, thou God, who watchest over
the innocent, and yet gavest the innocent into the hands of the
destroyer, rule thou the throbbings of my heart; that neither mad hate
nor hunger for revenge take away my human nature, and turn me into a
fiend!"
He took up the manuscript; at first the words seemed written in fire,
but he grew calmer as he found how far back the narration went; and
curiosity succeeding to devouring impatience, he became attentive.
He read and pitied. All that awoke Sir Boyvill's ire; Falkner's
presumption in daring to love, and his long-cherished constancy, excited
his compassion. When he came to the account of the meeting of the
forsaken lover and happy husband, he found, in the epithets so liberally
bestowed in the contemptuous description of his father, a cause for his
augmented desire for vengeance. When he read that his mother herself
repined, herself spoke disparagingly of her husband, he wondered at the
mildness of Sir Boyvill's expressions with regard to her, and began to
suspect that some strange and appalling design must be working in his
head to produce this unnatural composure. The rest was madness, madness
and misery, thus to take a wife and mother from her home, to gratify the
insane desire to exert for one half hour a power he had lost for ever;
the vain hope of turning her from her duties, which at least, as far as
her children were concerned, were the dearest part of herself; her
terror, her incapacity of mastering her alarm, the night of
insensibility which she passed in the hut--with a start, Gerard felt
sure that he had seen and marked that very spot; all wrought him up to
the height of breathless interest; till, when he read the sad end of
all, cold dew gathered on his brow, the tears that filled his eyes
changed to convulsive sobbings, and, despite his manhood, he wept with
the agony of a child.
He ended the tale, and he thought--"Yes, there is but one termination to
this tragedy; I must avenge my sweet mother, and, by the death of
Falkner, proclaim her innocence." But wherefore, it came across his
mind, had his father called him murderer? in intention and very deed he
was none; why term the narrative a lie? He followed it word by word, and
felt that truth was stamped in every line.
The house was still; it was two in the morning. Had his father retired
to rest? He had been so absorbed by his occupation, that he had heard no
sound, knew nothing that might have been passing around. He remembered
at last Sir Boyvill's good-night, and believing, as all was hushed, that
all slept, he retired to his own room. He could not think of Elizabeth,
or of the projected duel; he could think only of the narrative he had
read. When in bed, unable to sleep, he rose, lighted his candle, and
read much of it again: he pondered over every word in the concluding
pages; it was all true, he would have staked his existence on the
accuracy of every word: was it not stamped on Falkner's brow, as he had
seen him but a few hours ago? sad, and worn with grief and suffering,
but without the stain of concealed guilt, lofty in its very wo. It was
break of day, just as Gerard was thinking of rising to find and consult
with his father, that sleep crept unawares over him. Sleep will visit
the young unbidden; he had suffered so much fatigue of mind and body,
that nature sought relief; sleep, at first disturbed, but soon profound
and refreshing, steeped his distracted thoughts in peace, his wearied
limbs in delightful repose.
The morning was far advanced when he awoke, refreshed, ready to meet the
necessities of the hour, grieved, but composed, sad, but strengthened
and resolved. He inquired for his father, and heard, to his infinite
astonishment, that he had left town: he had set out in his travelling
carriage at four that morning; a note from him was put into Neville's
hands. It contained few words: "Remember your engagement--that you take
no steps with regard to Mr. Falkner till you have seen me. I am setting
out for Dromore; on my return, which will be speedy, I will communicate
my wishes, to which I do not doubt you will accede."
Neville was startled; he guessed at once Sir Boyvill's aim in the sudden
journey; but was he not a fit partner in such an act? ought he not to
share in the duty of rendering honour to his mother's grave? He felt
that he ought to be at his father's side, and, ordering his own chariot,
set out with the hope of overtaking him.
But Sir Boyvill travelled with equal speed, and was many miles and many
hours in advance. Gerard hoped to come up with him when he stopped at
night. But the old gentleman was so eager in his pursuit, that he
prosecuted his journey without rest. Gerard continued in the same way;
travelling alone, he revolved again and again all that must be, all that
might have been. Whatever happened, he was divided from Elizabeth for
ever. Did she love him? he had scarcely questioned the return his
affection would one day meet, till now that he had lost her for ever;
and like a true lover, earnestly desirous to preserve some property in
her he loved, he cherished the hope that she would share his deep
regrets, and so prove that in heart they were one. How pleasant were the
days they had passed at Oakly; all his sorrows there, and his passionate
desire to unveil the mystery of his mother's fate, how had it given an
interest to each hour, and imparted an untold and most sweet grace to
the loved Elizabeth, that she should sympathize with so much fervour and
kindness.
How strange the chance that led the daughter of the destroyer to share
the feelings of the unhappy victim's son; yet stranger still that
destroyer had a child. Rambling among many tangled thoughts, Gerard
started when first this idea suggested itself. Where was Falkner's
boasted fidelity, on which he laid claim to compassion and pardon; where
his assertion, that all his soul was centred in Alithea? and this child,
an angel from her birth, was even then born to him; he opened the
writing-case which contained the papers, and which he carried with him;
he referred to them for explanation. Yes, Elizabeth then lived, and was
not far from him; her hand had staid his arm, raised against his life.
It was not enough that the phrensy of passion urged him to tear Alithea
from her home and children, but even the existence of his own daughter
was no restraint, he was willing to doom her from very childhood to a
partnership in guilt and misery. Hitherto, despite all, and in despite
of his resolve to meet him in mortal encounter, Neville had pitied
Falkner; but now his heart grew hard against him; he began to revolve
thoughts similar to those expressed by Sir Boyvill, and to call
Elizabeth's father an impostor, his tale a lie. He reread the manuscript
with a new feeling of skepticism; this time he was against the writer,
he detected exaggeration, where, before, he had only found the energy of
passion; he saw an attempt to gloss over guilt, where, before, he had
read merely the struggles of conscience, the innate innocence of
profound feeling, combating with the guilt, which circumstances may
impart to our loftiest emotions; his very sufferings became but the just
visitation of angry Heaven; he was a wretch, whom to kill were
mercy--and Elizabeth, beautiful, generous, and pure, was his child!