"But how if I can not, with loyalty to my inner conscience, hold to
those vows?" exclaimed David, with more warmth. "I have long felt that
I was not fitted for this sacred calling. Before the secret tribunal of
my self-knowledge, I have stood charged with the sin of hypocrisy. It
has been God's will that I be delivered from that sin."
"Why did you not say that before, David?" she demanded, looking at him.
"Why did you remain a hypocrite until it was for your worldly benefit
to abandon your trust? Can you say, on your word of honor, that you
would stand where you do now if you were still poor instead of rich?"
"Men's eyes are to some extent opened and their views are confirmed by
events. They make our dreams and forebodings into realities. We
question in our minds, and events give us the answers."
"Such an argument might excuse any villainy," said Edith, lifting her
head indignantly.
"Villainy! Do you use that word to me?" exclaimed David.
"Not unless your own heart bids me--and I do not know your heart."
"Because you do not love me?"
"You may be right," replied Edith, striving to steady her voice; "but
at least I believed I loved you."
"You are cured of that belief, it seems--as I am cured of many foolish
faiths," said David, with gloomy bitterness. "Well, so be it! The love
that waits upon a fastidious conscience is never the deepest love. My
love is not of that complexion. Were it possible that the shadow of
sin, or of crime itself, could descend upon you, it would but render
you dearer to me than before."
"You may break my heart, David, if you will," cried the girl,
tremulously, yet resolutely, "but I reverence love more than I love
you."
David had turned away as if to leave the room, but he paused and
confronted her once more.
"At any rate, we will understand each other," said he. "Do you make it
your condition that I should go back to the ministry?"
Edith was still seated, but the condition of the crisis compelled her
to rise. She stood before him, her dark eyes downcast, her lips
trembling, nervously drawing the fingers of one hand through the clasp
of the other. She was tempted to yield to him, for she could imagine no
happiness in life without him; but a rare sanity and integrity of mind
made her perceive that he had pushed the matter to a false alternative.
It was not a question of preaching or not preaching sermons, but of
sinful apostasy from an upright life. At last she raised her eyes,
which shone like dark jewels in her pale countenance, and said, slowly,
"We had better part."
"Then my sins be upon your head!" cried David, passionately.
The blood mounted to her cheeks at the injustice of this rejoinder, but
she either could not or would not answer again. She remained erect and
proud until the door had closed between them; what she did after that
neither David nor any one else knew.
The apostate David seems to have determined that, if she were to bear
the burden of his sins, they should be neither few nor light. His life
for many weeks after this interview was a scandal and a disgrace. The
old Lambert mansion was the scene of carousals and excesses such as
recalled the exploits of the monks of Medmenham. Harwood Courtney, and
a score of dissolute gentlemen like him, not to speak of other
visitors, thronged the old house day and night; drinking, gaming, and
yet wilder doings gave the sober little town no rest, till the Reverend
David Poindexter was commonly referred to as the Wicked Parson.
Meanwhile Edith Saltine bore herself with a grave, pale impassiveness,
which some admired, others wondered at, and others deemed an indication
that she had no heart. If she had not, so much the better for her; for
her father was almost as difficult to manage as David himself. The old
gentleman could neither comprehend nor forgive what seemed to him his
daughter's immeasurable perversity. One day she had been all for
marrying a poor, unknown preacher; and the next day, when to marry him
meant to be the foremost lady in the neighborhood, she dismissed him
without appeal. And the worst of it was that, much as the poor
colonel's mouth watered at the feasts and festivities of the Lambert
mansion, he was prevented by the fatality of his position from taking
any part in them. So Edith could find no peace either at home or
abroad; and if it dwelt not in her own heart, she was indeed forlorn.
What may have been the cost of all this dissipation it was difficult to
say, but several observant persons were of opinion that the parson's
income could not long stand it. There were rumors that he had heavy
bills owing in several quarters, which he could pay only by realizing
some of his investments. On the other hand, it was said that he played
high and constantly, and usually had the devil's luck. But it is
impossible to gauge the truth of such stories, and the Wicked Parson
himself took no pains either to deny or confirm them. He was always the
loudest, the gayest, and the most reckless of his company, and the
leader and inspirer of all their wild proceedings; but it was noticed
that, though he laughed often, he never smiled; and that his face, when
in repose, bore traces of anything but happiness. For some cause or
other, moreover--but whether maliciously or remorsefully was open to
question--he never entirely laid aside his clerical garb; he seemed
either to delight in profaning it, or to retain it as the reminder and
scourge of his own wickedness.
One night there was a great gathering up at the mansion, and the noise
and music were kept up till well past the small hours of the morning.
Gradually the guests departed, some going toward London, some
elsewhere. At last only Harwood Courtney remained, and he and David sat
down in the empty dining-room, disorderly with the remains of the
carousal, to play picquet. They played, with short intermissions, for
nearly twenty-four hours. At last David threw down his cards, and said,
quietly:
"Well, that's all. Give me until to-morrow."
"With all the pleasure in life, my boy," replied the other; "and your
revenge, too, if you like. Meanwhile, the best thing we can do is to
take a nap."
"You may do so if you please," said David; "for my part, I must take a
turn on horseback first. I can never sleep till I have breathed fresh
air."
They parted accordingly, Courtney going to his room, and David to the
stables, whence he presently issued, mounted on his bay mare, and rode
eastward. On his way he passed Colonel Saltine's house, and drew rein
for a moment beside it, looking up at Edith's window. It was between
four and five o'clock of a morning in early April; the sky was clear,
and all was still and peaceful. As he sat in the saddle looking up, the
blind of the window was raised and the sash itself opened, and Edith,
in her white night-dress, with her heavy brown hair falling round her
face and on her shoulders, gazed out. She regarded him with a
half-bewildered expression, as if doubting of his reality, For a moment
they remained thus; then he waved his hand to her with a wild gesture
of farewell, and rode on, passing immediately out of sight behind the
dark foliage of the cedar of Lebanon.
On reaching the London high-road the horseman paused once more, and
seemed to hesitate what course to pursue; but finally he turned to the
right, and rode in a southerly direction. The road wound gently, and
dipped and rose to cross low hills; trees bordered the way on each
side; and as the sun rose they threw long shadows westward, while the
birds warbled and twittered in the fields and hedges. By-and-by a clump
of woodland came into view about half a mile off, the road passing
through the midst of it. As David entered it at one end, he saw,
advancing toward him through the shade and sunlight, a rider mounted on
a black horse. The latter seemed to be a very spirited animal, and as
David drew near it suddenly shied and reared so violently that any but
a practiced horseman would have been unseated. No catastrophe occurred,
however, and a moment afterward the two cavaliers were face to face. No
sooner had their eyes met than, as if by a common impulse, they both
drew rein, and set staring at each other with a curiosity which merged
into astonishment. At length the stranger on the black horse gave a
short laugh, and said:
"I perceive that the same strange thing has struck us both, sir. If you
won't consider it uncivil, I should like to know who you are. My name
is Giovanni Lambert."
"Giovanni Lambert," repeated David, with a slight involuntary movement;
"unless I am mistaken, I have heard mention of you. But you are not
Italian?"
"Only on my mother's side. But you have the advantage of me."
"You will understand that I could not have heard of you without feeling
a strong desire to meet you," said David, dismounting as he spoke. "It
is, I think, the only desire left me in the world. I had marked this
wood, as I came along, as an inviting place to rest in. Would it suit
you to spend an hour here, where we can converse better at our ease
than in saddle; or does time press you? As for me, I have little more
to do with time."
"I am at your service, sir, with pleasure," returned the other, leaping
lightly to the ground, and revealing by the movement a pair of small
pistols attached to the belt beneath his blue riding surtout. "It was
in my mind, also, to stretch my legs and take a pull at my pipe, for,
early as it is, I have ridden far this morning."
At the point where they had halted a green lane branched off into the
depths of the wood, and down this they passed, leading their horses.
When they were out of sight of the road they made their animals fast in
such a way that they could crop the grass, and themselves reclined at
the foot of a broad-limbed oak, and they remained in converse there for
upward of an hour.
In fact, it must been several hours later (for the sun was high in the
heavens) when one of them issued from the wood. He was mounted on a
black horse, and wore a blue surtout and high boots. After looking up
and down the road, and assuring himself that no one was in sight, he
turned his horse's head toward London, and set off at a round canter.
Coming to a cross-road, he turned to the right, and rode for an hour in
that direction, crossing the Thames near Hampton Wick. In the afternoon
he entered London from the south, and put up at an obscure hostelry.
Having seen his horse attended to, and eaten something himself, he went
to bed and slept soundly for eighteen hours. On awaking, he ate
heartily again, and spent the rest of the day in writing and arranging
a quantity of documents that were packed in his saddle-bags. The next
morning early he paid his reckoning, rode across London Bridge, and
shaped his course toward the west.
Meanwhile the town of Witton was in vast perturbation. When Mr. Harwood
Courtney woke up late in the afternoon, and came yawning down-stairs to
get his breakfast, he learned, in answer to his inquiries, that nothing
had been seen of David Poindexter since he rode away thirteen hours
ago. Mr. Courtney expressed anxiety at this news, and dispatched his
own valet and one of David's grooms to make investigations in the
neighborhood. These two personages investigated to such good purpose
that before night the whole neighborhood was aware that David
Poindexter had disappeared. By the next morning it became evident that
something had happened to the Wicked Parson, and some people ventured
to opine that the thing which had happened to him was that he had run
away. And indeed it was astonishing to find to how many worthy people
this evil-minded parson was in debt. Every other man you met had a bill
against the Reverend David Poindexter in his pocket; and as the day
wore on, and still no tidings of the missing man were received,
individuals of the sheriff and bailiff species began to be
distinguishable amid the crowd. But the great sensation was yet to
come. How the report started no one knew, but toward supper-time it
passed from mouth to mouth that Mr. Harwood Courtney, in the course of
his twenty-four hours of picquet with Poindexter, had won from the
latter not his ready money alone, but the entire property and estates
that had accrued to him as nearest of kin to the late David Lambert.
And it was added that, as the debt was a gambling transaction, and
therefore not technically recoverable by process of law, Mr. Courtney
was naturally very anxious for his debtor to put in an appearance. Now
it so happened that this report, unlike many others ostensibly more
plausible, was true in every particular.
Probably there was more gossip at the supper-tables of Witton that
night than in any other town of ten times the size in the United
Kingdom; and it was formally agreed that Poindexter had escaped to the
Continent, and would either remain in hiding there, or take passage by
the first opportunity to the American colonies, or the United States,
as they had now been called for some years past. Nobody defended the
reverend apostate, but, on the other hand, nobody pretended to be sorry
for Mr. Harwood Courtney; it was generally agreed that they had both of
them got what they deserved. The only question was, What was to become
of the property? Some people said it ought to belong to Edith Saltine;
but of course poetical justice of that kind was not to be expected.
Edith, meanwhile, had kept herself strictly secluded. She was the last
person who had seen David Poindexter, but she had mentioned the fact to
no one. She was also the only person who did not believe that he had
escaped, but who felt convinced that he was dead, and that he had died
by his own hand. That gesture of farewell and of despair which he had
made to her as he vanished behind the cedar of Lebanon had for her a
significance capable of only one interpretation. Were he alive, he
would have returned.
On the evening of the day following the events just recorded, the
solitude of her room suddenly became terrible to Edith, and she was
irresistibly impelled to dress herself and go forth in the open air.
She wound a veil about her head, and, avoiding the main thoroughfare,
slipped out of the town unperceived, and gained the free country. After
a while she found herself approaching a large tree, which spread its
branches across a narrow lane that made a short-cut to the London
highway. Beneath the tree was a natural seat, formed of a fragment of
stone, and here David and she had often met and sat. It was a mild,
still evening; she sat down on the stone, and removed her veil. The
moon, then in its first quarter, was low in the west, and shone beneath
the branches of the tree.
Presently she was aware--though not by any sound--that some one was
approaching, and she drew back in the shadow of the tree. Down the lane
came a horseman, mounted on a tall, black horse. The outline of his
figure and the manner in which he rode fixed Edith's gaze as if by a
spell, and made the blood hum in her ears. Nearer he came, and now his
face was discernible in the level moonlight. It was impossible to
mistake that countenance: the horseman was David Poindexter. His
costume, however, was different from any he had ever before worn; there
was nothing clerical about it; nor was that black horse from the
Poindexter stables. Then, too, how noiselessly he rode!--as noiselessly
as a ghost. That, however, must have been because his horse's hoofs
fell on the soft turf. He rode slowly, and his head was bent as if in
thought; but almost before Edith could draw her breath, much less to
speak, he had passed beneath the boughs of the tree, and was riding on
toward the village. Now he had vanished in the vague light and shadow,
and a moment later Edith began to doubt whether her senses had not
played her a trick. A superstitious horror fell upon her; what she had
seen was a spirit, not living flesh and blood. She knelt down by the
stone, and remained for a long time with her face hidden upon her arms,
and her hands clasped, sometimes praying, sometimes wondering and
fearing. At last she rose to her feet, and hastened homeward through
the increasing darkness. But before she had reached her house she had
discovered that what she had seen was no ghost. The whole village was
in a fever of excitement.
Everybody was full of the story. An hour ago who should appear riding
quietly up the village street but David Poindexter himself--at least,
if it were not he, it was the devil. He seemed to take little notice of
the astonished glances that were thrown at him, or, at any rate, not to
understand them. Instead of going to the Lambert mansion, he had
alighted at the inn, and asked the innkeeper whether he might have
lodging there. But when the innkeeper, who had known the reverend
gentleman as well as he knew his own sign-board, had addressed him by
name, the other had shaken his head, seemed perplexed, and had affirmed
that his name was not Poindexter but Lambert; and had added, upon
further inquiry, that he was the only son of David Lambert, and was
come to claim that gentleman's property, to which he was by law
entitled; in proof whereof he had produced various documents, among
them the certificates of his mother's marriage and of his own birth. As
to David Poindexter, he declared that he knew not there was such a
person; and although no man in his senses could be made to believe that
David Poindexter and this so-called Lambert were twain, and not one and
the same individual, the latter stoutly maintained his story, and vowed
that the truth would sooner or later appear and confirm him. Meanwhile,
however, one of his creditors had had him arrested for a debt of eight
hundred pounds; and Harwood Courtney had seen him, and said that he was
ready to pledge his salvation that the man was Poindexter and nobody
else. So here the matter rested for the present. But who ever heard of
so strange and audacious an attempt at imposition? The man had not even
made any effort to disguise himself further than to put on a different
suit of clothes and get another horse; and why, in the name of all that
was inconceivable, had he come back to Witton, instead of going to any
other part of the earth's surface What could he expect here, except
immediate detection, imprisonment, and ruin? Was he insane? He did not
seem to be so; but that interpretation of his conduct was not only the
most charitable one, but no other could be imagined that would account
for the facts.
Witton slept but little that night; but who shall describe its
bewilderment when, early in the morning, a constable arrived in the
village with the news that the dead body of the Reverend David
Poindexter had been found in some woods about fifteen miles off, and
that his bay mare had been picked up grazing along the roadside not far
from home! Upon the heels of this intelligence came the corpse itself,
lying in a country wagon, and the bay mare trotting behind. It was
taken out and placed on the table in the inn parlor, where it
immediately became the center of a crowd half crazy with curiosity and
amazement. The cause of death was found to be the breaking of the
vertebral column just at the base of the neck. There was no other
injury on the body, and, allowing for the natural changes incident to
death, the face was in every particular the face of David Poindexter.
The man who called himself Lambert was now brought into the room, and
made to stand beside the corpse, which he regarded with a certain calm
interest. The resemblance between the two was minute and astonishing;
it was found to be impossible, upon that evidence alone, to decide
which was David Poindexter.
The matter was brought to trial as promptly as possible. A great number
of witnesses identified the prisoner as David Poindexter, but those who
had seen the corpse mostly gave their evidence an opposite inclination;
and four persons (one of them the gray-eyed gentleman who has been
already mentioned) swore positively that the prisoner was Giovanni
Lambert, the gray-eyed gentleman adding that he had once met
Poindexter, and had confidently taken him to be Lambert.
An attempt was then made to prove that Lambert had murdered Poindexter;
but it entirely failed, there being no evidence that the two men had
ever so much as met, and there being no conceivable motive for the
murder. Lambert, therefore, was permitted to enter undisturbed upon his
inheritance; for he had no difficulty in establishing the fact of the
elder Lambert's marriage to an Italian woman twenty-three years before.
The marriage had been a secret one, and soon after a violent quarrel
had taken place between the wife and husband, and they had separated.
The following month Giovanni was born prematurely. He had seen his
father but once. The quarrel was never made up, but Lambert sent his
wife, from time to time, money enough for her support. She had died
about ten years ago, and had given her son the papers to establish his
identity, telling him that the day would come to use them. Giovanni had
been a soldier, fighting against the French in Spain and elsewhere, and
had only heard of his father's death a few weeks ago. He had thereupon
come to claim his own, with the singular results that we have seen.
Here was the end of the case, so far as the law was concerned; but the
real end of it is worth noting. Lambert, by his own voluntary act, paid
all the legal debts contracted by Poindexter, and gave Courtney, in
settlement of the gambling transaction, a sum of fifty thousand pounds.
The remainder of his fortune, which was still considerable, he devoted
almost entirely to charitable purposes, doing so much genuine good, in
a manner so hearty and unassuming, that he became the object of more
personal affection than falls to the lot of most philanthropists. He
was of a quiet, sad, and retiring disposition, and uniformly very
sparing of words. After a year or so, circumstances brought it about
that he and Miss Saltine were associated in some benevolent enterprise,
and from that time forward they often consulted together in such
matters, Lambert making her the medium of many of his benefactions. Of
course the gossips were ready to predict that it would end with a
marriage; and indeed it was impossible to see the two together (though
both of them, and especially Edith, had altered somewhat with the
passage of years) without being reminded of the former love affair in
which Lambert's double had been the hero. Did this also occur to Edith?
It could hardly have been otherwise, and it would be interesting to
speculate on her feelings in the matter; but I have only the story to
tell. At all events, they never did marry, though they became very
tender friends. At the end of seven years Colonel Saltine died of
jaundice; he had been failing in his mind for some time previous, and
had always addressed Lambert as Poindexter, and spoken of him as his
son-in-law. The year following Lambert himself died, after a brief
illness. He left all his property to Edith. She survived to her
seventieth year, making it the business of her life to carry out his
philanthropic schemes, and she always dressed in widows' weeds. After
her death, the following passage was found in one of her private
journals. It refers to her last interview with Lambert, on his
death-bed:
".... He smiled, and said, 'You will believe, now, that I was sincere
in renouncing the ministry, though I have tried to serve the Lord in
other ways than from the pulpit.' I felt a shock in my heart, and could
hardly say, 'What do you mean, Mr. Lambert?' He replied, 'Surely,
Edith, your soul knows, if your reason does not, that I am David
Poindexter!' I could not speak. I hid my face in my hands. After a
while, in separate sentences, he told me the truth. When he rode forth
on that dreadful morning it was with the purpose to die. But he met on
the road this Giovanni Lambert, who so marvelously resembled him, and
they sat down together in the wood and talked, and Giovanni told him
all the story of his life.... As Giovanni was about to mount his horse,
which was very restive, he saw a violet in the grass, and stooped to
pick it. The horse lashed out with its heels, and struck him in the
back of the neck and killed him.... Then the idea came to David to
exchange clothes with the dead man, and to take his papers, and
personate him. Thus, he could escape from the individuality which was
his curse, and find his true self, as it were, in another person. He
said, too, that his greatest hope had been to win my love and make me
his wife; but he found that he could not bring himself to attempt that,
unless he confessed his falsehood to me, and he had feared that this
confession would turn me from him forever. I wept, and told him that my
heart had been his almost from the first, because I always thought of
him as David, and that I would have loved him through all things. He
said, 'Then God has been more merciful to me than I deserve; but,
doubtless, it is also of His mercy that we have remained unmarried.'
But I was in an agony, and could not yet be reconciled. At last he
said, 'Will you kiss me, Edith?' and afterward he said, 'My wife!' and
that was his last word. But we shall meet again!"