"And did you see him, Ernest?" I asked, with trembling eagerness.
"I did, Gabriella. I went to him as your representative, without one
vindictive, bitter feeling. I proffered kindness, forgiveness, and every
comfort the law would permit a condemned criminal to enjoy. They were
rejected fiercely, disdainfully,--he rejected them all."
"Alas! and me, Ernest; does he refuse consolation from me?"
"He will not see you. 'I ask no sympathy,' he cried, in hoarse and
sullen accents. 'I desire no fellowship; alone I have sinned,--alone I
will suffer,--alone I will die.' Weep not, my Gabriella, over this
hardened wretch; I do not believe he is your father; I am more and more
convinced that he is an impostor."
"But he has my mother's miniature; he recognized me from my resemblance
to it; he called me by name; he knew all the circumstances of my
infantine life. I would give worlds to believe your assertion, but the
curse clings to me. He _is_,--he must be my father."
"Mr. Brahan, who knew your father personally, and who is deeply
interested in the disclosures recently made, has visited him also. He
says there is a most extraordinary resemblance; and though seventeen
years of sinful indulgence leave terrible traces on the outward man, he
does not doubt his identity. But I cannot, will not admit it. Think of
him no more, Gabriella; banish him, and every thing connected with this
horrible event, from your mind. In other scenes you will recover from
the shock occasioned by it; and even now the tongue of rumor is busy
with more recent themes. Mr. Brahan will visit him from time to time
and, if possible, learn something of the mystery of his life. Whatever
is learned will be communicated to me. What! weeping still, my
Gabriella?"
"It is dreadful to think of sin and crime in the abstract; but when it
comes before us in the person of a father!"
"No more! no more! Dismiss the subject. Let it be henceforth a dark
dream, forgotten if possible; or if remembered, be it as a dispensation
of Providence, to be borne in silence and submission. Strange as it may
seem, all that I have suffered of humiliation and anguish in this _real_
trial, cannot be compared to the agony caused by one of my own dark
imaginings."
I tried to obey the injunctions of Ernest; but though my lips were
silent, it was impossible to check the current of thought, or to
obliterate the dark remembrance of the past. My spirits lost their
elasticity, the roses on my cheek grew pale.
Spring came, not as in the country, with the rich garniture of living
green, clothing hill, valley, and lawn,--the blossoming of flowers,--the
warbling of birds,--the music of waters,--and all the beauty, life, and
glory of awakening nature. But the fountain played once more in the
grotto, the vine-wreaths frolicked again round their graceful shells,
the statues looked at their pure faces in the shining mural wall.
I cared not for these. This was not my home. I saw the faces of Mrs.
Linwood and Edith in the mirror of memory. I saw the purple hills, the
smiling vale, the quiet churchyard, the white, broken shaft, gleaming
through the willow boughs, and the moonbeams resting in solemn glory
there.
Never shall I forget my emotions when, on quitting the city, I caught a
glimpse of that gloomy and stupendous granite pile which looms up in the
midst of grandeur and magnificence, an awful monitor to human depravity.
Well does it become its chill, funereal name. Shadows deeper than the
darkness of the grave hang within its huge Egyptian columns. Corruption
more loathsome than the mouldering remains of mortality dwells in those
lone and accursed cells. I gazed on the massy walls, as they frowned on
the soft blue sky, till their shadow seemed to darken the heavens. I
thought of the inmate of one lonely cell; of the sighs and tears, the
curses and wailings that had gone up from that abode of shame, despair,
and misery; and I wondered why the Almighty did not rend the heavens and
come down and bare the red right arm of vengeance over a world so
blackened by sin, so stained by crime, and so given up to the dominion
of the spirit of evil.
Ernest drew me back from the window of the carriage, that I might not
behold this grim fortification against the powers of darkness; but it
was not till we had quitted the walls of the metropolis, and inhaled a
purer atmosphere, that I began to breathe more freely. The tender green
of the fields, the freshness of the atmosphere, the indescribable odor
of spring that embalmed the gale, awakened softer, happier thoughts. The
footsteps of divine love were visible on the landscape. The voice of God
was heard, breathing of mercy, through the cool green boughs.