“That was the last time my eyes ever rested upon my wife. Whither she
went or what refuge she gained, I never knew. My father who had received
in this scene a great shock, began to fail so rapidly, he demanded my
constant care; and though from time to time as I ministered to him and
noted with what a yearning persistency he would eye the door and then
turn and meet my gaze with a look I could not understand, I caught
myself asking whether I had done a deed destined to hang forever about
me like a pall; it was not till after his death that the despairing
image of the bright young creature to whom I had given my name, returned
with any startling distinctness to my mind, or that I allowed myself to
ask whether the heavy gloom which I now felt settling upon me was owing
to the sense of shame that overpowered me at the remembrance of the
past, or to the possible loss I had sustained in the departure of my
young unloved bride.
“The announcement at this time of the engagement between Evelyn Blake
and the Count De Mirac may have had something to do with this. Though I
had never in the most passionate hours of my love for her, lost sight of
that side of her nature which demanded as her right the luxury of great
wealth; and though in my tacit abandonment of her and secret marriage
with another I had certainly lost the right to complain of her actions
whatever they might be, this manifest surrendering of herself to the
power of wealth and show at the price of all that women are believed to
hold dear, was an undoubted blow to my pride and the confidence I
had till now unconsciously reposed in her inherent womanliness and
affection. That she had but made on a more conspicuous scale, the same
sacrifice as myself to the god of Wealth and Position, was in my eyes
at that time, no palliation of her conduct. I was a man none too good
or exalted at the best; she, a woman, should have been superior to the
temptations that overpowered me. That she was not, seemed to drag all
womanhood a little nearer the dust; fashionable womanhood I ought to
say, for somehow even at that early day her conduct did not seem to
affect the vivid image of Luttra standing upon my threshold, shorn of
her joy but burning with a devotion I did not comprehend, and saying,
“‘I loved you. Ah, and I do yet, my husband, love you so that I leave
you. When the day comes--if the day comes--you need or feel you need
the sustainment of my presence or the devotion of my heart, no power on
earth save that of death itself, shall keep me from your side.’
“Yes, with the fading away of other faces and other forms, that face and
that form now began to usurp the chief place in my thoughts. Not to my
relief and pleasure. That could scarcely be, remembering all that had
occurred; rather to my increasing distress and passionate resentment.
I longed to forget I was held by a tie, that known to the world would
cause me the bitterest shame. For by this time the true character of
her father and brother had been revealed and I found myself bound to the
daughter of a convicted criminal.
“But I could not forget her. The look with which she had left me was
branded into my consciousness. Night and day it floated before me, till
to escape it I resolved to fasten it upon canvas, if by that means I
might succeed in eliminating it from my dreams.
“The painting you have seen this night is the result. Born with an
artist’s touch and insight that under other circumstances might,
perhaps, have raised me into the cold dry atmosphere of fame, the
execution of this piece of work, presented but few difficulties to my
somewhat accustomed hand. Day by day her beauty grew beneath my brush,
startling me often with its spiritual force and significance till my
mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely refrain from
rising at night to give a touch here or there to the floating golden
hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever turned upon the
inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew my father before his
time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in the ardent years of my
first manhood.
“At last it was finished and she stood before me life-like and real in
the very garments and with almost the very aspect of that never to be
forgotten moment. Even the roses which in the secret uneasiness of my
conscience I had put in her hand on our departure from Troy, as a sort
of visible token that I regarded her as my bride, and which through all
her interview with my father she had never dropped, blossomed before
me on the canvas. Nothing that could give reality to the likeness,
was lacking; the vision of my dreams stood embodied in my sight, and I
looked for peace. Alas, that picture now became my dream.
“Inserting it behind that of Evelyn which for two years had held its
place above my armchair, I turned its face to the wall when I rose in
the morning. But at night it beamed ever upon me, becoming as the months
passed, the one thing to hold to and muse over when the world grew a
little noisy in my ears and the never ceasing conflict of the ages beat
a trifle too loudly on heart and brain.
“Meanwhile no word of her, only of her villainous father and brother; no
token that she had escaped evil or was removed from want. If I had loved
her I could not have succored her, for I did not know where to find her.
Her countenance illumined my wall, but her fair young self lay for all I
knew sheltered within the darkness and silence of the tomb.
“At length my morbid broodings worked out their natural result. A dull
melancholy settled upon me which nothing could break. Even the news that
my cousin who had lost her husband a month after marriage, had returned
to America with expectation to remain, scarcely caused a ripple in my
apathy. Was I sinking into a hypochrondriac? or was my passion for the
beautiful brunette dead? I determined to solve the doubt.
“Seeking her where I knew she would be found, I gazed again upon her
beauty. It was absolutely nothing to me. A fair young face with high
thoughts in every glance floated like sunshine between us and I left the
haughty Countess, with the knowledge burned deep into my brain, that the
love I had considered slain was alive and demanding, but that the object
of it past recall, was my lost young wife.
“Once assured of this, my apathy vanished like mist before a kindled
torch. Henceforth the future held a hope, and life a purpose. I would
seek my wife throughout the world and bring her back if I found her
in prison between the men whose existence was a curse to my pride. But
where should I turn my steps? What golden thread had she left in my hand
by which to trace her through the labyrinth of this world? I could think
of but one, and that was the love which would restrain her from going
away from me too far. The Luttra of old would not leave the city where
her husband lived. If she was not changed, I ought to be able to find
her somewhere within this great Babylon of ours. Wisdom told me to
set the police upon her track, but pride bade me try every other means
first. So with the feverish energy of one leading a forlorn hope, I
began to pace the streets if haply I might see her face shine upon me
from the crowd of passers by; a foolish fancy, unproductive of result! I
not only failed to see her, but anyone like her.
“In the midst of the despair occasioned by this failure a thought flashed
across me or rather a remembrance. One night not long since, being
uncommonly restless, I had risen from my bed, dressed me and gone out
into the yard back of my house for a little air. It was an unusual thing
for me to do but I seemed to be suffocating where I was, and nothing
else would satisfy me. As you already surmise, it was the night on which
disappeared the sewing girl of which you have so often spoken, but I
knew nothing of that, my thoughts were far from my own home and its
concerns. You may judge what a state of mind I was in when I tell you
that I even thought at one moment while I paused before the gate leading
into ---- Street that I saw the face of her with whom my thoughts were
ever busy, peering upon me through the bars.
“You tell me that I did see a girl there, and that it was the one who
had lived as sewing woman in my house; it may be so, but at the time I
considered it a vision of my wife, and the remembrance of it, coming as
it did after my repeated failures to encounter her in the street, worked
a change in my plans. For regard it as weakness or not, the recollection
that the vision I had seen wore the garments of a working-woman rather
than a lady, acted upon me like a warning not to search for her any
longer among the resorts of the well-dressed, but in the regions of
poverty and toil. I therefore took to wanderings such as I have no heart
to describe. Nor do I need to, if, as you have informed me, I have been
followed.
“The result was almost madness. Though deep in my heart I felt a
steadfast trust in the purity of her intentions, the fear of what she
might have been driven to by the awful poverty and despair I every day
saw seething about me, was like hot steel in brain and heart. Then her
father and her brother! To what might they not have forced her, innocent
and loving soul though she was! Drinking the dregs of a cup such as I
had never considered it possible for me to taste, I got so far as to
believe that her eyes would yet flash upon me from beneath some of the
tattered shawls I saw sullying the forms of the young girls upon which I
hourly stumbled. Yes, and even made a move to see my cousin, if haply I
could so win upon her compassion as to gain her consent to shelter the
poor creature of my dreams in case the necessity came. But my heart
failed me at the sight of her cold face above the splendor she had
bought with her charms, and I was saved a humiliation I might never have
risen above.
“At last, one day I saw a girl--no, it was not she, but her hair was
similar to hers in hue, and the impulse to follow her was irresistible.
I did more than that, I spoke to her. I asked her if she could tell me
anything of one whose locks were golden red like hers--But I need not
tell you what I said nor what she replied with a gentle delicacy that
was almost a shock to me as showing from what heights to what depths a
woman can fall. Enough that nothing passed between us beyond what I have
intimated, and that in all she said she gave me no news of Luttra.
“Next day I started for the rambling old house in Vermont, if haply
in the spot where I first saw her, I might come upon some clue to her
present whereabouts. But the old inn was deserted, and whatever hope I
may have had in that direction, perished with the rest.
“Concerning the contents of that bureau-drawer above, I can say nothing.
If, as I scarcely dare to hope, they should prove to have been indeed
brought here by the girl who has since disappeared so strangely, who
knows but what in those folded garments a clue is given which will lead
me at last to the knowledge for which I would now barter all I possess.
My wife--But I can mention her name no more till the question that now
assails us is set at rest. Mrs. Daniels must--”
But at that moment the door opened and Mrs. Daniels came in.