PART III.

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed

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[Illustration]

THE FORSAKEN INN

A NOVEL

BY

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

Author of

"The Leavenworth Case," "A Matter of Millions," "Behind Closed Doors,"

etc.

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers New York

COPYRIGHT, 1889 and 1890

BY ROBERT BONNER'S SONS

COPYRIGHT, 1909

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

TO MY HUSBAND.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE OAK PARLOR 5

II. BURRITT 25

III. A FEARFUL DISCOVERY 37

IV. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 60

V. AN INTERIM OF SUSPENSE 71

VI. THE RECLUSE 78

VII. TWO WOMEN 91

VIII. A SUDDEN BETROTHAL 110

IX. MARAH 116

X. AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS 130

XI. HONORA 136

XII. EDWIN URQUHART 142

XIII. BEFORE THE WEDDING 148

XIV. A CASSANDRA AT THE GATE 160

XV. THE CATASTROPHE 171

XVI. A DREAM ENDED 185

XVII. STRANGE GUESTS 195

XVIII. MRS. TRUAX TALKS 204

XIX. IN THE HALLS AT MIDNIGHT 223

XX. THE STONE IN THE GARDEN 232

XXI. IN THE OAK PARLOR 247

XXII. A SURPRISE FOR HONORA 288

XXIII. IN THE SECRET CHAMBER 301

XXIV. THE MARQUIS 312

XXV. MARK FELT 318

XXVI. FOR THE LAST TIME 330

XXVII. A LAST WORD 334

THE FORSAKEN INN.

CHAPTER I.

THE OAK PARLOR.

[Illustration: I]

I was riding between Albany and Poughkeepsie. It was raining furiously,

and my horse, already weary with long travel, gave unmistakable signs of

discouragement. I was, therefore, greatly relieved when, in the most

desolate part of the road, I espied rising before me the dim outlines of

a house, and was correspondingly disappointed when, upon riding forward,

I perceived that it was but a deserted ruin I was approaching, whose

fallen chimneys and broken windows betrayed a dilapidation so great

that I could scarcely hope to find so much as a temporary shelter

therein.

Nevertheless, I was so tired of the biting storm that I involuntarily

stopped before the decayed and forbidding structure, and was, in truth,

withdrawing my foot from the stirrup, when I heard an unexpected

exclamation behind me, and turning, saw a chaise, from the open front of

which leaned a gentleman of most attractive appearance.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Hide my head from the storm," was my hurried rejoinder. "I am tired,

and so is my horse, and the town, according to all appearances, must be

at least two miles distant."

"No matter if it is three miles! You must not take shelter in that

charnel-house," he muttered; and moved along in his seat as if to show

me there was room beside him.

"Why," I exclaimed, struck with sudden curiosity, "is this one of the

haunted houses we hear of? If so, I shall certainly enter, and be much

obliged to the storm for driving me into so interesting a spot." I

thought he looked embarrassed. At all events, I am sure he hesitated for

a moment whether or not to ride on and leave me to my fate. But his

better impulses seemed to prevail, for he suddenly cried: "Get in with

me, and leave mysteries alone. If you want to come back here after you

have learned the history of that house, you can do so; but first ride on

to town and have a good meal. Your horse will follow easily enough after

he is rid of your weight."

It was too tempting an offer to be refused; so thankfully accepting his

kindness, I alighted from my horse, and after tying him to the back of

the chaise, got in with this genial stranger. As I did so I caught

another view of the ruin I had been so near entering.

"Good gracious!" I exclaimed, pointing to the structure that, with its

projecting upper story and ghastly apertures, presented a most

suggestive appearance, "if it does not look like a skull!"

My companion shrugged his shoulders, but did not reply. The comparison

was evidently not a new one to him.

That evening, in a comfortable inn parlor, I read the following

manuscript. It was placed in my hands by this kindly stranger, who in so

doing explained that it had been written by the last occupant of the

old inn I was so nearly on the point of investigating. She had been its

former landlady, and had clung to the ancient house long after decay had

settled upon its doorstep and desolation breathed from its gaping

windows. She died in its north room, and from under her pillow the

discolored leaves were taken, the words of which I now place before you.

JANUARY 28, 1775.

I do not understand myself. I do not understand my doubts nor can I

analyze my fears. When I saw the carriage drive off, followed by the

wagon with its inexplicable big box, I thought I should certainly regain

my former serenity. But I am more uneasy than ever. I cannot rest, and

keep going over and over in my mind the few words that passed between us

in their short stay under my roof. It is her face that haunts me. It

must be that, for it had a strange look of trouble in it as well as

sickness; but neither can I forget his, so fair, so merry, and yet so

unpleasant, especially when he glanced at her and--as I could not help

but think before they went away--when he glanced at me. I do not like

him, and the chills creep over me whenever I remember his laugh, which

was much too frequent to be decent, considering how poorly his young

wife looked.

They are gone, and their belongings with them; but I am as much afraid

as if they were still here. Why? That is what I cannot tell. I sit in

the room where they slept, and feel as strange and terrified as if I had

encountered a ghost there. I dread to stay and dread to move and write,

because I must relieve myself in some way--that is, if I am to have any

sleep to-night. Am I ill, or was there something unexplained and

mysterious in their actions? Let me go over the past and see.

They came last evening about twilight. I was in the front of the house,

and seeing such a good-looking couple in the carriage, and such a pile

of baggage with them that they had to have an extra wagon to carry it, I

ran out in all haste to welcome them. She had a veil drawn over her

face, and it was so thick that I could not see her features, but her

figure was slight and graceful, and I took a fancy to her at once,

perhaps because she held her arms out when she saw me, as if she thought

she beheld in me a friend. He did not please me so well, though there

is no gainsaying that he is handsome enough, and speaks, when he wishes

to, with a great deal of courtesy. But I thought he ought to give his

attention to his young and ailing wife, instead of being so concerned

about his baggage. Had that big box of his contained gold, he could not

have looked at it more lovingly or been more anxious about its handling.

He said it held books; but, pshaw! what is there in books, that a man

should love them better than his wife, and watch over their welfare with

the utmost concern, while allowing a stranger to help her out of the

carriage and up the inn steps?

But I will not dwell any longer upon this. Men are strange beings, and

must not be judged by rules that apply to women. Let me see if I can

remember when it was that I first saw her face. Ah, yes; it was in the

parlor. She had taken a seat there while her husband looked through the

house and decided which room to take. There were four empty, and two of

them were the choicest and airiest in the inn, but he passed by these

and insisted upon taking one that was stuffy with disuse, because it was

on the ground floor, and so convenient for us to bring his great box

into.

His great box! I was so provoked at this everlasting concern about his

great box, that I ran to the parlor, intending to ask the lady herself

to interfere. But when I got to the threshold I paused, and did not

speak, for the lady--or Mrs. Urquhart, as I presently found she called

herself--had risen from her seat and was looking in the glass with an

expression so sad and searching that I forgot my errand and only thought

of comforting her. But the moment she heard my step she drew down the

veil which she had tossed back, and coming quickly toward me, asked if

her husband had chosen a room.

I answered in the affirmative, and began to complain that it was not a

very cheerful one. But she paid small attention to my words, and

presently I found myself following her to the apartment designated. She

entered, making a picture, as she crossed the threshold, which I shall

not readily forget. For in her short, quick walk down the hall she had

torn the bonnet from her head, and though she was not a strictly

beautiful woman, she was sufficiently interesting to make her every

movement attractive. But that is not all. For some reason the moment

possessed an importance for her which I could not measure. I saw it in

her posture, in the pallor of her cheeks and the uprightness of her

carriage. The sudden halt she made at the threshold, the half-startled

exclamation she gave as her eyes fell on the interior, all showed that

she was laboring under some secret agitation. But what was the cause of

that agitation I have not been able to determine. She went in, but as

she did so, I heard her murmur:

"Oak walls! Ah, my soul! it has come soon!"

Not a very intelligible exclamation, you will allow, but as intelligible

as her whole conduct. For in another moment every sign of emotion had

left her, and she stood quite calm and cold in the center of the room.

But her pallor remained, and I cannot make sure now whether this

betokened weary resignation or some secret and but half recognized fear.

Had I looked at him instead of at her, I might have understood the

situation better. But, though I dimly perceived his form drawn up in the

empty space at the left of the door, it was not until she had passed him

and flung herself into a chair, that I thought to look in his direction.

Then it was too late, for he had turned his face aside and was gazing

with rather an obtrusive curiosity at the old-fashioned room, murmuring,

as he did so, some such commonplaces to his wife as:

"I hope you are not fatigued, my dear. Fine old house, this. Quite

English in style, eh?"

To all of which she answered with a nod or word, till suddenly, without

look or warning, she slipped from her chair and lay perfectly insensible

upon the dark boards of the worm-eaten floor.

I uttered an exclamation, and so did he; but it was my arms that lifted

her and laid her on the bed. He stood as if frozen to his place for a

moment, then he mechanically lifted his foot and set it with an air of

proprietorship on the box before which he had been standing.

"Strange and inexplicable conduct," thought I, and looked the

indignation I could not but feel. Instantly he left his position and

hastened to my side, offering his assistance and advice with that

heartless officiousness which is so unbearable when life and death are

at stake.

I accepted as little of his help as was possible, and when, after

persistent effort on my part, I saw her lids fluttering and her breast

heaving, I turned to him with as inoffensive an air as my mingled

dislike and distrust would admit, and asked how long they had been

married. He flushed violently, and with a sudden rage that at once

robbed him of that gentlemanly appearance which, in him, was but the

veneer to a coarse and brutal nature, he exclaimed:

"---- you! and by what right do you ask that?"

But before I could reply he recovered himself and was all false polish

again, bowing with exaggerated politeness, as he exclaimed:

"Excuse me; I have had much to disturb me lately. My wife's health has

been very feeble for months, and I am worn out with anxiety and

watching. We are now on our way to a warmer climate, where I hope she

will be quite restored."

And he smiled a very strange and peculiar smile, that went out like a

suddenly extinguished candle, as he perceived her eyes suddenly open,

and her gaze pass reluctantly around the room, as if forced to a

curiosity against which she secretly rebelled.

[Illustration]

"I think Mrs. Urquhart will do very well now," was his hurried remark at

this sight. He evidently wished to be rid of me, and though I hated

to leave her, I really found nothing to say in contradiction to his

statement, for she certainly looked completely restored. I therefore

turned away with a heavy heart toward the door, when the young wife,

suddenly throwing out her arms, exclaimed:

"Do not leave me in this horrible room alone! I am afraid of

it--actually afraid! Couldn't you have found some spot in the house less

gloomy, Edwin?"

I came back.

"There are plenty of rooms--" I began.

But he interrupted me without any ceremony.

"I chose this room, Honora, for its convenience. There is nothing

horrible about it, and when the lamps are lit you will find it quite

pleasant. Do not be foolish. We sleep here or nowhere, for I cannot

consent to go upstairs."

She answered nothing, but I saw her eyes go traveling once again around

the walls, followed in a furtive way by his. Whereupon I looked about

me, too, and tried to get a stranger's impression of the place. I was

astonished at its effect upon my imagination. Though I had been in and

out of the room fifty times before I had never noticed till now the

extreme dismalness and desolation of its appearance.

Once used as an auxiliary parlor, it had that air of uninhabitableness

which clings to such rooms, together with a certain something else,

equally unpleasant, to which at that moment I could give no name, and

for which I could neither find then nor now any sufficient reason. It

was paneled with oak far above our heads, and as the walls above had

become gray with smoke, there was absolutely no color in the room, not

even in the hangings of the gaunt four-poster that loomed dreary and

repelling from one end of the room. For here, as elsewhere, time had

been at work, and tints that were once bright enough had gradually been

subdued by dust and smoke into one uniform dimness. The floor was black,

the fireplace empty, the walls without a picture, and yet it was neither

from this grayness nor from this barrenness that one recoiled. It was

from something else--something that went deeper than the lack of charm

or color--something that clung to the walls like a contagion and caught

at the heart-strings where they are weakest, smothering hope and

awakening horror, till in each faded chair a ghost seemed sitting,

gazing at you with immovable eyes that could tell tales, but would not.

There was but one window in the room, and that looked toward the west.

But the light that should have entered there was frightened, also, and

halted on the ledge without, balked by the thick curtains that heavily

enshrouded it. A haunted chamber! or so it appeared at that moment to my

somewhat excited fancy, and for the first time in my life, here, I felt

a dread of my own house, and experienced the uncanny sensation of some

one walking over my grave.

But I soon recovered myself. Nothing of a disagreeable nature had ever

happened in this room, nor had we had any special reason for shutting it

up, except that it was in an out-of-the-way place, and not usually

considered convenient, notwithstanding Mr. Urquhart's opinion to the

contrary.

"Never mind," said I, with a last effort to soothe the agitated woman.

"We will let in a little light, and dissipate some of these shadows."

And I attempted to throw back the curtains of the window, but they fell

again immediately and I experienced a sensation as of something ghostly

passing between us and the light.

Provoked at my own weakness, I tore the curtains down and flung them

into a corner. A straggling beam of sunset color came in, but it looked

out of place and forlorn upon that black floor, like a stranger who

meets with no welcome. The poor young wife seemed to hail it, however,

for she moved instantly to where it lay and stood as if she longed for

its warmth and comfort. I immediately glanced at the fireplace.

"I will soon have a rousing fire for you," I declared. "These old

fireplaces hold a large pile of wood."

I thought, but I must be mistaken, that he made a gesture as if about to

protest, but, if so, reason must have soon come to his aid, for he said

nothing, though he looked uneasy, as I moved the andirons forward and

made some other trivial arrangements for the fire which I had promised

them.

"He thinks I am never going," I muttered to myself, and took pleasure in

lingering; for, anxious as I was to have the room heated up for her

comfort, I knew that every moment I stayed there would be one less for

her to spend with her surly husband alone.

At last I had no further excuse for remaining, and so with the final

remark that if the fire failed to give them cheer we had a sitting room

into which they could come, I went out. But I knew, even while saying

it, that he would not grant her the opportunity of enjoying the sitting

room's coziness; that he would not let her out of his sight, if he did

out of the room, and that for her to remain in his presence was to be in

darkness, solitude and gloom, no matter what walls surrounded her or in

what light she stood.

My impressions were not far wrong. Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart came to supper,

but that was all. Before the others had finished their roast they had

eaten their pudding and gone; and though he had talked, and laughed, and

shown his white teeth, the impression left behind them was a depressing

one which even Hetty felt, and she has anything but a sensitive nature.

I went to the room once again in the evening. I found them both seated,

but in opposite parts of the room; he by his great box, and she in an

easy chair which I had caused to be brought down from my own room for

her especial use. I did not look at him, but I did at her, and was

astonished to see, first, how dignified she was; and next how pretty.

Had she been happy and at her ease, I should probably have been afraid

of her, for the firelight, which now shone on her wan young cheek,

brought out evidences of character and culture in her expression which

proved her to be, by birth and training, of a position superior to what

one would be led to expect from her husband's aspect and manner. But she

was not happy nor at her ease, and wore, instead of the quiet and

commanding look of the great lady, such an expression of secret dread

that I almost forgot my position of landlady, and should certainly, if

he had not been there, fallen at her side and taken her poor, forsaken

head upon my breast. But that silent, immovable form, sitting

statue-like beside his big box, smiling, for aught I knew, but if so,

breathing out a chill that forbade all exhibition of natural feeling,

held me in check, as it held her, so that I merely inquired whether

there was anything I could do for her; and when she shook her head,

starting a tear down her cheek as she did so, I dared do nothing more

than give her one look of sympathetic understanding, and start for the

door.

A command from him stopped me.

"My wife will need a slight supper before she goes to bed," said he.

"Will you be good enough to see that one is brought?"

She roused herself up with quite a startled look of wonder.

"Why, Edwin," she began, "I never have been in the habit--"

But he hushed her at once.

"I know what is best for you," said he. "A small plate of luncheon, Mrs.

Truax; and let it be nice and inviting."

I courtesied, gave her another glance, and went out. Her countenance had

not lost its look of wonder. Was he going to be considerate, after all?

The lunch was prepared and taken to her.

Not long after this the inn quieted down, and such guests as were in the

house prepared for rest. Midnight came; all was dark in room and hall. I

was sure of this, for I went through the whole building myself, contrary

to my usual habit, which was to leave this task to my man-of-all-work,

Burritt. All was dark, all was quiet, and I was just dropping off to

sleep, when there shot up suddenly from below a shriek, which was

quickly smothered, but not so quickly that I did not recognize in it

that tone which is only given by hideous distress or mortal fear.

"It is Mrs. Urquhart!" I cried in terror, to myself; and plunging into

my clothes, I hurried down stairs.

CHAPTER II.

BURRITT.

[Illustration]

All was quiet in the halls, but as I proceeded toward their room I

perceived a figure standing near the doorway, which, in another moment,

I saw to be that of Burritt. He was trembling like a leaf, and was bent

forward, listening.

"Hush!" he whispered; "they are talking. All seems to be right. I just

heard him call her darling."

I drew the man away and took his place. Yes; they were talking in

subdued but not unkindly tones. I heard him bid her be composed, and

caught, as I thought, a light reply that ought to have satisfied me that

Mrs. Urquhart had simply suffered from some nightmare horror at which

she was as ready to laugh now as he. But my nature is a contradictory

one, and I was not satisfied. The echo of her cry was still ringing in

my ears, and I felt as if I would give the world for a momentary peep

into their room. Influenced by this idea, I boldly knocked, and in an

instant--too soon for him not to have been standing near the door--I

heard his breath through the keyhole and the words:

"Who is there, and what do you want?"

"We heard a cry," was my response, "and I feared Mrs. Urquhart was ill

again."

"Mrs. Urquhart is very well," came hastily, almost gayly, from within.

"She had a dream, and was willing that every one should know it. Is not

that all?" he said, seemingly addressing his wife.

There was a murmur within, and then I heard her voice. "It was only a

dream, dear Mrs. Truax," it said, and convinced against my will, I was

about to return to my room, when I brushed against Burritt. He had not

moved, and did not look as if he intended to.

"Come," said I, "there is no use of our remaining here."

"Can't help it," was his whispered reply. "In this hall I stay till

morning. When I see a lamb in the care of a wolf, I find it hard to

sleep. There is a door between us, but please God there shan't be

anything more."

And knowing Burritt, I did not try to argue, but went quietly and

somewhat thoughtfully to my room, vaguely relieved that I left him

behind, though convinced there would be no further need of his services.

And so it was. No more sounds disturbed the house, and when I came down,

with the first streak of daylight, I found Burritt gone about his work.

Breakfast was served to the Urquharts in their own room. I had wished to

carry it in myself, but I found this inconvenient, and so I sent Hetty.

When she came back I asked her how Mrs. Urquhart looked.

"Very well, ma'am," was the quick reply. "And see! I don't think she's

as unhappy as we all thought last night, or she wouldn't be giving me a

bright new crown."

I glanced at the girl's palm. There was indeed a bright new crown in it.

"Did she give you that?" I inquired.

"Yes, ma'am; she herself. And she laughed when she did it, and said it

was for the good breakfast I had brought her."

I was busy at the time, and could not stop to give the girl's words much

thought; but as soon as I had any leisure, I went to see for myself how

Mrs. Urquhart looked when she laughed.

I was five minutes too late. She had just donned her traveling bonnet

and veil, and though I heard her laugh slightly once, I did not see her

face.

I saw his, however, and was surprised at the good nature in it. He was

quite the gentleman, and if he had not been in such a hurry, would have

doubtless made, or endeavored to make, himself very agreeable. But he

was just watching his great box carried out to the wagon, and while he

took pains to talk to me--was it to keep me from talking to her?--he was

naturally a little absentminded. He was in haste, too, and insisted upon

placing his wife in the carriage before all his baggage was taken from

the room. And she seemed willing to go. I watched her on purpose to see,

for I was not yet satisfied that she was not playing a part at his

dictation, but I could discover no hint of reluctance in her manner, but

rather a quiet alacrity, as if she felt glad to quit a room to which she

had taken a dislike.

When I saw this, and noted the light step of her feet, I said to myself

that I had been a fool, and lost a little of the interest I had felt for

her. Nor did I regain it till after they had driven away, though she

showed a consideration for me at the last which I had not expected,

leaning from the carriage to give me a good-by pressure of the hand, and

even nodding again and again as they disappeared down the road. For the

fear which could be dissipated in a night was not the fear with which I

had credited her; and of ordinary excitements and commonplace natures I

had seen enough in my long experience as landlady to make me unwilling

to trouble myself with any more of them.

But when the carriage and its accompanying wagon had quite disappeared,

and Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart were virtually as far beyond my reach as if

they were already in New York, I became conscious of a great uneasiness.

This was the more strange in that there seemed to be no especial cause

for it. They had left my house in apparently better spirits than they

had entered it, and there was no longer any reason why I should concern

myself about them. And yet I did concern myself, and came into the house

and into the room they had just vacated, with feelings so unusual that I

was astonished at myself, and not a little provoked. I had a vague

feeling that the woman who had just left was somehow different from the

one I had seen the night before.

But I am a busy woman, and I do not think I should have let this trouble

me long if it had not been for Burritt. But when he came into the room

after me, and shut the door behind him and stood with his back against

it, looking at me, I knew I was not the only one who felt uncomfortable

about the Urquharts. Rising from the chair where I had been

sitting, counting the cost of fitting up that room so as to make it look

habitable, I went toward him and met his gaze pretty sharply.

"Well, what is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," was the somewhat sullen reply. "I don't feel right about

those folks, and yet--" He stopped and scratched his head--"I don't know

what I'm afraid of. Are you sure they left nothing behind them?"

The last words were uttered in such a tone I did not know for a minute

what to say.

"Left anything behind them!" I replied. "They left their money, if that

is what you mean. I don't know what else they could have left."

Notwithstanding which assertion, I involuntarily glanced about the room

as if half expecting to see some one of their many belongings protruding

from a hitherto unsearched corner. His gaze followed mine, but presently

returned, and we stood again looking at each other.

"Nothing here," said I.

"Where is it, then?" he asked.

I frowned in displeasure.

"Where is what?" I demanded. "You speak like a fool. Explain yourself."

He took a step toward me and lowered his voice. Every one knows Burritt,

so I need not describe him. You can all imagine how he looked when he

said:

"Did you see me handling of the big box, ma'am?"

I nodded yes.

"Saw how I was the one to help carry it in, and also how I was the one

to first take hold on it when he wanted it carried out?" I again nodded

yes.

"Well, ma'am, that box was a heavy load to lift into the wagon, but,

ma'am"--here his voice became quite sepulchral--"it wasn't as heavy as

it was when we lifted it out, and it hadn't the same feel either. Now,

what had happened to it, and where is the stuff he took out of it?"

I own I had never in my life felt creepy before that minute. But with

his eyes staring at me so impressively, and his voice sunk to a depth

that made me lean forward to hear what he had to say, I do declare I

felt as if an icy breath had been blown across the roots of my hair.

"Burritt, you want to frighten me," I exclaimed, as soon as I could get

my voice. "The box seemed heavier to you than it did just now. There

was no change in it, there could not be, or we should find something

here to account for it. Remember you did not sleep last night, and lack

of rest makes one fanciful."

"It does not make a man feel stronger, though, and I tell you the box

was not near so heavy to-day as yesterday. Besides, as I said before, it

acted differently under the handling. There was something loose in it

to-day. Yesterday it was packed tight."

I shook my head, and tried to throw off the oppression caused by his

manner. But seeing his eyes travel to the window, I looked that way too.

"He didn't carry anything out of the door," declared Burritt, at this

moment, "because I watched it, and I know. But that window is only three

feet from the ground, and I remember now that at the instant I first

laid my ear to the keyhole, I heard a strange, grating sound just like

that of a window being lowered by a very careful hand. Shall I look

outside it, ma'am?"

I replied by going quickly to the window myself, lifting it, which I did

with very little trouble, and glancing out. The familiar garden, with

its path to the river, lay before me; but though I allowed myself one

quick look in its direction, it was to the ground immediately beneath

the window that I turned my attention, and it was here that I instantly,

and to the satisfaction of both Burritt and myself, discovered

unmistakable signs of disturbance. Not only was there the impression of

a finely booted foot imprinted in the loose earth, but there was a large

stone lying against the house which we were both confident had not been

there the day before.

"He went roaming through the garden last night," cried Burritt, "and he

brought back that stone. Why?"

I shuddered instead of replying. Then remembering that I had seen the

young wife well and happy only a few minutes before, felt confused and

mystified beyond any power to express.

"I will have a look at that stone," continued Burritt; and without

waiting for my sanction, he vaulted out of the window and lifted the

stone.

After a moment's consideration of it he declared:

"It came from the river bank; that is all I can make out of it."

And dropping the stone from his hand, he suddenly darted down the path

to the river.

He was not gone long. When he came back, he looked still more doubtful

than before.

"If I know that bank," he declared, "there has been more than one stone

taken from it, and some dirt. Suppose we examine the floor, ma'am."

We did so, and just where the box had been placed we discovered some

particles of sand that were not brought in from the road.

"What does it mean?" I cried.

Burritt did not answer. He was looking out toward the river. Suddenly he

turned his eyes upon me and said in his former suppressed tone:

"He filled the box with stone and earth, and these were what we carried

out and put into the wagon. But it was full when it came, and very

heavy. Now, what was it filled with, and what has become of the stuff?"

It was the question then; it is the question now.

Burritt hints at crime, and has gone so far as to spend all the

afternoon searching the river banks. But he has discovered nothing, nor

can he explain what it was he looked for or expected to find. Nor are

my own thoughts and feelings any clearer. I remember that the times are

unsettled, that the spirit of revolution is in the air, and try to be

charitable enough to suppose that it was treasure the young husband

brought with him, and that all the perturbation and distress which I

imagine myself to have witnessed in his behavior and that of his wife

were owing to the purpose that they had formed of burying, in this spot,

the silver and plate which they were perhaps unwilling to risk to the

chances of war. But when I try to stifle my graver fears with this

surmise, I recall the fearful nature of the shriek which startled me

from my sleep, and repeat, tremblingly, to myself:

"Some one was in mortal agony at the moment I heard that cry. Was it the

young wife, or was it--"

CHAPTER III.

A FEARFUL DISCOVERY.

APRIL 3, 1791.

[Illustration: I]

It is sixteen years since I wrote the preceding chapters of this history

of mystery and crime. When the pen dropped from my hand--why did it

drop? Was it because of some noise I heard?

I imagine so now, and tremble. I did not anticipate ever adding a line

to the words I had written. The impulse which had led me to put upon

paper my doubts concerning the two Urquharts soon passed, and as nothing

ever occurred to recall this couple to my mind, I gradually allowed

their name and memory to vanish from my thoughts, only remembering them

when chance led me into the oak parlor. Then, indeed, I recollected

their manner and my fears, and then I also felt repeated, though every

time with fainter and fainter power, the old thrill of undefined terror

which stopped my record of that day with the half-finished question as

to who had uttered the shriek that had startled me the night before.

To-day I again take up my pen. Why? Because to-day, and only since

to-day, can I answer this question.

Sixteen years ago! which makes me sixteen years older. My house, too,

has aged, and the oak parlor--I never refurnished it--is darker,

gloomier, and more forbidding than it was then, and in truth, why should

it not be? When I remember what was revealed to me a week ago, I wonder

that its walls did not drop fungi, and its chill strike death through

the man or woman who was brave enough to enter it. Horrible, horrible

room! You shall be torn from my house if the rest of the structure goes

with you. Neither I nor another shall ever enter your fatal portal

again.

It was a week ago to-day that the coach from New York set down at my

door a stranger of fine and quaint appearance, whose white hair

betokened him to be aged, but whose alert and energetic movements

showed that, if he had passed the line of fourscore, he had still enough

of the fire of youth remaining to make his presence welcome in whatever

place he chose to enter. As had happened sixteen years before, I was

looking out of the window when the coach drove up, and, being at once

attracted by the stranger's person and manner, I watched him closely

while he was alighting, and was surprised to observe what intent and

searching glances he cast at the house.

"He could not be more interested if he were returning to the home of his

fathers," I murmured involuntarily to myself, and hastened to the door

in order to receive him.

He came forward courteously. But after the first few words between us he

turned again and gazed with marked curiosity up and down the road and

again at the house.

"You seem to be acquainted with these parts," I ventured. He smiled.

"This is an old house," he answered, "and you are young." (I am

fifty-five.) "There must have been owners of the place before you. Do

you know their names?"

"I bought the place of Dan Forsyth, and he of one Hammond. I don't know

as I can go back any further than that. Originally the house was the

property of an Englishman. There were strange stories about him, but it

was so long ago that they are almost forgotten."

The stranger smiled again, and followed me into the house. Here his

interest seemed to redouble.

Instantly a thought flashed through my brain.

"He is its ancient owner, the Englishman. I am standing in the presence

of--"

"You wish to know my name," interrupted his genial voice. "It is

Tamworth. I am a Virginian, and hope to stay at your inn one night. What

kind of a room have you to offer me?"

There was a twinkle in his eyes I did not understand. He was looking

down the hall, and I thought his gaze rested on the corridor leading to

the oak parlor.

"I should like to sleep on the ground floor," he added.

"I have but one room," I began.

"And one is all I want," he smiled. Then, with a quick glance at my

face: "I suppose you are a little particular whom you put into the oak

parlor. It is not every one who can appreciate such romantic

surroundings."

I surveyed him, completely puzzled. Whereupon he looked at me with an

expression of surprise and incredulity that added to the mystery of the

moment.

"The room is gloomy and uninviting," I declared; "but beyond that, I do

not know of any especial claim it has upon our interest."

"You astonish me," was his evidently sincere reply; and he walked on,

very thoughtfully, straight to the room of which we were speaking. At

the door he paused. "Don't you know the secret of this room," he asked,

giving me a very bright and searching glance.

"If you mean anything concerning the Urquharts," I began doubtfully.

"Urquharts!" he carelessly repeated. "I do not know anything about them.

I am speaking of an old tradition. I was told--let me see how long it is

now--well, it must be sixteen years at least--that this house contained

a hidden chamber communicating with a certain oak parlor in the west

wing. I thought it was curious, and--Why, madam, I beg your pardon; I

did not mean to distress you. Can it be possible that you were ignorant

of this fact?--you, the owner of this house!"

"Are you sure it is a fact?" I gasped. I was trembling in every limb,

but managed to close the door behind us before I sank into a chair. "I

have lived in this house twenty years. I know its rooms and halls as I

do my own face, and never, never have I suspected that there was a nook

or corner in it which was not open to the light of day. Yet--yet it is

true that the rooms on this floor are smaller than those above, this one

especially." And I cast a horrified glance about me, that reminded me,

even against my will, of the searching and peculiar look I had seen cast

in the same direction by Mr. Urquhart sixteen years before.

"I see that I have stumbled upon a bit of knowledge that has been kept

from the purchasers of this property," observed the old gentleman.

"Well, that does not detract from the interest of the occasion. When I

knew I was to pass this way, I said to myself I shall certainly stop at

the old inn with the secret chamber in it, but I did not think I should

be the first one to disclose its secret to the present generation. But

my information seems to affect you strangely. Is it such a disturbing

thing to find that one's house has held a disused spot within it, that

might have been made useful if you had known of its existence?"

I could not answer. I was enveloped in a strange horror, and was only

conscious of the one wish--that Burritt had lived to help me through the

dreadful hour I saw before me.

"Let us see if my information has been correct," continued Mr. Tamworth.

"Perhaps there has been some mistake. The secret chamber, if there is

one, should be behind this chimney. Shall I hunt for an opening?"

I managed to shake my head. I had not strength for the experiment yet. I

wanted to prepare myself.

"Tell me first how you heard about this room?" I entreated.

He drew his chair nearer to mine with the greatest courtesy.

"There is no reason why I should not tell you," replied he, "and as I

see that you are in no mood for a long story, I shall make my words as

few as possible. Some years ago I had occasion to spend a night in an

inn not unlike this, on Long Island. I was alone, but there was a merry

crowd in the tap room, and being fond of good company, I presently found

myself joining in the conversation. The talk was of inns, and many a

stirring story of adventure in out-of-the-way taverns did I listen to

that night before the clock struck twelve. Each man present had some

humorous or thrilling experience to relate, with the exception of a

certain glum and dark-browed gentleman, who sat somewhat apart from the

rest, and who said nothing. His reticence was in such marked contrast to

the volubility about him that he finally attracted universal attention,

and more than one of the merry-makers near him asked if he had not some

anecdote to add to the rest. But though he replied with sufficient

politeness, it was evident that he had no intention of dropping his

reserve, and it was not till the party had broken up and the room was

nearly cleared that he deigned to address any one. Then he turned to me,

and with a very peculiar smile, remarked:

"'A dull collection of tales, sir. Bah! if they had wanted to hear of

an inn that was really romantic, I could have told them--'

"'What?' I involuntarily ejaculated. 'You will not torture me by

suggesting a mystery you will not explain.'

"He looked very indifferent.

"'It is nothing,' he declared, 'only I know of an inn--at least it is

used for an inn now--which has in its interior a secret chamber so

deftly hidden away in the very heart of the house that I doubt if even

its present owner could find it without the minutest directions from the

man who saw it built. I knew that man. He was an Englishman, and he had

a fancy to make his fortune through the aid of smuggled goods. He did

it; and though always suspected, was never convicted, owing to the fact

that he kept all his goods in this hidden room. The place is sold now,

but the room remains. I wonder if any forgotten treasures lie in it.

Imagination could easily run riot over the supposition, do you not think

so, sir?'

"I certainly did, especially as I imagined myself to detect in every

line of his able and crafty face that he bore a closer relation to the

Englishman than he would have me believe. I did not betray my feelings,

however, but urged him to tell me how in a modern house, a room, or even

a closet, could be so concealed as not to awaken any one's suspicion. He

answered by taking out pencil and paper, and showing me, by a few lines,

the secret of its construction. Then seeing me deeply interested, he

went on to say:

"'We find what we have been told to search for; but here is a case where

the secret has been so well kept that in all possibility the question of

this room's existence has never arisen. It is just as well.'

"Meantime I was studying the plan.

"'The hidden chamber lies,' said I, 'between this room,' designating one

with my forefinger, 'and these two others. From which is it entered?'

"He pointed at the one I had first indicated.

"'From this,' he affirmed. 'And a quaint, old-fashioned room it is, too,

with a wainscoting of oak all around it as high as a man's head. It used

to be called the oak parlor, and many a time has its floor rung to the

tread of the king's soldiers, who, disappointed in their search for

hidden goods, consented to take a drink at their host's expense, little

recking that, but a few feet away, behind the carven chimneypiece upon

which they doubtless set down their glasses, there lay heaps and heaps

of the richest goods, only awaiting their own departure to be scattered

through the length and breadth of the land.'

"'And this house is now an inn?' I remarked.

"'Yes.'

"'Curious. I should like nothing better than to visit that inn.'

"'You doubtless have.'

"'It is not this one?' I suddenly cried, looking uneasily about me.

"'Oh, no; it is on the Hudson River, not fifty miles this side of

Albany. It is called the Happy-Go-Lucky, and is in a woman's hands at

present; but it prospers, I believe. Perhaps because she has discovered

the secret, and knows where to keep her stores.' And with a shrug of his

shoulders he dismissed the subject, with the remark: 'I don't know why I

told you of this. I never made it the subject of conversation before in

my life.'

"This was just before the outbreak in Lexington, sixteen years ago,

ma'am, and this is the first time I have found myself in this region

since that day. But I have never forgotten this story of a secret room,

and when I took the coach this morning I made up my mind that I would

spend the night here, and, if possible, see the famous oak parlor, with

its mysterious adjunct; never dreaming that in all these years of your

occupancy you would have remained as ignorant of its existence as he

hinted and you have now declared."

Mr. Tamworth paused, looking so benevolent that I summoned up my

courage, and quietly informed him that he had not told me what kind of a

looking man this stranger was.

"Was he young?" I asked. "Had he a blond complexion?"

"On the contrary," interrupted Mr. Tamworth, "he was very dark, and, in

years, as old or nearly as old as myself."

I was disappointed. I had expected a different reply. As he talked of

the stranger, I had, rightfully or wrongfully, with reason or without

reason, seen before me the face of Mr. Urquhart, and this description of

a dark and well-nigh aged man completely disconcerted me.

"Are you certain this man was not in disguise?" I asked.

"Disguise?"

"Are you certain that he was not young, and blond, and--"

"Quite sure," was the dry interruption. "No disguise could transform a

young blood into the man I saw that night. May I ask--"

In my turn I interrupted him. "Pardon me," I entreated, "but an anxiety

I will presently explain forces another question from me. Were you and

this stranger alone in the room when you held this conversation? You say

that it had been full a few minutes before. Were there none of the crowd

remaining besides your two selves?"

Mr. Tamworth looked thoughtful. "It is sixteen years ago," he replied,

"but I have a dim remembrance of a man sitting at a table somewhat near

us, with his face thrown forward on his arms. He seemed to be asleep; I

did not notice him particularly."

"Did you not see his face?"

"No."

"Was he young?"

"I should say so."

"And blond?"

"That I cannot say."

"And he remained in that attitude all the time you were talking?"

"Yes, madam."

"And continued so when you left the room?"

"I think so."

"Was he within earshot? Near enough to hear all you said?"

"Most assuredly, if he listened."

"Mr. Tamworth," I now entreated, "try, if possible, to remember one

other fact. If each man present told a story that night, you must have

had ample opportunity of noting each man's face and observing how he

looked. Now, of all that sat in the room, was there not one of an age

not exceeding thirty-five, of fair complexion and gentlemanly

appearance, yet with a dangerous look in his small blue eye, and a

something in his smile that took all the merriment out of it?"

"A short but telling description," commented my guest. "Let me see. Was

there such a man among them? Really, I cannot remember."

"Think, think. Hair very thin above the temples, mustache heavy. When he

spoke he invariably moved his hands; seemed to be nervous, and anxious

to hide it."

"I see him," was Mr. Tamworth's sudden remark. "That description of his

hands recalls him to my mind. Yes; there was such a man in the room that

night. I even recollect his story. It was coarse, but not without wit."

I advanced and surveyed Mr. Tamworth very earnestly. "The man you

thought asleep--the man who was near enough to hear all the Englishman

said--was he or was he not the same we have just been talking about?"

"I never thought of it before, but he did look something like him--his

figure, I mean; I did not see his face."

"It was he," I murmured, with intense conviction, "and the villain--"

But how did I know he was a villain? I paused and pointed to the huge

mantel guarding the fireplace. "If you know how to enter the secret

room, do so. Only I should like to have a few witnesses present besides

myself. Will you wait till I call one or two of my lodgers?"

He bowed with great urbanity. "If you wish to make the discovery

public," said he, "I, of course, have no objection."

But I saw that he was disappointed.

"I can never confront the secret of that room alone," I insisted. "I

must have Dr. Kenyon here at least." And without waiting for my impulses

to cool, I sent a message to the doctor's room, and was rewarded in a

moment by the appearance at the door of that excellent man.

It did not take many words for me to explain to him our intentions. We

were going to search for a secret chamber which we had been told opened

into the room in which we then found ourselves. As I did not wish to

make any mystery of the affair, and as I naturally had my doubts as to

what the room might disclose, I asked the support of his presence.

He was gratified--the doctor always is gratified at any token of

appreciation--and perceiving that I had no further reason for delay, I

motioned to Mr. Tamworth to proceed.

[Illustration]

How he discovered the one movable panel in that old-fashioned

wainscoting, I have never inquired. When I saw him turn toward the

fireplace and lay his ear to the wall, I withdrew in haste to the

window, feeling as if I could not bear to watch him, or be the first to

catch a glimpse of the mysterious depths which in another moment must

open before his touch. What I feared I cannot say. As far as I could

reason on the subject, I had no cause to fear anything; and yet my

shaking frame and unevenly throbbing heart were but the too sure tokens

of an excessive and uncontrollable agitation. The view from the window

increased it. Before me lay the river from whose banks sand and stone

had been taken sixteen years before to replace--what? I knew no more

this minute than I did then. I might know in the next. By the faint

tapping that came to my ears I must--and it was this thought that sent a

chill through me, and made it so difficult for me to stand. And yet why

should it? Was not that old theory of ours, that the Urquharts had

brought treasure in their great box, still a plausible one? Nay, more,

was it not even a probable one, since we had discovered that the house

held so excellent a hiding place, unknown to the world at large, but

known to this man, as Mr. Tamworth's story so plainly showed? Yes; and

yet I started with uncontrollable forebodings, when I heard an

exclamation of satisfaction behind me, and hardly found courage to turn

around, even when I knew that an opening had been effected, and that

they were only waiting for my approach to enter it.

And it took courage, both on my part and on theirs; for the air which

rushed from the high and narrow slit of darkness before us was stifling

and almost deadly. But in a few minutes, after one or two experiments

with a lighted candle, Dr. Kenyon stepped through the opening, followed

by Mr. Tamworth, and, in a long minute afterward, by myself.

Shall I ever forget my emotions as I looked about me and saw, by the

lamp which the doctor carried, nothing more startling than an old oak

chest in one corner, a pile of faded clothing in another, and in a

third--Heavens! what is it? We all stare, and then a shriek escapes my

lips as piercing and terror-stricken as any that ever disturbed those

fearful shadows; and I rush blindly from the spot, followed by Mr.

Tamworth, whose face, as I turn to look at him, gives me another pang of

fear, so white and sick it looks in the sudden glare of day.

Worse than I had thought, worse than I had dreamed! I cannot speak, and

fall into a chair, waiting in mortal terror for the doctor, who stayed

some minutes behind. When his kindly but not undisturbed countenance

showed itself again in the gap at the side of the fireplace, I could

almost have thrown myself at his feet.

[Illustration]

"What is it?" I gasped. "Tell me at once. Is it a man or a woman or--"

"It is a woman. See! here is a lock of her hair. Beautiful, is it not?

She must have been young."

I stared at it like one demented. It was of a peculiar reddish-brown,

with a strange little kink and curl in it. Where had I seen such hair

before? Somewhere. I remembered perfectly how the whole bright head

looked with the firelight playing over it. Oh, no, no, no, it was not

that of Mrs. Urquhart. Mrs. Urquhart went away from this house well and

happy. I am mad, or this strand of gleaming hair is a dream. It is not

her head it recalls to me, and yet--my soul, it is!

The doctor, knowing me well, did not try to break the silence of that

first grewsome minute. But when he saw me ready to speak, he remarked:

"It is an old crime, perpetrated, probably, before you came into the

house. I would not make any more of it than you can help, Mrs. Truax."

I scarcely heeded him.

"Is there no bit of clothing or jewelry left upon her by which we might

hope to identify her?" I asked, shuddering, as I caught Mr. Tamworth's

eye, and realized the nature of the doubts I there beheld.

"Here is a ring I found upon the wedding finger," he replied. "It was

doubtless too small to be drawn off at the time of her death, but it

came away easily enough now."

And he held out a plain gold circlet which I eagerly took, looked at,

and fell at their feet as senseless as a stone.

On the inner surface I had discovered this legend:

E. U. to H. D. Jan. 27, 1775.

CHAPTER IV.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

Never have I felt such relief as when, upon my resuscitation, I

remembered that I had put upon paper all the events and all the

suspicions which had troubled me during that fatal night of January the

28th, sixteen years before. With that in my possession, I could confront

any suspicion which might arise, and it was this thought which lent to

my bearing at this unhappy time a dignity and self-possession which

evidently surprised the two gentlemen.

"You seem more shocked than astonished," was Mr. Tamworth's first

remark, as, mistress once more of myself, I led the way out of that

horrible room into one breathing less of death and the charnel house.

"You are right," said I. "Mysteries which have troubled me for years are

now in the way of being explained by this discovery. I knew that

something either fearful or precious had been left in the keeping of

this house or grounds; but I did not know what this something was, and

least of all did I suspect that its hiding place was between walls whose

turns and limitations I thought I knew as well as I do the paths of my

garden."

"You speak riddles," Dr. Kenyon now declared. "You knew that something

fearful or precious had been left in your house--"

"Pardon me," I interrupted; "I said house or grounds. I thought it was

in the grounds, for how could I think that the house could, without my

knowledge, hold anything of the nature I have just suggested?"

"You knew, then, that a person had been murdered?"

"No," I persisted, with a strange calmness, considering how agitated I

was, both by my memories and the fears I could not but entertain for the

future; "I know nothing; nor can I, even with the knowledge of this

discovery, understand or explain what took place in my house sixteen

years ago."

And in a few hurried words I related the story of the mysterious couple

who had occupied that room on the night of January 27, 1775.

They listened to me as if I were repeating a fairy tale, and as I noted

the sympathizing air with which Dr. Kenyon tried to hide his natural

incredulity, I again congratulated myself that I had been a weak enough

woman to keep an account of the events which had so impressed me.

"You think I am drawing upon my imagination," I quietly remarked, as

silence fell upon my narration.

"By no means," the doctor began, hurriedly; "but the details you give

are so open to question, and the conclusions you expect us to draw from

them are so serious, that I wish, for your own sake, we had heard

something of the Urquharts, and your doubts and suspicions in their

regard, before we had made the discovery which points to death and

crime. You see I speak plainly, Mrs. Truax."

"You cannot speak too plainly, Doctor Kenyon; and my opinion so entirely

coincides with yours that I am going to furnish you with what you ask."

And without heeding their looks of astonishment, I rang the bell for one

of the girls, and sent her to a certain drawer in my desk for the folded

paper which she would find there.

"Here!" I exclaimed, as the paper was brought, "read this, and you will

soon see how I felt about the Urquharts on the evening of the day they

left us."

And I put into their hands the record I had made of that day's

experience.

While they were reading it, I puzzled myself with questions. If this

body which we had just found sepulchered in my house was, as the

initials in the ring seemed to declare, that of Honora Urquhart, who was

the woman who passed for her at the time of the departure of this

accused couple from my doors? I was with them, and saw the lady, and

supposed her to be the same I had entertained at my table the night

before. But then I chiefly noted her dress and height, and did not see

her face, which was hidden by her veil, and did not hear her voice

beyond the short and somewhat embarrassed laugh she gave at some little

incident which had occurred. But Hetty had seen her, and had even

received money from her hand; and Hetty could not have been deceived,

nor was Hetty a girl to be bribed. How was I, then, to understand the

matter? And where, in case another woman had taken Mrs. Urquhart's

place, had that woman come from?

I thought of the low window, and the ease with which any one could climb

into it; and then, with a flash of startled conviction, I thought of the

huge box.

"Great heavens!" I ejaculated, feeling the hair stir anew on my

forehead. "Can it be that he brought her in that? That she was with them

all the time, and that the almost hellish tragedy to which this ring

points was the scheme of two vile and murderous lovers to suppress an

unhappy wife that stood in the way of their desires?"

I could not think it. I could not believe that any man could be so void

of mercy, or any woman so lost to every instinct of decency, as to plan,

and then coolly carry out to the end, a crime so unheard of in its

atrocity. There must be some other explanation of the facts before us.

Why, the date in the ring is enough. If that speaks true, the marriage

between Edwin Urquhart and the gentle Honora was but a day old, and even

the worst of men take time to weary of their wives before they take

measures against them. Yet, the look and manner of the man! His

affection for the box, and his manifest indifference for his wife! And,

lastly, and most convincing of all, this awful token in the room

beyond! What should I, what could I think!

At this point in my surmises I grew so faint that I turned to Dr. Kenyon

and Mr. Tamworth for relief. They had just finished my record of the

past, and were looking at each other in surprise and horror.

"It surpasses the most atrocious deeds of the middle ages," quoth Mr.

Tamworth.

"In a country deemed civilized," finished the doctor.

"Then you think," I tremblingly began--

"That you have harbored two demons under your roof, Mrs. Truax. There

seems to be no doubt that the woman who went away with Mr. Urquhart was

not the woman who came with him. She lies here, while the other--"

He paused, and Mr. Tamworth took up the word.

"It seems to have been a strangely triumphant piece of villainy. The

woman who profited by it must have had great self-control and force of

character. Don't you think so, doctor?"

"Unquestionably," was the firm reply.

"You do not say how you account for her presence here," I now

reluctantly intimated.

"I think she was hidden in the great box. It was large enough for that,

was it not, Mrs. Truax?"

I nodded, much agitated.

"His care of it, his call for a supper, the change in its weight, and

the fact that its contents were of a different character in going than

coming, all point to the fact of its having been used for the purpose we

intimated. It strikes one as most horrible, but history furnishes us

with precedents of attempts equally daring, and if the box was well

furnished with holes--did you notice any breathing places in it?"

"No," I returned; "but I did not cast two glances at the box. I was

jealous of it, for the young wife's sake, though, as God knows, I had

little idea of what it contained, and merely noticed that it was big and

clumsy, and capable of holding many books."

"Yet you must have noticed, even in a cursory glance, whether its top or

sides were broken by holes."

"They were not, but--"

"But what?"

"I do remember, now, that he flung his traveling-cloak across it just as

the men went to lift it from the wagon, and that the cloak remained

upon it all the time it was in their hands, and until after we had all

left the room. But it was taken away later, for when I went in the

second time, I saw it lying across the chair."

"And the box?"

"Was hidden by the foot of the bed behind which he had dragged it."

"And the cloak? Was it over the box when it went out?"

"No; but I have thought since we have been talking, that the box might

have been turned over after its occupant left it. The holes, if there

were any, would thus be on the bottom, and would escape our detection."

"Very possible, but the sand with which we supposed the box had been

filled would have sifted through."

"Not if a good firm piece of stuff was laid in first, and there were

plenty of such in the secret chamber."

"That is true. But Burritt, you write, was listening at the door, and

yet you mention no remarks of his concerning any noises heard by him

from within. And noise must have been made if this was done, as it must

have had to be done after the tragedy."

"I know I do not," was the hurried reply. "But Burritt probably did not

remain at the door all the time. There is a window seat at the end of

the corridor, and upon it he probably lolled during the few hours of his

watch. Besides, you must remember that Burritt left his post some time

before daylight. He had his duties to attend to, some of which

necessitated his being in the stables by four o'clock, at least."

"I see; and so the affair prospered, as most very daring deeds do, and

they escaped without suspicion, or rather without suspicion pointed

enough to lead to their being followed. I wonder where they escaped to,

and if in all the years that have elapsed, they have for one moment

imagined that they were happy."

"Happy!" was my horrified exclamation. "Oh, if I could find them! If I

could drag them both to this room and make them keep company with their

victim for a week, I should feel it too slight a retribution for them."

"Heaven has had its eye upon them. We have been through fearful crises

since that day, and much unrighteous as well as righteous blood has

been shed in this land. They may both be dead."

"I do not believe it," I muttered. "Such wretches never die." Then, with

a renewed remembrance of Hetty, I remarked: "Curses on the duties that

kept me out of this room on that fatal morning. Had I seen the woman's

face, this horrid crime would at least been spared its triumph. But I

was obliged to send Hetty, and she saw nothing strange in the woman,

though she received money from her hand, and--"

"Where is Hetty?" interrupted the doctor.

"She is married, and lives in the next town."

"So, so. Well, we must hunt her up to-morrow, and see what she has to

say about the matter now."

But we soon found ourselves too impatient to wait till the morrow, so

after we had eaten a good supper in a cheerful room, Dr. Kenyon mounted

his horse, and rode away to the farm house where Hetty lived. While he

was gone, Mr. Tamworth summoned up courage to re-enter that cave of

horror, and bring out the contents of the oak chest we had seen there.

These were mostly stuffs in a more or less good state of preservation,

and all the assistance they lent to the understanding of the tragedy

that mystified us was the fact that the chest contained nothing, nor the

room itself, of sufficient substance to help the wicked Urquhart in

giving weight to the box which he had emptied of its living freight.

This is doubtless the reason he resorted to the garden for the sand and

stone he found there.

Dr. Kenyon returned about midnight, and was met at the door by Mr.

Tamworth and myself.

"Well?" I cried, in great excitement.

"Just as I supposed," he returned. "She did not see the lady's face

either. The latter was in bed, and the girl took it for granted that the

arm and hand which reached her out a silver piece from between the bed

curtains were those of Mrs. Urquhart."

"My house is cursed!" was my sudden exclamation. "It has not only lent

itself to the success of the most demoniacal scheme that ever entered

into the heart of man, but it has kept its secret so long that all hope

of explaining its details or reaching the guilty must be abandoned."

"Not so," quoth Mr. Tamworth. "Though an old man, I dedicate myself to

this task. You will hear again of the Urquharts."

CHAPTER V.

AN INTERIM OF SUSPENSE.

MAY 5, 1791.

[Illustration: H]

How fearful! To hear a spade in the night and know that this spade is

digging a grave! I sit at my desk and listen to hear if any one in the

house has been aroused or is suspicious, and then I turn to the window

and try to pierce the gloom to see if anything can be discerned, from

the house, of the grewsome act now being performed in the garden. For

after much consultation and several conferences with the authorities, we

have decided to preserve from public knowledge, not only the secret of

the room hidden in my house, but of the discovery which has lately been

made there. But while much harm would accrue to me by revelations which

would throw a pall of horror over my inn, and make it no better than a

place of morbid curiosity forever, the purposes of justice would be

rather hindered than helped by a publicity which would give warning to

the guilty couple, and prevent us from surprising them in the imagined

security which the lapse of so many years must have brought them.

And so a grave is being dug in the garden, where, at the darkest hour of

night, the remains of the sweet and gentle bride are to be placed

without tablet or mound.

Meanwhile do there hide in any part of this wicked world two hearts

which throb with unusual terrors this night? Or does there pass across

the mirror of a guilty memory any unusual shapes of horror prognostic of

detection and coming punishment? It would comfort my uneasy heart to

know; for the spirit of vengeance has seized upon me, and my house will

never seem washed of its stain, or my conscience be quite at rest as to

the past, till that vile man and woman pay, in some way, the penalty of

their crime.

That we know nothing of them but their names lends an interest to their

pursuit. The very difficulty before us, the hopelessness almost of the

task we have set ourselves, have raised in me a wild and well-nigh

superstitious reliance on Providence and the eternal justice, so that it

seems natural for me to expect aid even from such sources as dreams and

visions, and make the inquiry in which I have just indulged the

reasonable expression of my belief in the mysterious forces of right and

wrong, which will yet bring this long triumphant, but now secretly

threatened, pair to justice.

Dr. Kenyon, who is as practical as he is pious, smiles at my confidence;

but Mr. Tamworth neither mocks nor frowns. He has shouldered the

responsibility of finding this man, and has often observed, in his long

life, that a woman's intuitions go as far as a man's reasoning.

To-morrow he will start upon his travels.

JUNE 12, 1791.

It is foolish to put every passing thought on paper, but these sheets

have already served me so well that I cannot resist the temptation of

making them the repositories of my secret fears and hopes. Mr. Tamworth

has been gone a month, and I have heard nothing from him. This is all

the more difficult to bear that Dr. Kenyon also has left me, thus

taking from my house all in whom I can confide or to whom I can talk.

For I will not place confidence in servants, and there are no guests

here at present upon whose judgment I can rely concerning even a lesser

matter than this which occupies all my thoughts.

I must talk, then, to thee, unknown reader of these lines, and declare

on paper what I have said a thousand times to myself--what a mystery

this whole matter is, and how little probability there is of our ever

understanding it! Why was it that Edwin Urquhart, if he loved one woman

so well that he was willing to risk his life to gain her, would subject

himself to the terrors which must follow any crime, no matter how

secretly performed, by marrying a woman he must kill in twenty-four

hours? Marriages are not compulsory in this country, and any one must

acknowledge that it would be easier for a strong man--and he certainly

was no weakling--to refuse a woman at the nuptial altar than to

undertake and carry out a scheme so full of revolting details and

involving so much risk as this which we have been forced to ascribe to

him.

Then the woman, the unknown and fearful creature who had allowed herself

to be boxed up and carried, God knows, how many fearful miles, just for

the purpose of assuming a position which she seemingly might have

obtained in ways much less repulsive and dangerous! Was it in human

nature to go through such an ordeal, and if it were, what could the

circumstances have been that would drive even the most insensible nature

into such an adventure! I question, and try to answer my own inquiries,

but my imagination falters over the task, and I am no nearer to the

satisfaction of my doubts than I was in the harrowing minute when the

knowledge of this tragedy first flashed upon me.

I must have patience. Mr. Tamworth must write to me soon.

AUGUST 10, 1791.

News, news, and such news! How could I ever have dreamed of it! But let

me transcribe Mr. Tamworth's letter:

To Mrs. Clarissa Truax,

Mistress of the Happy-go-lucky Inn:

RESPECTED MADAM: After a lengthy delay,

occupied in researches, made doubly difficult

by the changes which have been wrought in the

country by the late conflict, I have just come

upon a fact that has the strongest bearing upon

the serious tragedy which we are both so

interested in investigating. It is this:

That every year the agent of a certain large

estate in Albany, N. Y., forwards to France a

large sum of money, for the use and behoof of

one Honora Quentin Urquhart, daughter of the

late Cyrus Dudleigh, of Albany, and wife of one

Edwin Urquhart, a gentleman of that same city,

to whom she was married in her father's house

on January 27, 1775, and with whom she at once

departed for France, where she and her husband

have been living ever since.

Thus by chance, almost, have I stumbled upon an

explanation of the tragedy we found so

inexplicable, and found that clew to the

whereabouts of the wretched pair which is so

essential to their apprehension and the proper

satisfaction of the claims of justice.

With great consideration I sign myself,

Your obedient servant,

ANTHONY TAMWORTH.

AUGUST 11, 8 o'clock.

I was so overwhelmed by the above letter that I found it impossible at

the time to comment upon it. To-day it is too late, for this morning a

packet arrived from Mr. Tamworth containing another letter of such

length that I am sure it must be one of complete explanation. I burn to

read it, but I have merely had time to break the seal and glance at the

first opening words. Will my guests be so kind as to leave me in peace

to-night, so that I may satisfy a curiosity which has become almost

insupportable?

MIDNIGHT.

No time to-night; too tired almost to write this.

AUGUST 12.

The packet is read. I am all of a tremble. What a tale! What a-- But why

encumber these sheets with words of mine? I will insert the letter and

let it tell its own portion of the strange and terrible history which

time is slowly unrolling before us.

PART II.

AN OLD ALBANY ROMANCE.

CHAPTER VI.

THE RECLUSE.

To Mrs. Clarissa Truax,

of the Happy-go-lucky Inn:

RESPECTED MADAM: Appreciating your anxiety, I hasten to give you the

particulars of an interview which I have just had with a person who knew

Edwin Urquhart. They must be acceptable to you, and I shall make no

excuse for the length of my communication, knowing that each detail in

the lives of the three persons connected with this crime must be of

interest to one who has brooded upon the subject as long as you have.

The person to whom I allude is a certain Mark Felt, a most eccentric and

unhappy being now living the life of a recluse amid the forests of the

Catskills. I became acquainted with his name at the time of my first

investigation into the history of the Dudleigh and Urquhart families,

and it was to him I was referred when I asked for such particulars as

mere neighbors and public officials found it impossible to give.

I was told, however, at the same time, that I should find it hard to

gain his confidence, as for sixteen years now he had avoided the

companionship of men, by hiding in the caves and living upon such food

as he could procure through the means of gun and net. A disappointment

in love was said to be at the bottom of this, the lady he was engaged to

having thrown herself into the river at about the time of the marriage

of his friend.

He was, notwithstanding, a good-hearted man, and if I could once break

through the reserve he had maintained for so many years, they thought I

would be able to surprise facts from him which I could never hope to

reach in any other way.

Interested by these insinuations, and somewhat excited, for an old man,

at the prospect of bearding such a lion in his den, I at once made up my

mind to seek this Felt; and accordingly one bright day last week

crossed the river and entered the forest. I was not alone. I had taken a

guide who knew the location of the cave which Felt was supposed to

inhabit, and through his efforts my journey was made as little fatiguing

as possible. Fallen brambles were removed from my path, limbs lifted,

and where the road was too rough for the passage of such faltering feet

as mine, I found myself lifted bodily, in arms as strong and steadfast

as steel, and carried like a child to where it was smoother.

Thus I was enabled to traverse paths that at first view appeared

inaccessible, and finally reached a spot so far up the mountain side

that I gazed behind me in terror lest I should never be able to return

again the way I had come. My guide, seeing my alarm, assured me that our

destination was not far off, and presently I perceived before me a huge

overhanging cliff, from the upper ledges of which hung down a tangle of

vines and branches that veiled, without wholly concealing, the yawning

mouth of a cave.

"That is where the man we are seeking lives, eats, and sleeps," quoth my

guide, as we paused for a moment to regain our breath. And immediately

upon his words, and as if called forth by them, we perceived an unkempt

and disheveled head slowly uprear itself through the black gap before

us, then hastily disappear again behind the vines it had for a moment

disturbed.

"I will encounter him alone," I thereupon declared; and leaving the

guide behind me, I pushed forward to the cliff, and pausing before the

entrance of the cave, I called aloud:

"Mark Felt, do you want to hear news from your friend Urquhart?"

For a moment all was still, and I began to fear that my somewhat daring

attempt had failed in its effect. But this was only for an instant, for

presently something between a growl and a cry issued from the darkness

within, and the next moment the wild and disheveled head showed itself

again, and I heard distinctly these words:

"He is no friend of mine, your Edwin Urquhart."

"Then," I returned, without a moment's hesitation, "do you want to hear

news of your enemy?--for I have some, and of the rarest nature, too."

The wild eyes flashed as if a flame of fire had shot from them, and the

head that held them advanced till I could see the whole bearded

countenance of the man.

"Is he dead?" he asked, with an eagerness and underlying triumph in the

voice that argued well for the presence of those passions upon the

rousing of which I relied for the revelations I sought.

"No," said I, "but death is looking his way. With a little more

knowledge of his early life and a little more insight into his character

at the time he married Honora Dudleigh, the law will have so firm a hold

upon him that I can safely promise any one who longs to see him pay the

penalty of his evil deeds a certain opportunity of doing so."

[Illustration]

The vines trembled and suddenly parted their full length, and Mark Felt

stepped out into the sunshine and confronted me. What he wore I cannot

say, for his personality was so strong I received no impression of

anything else. Not that he was tall or picturesque, or even rudely

handsome. On the contrary, he was as plain a man as I had ever seen,

with eyes to which some defect lent a strange, fixed glare, and a mouth

whose under jaw protruded so markedly beyond the upper that his profile

gave you a shock when any slight noise or stir drew his head to one

side and thus revealed it to you. Yet, in spite of all this, in spite of

tangled locks and a wide, rough beard, half brown, half white, his face

held something that fixed the attention and fascinated the eye that

encountered it. Did it lie in his eyes? How could it, with one looking

like a fixed stone of agate and the other like a rolling ball of fire?

Was it in his smile? How could it be when his smile had no joy in it,

only a satisfaction that was not of good, but evil, and promised trouble

rather than relief or sympathy? It must be in the general expression of

his features, which seemed made only to mirror the emotions of a soul

full of vitality and purpose--a soul which, if clouded by wrongs and

embittered by heavy memories, possessed at least the characteristic of

force and the charm of an unswerving purpose.

He seemed to recognize the impression he had made, for his lips smiled

with a sort of scornful triumph before he said:

"These are peculiar words for a stranger. May I ask your name and whose

interests you represent?"

His speech was quick, and had an odd halt in it, such as might be

expected from one who had not conferred with his fellows for years. But

there was no rudeness in its tone, nor was there any mistaking the fact

that he was, both by nature and education, a gentleman. I began to take

an interest in him apart from my mission.

"Mr. Felt," I replied, "my name is Tamworth. I am from Virginia, and

only by chance have I become involved in a matter near to you and the

man who, you tell me, is, or was, your enemy. As for the interests I

represent, they are those of justice, and justice only; and it is in her

behalf and for the triumph of law and righteousness that I now ask you

for your confidence and such details concerning your early intercourse

with Edwin Urquhart as will enable me to understand a past that will

certainly yield us a clew to the present. Are you willing to give them?"

"Will I give them?" he laughed. "Will I break the seal which guards the

tablets of my youth, and let a stranger's eyes read lines to which I

have shut my own for these many years! Do you not know that for me to

tell you what I once knew of Edwin Urquhart is to bare my own breast to

view, and subject to new sufferings a heart that it has taken fifteen

years of solitude to render callous?"

I gave no answer to this, only looked at him and stood waiting.

"You have hunted me out, you have touched the last string that ceases to

vibrate in a man's breast--that of a wild desire for vengeance--and now

you ask me--"

"To ease your memories of a burden. To drag into light the skeleton of

old days, and by the light thus thrown upon it to see that it is only a

skeleton, that, once beheld, should be buried and its old bones

forgotten. You are too much of a man, Felt, to waste away in these

wilds. Come! forget I am a stranger, and relieve yourself and me by

opening these tablets you speak of, even if it does cost you a pang of

the old sorrow. The talk we have had has already made a flutter in the

long-closed leaves, and should I leave you this minute you could not

smother the thoughts and memories to which our conversation has given

rise. Then why not think to purpose and--"

He raised one hand and stopped me. The gesture was full of fire, and so

was the eye he now turned away from me to gaze up at the overhanging

steeps above, with their great gorges and magnificent play of light and

shadow; at the valley beneath, with its broad belt of shining water

winding in and out through fertile banks and growing towns, and finally

at the blue dome of the sky, across which great clouds went sailing in

shapes so varied and of size so majestic that it was like a vision of

floating palaces on a sea of translucent azure.

Gasping in a strange mood between delight and despair, he flung up his

arms.

"Ah! I have loved these hills. Of all the longings and affections that

one by one have perished from my heart, the solitary passion for nature

has alone remained, unlessened and undisturbed. I love these trees with

their countless boughs; these rocks, with their hidden pitfalls and

sudden precipices. The sky that bends above me here is bluer than any

other sky; and when it frowns and gathers its storms together, and hurls

them above these ledges and upon my uncovered head, I throw up my arms

as I do now and exult in the tumult, and become a part of it, till the

hunger in my soul is appeased, and the blood in my veins runs mildly

again. And now I must quit all this. I must give to men thoughts that

have been closely wedded to Nature. I must tear her image from my heart,

and in her pure place substitute interests in a life I thought forever

sacrificed to her worship. It is a bitter task, but I will perform it.

There are other calls than those which reverberate from yon peaks. I

have just heard one, and my feet go down once more into the valleys."

His arms fell with the last words, and his eyes returned again to my

face.

"Come into the cave," said he. "I cannot tell my story in the sight of

these pure skies."

I followed him without a word. He had affected me. The invocation in

which he had indulged, and which, from another man, and other

circumstances, would have struck me as a theatrical attempt upon my

sympathy as forced as it was unnatural, was in him so appropriate, and

in such keeping with the grandeur of the scene by which we were

surrounded, that I was disarmed of criticism, and succumbed without

resistance to his power.

The cave, once entered, was light enough. On the ground were spread in

profusion leaves and twigs of the sweet-smelling cedar, making a carpet

as pleasing as it was warm and healthful. On one side I saw a mound of

the same, making a couch, across which a great cloak was spread; while

beyond, the half-defined forms of a rude seat and table appeared,

lending an air of habitableness to the spot, which, from the exterior, I

had hardly expected to find. A long slab of stone served as a hearth,

and above it I perceived a hole in the rock, toward which a thin column

of smoke was rising from a few smouldering embers that yet remained

burning upon the great stone below. Altogether, it was a home I had

entered; and awed a little at the remembrance that it had been the

refuge of this solitary man through years pregnant with events forever

memorable in the history of the world as those which gave birth to a new

nation, I sank down upon the pile of cedar he pointed out to me, and

waited in some impatience for him to begin his tale.

This he seemed in no hurry to do. He waited so long with his chin sunk

in his two hands and his eyes fixed upon vacancy, that I grew restless

and was about to break the silence myself, when, without moving, he

suddenly spoke.

CHAPTER VII.

TWO WOMEN.

"You want to hear about Edwin Urquhart. Well, you shall, but first I

promise you that I shall talk much less of him than of another person.

Why? because it is on account of this other person that I hate him, and

solely because of this other person that I avenge myself, or seek to

assist others in avenging the justice you say he has outraged.

"We were friends from boyhood. Reared in the same town and under the

same influences, there was a community of interests between us that

threw us together and made us what is called friends. But I never liked

him. That is, I never felt a confidence in him which is essential to a

mutual understanding. And, though I accepted his companionship, and was

much with him at the most critical time of my life, I always kept one

side, and that the better side, of my nature closed to him.

"He was a gentleman with no expectations; I the inheritor of a small

fortune that made my friendship of temporary use to him, even if it did

not offer him much to rely on in the future. We lived, he with an uncle

who was ready to throw him off the moment he was assured that he would

not marry one of his daughters, and I in my own house, which, if no

manor, was at least my own, and for the present free from debt. I myself

thought that Urquhart intended to marry one of the girls to whom I have

just alluded. But it seems that he never meant to do this, and only

encouraged his uncle to think so because he was not yet ready to give up

the shelter he enjoyed with him. But of this, as I say, I was ignorant,

and was consequently very much astonished when, one nightfall, in

passing the great Dudleigh place, he remarked:

"'How would you like to drink a glass with me in yonder? Better than in

the Fairfax kitchen, eh?'

"I thought he was joking. ''Tis a fine old house,' I observed. 'No doubt

its wines are good. But it is no tavern, and I question if Miss Dudleigh

would make either of us very welcome.'

"'You do! Then you don't know Miss Dudleigh,' he vaunted, with a proud

swelling of his person, and a lift of his head that almost took my

breath away. For, though he was a handsome fellow--too handsome for a

man no worthier than he--I should no more have presumed to have

associated him in my thoughts with Miss Dudleigh than if he had been a

worker in her fields. Not so much because she was rich--very rich for

that day and place--or that her family was an old one, and his but a

mushroom stock, as that she was a being of the gentlest instincts and

the purest thoughts, while he was what you may have gathered from my

words--vain, coarse, cowardly and mean; an abject cur beside her, who

was, and is, one of the sweetest women the sun ever shone upon."

At this expression of admiration on the part of the hermit, which proved

him to be in entire ignorance of the crime which had been perpetrated

against this woman, I found myself struck so aghast that I could not

forbear showing it. But he was too engrossed in his reminiscences to

notice my emotion, and presently continued his story by saying:

"I probably betrayed my astonishment to Urquhart, for he gave a great

laugh, and forced me about toward the gates.

"'We will not be turned out,' he said. 'Let us go in and pay our

respects.'

"'But,' I stammered.

"'Oh, it's all right,' he pursued. 'The fair lady is of age and has the

privilege of choosing her future husband. I shall live in clover, eh?

Well, it is time I lived in something. I have had a hard enough time of

it so far, for a none too homely fellow.'

"I was overwhelmed; more than that, I was sickened by these words, whose

import I understood only too well. Not that I had any special interest

in Miss Dudleigh; indeed, I hardly knew her; but any such woman inspires

respect, and I could not think of her as allied to this man without a

spasm of revolt that almost amounted to fear.

"'You are going to marry her, this white rose!' I exclaimed. 'I should

as soon have thought of your marrying a princess of the royal house. I

hope you appreciate your unbounded good fortune.'

"He pointed to the great chimneys and imposing facade of the fine

structure before us. 'Do you think I am so blind as not to know the

advantage of being the master in a house like that? You must not think

me quite a fool if I am not as clever a fellow as you are. Remember that

I am a poorer one and like my ease better.'

"'But Miss Dudleigh?'

"'Oh, she's a trifle peaked and dull, but she's fond and not too

exacting.'

"I was angry, but had no excuse for showing it. Righteous indignation he

could never have understood, and to have provoked a quarrel without any

definite end in view would have been folly. I remained silent,

therefore, but my heart burned within me.

"It had not lost its heat when we entered her house, and when my eyes

fell upon her seated at her spinet in front of a latticed window that

brought out her gentle figure in all its sweet simplicity, I felt like

clutching, and flinging back over the threshold, which his desecrating

foot should never have crossed, the hollow-hearted being at my side, who

could neither see her beauty nor estimate the worth of her innocent

affection.

"There was an aunt or some such relative in the room with her, but this

did not hinder the glad smile from rising to her lips as she saw us--or

rather him, for she hardly seemed to notice my presence. I learned

afterward that this aunt had been greatly instrumental in bringing these

incongruous natures together; that for reasons of her own, which I have

never attempted to fathom, she thought Edwin Urquhart the best husband

that her niece could have, and not only introduced him into the house,

but stood so much his friend during the first days of his courtship that

she gradually imparted to her niece her own enthusiasm, till the poor

girl saw--or thought she saw--the ideal of her dreams in the base and

shallow being whom I called my friend.

"However that may be, she certainly rose from her spinet that night in a

pretty confusion that made her absolutely lovely, and advancing with the

mingled dignity of the heiress and the tender bashfulness of the maiden

in the presence of him she loved, she tendered us a courtesy whose grace

put me out of ease with myself, so much it expressed the manners of

people removed from the sphere in which it had hitherto been my lot to

move.

"But Urquhart showed no embarrassment. His fine figure--he had

that--bent forward with the most courtly of bows, and after the

introduction of my humble self to her notice, he entered into a

conversation which, if shallow, was at least bright, and for the moment

interesting. As I had no wish to talk, I gave myself up to watching her,

and came away at last more fixed than ever in my belief of her extreme

worthiness and of his extreme presumption in thinking of calling so

perfect a creature his.

"'Would to God she was as poor as Janet Fairfax,' I thought to myself.

'Then she would never have attracted his attention, and might have known

what happiness was with some man who could appreciate her. Now she is

doomed, and being fatherless and motherless, will rush on to her fate,

and no one can stop her.'

"Thus I thought, and thus I continued to think as chance and Urquhart's

stubborn will led me more and more to her house, and within the radius

of her gentle influence. But my thoughts never went further. I never saw

her, even in my dreams, fostered by me, or soothed of an old grief by my

love and affection. For though she was a dainty and gracious being, with

beauty enough to delight the eyes and warm the heart, she was not the

one destined to move me, and awake the tumultuous passions that lay

dormant in my own scarcely understood nature. Urquhart, therefore, was

not acting unwisely in taking me there so often, though, if I could have

foreseen what was likely to be the result of those visits, I should have

leaped from my house's roof on to the stones below before I had passed

again under those fatal portals.

"And yet--would I? Do we fear suffering or apathy most? Is it from

experience or the monotony of a commonplace existence that we quickest

flee? A man with passions like mine must love; and if that love comes

girt with flame and mysterious death, he still must embrace it, and rise

and fall as the destinies will.

"But I talk riddles. I have not yet told you of her; and yet speak of

fire and death. I will try to be more coherent, if only to show that the

years have brought me some mastery over myself. One day--it was a fall

day and beautiful as limpid sunshine and a world of yellowing woods

could make it--I went to Miss Dudleigh's house to apologize for my

friend, who had wished to improve the gorgeous sunshine elsewhere.

"I had by this time lost all fear of her, as well as of her rich and

spacious surroundings, and passed through the hospitable door and along

the wide halls to the especial room in which we were wont to find her,

with that freedom engendered by an intimacy as cordial as it was

sincere. It was the room where first I had seen her, the room with the

wide latticed window at the back, and the spinet beneath it, and the old

carven chair of oak in which her white-clad form had always looked so

ethereal; and I entered it smiling, expecting to see her delicate figure

rise from the window, and advance toward me with that look of surprise

and possible disappointment which the absence of Urquhart would be apt

to arouse in this too loving nature. But the room was empty and the

spinet closed, and I was about turning to find a servant, when I felt an

influence stealing over me so subtile and so peculiar that I stood

petrified and enthralled, hardly knowing if it were music that held me

spell-bound or some unknown and subduing perfume, that, filling my

senses, worked upon my brain, and made me feel like a man transported at

a breath from the land of reality into a land of dreams.

"So potent the spell, so inexplicable its action, that minutes may have

elapsed before I wrenched myself free from its power and looked to see

what it was that so moved me. When I did, I found myself at a loss to

explain it. Whether it was music or perfume, or just the emanation from

an intense personality, I have never determined. I only know that when I

turned, I saw standing before me, in an attitude of waiting, a woman of

such marvelous attractions, and yet of an order of beauty so bizarre and

out of keeping with the times and the place in which she stood, that I

forgot to question everything but my own sanity and the reality of a

vision so unprecedented in all my experience. I therefore simply stood

like her, speechless and lost, and only came to myself when the figure

before me suddenly melted from a statue into a woman, and, with a deep

and graceful courtesy, almost daring in its abandonment, said:

"'You must be Master Felt, I take it. Master Urquhart would never be so

thrown off his balance by a simple girl like me.'

"There are voices that pierce like arrows and sink deep into the heart,

which closes over their sweetness forever. So it was with this voice.

From its first sound to its last it held me enthralled, and had she

shown but half the beauty she did, those accents of hers would have made

me her slave. As it was, I was more than her slave. I instantly became

all and everything to her. I breathed but as she breathed, and in the

absorbing delight which from that moment took hold of me I lost all

sense of the proprieties and conventionalities of social intercourse,

and only thought of drinking in at one draught the strange and

mysterious loveliness which I saw revealed before me.

"She was not a tall woman, no taller than Miss Dudleigh. Nor was she of

marked carriage or build. Her form, indeed, seemed only made to express

suppleness and passion, and was as speaking in its slight proportions as

if it had breathed forth the nobler attributes of majesty and strength.

Her dress was dark, and clung to every curve with a loving persistence

bewildering in its effect upon an eye like mine. Upon the bust, and just

below the white throat, burned a mass of gorgeous flowers as ruddy as

wine; and from one delicate hand a long vine trailed to the floor. But

it was in her face that her power lay; in her eyes possibly, though I

scarcely think so, for there were curves to her lips such as I have

never seen in any other, and a delicate turn to her nostril that at

times made me feel as if she were breathing fire. Her skin was pale, her

forehead broad and low, her nose straight, and her lips of a brilliant

vermilion. I, however, saw only her eyes, though I may have been

influenced by the rest of her bewildering physiognomy; they were so

large, so changeful, so full of alternating flames and languor, so

indeterminate in color, and yet so persistent in their effect upon the

eye and the feelings. Looking at them, I swore she was an anomaly.

Gazing into them, I resolved that she was this only because she let

herself be natural and sought to smother none of the fires which had

been enkindled by a bountiful nature within her soul.

"While I was reasoning thus, she made me another mock courtesy, and

explaining her presence by saying she was a cousin of Miss Dudleigh's,

ventured to remark that, if Master Felt would be kind enough to state

his errand, she would be glad to carry it to Miss Dudleigh. I answered

confusedly, but with a fervor she could not fail to understand, and

following up this effort by another, led her into a conversation in

which my responses gradually became such as she should expect from a

gentleman and an equal.

"For with her, notwithstanding her beauty, and the sense of splendor and

luxury which breathed from her mysterious presence, I never felt that

sense of personal inferiority I experienced at first with Miss Dudleigh.

Whether I recognized then, as now, the lack of those high qualities

which lift one mortal above another, I do not know. I am only certain

that, while I regarded her as a woman to be obeyed, to be loved, to be

followed through life, through death, into whatsoever regions of horror,

danger, and pain she might lead me, I never looked upon her as a being

out of my world or beyond my reach, except so far as her caprice might

carry her.

"It was therefore with the fixed determination to force from her some of

the interest she had awakened in me, that I grasped at this first

opportunity of conversation; and in spite of her unrest--she did not

want to linger--held her to the spot till I had made her feel that a man

had come into her life whose will meant something, and to whom, if she

did not subdue the light of her glances, she must give account for every

added throb she caused to beat in his proud heart.

"This done I let her go, for Miss Dudleigh was not well and needed her,

and the door closed behind her mysterious smile, and the sound of her

steps died out in the hall, and in fancy only could I behold her supple,

dark-clad form go up the broad staircase, projecting itself now against

the golden daylight falling through one window, and now against the

clustering vines that screened another, till she disappeared in regions

of which I knew nothing and whither even my daring imagination presumed

not to follow. And the vision never left my eyes nor her form my heart,

and I went out in my turn, a burning, eager, determined man, where in a

short half hour before I had entered cold and self-satisfied, without

hope and without exaltation.

"This was the beginning. In a week the earth and sky held nothing for me

but that woman. Her name, which I had not learned at our first

interview, was Marah Leighton--a fitting watch-word for a struggle that

could terminate only with my life! For I had got to the pass that this

woman must be mine. I would have her for my wife or see her dead; she

should never leave the town with another. Yes; homely as I was, without

recommendation of family, or more means than enough to keep a wife from

want, I boldly entered upon this determination, and in the face of some

dozen lovers, that at the first revelation of her beauty began to swarm

about her steps, pressed my claims and pushed forward my suit till I

finally gained a hearing, and after that a promise, which, if vague, was

more than any of her other lovers could boast of, or why did they all

gradually withdraw from the struggle, leaving me alone in my homage?

"The uncertainties of her position (she was an orphan and dependent upon

Miss Dudleigh for subsistence) had added greatly to my tenderness for

her. It also added to my hope. For if I were poor, she was poorer, and

ought to find in the managing of my humble home a satisfaction she could

not experience in the enjoyment of a relative's bounty, even if that

relative was a woman like Honora Dudleigh. And yet one doubts an

exultant happiness; and as I grew to know her better, I realized that if

I ever did succeed in making her mine, I must see to it that my

fortunes bettered, as she would never be happy as a poor man's wife,

even if that man brought her independence and love.

"She loved splendor, she loved distinction, she loved the frivolities of

life. Not with a childish pleasure or even a girlish enthusiasm, but

with a woman's strong and determined spirit. I have seen her pace

through and through those great halls just for the pleasure of realizing

their spaciousness; and though the sight made my heart cringe, I have

admired her step and the poise of her head as much as if she had been

the queen of it all, and I her humblest vassal. Then her luxury! It

showed as plainly in her poverty as it could have done in wealth. If it

were flowers she handled, it was as a goddess would handle them. None

were too beautiful, or too costly, or too rare for her restless fingers

to pluck, or her dainty feet to tread on. Had she possessed jewels, she

would have worn them like roses, and flung them away almost as freely if

they had displeased her or she had grown weary of them. Love was to her

a jewel, and she wore it just now because it suited her fancy to do so;

but would not the day come when she would grow tired of it or demand

another, and so fling it and me to the dogs?

"I did not ask. I was permitted to walk at her side, and pay her my

court, and now and then, when the humor took her, to press her hand or

drop a kiss upon the rosy palm; and while I could do this, was it for me

to question a future which seemed more likely to hold fewer pleasures

than more?

"But I grow diffuse; I must return to facts. Honora Dudleigh, who saw my

devotion, encouraged it. I wondered at it sometimes, for she knew the

smallness of my fortune, and must have known the nature of the woman I

expected to share it. But as time passed I wondered less, for her

woman's intuition must have told her, what observation had as yet failed

to tell me, that there was trouble in the air, and that Marah needed a

protector.

"The day that I first recognized this fact made an era in my life. I had

been so happy, so at ease with myself, so sure of her growing confidence

and of my coming happiness. That I had cause for this, the conduct of

her friends and the jealousy of her lovers seemed to prove. Though she

gave no visible token of her regard, she clung to me as to a support,

and allowed my passion the constant feast of her presence and the

stimulation of her voice.

"Her enchantments, and they were innumerable, were never spared me, nor

did she stint herself of a smile that could allure, nor of a glance that

could arouse or perplex.

"I was happy, and questioned only the extent of my patience, which I

felt fast giving way as the preparations for Miss Dudleigh's marriage

proceeded without my seeing any immediate prospect of my own. You can

realize, then, the maddening nature of the shock which I received when,

coming quietly into the house as I did one day, I beheld her face

disappearing through one of the doorways, with that look upon it which I

had always felt was natural to it, but which no passion of mine had ever

been able to evoke, and then perceived in the shadow from which she had

just glided, Edwin Urquhart, pale as excessive feeling could make him,

and so shaken by the first real emotion which had ever probably moved

his selfish soul that he not only failed to see me when I advanced, but

hastened by me, and away into the solitudes of the garden, without

noticing my existence, or honoring with a reply the words of wrath and

confusion which, in my misery and despair, I threw after him."

CHAPTER VIII.

A SUDDEN BETROTHAL.

"As for myself," continued Mark Felt, "I stood crushed, and after the

first torrent of emotion had swept by, lifted my head like a drowning

man and looked wildly about, as if, in the catastrophe which overwhelmed

me, all nature must have changed, and I should find myself in a strange

place. The sight of the door through which Marah Leighton had passed

stung me into tortured existence again. With a roar of passion and hate

I sprang toward it, burst it open, and passed in. Instantly silence and

semi-darkness fell upon me, through which I felt her presence exhaling

its wonted perfume, though I could see nothing but the dim shapes of

unaccustomed articles of furniture grouped against a window that was

almost completely closed from the light of day.

"Advancing, I gazed upon chair after chair. They were all empty, and not

till I reached the further corner did I find her, thrown at full length

upon a couch, with her head buried in her arms, and motionless as any

stone. Confused, appalled even, for I had never seen her otherwise than

erect and mocking, I stumbled back, and would have fled, but that she

suddenly arose, and flinging back her head, gave me one look, which I

felt rather than saw, and bursting into a peal of laughter, called me to

account for disturbing the first minute of rest she had known that day.

"I was dumfounded. If she had consulted all her wiles, and sought for

the one best way to silence me, she could not have chanced on one surer

than this. I gazed at her quite helpless, and forgot--actually

forgot--what had drawn me into her presence, and only asked to get a

good glimpse of her face, which, in the dim light, was more like that of

a spirit than of a woman--a mocking spirit, in whom no love could lodge,

whatever my fancy might have pictured in the delirium of the moment that

had just passed.

"She seemed to comprehend my mood, for she flung back the curtain and

drew herself up to her full height before me.

"'Did you think I was playing the coquette?' she asked. 'Well, perhaps I

was; women like me must have their amusements; but--'

"Oh! the languishment in that _but_. I shut my eyes as I heard it. I

could neither bear its sound, nor the sight of her face.

"'You listened to him. He was making love to you--he, the promised

husband of another; and you--'

"She forced me to open my eyes.

"'And I?' she repeated, with an indescribable emphasis that called up

the blushes to my cheek.

"'And you,' I went on, answering her demand without hesitation, 'the

beloved of an honest man who would die to keep you true, and will die if

you play him false!'

"She sighed. Softness took the place of scorn; she involuntarily held

out her hand.

"I was amazed; she had never done so much before. I seized that hand, I

pressed it wildly, hungrily, and with lingering fondness.

"'Do you not know that you are everything to me?' I asked. 'That to win

you I am ready to do everything, barter anything, suffer anything but

shame! You are my fate, Marah; will you not let me be yours?'

"She was silent; she had drawn her hand from mine and had locked it in

its fellow, and now stood with them hanging down before her, fixed as a

statue, in a reverie I could neither fathom nor break.

"'You are beautiful,' I went on, 'too beautiful for me; but I love you.

You are proud, also, and would grace the noblest palaces of the old

world; but they are far away, and my home is near and eager to welcome

you. You are dainty and have never taught your hands to toil, or your

feet to walk our common earth; but there are affections that sweeten

labor, and under my roof you will be so honored, so aided and so

beloved, that you will soon learn there are pleasures of the fireside

that can compensate for its cares, and triumphs of the affections that

are beyond the dignities of outside life.'

"Her lip curled and her hands parted. She lifted one rosy palm and

looked at it, then she glanced at me.

"'I shall never work,' she said.

"My heart contracted, but I could not give her up. Madness as it was to

put faith and life in the grasp of such a woman, I was too little of a

man or too much of a one to turn my back upon a hope which, even in its

realization, could bring me nothing but pain.

"'You shall not work,' I declared. And I meant it. If I died she should

not handle anything harsher than rose leaves in her new home.

"'You want me?' She breathed it. I stood in a gasp of hope and fear.

"'More than I want heaven! Or, rather, you are my heaven.'

"'We will be married before Honora,' she murmured. And gliding from my

side before I had recovered from the shock of a promise so unexpected, a

bliss so unforeseen and immediate, she vanished from my sight, and

nothing but the perfume which lingered behind her remained to tell me

that it was not all a dream, and I the most presumptuous being alive.

"And so the hour that opened in disaster ended in joy; and from the

heart of what I deemed an irredeemable disaster rose a hope that for

several days put wings to my feet. Then something began to tarnish my

delight, an impalpable dread seized me, and though I worked with love

and fury upon my house, which I had begun adorning for my bride, I began

to question if she had played the coquette in smiling upon Edwin

Urquhart, and whether in the mockery of the laugh with which she had

dismissed my accusations there had not been some regret for a love she

dared not entertain, but yet suffered to lose. The memory of the glow in

her eyes, as she turned away from him at my step, returned with growing

power, and I decided that if this were coquetry, it were sweeter than

love, and longed to ask her to play the coquette with me. But she never

did, and though she did not smile upon him again in my presence, I felt

that her beauty was more bewildering, her voice more enchanting, when he

was in the room with us than when chance or my purpose found us alone.

To settle my doubts, I left watching her and began to watch him, and

when I found that he betrayed nothing, I turned my attention from them

both and bestowed it upon Miss Dudleigh."

CHAPTER IX.

MARAH.

"Great heaven! why had I not noticed Miss Dudleigh before! In her

changed face, and in the wasting of her delicate form, I saw that my

fears were not all vain, inasmuch as they were shared by her; and

shocked at evidences so much beyond my expectations, I knew not whether

to shed the bitter tears which rose to my eyes in pity for her or in

rage for myself.

"We were sitting all together, and I had a full opportunity to observe

the mournful smile that now and then crossed her lips as Marah uttered

some brighter sally than common or broke--as she often did--into song

that rippled for a minute through the heavy air and then ceased as

suddenly as it had begun. She looked much oftener at Marah than at

Urquhart, and seemed to be asking in what lay the charm that subdued

everybody, even herself. And when she seemed to receive no answer to her

secret questioning, her eyes fell and a sigh stirred her lips, which, if

unheard by the preoccupied man at her side, rang on in my ears long

after I had bidden farewell to her and the siren whose smiles,

intentionally or unintentionally, seemed destined to bring shipwreck

into three lives.

"It was not the last time I heard that sigh. As the weeks progressed it

fluttered oftener and oftener from between those pale lips, and at last

the change in Miss Dudleigh became so marked that people stopped in the

midst of their talk about the stamp act to remark upon Miss Dudleigh's

growing weakness, and venture assertions that she would never live to be

a bride. And yet the preparations for her bridal and for mine went on,

and the day set apart for the latter drew bewilderingly near.

"Marah saw my perplexity and her cousin's grief, but did nothing to

dispel the one or assuage the other. She seemed to be too busy. She was

embroidering a famous stomacher for herself, and while a sprig of it

remained unworked she had neither eyes nor attention for anything else,

even for the bleeding hearts around her. She would smile--O yes, smile

upon me, smile upon Honora, and not smile upon him; but she would not

meet her cousin's true eyes, nor would she grant me one minute apart

from the rest in which I could utter my fears or demand the breaking of

that spell whose effects were so visible, even if its workings were

secret and imperceptible. But at last the stomacher was finished, and as

it dropped from her hands I threw myself at her feet, and from this

position, looking into her eyes, I whispered:

"'This is the last thing that shall ever flaunt itself between us. You

are to be mine now, and in token of your truth come with me into the

conservatory, for I have words to utter that will not be put off.'

"'You are cruel,' she murmured, 'you are tyrannical. This is a time of

revolt; shall I revolt, too?'

"Maddened, for her eyes were not looking at me, but at him, I leaped to

my feet, and, regardless of everything but my determination to end this

uncertainty then and there, I lifted her and carried her out of the room

into another, where I could have her alone, and without the humiliating

sense of his presence.

[Illustration]

"My bold act seemed to frighten her, for she stood very still where I

had placed her, only trembling slightly when I looked at her and

cried:

"'Did you ask that question of me? Am I to understand you want to break

your fetters?'

"She plucked a rose from her breast and crumpled it to atoms between her

hands.

"'O why are they not golden ones!' she asked. 'I am miserable because we

must be poor; because--because I want to ride in a carriage, because I

want to wear jewels and own a dozen servants, and trample on the pride

of women plainer than myself. I hate your humble home, I hate your stiff

Dutch kitchen, I hate your sordid ways and the decent respectability

that is all you can offer me. Were you beautiful as Adonis, it would

make no difference. I was born to drink wine and not water, and I shall

never forgive you for forcing me to take your crystal goblet in my

hands, while, if I had waited--'

"She stopped, panting. I let my whole pent-up jealousy out in a word.

"'Edwin Urquhart has not even a crystal goblet to offer you. He is

poorer than I am, and will remain so till he has actually married Miss

Dudleigh.'

"'Don't I know it!' she flashed out. 'If it had been otherwise do you

think--'

"She had the grace or the wisdom to falter. I regret it now. I regret

that she did not go on and reveal her whole soul to me in one fell burst

of feeling. As it was, I trembled with jealousy and passion, but I did

not cast her from me.

"'Then you acknowledge--' I cried.

"But she would acknowledge nothing. 'I love no one,' she asserted, 'no

one. I want what I want, but none of you can give it to me.'

"Then blame me as you will, I took a great resolve. I determined to give

her what she craved; convinced of her sordid nature, convinced of her

heartlessness and the folly of ever thinking she could even understand,

much less reciprocate my passion, I was so much under her sway at that

moment that I would have flung at her feet kingdoms had I possessed

them. Flushing, I seized her hand.

"'You do not know what a man in love can do,' I cried. 'Trust me; give

me yourself as you have promised, and sooner or later I will give you

what you have asked. I am not a weak man or an incompetent one. Politics

opens a vast field to an ambitious nature, and if war breaks out, as we

all expect it will, you will see me rise to the front, if I have you for

my wife and inspiration.'

"The scorn in her eyes did not abate. 'O you men!' she cried. 'You think

you give us everything with a promise. A war! What is the history of

wars? Demolished homes, broken fortunes, rack, ruin and desolation. Is

there gold, or honor, or ease in these? A war! It will not be a war. It

will be a struggle in which men will fight barefoot and on empty

stomachs for the privilege of calling themselves free. I have no

sympathy with such a war. It robs us of comfort in the present and

brings nothing worth waiting for in the future. Were I to have my will,

I would take the arm of the first officer returning to England and

remain there. I hate this country, so new, so crude, so democratic! I

should like to live where I could ride over the necks of common people.'

"A tory and an aristocrat! Another gulf between us. I looked at her in

horror, but, alas! the horror was strangely mixed with admiration. She

was such a burning embodiment of pride. Her peculiar beauty--the source

of which I have never to this day been able to fathom--lent itself so

readily to the expression of fury and disdain, that, recoil as I would

from her principles, I could not shut my eyes to the fascination of her

glance or the torturing charm that hid in the corners of her pouting

lips. She was a queen. Oh, yes, but the queen of some strange realm in a

distant oriental land, where right and wrong were only words, and the

sole end of beauty was delight, without reference to God or one's

fellows. I saw it all, I felt it all, yet I lingered. She was to be my

wife in three days, and the intoxication of this prospect was in my

blood and brain.

"'You will do so and so,' were her next words. 'You will give me what I

ask when you have won it. But I cannot wait for the winning; I want it

now. Do you know what I would do to get the wealth I was born to? I

would risk life! I would walk on burning plowshares! I would--'

"She stopped, and I saw the lines come out in her forehead. She was

thinking--thinking deeply. I felt the shadow of a great horror creeping

over me. I caught her impetuously in my arms. I kissed her passionately

to drive away the demons. I begged and implored her to forget her evil

thoughts, and be the woman I could love and cherish; and finally I

moved her. She shook herself free, but she also shook the shadow from

her brow. She even found a smile to bestow upon me; and was it a tear?

Could it have been a tear I saw for a moment glisten in her eye as she

turned half petulantly, half imperiously away? I have never known, but

the very suspicion filled my heart to overflowing, and the great sobs

rose in my breast; and--fool that I was--I was about to beg her pardon,

when she gave me one other look, and I merely faltered out:

"'Where will you find another love like mine, Marah? If you got your

gold, you would soon miss something which only comes with love. You

would be unhappy, and curse the day you left my arms. I am your master,

Marah; why not make me a happy one?'

"'I expect,' she murmured, 'to marry you.'

"'And then?' I could not help it; the words sprang to my lips

involuntarily.

"Her eyes opened wide; she literally flashed them upon me. I felt their

lightnings play all about my doubtful nature, and scorch it.

"'I will be your wife,' she uttered gravely.

"I fell at her feet. I kissed the hem of her robe. In that moment I

adored her. 'O best and fairest!' I cried, 'I will make you happy. I

will fill your hopes to the full. You shall ride in a carriage, and your

will shall be a law to those who smile in scorn upon you now, and you

will be--'

"'Mistress Felt, of most honorable degree,' she finished, with the half

laughing disdain she could never keep long out of her words.

"And thus I became again her slave, and lived in that sweet, if servile,

condition till the hour of our nuptials came, and I went to conduct her

to the church where, in sight of half the town, she was to be made my

wife. Shall I ever forget that morning? It was a December day, but the

heavens were blue and the earth white, and not a cloud bespoke a rising

storm. As for me, I walked on air, all the more that I knew Urquhart was

out of town and would not be present at the wedding. He had gone away on

some behest of Miss Dudleigh's immediately after the last interview I

have mentioned, and would not come back, or so I had been told, till

after Miss Leighton had been Mistress Felt for a week. So there was

nothing to mar my day or make my entrance into Miss Dudleigh's house

anything but one of promise. I saw Miss Dudleigh first. She was

standing in the vast colonial hall when I entered, and in her gala

robes, and with the sunshine on her head, she looked almost happy. Yet

she was greatly changed from her old self, and I felt much like pouring

out my soul to her and bidding her to break a tie that would never bring

her peace, or even honor. But I feared to shatter my own hopes. Selfish

being that I was, I dreaded to have her made free, lest-- What? My

thoughts did not interpret my fears, for at that moment a sunbeam struck

down the stairs and through my heart, and, looking up, I saw Marah

descending, and thought and reason flew to greet her.

"She had been robed by her cousin's bounteous hand, and her dress of

stiff yellow brocade burned in the morning light with almost as much

brilliance as the sunshine itself. Folded across her bust was the

wonderful stomacher, under whose making I had suffered so many emotions

that each sprig of work upon it seemed to have its own tale of misery

for my eyes, and fixed against this and her white throat were those

masses of flowers without which her beauty never seemed quite complete.

In her hair, which was piled high above her forehead, flashed a huge

golden comb, and upon her arm gleamed two bracelets, whose exquisite

workmanship was well known to me, for they had been an heirloom in my

family for years. She was fair as a dream, proud as a queen, cold as a

statue, but she was mine! Was not the minister waiting for us at the

church? and were not the horses that were to take us there even now

champing their bits before the door?

"She rode with me. Four white horses had been attached to Miss

Dudleigh's coach, and behind these we passed in state out through the

noble park that separated this lordly house from the rest, into the

closely packed streets, where hundreds waited to catch a glimpse of the

most beautiful woman in Albany, going to be made a bride.

"Miss Dudleigh rode behind us in another coach, and the murmur which

greeted our appearance did not die out till after she had passed, for

they knew she would soon be riding the same road with even greater

state, if not with so much beauty; and the people of Albany loved Honora

Dudleigh, for she was ever a beneficent spirit to them, and more than

ever, since a shadow had fallen upon her happiness, and she had come to

know what misery was.

"And thus we passed on, Marah with a glowing flush of triumph burning on

her cheek and I in one of those moods of happiness whose rapture was so

unalloyed that I scarcely heard the half-laughing comments of those who

saw with wonder how plain was the man who had succeeded in carrying off

this well-known beauty. And the greater part of the way was traversed,

and the bells of the old North Church became audible, and in a moment

more we should have seen the belfry of the church itself rising before

us, when, suddenly, the woman that I loved, the woman whose nuptials the

minister was waiting to celebrate, gave a great start, and, turning

quickly toward me, cried:

"'Turn the horses' heads! I do not go to the church with you to-day. Not

if you kill me, Mark Felt!'

"You have heard of stray bullets coming singing from some unknown

quarter and striking a person seated at a feast. Such a bullet struck me

then. I looked at her in horror."

CHAPTER X.

AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS.

"'You think I am playing with you,' she murmured. 'I am not. I have

sickened of these nuptials and am going back. If you want to, you may

kill me where I sit. You carry a dagger, I know; one more red blossom

will not show on my breast. Give it to me if you will, but turn the

horses.'

"She meant it, however much my lost heart might cry out for its

happiness and honor. Leaning forward, I told the pompous driver that

Miss Leighton had been taken very ill, and bade him drive back; and then

with the calmness born of utter despair and loss, I said to her:

"'In pity for my pride drop your head upon my shoulder. I have said you

were sick, and sick you must be. It is the least you can do for me now.'

"She obeyed me. That head on which in fancy I had set the crowns of

empires, for whose every hair my heart had given a throb, sank coldly

down till it rested upon the heart she had broken; and while I steadied

my nerves to meet the changed faces of the crowd, the carriage gave a

sudden turn, and amid murmurings that fell almost unheeded on my

benumbed senses, we wheeled about and faced again the gates through

which we had so lately issued.

"'She is ill,' I shouted to Miss Dudleigh, as we passed her carriage.

But she gave me no reply. She was gazing over the heads of the crowd at

some distant object that enthralled her every look and sense; and moved

by her expression as I thought never to be moved by anything again, I

followed her glance, and there, on the outskirts of the crowd, crouching

amid branches that yet refused to hide him, I saw Edwin Urquhart; and

the miserable truth smote home to my heart that it was he who had

stopped my marriage--he, whom I had thought far distant, but who had now

come to hinder, by some secret gesture or glance, my bride on her path

to the altar.

"A dagger was hidden in my breast, and I still wonder that I did not

leap from the carriage, burst through the crowd, and slay him where he

crouched in cowardly ambush. But I let the moment go by, perhaps because

I dreaded to bring the shadow of another woe into Miss Dudleigh's white

face, and almost immediately the throng had surged in thickly between

us, and Miss Dudleigh's carriage had turned after ours, and there was

nothing further to do but to ride back, with the false face pressed in

seeming insensibility to my breast, and that false heart beating out its

cold throbs of triumph upon mine.

"I bore it, glancing down but once upon her. Had the ride before me been

one of miles I should have gone on in the same mechanical way, for my

very being was petrified. Rage, fear, sorrow and despair, all seemed

like dreams to me. I wondered that I had ever felt anything, and stared

on and on at the blue sky before me, conscious of but one haunting

thought that repeated itself again and again in my brain--that her power

lay not in her eyes, as I had always been assured, but in those strange

curves about her mouth. For her eyes were closed now, and yet I was

coldly conscious of the fact that she had never looked more beautiful or

more fitted to move a man, if a man had any heart left to be moved.

"The stopping of the carriage before the great door of Miss Dudleigh's

house roused me to the necessity for action.

"'I must carry you in,' I whispered. 'I beg your pardon for it, but it

is necessary to the farce.' And following up my words by action, I

lifted her from the seat, cold and unresponsive as a stone, and carried

her into the house and set her down before the astonished eyes of such

servants as had remained to guard the house in our absence.

"'Miss Leighton has not been married,' I cried. 'She was taken ill on

the way to church, and I have brought her back. She needs no

attendance.' And I waved them all back, for their startled, gaping

countenances infuriated me, and threatened to shatter the dreadful

calmness which was my only strength.

"As they disappeared, murmuring and peering, Miss Dudleigh entered. I

gave her one glance and dropped my eyes. She and I could not bear each

other's looks yet. Meantime Marah stood erect in the center of the hall,

her face pale, her lips set, her eyes fixed upon vacancy. Not a word

passed our three mouths. At last a petulant murmur broke the dreadful

silence, and Marah, tossing her head in disdain, turned away before our

eyes and began to mount the stairs.

"I felt my blood, which for many minutes had seemed at a standstill,

pour with a rush through vein and artery, and darting to her side, I

caught her by the hand and held her to her place.

"'You shall not go up,' I cried, 'till you and I have understood each

other. You have refused to marry me to-day. Was it some caprice that

moved you, or--' I paused and looked behind me; Miss Dudleigh had shrunk

from sight into one of the rooms--'or because you saw Edwin Urquhart in

the crowd and followed his commanding gesture?'

"The hand which I held grew cold as ice. She drew it away and looked at

me haughtily, but I saw that I had frightened her.

"'Edwin Urquhart is nothing to me,' came in low but emphatic tones from

her lips. 'I did not want to marry any one, and I said so. It would be

better if more brides hesitated on the threshold of matrimony instead of

crossing it to their ruin.'

"I could have killed her, but I subdued myself. I knew that I had lost

her; that in another moment she would be gone, never to enter my

presence again as my promised wife; but I uttered no word, honored her

with no glance; merely made her a low bow and stepped back, as I

thought, master of myself again.

"But in that final instant one last arrow entered my breast, and darting

back to her side, I whispered, in what must have been a terrible voice:

"'Go, falsest of the false! I have done with you! But if you have lied

to me--if you think to trip up Edwin Urquhart in his duty, and break

Honora Dudleigh's noble heart, and shame my honor--I will kill you as I

would a snake in the grass! You shall never approach the altar with

another as nearly as you have this day with me!'

"And with the last mockery of a look, in which every detail of her

beauty flashed with almost an unbearable insistence upon my eyes, I

turned my back upon her and strode toward the outer door."

CHAPTER XI.

HONORA.

"But I did not pass it. A sound struck my ear. It was that of a

smothered sob, and it came from the room where I had first seen Miss

Dudleigh. Instantly a vision of that sweet form bowed in misery struck

upon my still palpitating heart; and moved at a grief I knew to be well

nigh as bitter as my own, I stopped before the half-closed door, and

gently pushed it open.

"Miss Dudleigh at once advanced to meet me. Tears were on her cheeks,

but she walked very firmly, and took my hand with an inquiry in her soft

eyes that almost drove me distracted.

"'What shall I do?' I cried to myself. 'Tell this woman to beware, or

leave her to fight her battles alone?' No answer came from my inmost

soul. I was appalled by her weakness and my own selfishness, and bowed

my head and said nothing.

"'A strange ending to the hopes of this day,' were the words that

thereupon fell from her lips. 'Is--is--Marah ill, or did one of her

strange moods overtake her?'

"'I do not understand Miss Leighton,' I replied. 'The time I have spent

in the study of her character has been wasted. I shall never undertake

to open the book again.'

"'Then,' she faltered, and an absolute terror grew in her eyes, 'you are

going to leave her. She is going to be free, and--' The white cheeks

grew scarlet. She evidently feared that she had shown me her heart.

"Affected, but irresolute still, I took her hand and carried it to my

lips.

"'Let me thank you,' said I, 'for glimpses into a nature so noble and

womanly that I am saved in this hour from cursing all womankind.'

"Ah, how she sighed.

"'You are good,' she murmured. 'You have deserved a better fate. But it

is the lot of goodness and truth ever to meet with misappreciation and

disdain. Here, here, only,' and she struck her breast with her clenched

right hand, 'lie the rewards for honesty, long-suffering, and

tenderness. In the world without there is nothing.'

"Tears, which I could not restrain, welled up to my eyes. I could never

have wept for my own suffering, but for hers it seemed both natural and

real. Ah, why had she thrown the treasures of her heart away upon a

fool? Why had she given the trust of her heart to a villain? I opened my

lips to speak; she saw his name faltering on my tongue, and stopped me.

"'Don't!' she breathed. 'I know what you would say and I cannot bear it.

I was motherless, fatherless, almost friendless, and I relied upon the

wisdom of an aunt, whose judgment was, perhaps, not all that it should

have been. But it is too late now for regrets. I have launched my boat,

and it must sail on; only--you are an honest man and will respect my

confidence--was it Mr. Urquhart I saw on the outskirts of the crowd

to-day?'

"I bowed. I knew she had not asked because she had any doubts as to the

fact of his being there, but because she wanted to see if I had

recognized him and owed any of my misery to that fact.

"'It was he,' said I, and said no more.

"The mask fell from her countenance. She clasped her hands together till

they showed white as marble.

"'Oh! we are four miserable ones!' she cried. 'He--'

"It was my turn to stop her.

"'I would rather you did not say it,' I exclaimed. 'I can bear much, but

not to hear another person utter words that will force me to think of

the dagger I carry always in my breast. Besides, we may be mistaken.' I

did not believe it, but I forced myself to say it. 'She declares he is

nothing to her, and if that is so, you might wish to have kept silent.'

"'She says! Ah! can you believe her? do you?'

"'I must--or go mad.'

"'Then I will believe her, too. I am so slightly tied to this world that

has deceived me, that I will trust on a little while longer, even if my

trust lands me in my grave. I had rather die than discover deceit where

I had looked for honesty and gratitude.'

"I was a coward, perhaps, but I did not try to dissuade her. Though she

was fatherless and motherless, and loverless and friendless, I let her

grasp at this wisp of hope and cling to it, though I knew it would never

hold, and that her only chance for happiness was passing from her.

"'If he were not poor,' she now breathed rather than whispered, 'I would

find it easier to rend myself free. But he has nothing but what lies in

my future, and if I should make a mistake and do injustice to a man that

is merely suffering under a temporary intoxication, I should rob him of

his only hope, without adding one chance to my own.'

"I bowed, and made a movement toward the door. I could not stand much

more of this strain.

"'You are going?' she cried. 'Well, I cannot keep you. But that dagger!

You will promise me to throw it away? You do not need it in defense, and

you do not want to kill me before my time.'

"No, no; I did not want to kill her. Grief was doing that fast enough;

so I thought at that time. Shuddering, but resolute, I drew the tiny

steel from my breast and laid it in her hand.

"'It is all I can give you to show you my appreciation of your

goodness.' And not trusting myself to linger longer lest I should take

it again from her hand, I went out and walked hastily from the house.

"If you asked me what road I took, or through what streets I passed, or

whose eye I encountered in my next hour's walking through the town, I

could not tell you. If jeers followed me, I heard them not; if I was the

recipient of sympathizing looks and wondering conjectures, they were all

lost upon eyes that were blind and ears that were deaf. I did not even

feel; and did not realize till night that I had been wandering for hours

without my cloak, which I had left in the carriage and forgotten to take

again when I went out. The first knowledge I had of my surroundings was

when I found an obstruction in my path, and looking up, saw myself in

front of my own door, and not two feet from me, Edwin Urquhart."

CHAPTER XII.

EDWIN URQUHART.

[Illustration: I]

In that moment Mark Felt paused and cast a glance toward the Hudson far

below us. Then he resumed his narrative.

"I drew back," he said, "and clenched my hands to keep myself from

strangling Urquhart. Then I broke into hurried pants, that subsided

gradually into words of perplexity and amazement as I met his eye, and

realized that it contained nothing but a rude sort of sympathy and good

fellowship.

"'How? Why? What do you mean by coming back?' I cried. 'You said you

would be gone a week. You swore--'

"A gay laugh interrupted me.

"'And must a man keep every oath he makes, especially when it separates

him from a charming betrothed, and a friend who swore that he would make

this day his wedding one?'

"'Urquhart!'

"'Felt!'

"'Are you a monster or are you--'

"'A self-possessed man who is going to take in charge a crazy one. Come

into the house, Mark, a dozen eyes can see us here.'

"He took me in charge; he piloted me into my own dwelling--he whose

whole body I had always esteemed weaker than my little finger; my enemy

too, or so I considered him; the cause of half my grief, of all my

shame, the beginning and end of my hatreds.

"When we were closeted, as we soon were in the room I had expended so

much upon to make worthy of my bride, he came and stood before me and

uttered these unexpected words:

"'Felt, I like you. You are the only friend I have, and I am indebted to

you. Now, what have you against me?'

"I was astonished. His whole look and bearing were so different from

what I had expected, so different from anything I had ever seen in him

before. I began to question my doubts, and dropped my eyes as he

pursued:

"'You have been disappointed in your marriage, I hear; but that need not

make you as downcast as this. A woman as capricious as Miss Leighton

might easily imagine she was too ill to go through the ceremony to-day.

But she must have repented of her folly by this time, and in a week will

reward you as your patience deserves. But what have I got to do with it?

For incredible as it appears, your every look and tone assures me that

you blame me for this mishap.'

"Was he daring me? If so, he should find me his equal. I raised my eyes

and surveyed him.

"'Shall I tell you why this is so--why I associate Miss Leighton's

caprice with your return, and regard both with suspicion? Because I have

seen you look on her with love; because I have surprised the passion in

your face and beheld her--'

"'Well?'

"The tone was indescribable. It was as if a hand had taken me by the

throat and choked me. I drew off and was silent.

"He seized the word at once.

"'You have seen nothing. If you think you have, then have you deceived

yourself. Marah Leighton has beauty, but it is not a kind that moves

me--'

"He paled. Was it horror of the lie he was uttering? I have never known,

never shall know.

"'The woman I am going to marry is Honora Dudleigh.'

"I gazed at him, determined to find the truth if it were in him. He bore

my look unflinchingly, though his color did not return, and his hands

trembled nervously.

"'You love her?' I asked.

"'I love her,' he returned.

"'And your wedding day--'

"'Is set.'

"'May it have no interruptions,' I remarked.

"He laughed--an uneasy laugh, I thought--but jealousy was not yet dead

within me.

"'And yours?' he inquired.

"'I have had mine,' I returned. 'I shall never have another.'

"He shook his head and looked at me inquisitively. I repeated my

assertion.

"'I shall never approach the altar again with a woman. I am done with

such things, and done with love.'

"He finished his laugh.

"'Wait till you see Marah Leighton smile again,' he cried; and with the

first reappearance of his old manner that I had seen in him since the

beginning of this interview, he caught up a wine glass off the table,

and filling it with wine, exclaimed jovially: 'Here's to our future

wives! May they be all that love paints them!'

"I thought his mirth indecent, his manner out of keeping with the

occasion, and the whole situation atrocious. But I saw he was about to

leave, and said nothing; but I did not drink his toast. When he was

gone, I broke his glass by flinging it at my own reflection, in a glass

I had bought to mirror her beauty; and before the day was spent, I had

destroyed every destructible article in the house whose value or whose

prettiness spoke of the attempt I had made to alter my home from a

bachelor's abode to the nest I had thought in keeping with the dove I

had failed to place there. As I did it I filled the house with mocking

laughter; that I should have thought that this or that would please her,

who would have found a palace open to criticism, and the splendors of a

throne room scarce grand enough for her taste! I was but suffering the

stings of a lifetime compressed into a day, and was miserable because I

could see no prospect but further addition to my suffering."

CHAPTER XIII.

BEFORE THE WEDDING.

"Two weeks after this I was sitting beside my solitary hearth, musing

upon my misery and longing for the blessed relief of sleep. There was no

one with me in the house. I had dismissed every servant; for I would

have no spies about me, prying into my misery; and though I could not

keep the world of men and women from my doors, I could at least refuse

to admit them; and this I did--living the life of a recluse almost as

much as I do here, but with less ease, because the wind would bring

whispers, and the walls were not thick enough to shut out from my fancy

the curious glances I felt to be cast upon them by every passer-by that

wandered through the street.

"On this night I had been thinking of Miss Dudleigh, of whose visibly

failing health various murmurs had reached me, and I felt,

notwithstanding my determination to hold myself aloof from every one and

everything that could in any way reopen my still smarting wound, I

could more easily find the sleep I longed for if some word from the

great house would relieve the suspense in which my ignorance kept me.

But I would not go there if I died of my anxiety, nor would I stoop to

question any of the market men or women, who were the only persons

admitted now within my doors.

"The clock was striking, and the strange sense of desolation which is

inseparable from this sound to a solitary man (you see I have no clock

here) was stealing over me, when I heard a tap on one of the windows

overlooking my small garden, and a voice came through the lattice,

crying:

"'Massa--Massa Felt.'

"I knew the voice at once. It was that of one of Miss Dudleigh's

servants, an honest black, who had always been devoted to me from the

day he did me some trifling service with Miss Leighton. Hearing it now,

and after such thoughts, I was so moved by the promise it gave of news

from the one quarter I desired, that I stumbled as I rose, and found

difficulty in answering him. Nor did I recover my self-possession for

hours; for the story he had to tell--after numerous apologies for his

presumption in disturbing me--was so significant of coming evil that my

mind was thrown again into turmoil, and the passions which I had tried

to smother were roused again into action.

"It was simply this: That one evening after Mr. Urquhart's departure,

and the extinguishing of all the lights in the house, he had occasion to

cross the garden. That in doing this he had heard voices, and, stepping

cautiously forward, perceived, lying upon the snow-covered ground, near

a certain belt of evergreens, the shadows of two persons, whose forms

were hidden from his sight. Being both curious and concerned, he halted

before coming too close and, listening, heard Mr. Urquhart's voice, and

presently that of Miss Leighton, both speaking very earnestly.

"'Will you undertake it? Can you go through with it without shrinking?'

was what the former had said.

"'I will undertake it, and I can go through with it,' was what the

latter had replied.

"Frightened at a discovery which might mean nothing and which might mean

misery to a mistress the day of whose marriage was scarcely a month

away, the negro held his breath, determined to hear more. He was

immediately rewarded by catching the words: 'You are a brave girl and

my queen!' and then something like a prayer for a kiss, or some such

favor, as a seal to their compact. But to this she returned a vigorous

'No,' followed by the mysterious sentence: 'I shall give you nothing

till I am dead, and then I will give you everything.'

"After which they made a move as if to separate, which action so alarmed

the now deeply disconcerted negro that he drew back in haste, hiding

behind some neighboring bushes till they had passed him and disappeared,

he out of the gate, and she through the small side entrance into the

house. This was the previous night, and for nearly twenty-four hours the

poor negro had tortured himself as to what he should do with the

information thus surreptitiously gained. He lacked the courage to tell

his mistress, and finally he had thought of me, who was her best friend,

and who must have known there was something amiss with Miss Leighton, or

why had I not married her when everything was ready and the minister

waiting with his book in his hand?

"Not answering this insinuation, I put to him one or two of the many

questions that were burning in my brain. Had he told any of the other

servants what he had seen? And did Miss Dudleigh look as if she

suspected there was anything wrong?

"He answered that he had not dared to speak a word of it even to his

wife; and as for Miss Dudleigh, she was ill so much of the time that it

was hard to tell whether she had any other cause for uneasiness or not.

He only knew that she was greatly changed since this miserable deceiver

came into the house.

"I believed him, and amid all my struggle and wrath tried to fix my mind

upon her alone. I succeeded only partially, but enough to enable me to

write this line, which I entreated him to carry to her:

'HONORED MISS DUDLEIGH--You will forgive me if

I overstep the bounds of friendship in yielding

to the inner voice which compels me to say that

if before or on your marriage day you need

advice or protection, you may command both from

Your respectful servant,

'MARK FELT.'

"I did not expect a reply to this note, and I did not receive any. I

thought I went as far as my position toward her allowed, but I have

questioned it since--questioned if I should not have told her what the

negro had heard and seen, and let her own judgment decide her fate. But

I was not in my right mind in those days. I was too much a part of all

this misery to be a fair judge of my own duty; and then the mysterious

nature of Miss Leighton's remark, the incomprehensibility of the

words--'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I shall give

you everything'--added such unreality to the scene, and awakened such

curious conjectures, that I did not know where any of us stood, or to

what especial misery the future pointed.

"'Till she was dead!' What could she, what did she mean? She would then

give him everything! Ah! ah!--when she was dead! Well, so be it.

Meanwhile, there was no prospect of death for any one, unless it was for

Miss Dudleigh, whom rumor acknowledged to be still fading, though

everything was being done for her comfort, and physician after physician

employed.

"I saw Caesar once again in these days. I met him in the street,

seemingly greatly to his delight, for he smiled till his teeth shone

from ear to ear, and made haste to remark, in quite a jovial voice:

"'I specs it's all right, massa. Massa Urquhart never looks at Miss

Leighton now, but always doin' his best for missus, making her smile

quite happy when she isn't coughing that dreadful cough. We will have a

gay wedding yet. Yes; Miss Leighton seems to spect that; for she all de

time making pretty things and trying them on missus, and laughing and

cheering her up, just as if she didn't spect any one to die.'

"Yes, but this change of manner frightened me. I grew feverishly

anxious, and spent night and day in asking myself unanswerable

questions. Nor did these in any way abate when one day I was startled by

the tidings that all preparations for refitting the great house had

stopped; that the doctors had decided that Miss Dudleigh must remove to

a warmer climate, and that accordingly upon her marriage she and her

husband would set sail for the Bermudas, there to take up their abode

till her health was quite restored. I doubted my ears; I doubted the

facts; I doubted Urquhart, and I doubted one other most of all whose

name I find it hard to mention even to myself.

"Yet I should not have doubted her; I should have remembered the flame

that was always burning in the depths of her eyes, and had confidence

in that, if in nothing else. What if she had always been cold to me; she

was not cold to him, and I should have known this and prepared myself.

But I did not. I knew neither the extent of his villainy nor that of her

despair. Had I done so, I might not have been crouching here a

disappointed and hopeless man, while she--

"But I am running beyond my tale. After the news I had just imparted, I

heard nothing more till the very week of the wedding. Then one of Miss

Dudleigh's servants came to me with a note, the result of which was,

that I walked out in the afternoon, and that she passed me in her

carriage, and seeing me, stopped the horses and took me in, and that we

rode on a short distance together.

"'I wish to talk to you,' she said. 'I wish to proffer you a request; to

beg of you a favor. I want you,' she stammered and her eyes filled with

tears, 'to see me married.'

"I opened my eyes with a quick denial, but I closed them again without

speaking. After all, why not please her? Could I suffer more at this

wedding than in thinking over it in my dungeon of a room at home? She

would be there, of course, but I need not look at her; and if he or she

meditated any treachery, where ought I to be but in the one place where

my presence would be most useful? I decided to gratify Miss Dudleigh,

almost before the inquiry in her eyes had changed to a look of suspense.

'Yes, I will come,' said I.

"She drew a deep breath, and smiled with tender sweetness.

"'I thank you,' she rejoined. 'I thank you most deeply and most truly. I

do not know why I desired it so much. Possibly because I feel something

like a sister to you, possibly because I feel afraid--'

"She stopped, blushing. 'I do not mean afraid. Why should I feel afraid?

Edwin is very good to me; very good. I did not know he could be so

attentive.' And she sighed.

"I felt that sigh go through and through me. Looking at her I took a

sudden resolution.

"'Honora,' I said (I had never called her by her first name before), 'do

not give your happiness into Edwin Urquhart's keeping. You have yet

three days before you for reconsideration. Break your bonds, and,

unhampered by uncongenial ties, seek in another climate for that peace

of mind you will never enjoy here or elsewhere as his wife.'

"She stared at me for a moment with wide-open and appealing eyes; then

she shook her head, and answered quietly:

"'One broken-off wedding in the family is enough. I cannot shock society

with another. But, oh, Mark! why did you not warn me at first? I think I

would have listened; I think so.'

"'Forgive me,' I entreated. 'You know it would have been presumptuous in

me at first; afterward she stood in the way.'

"'I know,' she answered, and turned away her head.

"I saw she did not wish me to leave her yet; so I said:

"'You are going away; you are going to leave Albany.'

"'I must, or so Edwin thinks. He says I will never recover in this

climate.'

"'Do you wish to go?'

"'Yes; I think I do. I can never be happy here, and perhaps when we are

far away, and have only each other to think of, the love and confidence

of which I have dreamed may come. At all events, I comfort myself with

that hope.'

"'But it is a long, long sea voyage. Have you strength enough to carry

you through?'

"'If I have not,' she intimated, with a mournful smile, 'he will be

free, and I released without scandal from a marriage that fills you with

apprehension.'

"'Oh,' I cried, 'would I were your brother indeed! This should never go

on.' Then impelled by what I thought to be my duty, I inquired: 'And

your money, Honora?'

"She flushed, but answered in the same spirit in which I had spoken.

"'As little of it as may be will remain with him. That much my old

guardian insisted upon. Do not ask me any more questions, Mark.'

"'None of a nature so personal,' I promised. 'But there is one

thing--can you not guess what it is?--which I ought to know. It is about

Marah.'

"The words came with effort, and hurt her as much as me. But she

answered bravely:

"'She returns to Schenectady the same day that we depart. I hoped she

would not linger to the wedding, but she seems to have a strange desire

to face again the people who have talked about her so freely these last

few weeks. So what can I say to dissuade her?'

"'Let her stay,' I muttered; 'but let her beware how she behaves on that

day, for there will be two eyes watching her, prompt to see any

treachery, and prompt, too, to avenge it.'

"'You will have nothing to avenge,' murmured Honora; 'that is all in the

past.'

"I prayed to Heaven she might be right, and ere long bowed in adieu and

left her. I saw neither herself nor any one else again till I entered

the Dudleigh mansion three days later to witness her nuptials."

CHAPTER XIV.

A CASSANDRA AT THE GATE.

"Miss Dudleigh, moved, perhaps, by the unpleasant _eclat_ which had

followed the broken-off marriage of her cousin, chose to celebrate her

own wedding in her own house, and with as little ceremony as possible.

Only her most intimate friends, therefore, were invited, but these were

numerous enough to fill the halls and most of the lower rooms.

"When I entered there was a sudden cessation of conversation; but this I

had expected. If anything could add to the interest of the occasion,

certainly it was my presence; and, feeling this, I made them all a

profound obeisance, and, neither shirking their glances nor inviting

them, I took my place in the spot I had chosen for myself, and waited,

with a face as impassive as a mask, but with a heart burning with fury

and love, not for the coming of the bride, but of her who in this hour

ought to have been standing at my side as my wife.

"But I miscalculated if I thought she would enter with them. Even her

bold and arrogant spirit shrank from a position so conspicuous, and it

was not till they had presented themselves and taken their places in

front of the latticed window so associated with my past, that I felt

that peculiar sensation which always followed the entrance of Marah into

the same room with myself, and, yielding to the force that constrained

me, I searched the throng with eager looks, and there, where the crowd

was thickest, and the shadow deepest, I saw her. She was gazing straight

at me, and there was in her great eyes a look which I did not then

understand, and about which I have since tortured myself by asking again

and again if it were remorse, entreaty, farewell, or despair that spoke

through it. Sometimes I have thought it was fear. Sometimes-- But why

conjecture? It was an unreadable expression to me then, and even in

remembrance it is no clearer. Whatever it betokened, my pride bent

before it, and a flood of the old feeling rushed over my heart, making

me quite weak for a moment.

"But I conquered myself, as far as all betrayal of my feelings was

concerned, and turning from the spot that so enthralled me, I fixed my

gaze upon the bride.

"She was looking beautiful; more beautiful than any one had seen her

look for weeks. A bright color suffused her delicate cheeks, and in her

eyes burned a strange excitement, which did the work of happiness in

lighting up her face. But it was a transient glow which faded

imperceptibly but surely, as the ceremony proceeded, and passed

completely away as the last inexorable words were uttered which made her

the wife of the false being at her side.

"He, on the contrary, was pale up to that same critical moment--very

pale, when one remembers his naturally florid complexion; but as her

color went, his rose, and when the minister withdrew, and friends began

to crowd around them, he grew so jovial and so noisy that more than one

person glanced at him with suspicion, and cast pitying looks at the now

quiet and immobile young wife.

"Meantime I sought with eager anxiety to catch one more glimpse of

Marah. But she had shrunk from sight, and was not to be found. And the

gayety ran high and the wine was poured freely, and the bridegroom

drank with ever-increasing excitement, toasting his bride, but never

looking at her, though her eyes turned more than once upon him with an

appeal that affected painfully more than one person in the crowd. At

last she rose, and, at this signal, he put down his glass, and, with a

low bow to the company, prepared to follow her from the room. They

passed close to the place where I stood, and I caught one glance from

his eyes. It was a laughing one, but there was uneasiness in it. There

might have been something more, but I had not time to search for it, for

at that moment I felt her dress brush against my sleeve, and turned to

give her the smile which I knew her friendly heart demanded.

"'You will wait till we go?' fell in a whisper from her lips; and I

nodded with another smile, and they went on and I stood where they had

left me, in one of those moods which made me, as far as all human

intercourse is concerned, as much of an isolated being as I am in these

mountains. I did not wake again from this abstraction till that same

premonitory feeling, of which I have so often spoken, told me that

something in which I was deeply interested was about to happen. Looking

up, I found myself in the room alone. During the hour of my abstraction

the guests had gone out, and I had neither noticed their departure nor

the gradual cessation of the noise which at one time had filled my ears

with hubbub. But the bride had not gone. She was at that moment coming

down the stairs, and it was this fact which had pierced to my inner

consciousness, and aroused once more in me a vivid sense of my

surroundings. He was with her, and behind them, gliding like a wraith

from landing to landing, came Marah, clad like the bride in a traveling

dress, but without the bonnet which betokened an instant departure.

"Not anticipating her presence so near, I felt my courage fail, and

pushing forward, joined the group of servants at the door. They, seeing

in this departure of their mistress a possibly endless separation, were

weeping and uttering exclamations that not only showed their devotion,

but their fears. Shocked lest these words should reach her ears, I

quieted them; and then seeing that the carriage which stood outside had

a stranger for a driver, and that there was no accompanying wagon filled

with their body servants and baggage, I asked the friendly Caesar, who

had pressed close to my side, if Mrs. Urquhart was not going to take a

maid with her.

"The negro at once growled out an injured 'No!' and when I expressed my

astonishment, he explained that 'There was no one here good enough to

please Massa Urquhart. That he was going to pick up with some one in New

York. That, though missus was sick, he would not even let her have her

own gal go wid her as far as the city; said he would do everything for

her hisself--as if any man could do for missus like her own Sally, who

had been wid her ever since 'fore she was born!'

"'And the baggage?' I asked, troubled more than I can say by what

certainly augured anything but favorably for her future.

"'Oh, massa send dat round to his house. He got books, an' a lot o'

things to add to it. Dere's enough o' dat; an' den more went down de

ribber on a sloop a week an' more ago.'

"'So! so! And they are going to ride?'

"'Yes, sah. You see, dey want to catch de ship w'at set sail for

Bermudas, an' got to hurry; so massa says.'

"By this time Urquhart and his bride had reached the door. He was still

gay and she was still quiet. But in her eye glistened a tear, while in

his there gleamed nothing softer than that vague spark of triumph which

one might expect to see in a man who had just married the richest

heiress in Albany.

"'Good-by! good-by! good-by!' came in soft tones from her lips; and she

was just stepping over the threshold, when there suddenly appeared at

the foot of the steps an old crone, so seamed and bowed with age, so

weird and threatening of aspect, that we all started back appalled, and

were about to draw Mrs. Urquhart out of her path, when the unknown

creature raised her voice, and pointing with one skinny hand straight

into the bride's face, shrieked:

"'Beware of oak walls! Beware of oak walls! They are more dangerous to

you than fire and water! Beware of oak walls!'

"A shriek interrupted her. It came, not from the bride, but from the

interior of the well-nigh forsaken hall behind us.

"Instantly the old crone drew herself up into an attitude more

threatening and more terrible than before.

[Illustration]

"'And you,' she cried, pointing now beyond us toward a figure which I

could feel shrinking in inexplicable terror against the wall. 'And you

cannot trust them either! There is death within oak walls. Beware!

beware!'

"A curse, a rush, and Edwin Urquhart had flung himself at the old

witch's throat. But he fell to the pavement without touching her. With

the utterance of her last word, she had slipped from before our eyes and

melted into the crowd which curiosity and interest had drawn within the

gates, to watch this young couple's departure.

"'Who was that creature? Let me have her! Give her up, I say!' leaped

from the infuriated bridegroom's lips, as he rushed up and down before

the crowd with threatening arms and flashing eyes.

"But there was no response from the surging throng; while from his

frightened wife such an appealing cry rung out that he returned from the

vain pursuit, and regaining his place at Honora's side, put her into the

carriage. But as he did so he could not refrain from casting a stealthy

look behind him, which betrayed to me, if to no one else, that his anger

was more on account of the words uttered to Marah than to the tender

being clinging to his arm. And a jealous fury took hold of me also, and

I should not have been sorry if I had seen him fall then and there, the

victim of a thunderbolt more certain, if not more terrible, than that

which had just overwhelmed the two women nearest to our hearts.

"'Good-by! good-by! good-by!' came again from the bride's pale lips; and

this time I felt that the words were for me, and I waved my hand in

response, but could not speak. And so they rode away, followed by the

lamentations of the servants, from whom the old crone's ominous outburst

had torn the last semblance of self-control.

"'Another carriage for Miss Leighton!' I now heard uttered somewhere

like a command. And startled at the pang it caused me, I darted back

into the house, determined to have one parting word with my lost love.

"She was not there, nor could she be found by any searching."

CHAPTER XV.

THE CATASTROPHE.

[Illustration: I]

"I have but little more to tell," Mark Felt continued, "but that little

is everything to me.

"When we became positively assured that Miss Leighton had disappeared

from the house and would not be on hand to take the stage to

Schenectady, the excitement, which had been increasing on all sides

since the ceremony, culminated, and the whole town was set agog to find

her, if only to solve the mystery of a nature whose actions had now

become inexplicable.

"I was the first to start the pursuit. Haunted by her last look, and

thrilled to every extremity by the terror of the shriek she had uttered,

I did not wait for the alarm to become public, but rushed immediately up

stairs at the first intimation of her disappearance.

"Though I had never pierced those regions before, my good or evil fate

took me at once to a room which I saw at one glance to be hers. The

boxes waiting to be carried down, the tags and ends of ribbons that I

recognized, the nameless something which speaks of one particular

personality and no other, all were there to assure me that I stood in

the chamber which for six months or more had palpitated with the breath

of the one being I loved.

"But of that I dared not think; it was no time for dreams; and only

stopping to see that her bonnet had been taken, but her gloves left, I

hurried down again and out of the house.

"An impulse which I cannot understand took me to Edwin Urquhart's house,

or, rather, to that portion of a house which he had hired for his use

since he had been looking forward to his marriage with Miss Dudleigh.

Why I should go there I cannot say, unless jealousy whispered that only

in this place could she hope for one final word with him, as he and his

bride stopped at the door for his portion of the baggage. Be this as it

may, I turned neither to right nor left till I came to his house, and

when I had reached it I found that, with all my haste, I was too late,

for not a soul was in its empty rooms, while far down the street which

leads to the bridge I saw a carriage disappearing, which, from the wagon

following it so closely, I knew to be the one containing Urquhart and

his bride.

"'She has not been here,' thought I, 'or I should have met her,

unless--' and my eye stole with a certain shrinking terror toward the

river which skirted along the garden at the back--'unless'-- But even my

thoughts stopped here. I would not, could not, think of what, if it were

true, would end all things for me.

"Leaving this place, I wandered aimlessly through the streets, studying

each face that I met for intimations which should guide me in my search.

If not a madman, I was near enough to one to make the memory of that

hour hideous to me; and when at last, worn out as much by my emotions as

by the countless steps I had taken, I returned to my house for a bite

and sup, something in the sight of its desolation overpowered me, and

yielding to a despair which assured me that I should never again see her

in this world, I sank on the floor inert and powerless, and continued

thus till morning, without movement and almost without consciousness.

"Fatal repose! And yet I do not know if I should call it so. It only

robbed me of a few hours less of conscious misery. For when I roused,

when I became again myself, and looked about my house, there on the

floor, underneath a curtain window which had been left unlatched, I saw

a letter containing these words:

'HONORED AND MUCH ABUSED FRIEND:--When you read

this, Marah will be no more. After all that has

passed--after our broken marriage and the

departure of my cousin--life has become

insupportable; and, believing that you would

rather know me dead than miserable, I ventured

to write you these words, and ask you to

forgive me, now that I am gone.

'I loved him: let that explain everything.

'Despairingly yours,

'MARAH LEIGHTON.'

"With shrieks I tore from the house. Marah dying! Marah dead! I would

see about that. Racing down to the gate, I paused. Some one was leaning

on it. It was Caesar, and at the first glimpse I had of his face I knew I

was too late--that all was over, and that the whole town knew it.

"'Oh, massa, I wanted to go in, but I was frightened. I's been waiting

here an hour, sah; when dey told me dat dey had found her bonnet

floating on de ribber, I know'd how you'd feel, sah, and so I come here

and--'

"I found words to ask him a question. 'When was this found, and where?'

"'This morning, sah, at daybreak. It was caught by one of the strings to

that old log, sah, that lies out in the ribber back of--' he

hesitated--'Massa Urquhart's house, sah.'

"I knew; and I had glanced that way just as her bright head was perhaps

sinking under the water. I threw up my arms in anguish and stumbled back

into the house.

"'Then every one knows--' I managed to say on the threshold.

"'Dat she cared for him? Yes, sah; I fear so. How could dey help it,

sah? Mor'n one person saw her run down de street and go into massa's old

house just before de carriage stopped thar, and as she didn't come out

again, I 'specs it was from dat big log at the foot of the garden she

jumped into de ribber. All de folks pities you very much, sah--'

"I choked him off with a look.

"'Who has been sent after Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart to inform them of what

has happened?'

"'No one yet, sah. But Massa Hatton--'

"'Mr. Hatton is an old man. We must have a young one for this business.

Go saddle me the quickest horse in your stables. I will ride after them,

and overtake them, too, before they can reach Poughkeepsie. He shall

know--'

"A glance from the negro's eye warned me to be careful. I smothered my

impatience and let only my earnestness appear.

"'Mrs. Urquhart ought to know that her cousin is dead,' I declared.

"'I'll tell Massa Hatton,' said the black.

"But my caution was now too much aroused for me to make Mr. Hatton the

medium of my request--he was Mrs. Urquhart's old guardian and future

agent; and subduing the extreme fury of my feelings, I obtained his

permission to act as his messenger. Had he known of the letter which had

been thrown into my window, he might not have given his consent so

freely; but I had told no man of that, and he and others saw me ride

away without a seeming suspicion of the murderous thoughts that

struggled with my grief, and almost overwhelmed it.

"For to me her death--if she were dead--was the result of a compact

entered into with the despicable Urquhart, who, if he could not have her

for himself, was willing she should go where no other man could have

her. Though the idea seemed quixotic, though it be an anomaly in human

experience, for a woman thus to sacrifice herself, I could not ascribe

any other motive to her deed; for the memory of that interview she had

held with her cousin's future husband in the garden was still fresh in

my mind. Do you remember the words as told me by the negro who overheard

them? First, the question from his lips: 'Will you undertake it? Can

you go through with it without shrinking and without fear?' And the

reply from hers: 'I will undertake it, and I can go through with it,'

followed by that assurance which struck me as being so inexplicable at

the time, and which, with all the light that this late horrible event

has thrown upon it, still preserves its mystery for me. 'I shall give

you nothing till I am dead, and then I will give you everything.' If the

conclusions I drew seemed wild, were they not warranted by these words?

Did she not speak of death, and did he not encourage her?

"If she were not dead--and sometimes this thought would cross my burning

brain--then she was with him, forced into the company of his unwilling

wife in that last interview which they must have held in his cottage. In

either case he was a villain and a coward, deserving of death; and death

he should have, and from the hand of him whom he had doubly outraged.

[Illustration]

"But as I rode out of town and came in sight of the river, I found

myself seized by terrifying thoughts. Should I have to ride by the place

where I could see them stooping with boat hooks and bending with

peering eyes over some snag they had brought up from the river bottom?

Could I endure to face this picture, then to pass it, then to ride on,

feeling it ever at my back, blackening the morning, destroying the

noontide, making more horrible the night? Could I go from this place

till I knew whether or not the sullen waters would yield up their

beautiful prey, and would my body proceed while my heart was on this

river bank, and my jealousy divided between the wretch who had urged her

on to death and these other men who might yet touch her unconscious form

and gaze upon her disfigured beauty? And the answer which welled up from

within me was, yes, I could go; I could pass that picture; I could feel

it glooming ever and ever upon me from behind my back, and never turn my

head;--such an impetus of hate was upon me, driving me forward after the

wretch fleeing in self-complacency and triumph into a future of wealth

and social consideration.

"But when I had done all this, when my too fleet horse had carried me

beyond sight of the city, and nature, with its irresistible beauty, had

begun to influence my understanding, other thoughts came trooping in

upon me, and a vision of Honora Dudleigh's face as she took the dagger

from my hands and an implied promise from my lips, rose before me till I

could see nothing else. Honora, Honora, Honora who trusted me! who had

suffered everything but the sight of blood! who was a bride, and whom it

would be base ingratitude for me to plunge into the depths of dishonor

and despair! And the struggle was so fierce, and the torture of it so

keen, that ere long my brain succumbed to the strain, and from the

height of anguished feeling I sank into apathy, and from apathy into

unconsciousness, till I no longer knew where I was or possessed power to

guide my horse. In this condition I was found wandering in a field and

thence carried to a farm house, where I remained a prey to fever. When I

returned to consciousness, three weeks had elapsed.

"As soon as I could be moved, I went back to Albany. I found the

community there settled in the belief that I had joined in death the

woman I so much loved, and was shown a letter which had been sent me,

and which had been opened by the authorities after all hope had been

given up of my return. It was from Mrs. Urquhart, and related how they

had changed their plans upon reaching New York. Having found a ship on

the point of sailing for France, they had determined to go there instead

of to the Bermudas, and, consequently, requested me to inform Mr. Hatton

of the fact, and also assure him that he would hear from them personally

as soon as a letter could reach him from the other side. As she was in

haste--in truth, was writing this in the post office on the way to the

ship--she would only add that her health had been improved by her long

journey down the river, and that when I heard from her again, she was

sure she would be able to write that all her fondest hopes had been

fully realized.

"And so Marah was in the river, and Urquhart on the seas. I had been

robbed of everything, even vengeance, and life had nothing for me, and I

was determined to leave it, not in the vulgar way of suicide, but by

cloistering myself in the great forests. As no one said me nay, I at

once carried out this scheme; and to show you how dead I had become to

the world, I will tell you that as I turned the lock of my door and took

my first step forward on the road which led to this spot, a great shout

broke out in the market place:

"'The farmers of Lexington have fired upon the king's troops!'

"And I did not even turn my head!"

CHAPTER XVI.

A DREAM ENDED.

There was silence in the cave. Mark Felt's story was at an end.

For a moment I sat and watched him; then, as I realized all that I must

yet gather from his lips, I broke the stillness by saying, in my lowest

and most suggestive tone, these two words:

"And Marah?"

The name did not seem unwelcome. Striking his breast, he cried:

"She lies here! Though she despised me, deceived me, broke my heart in

life, and in death betrayed a devotion for another that was at once my

dishonor and the downfall of my every hope, I have never been able to

cast her out of my heart. I love her, and shall ever love her, and so I

am never lonely. For in my dreams I imagine that death has changed her.

That she can see now where truth and beauty lie; that she would fain

come back to them and me; and that she does, walking with softened steps

through the forest, beaming upon me in the moon rays and smiling upon

me in the sunshine till--"

Great sobs broke from the man's surcharged breast. He flung himself down

on the floor of the cave and hid his face in his hands. He had forgotten

that I had come on an errand of vengeance. He had forgotten the object

of that vengeance; he had forgotten everything but her.

I saw the mistake I had made, and for the moment I quailed before the

prospect of rectifying it. He had shown me his heart. I had peered into

its depths, and it seemed an impossible thing to tear the last hope from

his broken life; to show her in her true light to his horrified eyes; to

tell him she was not dead; that it was Honora Urquhart who was dead; and

that the woman he mourned and beheld in his visions as a sanctified

spirit was not only living upon the fruits of a crime, but triumphing in

them; that, in short, he had thrown away communion with men to brood

upon a demon.

My feelings were so strong, my shrinking so manifest, that he noticed

them at last. Rising up, he surveyed me with a growing apprehension.

"How you look at me!" he cried. "It is not only pity for the past I see

in your eyes, but fear for the future. What is it? What can threaten me

now of importance enough to call up such an expression to your face?

Since Marah is dead--"

"Wait!" I cried. "First let me ask if Marah is dead." His face, which

was turned toward me, grew so pale I felt my own heart contract.

"If--Marah--is--dead!" he gasped, growing huskier with each intonation

till the last word was almost unintelligible.

"Yes," I continued, ignoring his glance and talking very rapidly; "her

body was never found. You have no proof that she perished. The letter

that she wrote you may have been a blind. Such things have happened. Try

and remember that such things have happened."

He did not seem to hear me. Turning away, he looked about him with

wide-open and questioning eyes, like a child lost in a wood.

"I cannot follow you," he murmured. "Marah living?" His own words seemed

to give him life. He turned upon me again. "Do you know that she is

living?" he asked. "Is it this you have come to tell me? If so, speak,

speak! I can bear the news. I have not lost all firmness. I--I--"

He stopped and looked at me piteously. I saw I must speak, and summoned

up my courage.

"Marah may not be living," I said, "but she did not perish in the river.

It would have been better for you, though, and infinitely better for her

if she had. She only lived to do evil, Mr. Felt. In bemoaning her you

have wasted a noble manhood."

"Oh!"

The cry came suddenly, and rang through the cavern like a knell. I could

not bear it, and hurried forward my revelation.

"You tell me that you received a letter from Mrs. Urquhart before she

set sail for France. Was it the only letter which she has ever sent you?

Have you never heard from her since?"

"Never!" He looked at me almost in anger. "I did not want to. I bade the

postmaster to destroy any letters which came for me. I had cut myself

loose from the world."

"Have you that letter? Did you keep it?"

"No; I gave it back to the men who opened it. What was it to me?"

"Mark Felt," I now asked, "did you know Honora Dudleigh's writing?"

"Of course. Why should you question it? Why--"

"And was this letter in her writing? written by her hand?"

"Of course--of course; wasn't it signed with her name?"

"But the handwriting? Couldn't it have been an imitation? Wasn't it one?

Was it not written by Marah, and not Honora? She was a clever woman,

and--"

"Written by Marah? By Marah? Great heavens, did she go with them, then?

Were my secret doubts right? Is she lost to me in eternity as well as

here? Is she living with him?"

"She was living with him, and there is good reason to believe she is

doing so still. There is a Mr. Urquhart in Paris, and a Mrs. Urquhart.

As Marah is the woman he loved, she must be this latter."

"Must be? I do not see why you should say must be! Is Honora dead? Is--"

"Honora is dead--has been dead for sixteen years. The woman who sailed

with Mr. Urquhart called herself Honora, but she was not Honora. She who

rightfully bore this name was dead and hidden away. It is of crime that

I am speaking. Edwin Urquhart is a murderer, and his victim was--"

It was not necessary to say more. In the suddenly outstretched hand,

with its open palm; in the white face so drawn that his mother would not

have known it; in the gradual sinking and collapsing of the whole body,

I saw that I had driven the truth home at last, and that silence now was

the only mercy left to show him.

I was silent, therefore, and waited as we wait beside a death bed for

the final sigh of a departing spirit. But life, and not death, was in

the soul of this man before me. Ere long he faintly stirred, then a

smothered moan left his lips, followed by one word, and that word was

the echo of my own:

"Murder."

The sound it made seemed to awake whatever energy of horror lay dormant

within him. Bestirring himself, he lifted his head and repeated again

that fearsome word:

"Murder!"

Then he leaped to his feet, and his aspect grew terrible as he looked up

and shouted, as it were, into the heavens that same dread word:

"Murder!"

Filled with horror, I endeavored to take him by the arm, but he shook me

off, and cried in a terrible voice:

"A fiend, a demon, a creature of the darkest hell! I have worshiped her,

pardoned her, dreamed of her for fifteen years in solitudes dedicated to

God! O Creator of all good! What sacrilege I have committed! How shall I

ever atone for a manhood wasted on a dream, and for thoughts that must

have made the angels of Heaven veil their faces in wonder and pity.

"You must have a story to tell," he now said, turning toward me, with

the first look of natural human curiosity which I had seen in his face

since I came.

"Yes," said I, "I have; but it will not serve to lessen your horror; it

will only add to it."

"Nothing can add to it," was his low reply. "And yet I thank you for the

warning."

Encouraged by his manner, which had become strangely self-possessed, I

immediately began, and told him of the visit of this bridal party at

your inn; then as I saw that he had judged himself correctly, and that

he was duly prepared for all I could reveal, I added first your

suspicions, and then a full account of our fatal discovery in the secret

chamber.

He bore it like a man upon whom emotion has spent all its force; only,

when I had finished, he gave one groan, and then, as if he feared I

would mistake the meaning of this evidence of suffering, he made haste

to exclaim:

"Poor Honora! My heart owes her one cry of pity, one tear of grief. I

shall never weep for any one else; though, if I could, it would be for

myself and the wasted years with which I have mocked God's providence."

Relieved to find him in this mood, I rose and shook his hand cordially.

"You will come back to Albany with me?" I entreated. "We have need of

you, and this spot will never be a home to you again."

"Never!"

The echo was unexpected, but welcome. I led the way out of the cave.

"See! it is late," I urged.

He shook his head and cast one prolonged look around him.

"What do I not leave behind me here? Love, grief, dreams. And to what

do I go forward? Can you tell me? Has the future in it anything for a

man like me?"

"It has vengeance!"

He gave a short cry.

"In which she is involved. Talk to me not of that! And yet," he

presently added, "what it is my duty to do, I shall do. It is all that

is left to me now. But I will do nothing for vengeance. That would be to

make a slave of myself again."

I had no answer for this, and therefore gave none. Instead I shouted to

my guide, and after receiving from him such refreshments as my weary

condition demanded, I gave notice that I was ready to descend, and asked

the recluse if he was ready to accompany me.

He signified an instant acquiescence, and before the sun had quite

finished its course in the west we found ourselves at the foot of the

mountains. As civilization broke upon us Mr. Felt drew himself up, and

began to question me about the changes which the revolution had made in

our noble country.

. . . . .

I will not weary you, my dear Mrs. Truax, with the formalities which

followed upon our return to Albany. I will merely add that you may

expect a duly authorized person to come to you presently for such

testimony in this matter as it may be in your power to give; after which

a suitable person will proceed to France with such papers as may lead to

the delivering up of these guilty persons to the United States

authorities; in which case justice must follow, and your inn will be

avenged for the most hideous crime which has ever been perpetrated

within our borders.

Most respectfully,

ANTHONY TAMWORTH.

PART III.

RETRIBUTION.