THE CAPTAIN'S LAST NIGHT.
A young crescent moon rose in the bleak sky; on the shore the
flood-tide beat its hoarse refrain, and in his chamber Harold Godfrey
Hunsden lay dying.
They knew it--the silent watchers in that somber room--his daughter,
and all. She knelt by the bedside, her face hidden, still, tearless,
stunned. Sir Everard, the doctor, the rector, silent and sad, stood
around.
The dying man had been aroused to full consciousness at last. One hand
feebly rested on his daughter's stricken young head, the other lay
motionless on the counterpane. His dulled eyes went aimlessly
wandering.
"Doctor!"
The old physician bent over him.
"How long?" he paused--"how long can I last?"
"My dear friend--"
"How long? Quick! the truth! how long?"
"Until to-morrow."
"Ah!"
The hand lying on Harrie's dark curls lay more heavily perhaps--that
was all.
"Is there anything you wish? anything you want done? any person you
would like to see?"
"Yes," the dying man answered, "yes, Sir Everard Kingsland."
"Sir Everard Kingsland is here."
He motioned the baronet to approach.
Sir Everard bent over him.
"Send them away," said the sick man. "Both. I want to speak to you
alone."
Ho delivered the message, and the rector and doctor went into the
passage to wait.
"Come closer," the captain said, and the young baronet knelt by the
bedside, opposite Harrie, "and tell the truth to a dying man. Harrie,
my darling, are you listening?"
"Yes, papa."
She lifted her pale young face, rigid in tearless despair.
"My own dear girl, I am going to leave a little sooner than I thought.
I knew my death would be soon and sudden, but I did not expect it so
soon, so awfully sudden as this!" His lips twitched spasmodically, and
there was a brief pause. "I had hoped not to leave you alone and
friendless in the world, penniless and unprotected. I hoped to live to
see you the wife of some good man, but it is not to be. God wills for
the best, my darling, and to Him I leave you."
A dry, choking sob was the girl's answer. Her eyes were burning and
bright. The captain turned to the impatient, expectant young baronet.
"Sir Everard Kingsland," he said, with a painful effort, "you are the
son of my old and much-valued friend; therefore I speak. My near
approach to eternity lifts me above the minor considerations of time.
Yesterday morning, from yonder window, I saw you on the terrace with my
daughter."
The baronet grasped his hand, his face flushed, his eyes aglow. Oh,
surely, the hour of his reward had come!
"You made her an offer of your hand and heart?"
"Which she refused," the young man said, with a glance of unutterable
reproach. "Yes, sir; and I love her with my whole heart!"
"I thought so," very faintly. "Why did you refuse, Harrie?"
"Oh, papa! Why are we talking of this now?"
"Because I am going to leave you, my daughter. Because I would not
leave you alone. Why did you refuse Sir Everard?"
"Papa, I--I only knew him such a little while."
"And that is all? You don't dislike him, do you?"
"No-o, papa."
"And you don't like any one else better?"
"Papa, you know I don't."
"My own spotless darling! And you will let Sir Everard love you, and
be your true and tender husband?"
"Oh, papa, don't!"
She flung herself down with a vehement cry. But Sir Everard turned his
radiant, hopeful, impassioned face upon the Indian officer.
"For God's sake, plead my cause, sir! She will listen to you. I love
her with all my heart and soul. I will be miserable for life without
her."
"You hear, Harrie? This vehement young wooer--make him happy. Make me
happy by saying 'Yes.'"
She looked up with the wild glance of a stag at bay. For one moment
her frantic idea was flight.
"My love--my life!" Sir Everard caught both her hands across the bed,
and his voice was hoarse with its concentrated emotion. "You don't
know how I love you. If you refuse I shall go mad. I will be the
truest, the tenderest husband ever man was to woman."
"I am dying, Harrie," her father said, sadly, "and you will be all
alone in this big, bad world. But if your heart says 'No,' my own best
beloved, to my old friend's son, then never hesitate to refuse. In all
my life I never thwarted you. On my death-bed I will not begin."
"What shall I do?" she cried. "What shall I do?"
"_Consent_!" her lover whispered.
"Consent!" Her father's anxious eyes spoke the word eloquently.
She looked from one to the other--the dying father, the handsome,
hopeful, impetuous young lover. Some faint thrill in her heart
answered his. Girls like daring lovers.
She drew her hands out of his clasp, hesitated a moment, while that
lovely, sensitive blush came and went, then gave them suddenly back of
her own accord.
He grasped them tight, with an inarticulate cry of ecstasy. For worlds
he could not have spoken. The dying face looked unutterably relieved.
"That means 'Yes,' Harrie?"
"Yes, papa."
"Thank God!"
He joined their hands, looking earnestly at the young man.
"She is yours, Kingsland. May God deal with you, as you deal with my
orphan child!"
"Amen!"
Solemnly Sir Everard Kingsland pronounced his own condemnation with the
word. Awfully came back the memory of that adjuration in the terrible
days to come.
"She is very young," said Captain Hunsden, after a pause--"too young to
marry. You must wait a year."
"A year!"
Sir Everard repeated the word in consternation, as if it had been a
century.
"Yes," said the captain, firmly. "A year is not too long, and she will
only be eighteen then. Let her return to her old _pension_ in Paris.
She sadly needs the help of a finishing school, my poor little girl!
My will is made. The little I leave will suffice for her wants. Mr.
Green is her guardian--he understands my wishes. Oh, my lad! you will
be very good to my friendless little Harrie! She will have but you in
the wide world."
"I swear it, Captain Hunsden! It will be my bliss and my honor to make
her my happy wife."
"I believe you. And now go--go both, and leave me alone, for I am very
tired."
Sir Everard arose, but Harrie grasped her father's cold hand in terror.
"No, no, papa! I will not leave you. Let me stay. I will be very
quiet--I shall not disturb you."
"As you like, my dear. She will call you, Kingsland, by and by."
The young man left the room. Then Harriet lifted a pale, reproachful
face to her father.
"Papa, how could you?"
"My dear, you are not sorry? You will love this young man very dearly,
and he loves you."
"But his mother, Lady Kingsland, detests me. And, I want to enter no
man's house unwelcome."
"My dear, don't be hasty. How do you know Lady Kingsland detests you?
That is impossible, I think. She will be a kind mother to my little
motherless girl. Ah, pitiful Heaven! that agony is to come yet!"
A spasm of pain convulsed his features, his brows knit, his eyes
gleamed.
"Harrie," he said, hoarsely, grasping her hands, "I have a secret to
tell you--a horrible secret of guilt and disgrace! It has blighted my
life, blasted every hope, turned the whole world into a black and
festering mass of corruption! And, oh! worst of all, you must bear
it--your life must be darkened, too. But not until the grave has
closed over me. My child, look here."
He drew out, with a painful effort, something from beneath his pillow
and handed it to her. It was a letter, addressed to herself, and
tightly sealed.
"My secret is there," he whispered--"the secret it would blister my
lips to tell you. When you are safe with Madame Beaufort, in Paris,
open and read this--not before. You promise, Harrie?"
"Anything, papa--everything!" She hid it away in her bosom. "And now
try to sleep; you are talking a great deal too much."
"Sing for me, then."
She obeyed the strange request--he had always loved to hear her sing.
She commenced a plaintive little song, and before it was finished he
was asleep.
All night long she watched by his bedside. Now he slept, now he woke
up fitfully, now he fell into a lethargic repose. The doctor and Sir
Everard kept watch in an adjoining chamber, within sight of that
girlish form.
Once, in the small hours, the sick man looked at her clearly, and spoke
aloud:
"Wake me at day-dawn, Harrie."
"Yes, papa."
And then he slept again. The slow hours dragged away--morning was
near. She walked to the window, drew the curtain and looked out.
Dimly the pearly light was creeping over the sky, lighting the purple,
sleeping sea, brightening and brightening with every passing second.
She would not disobey him. She left the window and bent over the bed.
How still he lay!
"Papa," she said, kissing him softly, "day is dawning."
But the captain never moved nor spoke. And then Harriet Hunsden knew
the everlasting day had dawned for him.