IN PRISON.
A person entered the room and stood close to Ellen. It was Cora, just
come in from her ride; she stood motionless, grasping her whip tightly
in one hand; masses of heavy dark cloth fell around her feet, sweeping
far out upon the floor, and the black hat shaded a stormy brow.
“This is hysterics; she had them frequently in Europe. Go and call
Eunice—this shrinking will do no good. Go; I will take care of my
cousin.”
Cora stooped down to take the pale form from Ellen, but the little
creature laid her charge upon the carpet, sprang upon Cora like a tiger
and pushed her half across the room, so tangling her feet in the
riding-skirt that she almost fell. There she left her struggling to
retain her feet, and lifting that pale head, laid a pillow tenderly
under it.
“Do not touch her; do not dare to touch her, unless you wish Almighty
vengeance to fall on you at once! It will come—it will come!”
Pale as death, and shaking her slender forefinger at the half-terrified
woman, Ellen went in search of Eunice.
The moment she was gone, Cora tore the skirt from under her feet, ran to
the door, closed it and shot the bolt. Then she took up the letter,
which had fallen from Virginia’s hold, and tried to hold it firmly
between her two hands, but they shook so violently that she could hardly
see the writing. The struggle of an iron will soon conquered this
tremor, and she eagerly devoured each word as it seemed to flash before
her eyes.
“No explanation—no loop-hole for her to creep through. Quiet, gentle,
positive! My Heavens, what a man this is! How dare she worship him? Why
he is the mate for an empress!”
She heard footsteps in the hall, flung the letter down where she had
found it, shot the bolt and flung the door open before Eunice and Ellen
came in sight.
“She is getting conscious, I think. How she moans. What can be the
meaning of this, Eunice?”
“The meaning—why the poor, sweet creature has fainted away; but what do
you care about that, I want to know?”
“Ellen! Ellen!”
These faint words came from Virginia, for into that loved name the moans
on her lip had shaped themselves.
“It is not Ellen, but your cousin, dear, dear Virginia, what shall I do
for you?”
“Not a thing,” Eunice broke forth, seizing upon Cora and lifting her to
her feet, for she was half kneeling, “not a thing so long as I am here,
and, so help me John Rodgers, I’m not going away. Some one has e’enamost
killed this poor girl; I don’t know who it is, but _you_ shan’t touch
her.”
Here Eunice lifted Virginia from the floor as if she had been an infant,
and laid her tenderly on the bed.
“Now jest lie still and come to naturally, that’s a good girl. No need
of shetting them eyes like a scared baby. She’s going out right away,
knowing she ain’t wanted for nothing. Here, Ellen, jest put your arm
under her head and yer cheek agin hern so—nothing but double-dyed
friends shall get near this bed now, I promise.”
“Ellen,” whispered Virginia.
“What can I do?”
“Where is it?”
“What, the letter?”
“Yes.”
“Here, here, I took it from the carpet. Let me put it in your bosom.”
“No, no, it would kill me!”
She pushed at Ellen with both her quivering hands, stretched herself
suddenly and fell into another deathly swoon. When she awoke from that
it was to the wild unconsciousness which heralds in the first stages of
a brain fever.
The next few weeks were full of terrible apprehension to Ellen Nolan and
Eunice. Joshua, too, hung about the house night and day, anxious and
downhearted, wanting to help, but too awkward for any real usefulness.
Mrs. Lander shut herself up in her own room, and regarded Eunice with a
frightened look whenever she came in from the sick chamber, but asked no
questions. The woman was becoming an abject coward, and had only courage
to shut her eyes at her only evil work.
Even in the insane ravings of that fever, Virginia never mentioned the
name of Clarence Brooks or spoke of Cora. Both Eunice and Joshua
believed that this fever had been brought on by the wrong which Cora had
done in usurping her inheritance, a wrong in which they were compelled
to participate or expose their own benefactress. This thought gave that
rough woman many a sleepless night, and Joshua felt compelled, through
all that long winter, to take a double portion of punch to keep away the
dreams that haunted him. He told Eunice, that nothing but the liquor
kept him from going into a consumption.
Eunice neither scolded nor sneered when he said this: she was too sad
for ill temper now. All her fine dresses were packed away in the garret
as a sort of self-punishment for her own misdoing. She went about the
house like a ghost, and once, when Mrs. Lander questioned her face with
those wild, sunken eyes, as she came from the sick chamber, the woman
absolutely burst into tears.
How did Cora Lander act in this mournful state of things? At first she
was busy all the morning searching the daily papers for a paragraph that
never presented itself. This made her restless and ill at ease. She
wanted some proof that her web, so artfully woven, had entangled its
victim. One day the express brought up a quantity of dresses for Mrs.
Lander, and, in the unpacking, Cora fell upon a small paper which she
had considered too insignificant for her notice, and which had, in fact,
been overlooked by the officer with whom Clarence Brooks had left the
task of silencing the press when Seymour’s trial came on.
There was the paragraph. Her eyes seized upon it with the greed of a
famished hawk.
“A young man, who gave his name as Seymour, was put upon his trial for
embezzlement, and pleaded guilty to the indictment. His appearance and
the frank avowal of his guilt excited general sympathy in the court
room. Even the judge exhibited more than usual commiseration while
sentencing the poor fellow, who was condemned to seven years at
Sing-Sing.”
This was the paragraph which Cora seized upon with such keen interest.
She carried the torn paper to her room and read it over and over again.
“It is done! it is done!” she cried, pacing to and fro in her room like
a panther, hugging the paper to her bosom. “I willed it, and Clarence
Brooks, the most splendid specimen of manhood I ever saw, has been the
instrument of my freedom. I knew it would be so; but this game is but
half played out. The next move shall secure him.”
Even while she was speaking a knock came to the door, and when she
opened it, impatient of the intrusion, a letter was placed in her hand.
“His writing, and to me. How dare the wretch presume so!”
She tore the note open and shook it a moment at arm’s length, as if his
hand must have left poison in its folds.
I cannot give the contents of this letter, it would be too painful; but
she read it, from beginning to end, with dry, hard eyes, that felt no
pity; now and then a gleam of triumph shot through them; otherwise, they
shone with a heavy glitter, like dulled steel.
The letter told her of the anguish her husband felt in leaving her
again, “it might be for years, and it might be forever.” He went into no
details. He was going far away, he said, so far that she might not hear
from him for months together, but he would write whenever fate permitted
him. Something had happened, connected with his life in the Old World,
which compelled him to go—something which even the great love which he
felt for her could neither overpower nor break through. His absence for
a time was imperative as his love for her would be immortal. He besought
her to have patience with him, to pray for him sometimes, as he would
ever pray for her.
More there was of such sad, pitiful pleading for continued love as would
have made any real woman’s heart ache with sympathy. Even Cora Lander
felt a touch of compassion as she read the last lines of her young
husband’s letter, knowing where he was, who had sent him there, and how
he must suffer. She sat for a time with the paper in her hand,
conquering the last remnants of tenderness that evil thoughts and evil
acts had left in her nature. Then she flung the letter into the fire and
held it down with the poker till it was consumed.
I do not know whether compunction or triumph kept the woman in her room
all the day after this letter was placed in her hands, but she refused
to come down and see Brian Nolan, and when he sent to know if he was to
wait for a reply, she sent back a message that she was too ill for
writing just then.
Brian obtained an interview with his sister, who came from Virginia’s
sick room to see him, but it was a sad meeting, for Ellen was borne down
with apprehensions regarding her benefactress, and Brian had a secret
aching in his heart which forbade him to give or claim sympathy. So he
went away heavy-hearted and so lonely that he longed to creep off into
some quiet place and die.
But he had another duty to perform, and that took him to the hotel where
Clarence Brooks was staying; for he never returned to his rooms up the
river, and few persons had seen him abroad in the city.
When Brian entered the room where Brooks was sitting, there was
bitterness in his heart which gave him both strength and courage. He
approached the desk where the young man was writing and laid the letter
he brought upon it without a word.
Brooks started a little, glanced at the boy and took up the letter. He
evidently knew the handwriting, for a stern, hard look came over his
face and he cut the envelope slowly, like a man who has made up his mind
not to be moved from a settled purpose. If he had expected prayers or
entreaties in that letter, the contents undeceived him, that was visible
enough in the change of his countenance, for a slow color came into his
face and all its features softened as he read:
“I have wronged you, have wronged myself more, in an act which makes me
seem ungrateful. I thought you dead—as God is my judge and your
avenger—I thought you dead and mourned for you—I did! I did! You will
not believe it, but I would almost have given my own life if it would
have availed to save yours on the day I robbed your desk. It was your
heirs I wronged, not you, not you. Remember how I watched your sick bed,
how many sleepless nights I spent—how tireless was my love. The
temptation was terrible; I cannot tell you what it was that made me
thirst so for money. I dare not, but it was enough to outmaster stronger
principles than mine. God help me!
“Clarence Brooks, I loved you even when I wronged you—no, not you, but a
memory that should have been sacred. I love you now, though you have
taken such vengeance for my fault as crushes me out of the world. I do
not understand it—you never were hard of heart—never cared so much for
money as to ruin a fellow creature because he deprived you of it.
Something must have hardened you against me before you could bury me
alive in this terrible place.
“I do not complain. Having wrought out this fate for myself, I will
endure it if God gives me strength—perish under it if that is withheld.
Do not think that I write to ask for mercy or excite the sympathy I have
forfeited. It is not that which forces me to brave the pain of writing
this; but I have a favor to ask—only one, so easy for you to grant, yet
so important to me. I have friends, a few both here and in the Old
World; the youth who brings you this is my own brother; I have a sister,
too, young, helpless, sensitive, friendless save in the love of one
person. My fate is a secret to this poor girl, and to all that ever
loved me excepting my brother. He knows where I am and how I suffer;
poor lad, I have been his worst enemy; yet he loves me, oh! how much
better than I deserve! For the sake of this friendless boy—for the sake
of my sister and of others not less dear—I ask you, Clarence Brooks, my
once friend, to be generous, and keep my misery, my crime, and my
disgrace a secret. Do not allow my name to pass your lips to any human
being. This is the only request I shall ever make. Grant it, I implore
you! Unless you would torture me to death in my living tomb, this small
favor will not be denied.
“ALFRED NOLAN,
“For Seymour was an assumed name.”
Brooks read the letter carefully, kindly; he had no real vengeance to
gratify here. What he had done was in behalf of Virginia Lander, who had
not only wronged him, but was about to shipwreck herself forever. The
reader knows well that he never would have arrested this man simply for
his crime regarding the money. But the reasons which had prompted the
act held good yet; nothing but the removal of this man from her path
would keep a girl so infatuated from rushing on to her own destruction.
Brian Nolan stood by the desk looking earnestly into the man’s face as
these thoughts went through his mind. When Brooks lifted his head, those
sorrowful eyes met his; they were full of unspoken reproaches.
“You will grant my brother’s request?” he questioned.
“He need not have made it,” said Brooks, kindly. “What I have done has
been from a stern sense of duty—for the world, I would not take one step
beyond that. Say this to your brother; tell him I have done nothing in
malice—that I have not an unkind feeling toward him.”
Here the young man’s voice faltered a little, and he shaded his eyes
with one hand.
“Then I can carry your solemn promise back to my brother in his prison?”
said Brian, regarding this agitation with something like wonder.
“You may give him my solemn assurance that his wish shall be carried
out. Unless he sends a message to me, I will never mention his name.”
“Thank you,” said Brian Nolan, “thank you for him and myself. There is
another thing; my brother left above sixteen thousand dollars. It is
your money; he charged me to pay it over. Here is a check for what there
is in the bank. The rest I can obtain. Shall I send it here?”
Brooks took the check and tore it in fragments.
“I will not take a farthing of this money. It was not for that I
arrested him—God knows it was not for that! Keep the whole of it for
him; he will need it when he comes out.”
“He will not live to come out,” said Brian. “You have broken his heart.”
The boy passed out of the door as he said this leaving Clarence Brooks
alone.