Hours passed away without either of the guilty parties finding courage
or inclination to address the other. The hearts of both were too full
for utterance--and yet did they acknowledge no sympathy in common.
Remorse, shame, fear, regret, simultaneously assailed and weighed down
the mind of Gerald. Triumphant vengeance, unmixed with any apprehension
of self, reigned exclusively in the bosom of Matilda. The intense
passion of the former, like a mist that is dissipated before the strong
rays of the sun, had yielded before the masculine and practical display
of the energetic hate of its object, while on the contrary she, whose
beauty of person was now to him a thing without price, acknowledged no
other feeling than contempt for the vacillating character of her
associate. In this only did they agree, that each looked upon each in
the light of a being sunk in crime--steeped in dishonor--and while the
love of the one was turned to almost loathing at the thought, the other
merely wondered how one so feeble of heart had ever been linked to so
determined a purpose.
The only light admitted into the temple was through the window already
described, and this was so feeble as scarcely to allow of the more
distant objects in the room being seen. Gradually, as the moon sunk
beneath the forest ridge, the gloom increased, until in the end the
darkness became almost profound. At their first entrance Matilda,
enshrouding herself in the folds of her cloak, had thrown herself upon
the sofa; while Gerald continued to pace up and down the apartment with
hurried steps, and in a state of feeling it would be a vain attempt to
describe. It was now for the first time that, uninfluenced by passion,
the miserable young man had leisure to reflect on the past, and the
chain of fatality which had led to his present disgraceful position. He
recollected the conversation he had held with his brother on the day
succeeding his escape from the storm; and as the pledge which had been
given in his name to his dying father, that no action of his life should
reflect dishonor on his family, now occurred to him in all its force, he
groaned in agony of spirit, less in apprehension of the fate that
awaited him, than in sorrow and in shame that that pledge should have
been violated. By a natural transition of his feelings, his imagination
recurred to the traditions connected with his family, and the dreadful
curse which had been uttered by one on whom his ancestor was said to
have heaped injury to the very extinction of reason--and associating as
he did Matilda's visit to the cottage at Detroit, on the memorable night
when he had unconsciously saved the life of Colonel Forrester, with the
fact of her having previously knelt and prayed upon the grave that was
known to cover the ashes of the unhappy maniac, Ellen Halloway, he felt
a shuddering conviction that she was in some way connected with that
wretched woman. In the intenseness of his new desire to satisfy his
doubts--a desire which in itself partook of the character of the
fatality by which he was beset--he overcame the repugnance he had
hitherto felt to enter into conversation with her, and advancing to the
couch, he seated himself upon its edge at her side.
"Matilda," he said, after a few moments of silence, "by all the love you
once bore me, I conjure you to answer me one question while there is
time."
"Fool," returned the American, "I never loved you. A soul like mine
feels passion but once. Hitherto I have played a part, but the drama
approaches to a close, and disguise of plot is no longer necessary.
Gerald Grantham, you have been my dupe. You came a convenient puppet to
my hands, and such I used you until the snapped wire proclaimed you no
longer serviceable--no further."
Shame, anguish, mortification, all the most humiliating sensations
natural to man--for a moment assailed the breast of the unfortunate and
guilty Grantham, rendering him insensible even to the greater evil which
awaited him. In the bitterness of his agony, he struck his clenched hand
against his forehead, uttering curses upon himself for his weakness, in
one breath, and calling upon his God, in the next, to pardon him for his
crime.
"This is good," said Matilda. "To see you writhe thus, under the wound
inflicted upon your vanity, is some small atonement for the base
violation of your oath; yet what question would you ask, the solution of
which can so much import one about to figure on the scaffold for a crime
he has not even had the courage to commit?"
The taunting manner in which the concluding part of the sentence was
conveyed, had the effect of restoring Gerald in some degree to himself,
and he said with considerable firmness:
"What I ask is of yourself--namely, the relationship, if any, you bear
to those who lie within the mound, on which I beheld you kneeling on the
night of your first attempt on Colonel Forrester's life?"
"The very recollection of that ill-timed intrusion would prevent me from
satisfying your curiosity, did not something whisper to me that, in so
doing, I shall add another pang to those you already experience,"
returned the American, with bitter sarcasm.
"You are right," said Gerald hurriedly. "My miseries need but the
assurance of your connexion with those mouldering bones to be indeed
complete."
"Then," said Matilda eagerly, and half raising her head, "your cup of
misery may yet admit of increase. My mother and my father's mother both
sleep within that grave."
"How knew you this?" demanded Gerald quickly. "Instinct could not have
guided you to the spot, and by your own admission you were taken from
the place of your home while yet a mere child."
"Not instinct, but my father Desborough, pointed out the spot, as he had
long previously acquainted me with the history of my birth."
"One question more--your grandmother's name?"
"Mad Ellen she was called, an English soldier's wife, who died in giving
birth to my father--and now that you are answered, leave me."
"Almighty Providence!" aspirated Gerald in tones of inconceivable agony,
"it is then as I had feared, and this woman has Destiny chosen to
accomplish my ruin."
He quitted the sofa, and paced up and down the room in a state of mind
bordering on distraction. The past crowded upon his mind in all the
confused manner of a dream, and, amid the chaos of contending feelings
by which he was beset, one idea only was distinct--namely, that the
wretched woman before him had been but the agent of Fate in effecting
his destruction. Strange as it may appear, the idea, so far from
increasing the acerbity of his feelings, had the tendency to soften his
heart towards her. He beheld in her but a being whose actions had been
fated like his own--and although every vestige of passion had fled, even
although her surpassing beauty had lost its subjugating influence, his
heart yearned towards her as one who, wrecked on the same shore, had
some claim to his sympathy and compassion. All that was now left them
was to make their peace with God, since with man their final account
would be so speedily closed; and with a view to impress her with a sense
of the religious aid from which alone they could hope for consolation,
he again seated himself at her side on the edge of the sofa.
"Matilda," he said, in a voice in which melancholy and sternness were
blended, "we have been the children of guilt--the victims of our own
evil passions; but God is merciful, and if our penitence be sincere, we
may yet be forgiven in Heaven, although on earth there is no hope--even
if after this we could wish to live. Matilda, let us pray together."
There was no answer--neither did the slightest movement of her form
indicate consciousness that she was addressed. "Matilda," repeated
Gerald--still there was no answer. He placed his hand upon her cheek,
and thought the touch was cold--he caught her hand, it too was cold and
but for the absence of rigidity he would have deemed her dead.
Scarcely knowing what he did, yet with an indefinable terror at his
heart, he grasped and shook her by the arm, and again, but with greater
vehemence, pronounced her name.
"Who calls?" she said, in a faint but deep tone, as she raised her head
slowly from the cushion which supported it. "Ha! I recollect. Tell me,"
she added more quickly, "was not the blow well aimed. Marked you how the
traitor fell. Villain, to accuse the woman whose only fault was loving
him too well, with ignominious commerce with a slave!"
"Wretched woman," exclaimed Gerald with solemn emphasis, "instead of
exulting over the evil we have done, let us rather make our peace with
Heaven, during the few hours we have yet to live. Matilda
Desborough--daughter of a murderer; thyself a murderess--the scaffold
awaits us both."
"Coward--fool--thou liest," she returned with suddenly awakened energy.
"For one so changeling as thyself the scaffold were befitting, but know,
if I save had the heart to do this deed, I have also had the head to
provide against its consequences--see--feel--."
One of her cold hands was extended in search of Gerald's. They met, and
a vial placed in the palm of the latter, betrayed the secret of her
previous lassitude and insensibility.
Even amid all the horrors which environed him, and called so largely for
attention to his own personal danger, Gerald was inexpressibly shocked.
"What! poisoned?" he exclaimed.
"Yes--poisoned!" she murmured, and her hand again sank heavily at her
side.
Gerald dashed the vial away from him to the farther end of the
apartment, and taking the cold hand of the unhappy woman, he continued:
"Matilda--is this the manner in which you prepare yourself to meet the
presence of your God. What! add suicide to murder?"
But she spoke not--presently the hand he clasped sank heavily from his
touch. Then there was a spasmodic convulsion of the whole frame. Then
there burst a piercing shriek from her lips, as she half raised herself
in agony from the sofa, and then each limb was set and motionless in the
stern rigidity of death.
While Gerald was yet bending over the body of his unfortunate companion,
shocked, grieved and agitated beyond all expression, the door of the
temple was unlocked, and a man enveloped in a cloak, and bearing a small
dark lantern, suddenly appeared in the opening. He advanced towards the
spot where Gerald, stupified with the events of the past night, stood
gazing upon the corpse, almost unconscious of the presence of the
intruder.
"A pretty fix you have got into, Liftenant Grantham," said the well
known voice of Jackson, "and I little calculated, when I advised you to
make love to the Kentucky gals to raise your spirits, that they would
lead you into such a deuced scrape as this."
"Captain Jackson," said Gerald imploringly; "I am sufficiently aware of
all the enormity of my crime, and am prepared to expiate it; but in
mercy spare the bitterness of reproach."
"Now as I'm a true Tennessee man, bred and born, I meant no reproach, and
why should I, since you could'nt help her doing it, and he pointed to
Matilda, yet you know its sometimes dangerous to be found in bad
company. Every body might'nt believe you so innocent as we do."
"Innocent! Captain Jackson," exclaimed Gerald, losing sight of all other
feelings in unfeigned surprise--"I cannot say that I quite understand
you."
"Why, the meaning's plain enough, I take it. Others might be apt, I say,
to think you had something to do with the thing as well as she, and
therefore its just as well you should make yourself scarce. The Colonel
says he would'nt on any account, you should even be suspected."
"The Colonel says--not suspected," again exclaimed Gerald with
increasing astonishment--then, suddenly recollecting the situation of
the latter--"tell me," he continued, "is Colonel Forrester in danger--is
his life despaired of?"
"Worth a dozen dead men yet, or you would'nt see me taking the thing so
coolly. The dagger certainly let the daylight into him, but though the
wound was pretty considerably deep, the doctors say its not mortal. He
thinks it might have been worse if you had not come up, and partly
stopped her arm when she struck at him."
Gerald was deeply affected by what he had just heard. It was evident
that Colonel Forrester had, with a generosity to which no gratitude of
his own could render adequate justice, sought to exonerate him from all
suspicion of participation in the guilty design upon his life, and as he
glanced his eye again for a moment upon the lifeless form of his
companion, he was at once sensible that the only being who could defeat
the benevolent object of his benefactor had now no longer the power to
do so.
"She sleeps sound enough now," said Jackson, again pointing to the
ill-fated and motionless girl, "but she'll sleep sounder yet before
long, I take it."
"She will never sleep sounder than at this moment, Captain Jackson,"
said Gerald, with solemn emphasis.
"Why, you don't mean to say she has cheated the hangman, Liftenant."
As he spoke, Jackson approached the sofa, and turning the light full
upon the face, saw indeed that she was dead. Gerald shuddered as the
rays from the lamp revealed for the first time the appalling change
which had been wrought upon that once beautiful countenance. The open
and finely formed brow was deeply knit, and the features distorted by
the acute agony which had wrung the shriek from her heart at the very
moment of dissolution, were set in a stern expression of despair. The
parted lips were drawn up at the corners in a manner to convey the idea
of the severest internal pain, and there was already a general
discoloration about the mouth, betraying the subtle influences of the
poison which had effected her death.
Gerald after the first glance, turned away his head in horror from the
view, but the Aide-de-camp remained for some moments calmly regarding
the remains of all that had once been most beautiful in nature.
"She certainly is not like what she was when Colonel Forrester first
knew her," he said, in the abstracted tone of one talking without
reference to any other auditor than himself; "but this comes of
preferring a nigger to a white man. Such unnatural courses never can
prosper, I take it."
"Captain Jackson," said Gerald, aroused by his remark, and with great
emphasis of tone, while he laid his hand impressively on the shoulder of
the other, "you do her wrong. Guilty as she has been, fearfully guilty,
but not in the sense you would imply."
"How do you know this?" asked the Aide-de-camp.
"From her own solemn declaration at a moment when deception could avail
her not. Even before she swallowed the fatal poison, her horror at the
imputation, which drove her to the perpetration of murder, was expressed
in terms of indignant warmth that belong to truth alone."
"If this be so," said Jackson, musingly, "she is indeed a much injured
woman, and deep I know will be the regret of Colonel Forrester when he
hears it, for he himself has ever believed her guilty. But come,
Liftenant Grantham, we have no time to lose. The day will soon break,
and I expect you must be a considerable way from Frankfort before
sunrise."
"I--from Frankfort--before sunrise!" exclaimed Gerald, in perfect
astonishment.
"Why, it's rather short warning to be sure; but the Colonel thinks you'd
better start before the thing gets wind in the morning; for so many of
the niggers say you wore a sort of a disguise as well as the poor girl,
he fears the citizens may suspect you of something more than an
intrigue, and insult you desperately."
"Generous, excellent man!" exclaimed Gerald, "how can I ever repay this
most unmerited service?"
"Why, the best way I take it, is to profit by the offer that is made you
of getting back to Canada as fast as you can."
"But how is this to be done, and will not the very fact of my flight
confirm the suspicion it is intended to remove?"
"As for the matter of how it is to be done, Liftenant, I have as slick a
horse waiting outside for you as man ever crossed--one of the fleetest
in Colonel Forrester's stud. Then as for suspicion, he means to set that
at rest, by saying that he has taken upon himself to give you leave to
return on parole to your friends, who wish to see you on a case of life
and death, and now let's be moving."
Oppressed with the weight of contending feelings, which this generous
conduct had inspired, Gerald waited but to cast a last look upon the
ill-fated Matilda; and then with a slow step and a heavy heart for ever
quitted a scene fraught with the most exciting and the most painful
occurrences of his life. The first rays of early dawn beginning to
develope themselves as they issued from the temple, Jackson extinguished
his lamp, and leading through the narrow pass that conducted to the
town, made the circuit of the ridge of hills until they arrived at a
point where a negro (the same who had led the party that bore Matilda
and himself to the temple) was in waiting, with a horse ready saddled
and the arms and accoutrements of a rifleman.
The equipment of Gerald was soon completed, and with the shot-bag and
powder-horn slung over his shoulder, and the long rifle in his hand, he
soon presented the appearance of a backwoodsman hastening to the theatre
of war.
When he had seated himself in the saddle, Jackson drew forth a well
filled purse, which he said he had been directed by Colonel Forrester to
present him with to defray the expenses of his journey to the frontier.
Deeply affected by this new proof of the favor of the generous American,
Gerald received the purse, saying, as he confided them to the breast of
his hunting frock--
"Captain Jackson, tell Colonel Forrester from me, that I accept his
present merely because in doing so I give the best evidences of my
appreciation of _all_ he has done for me on this trying occasion. In his
own heart, however, he must look for the only reward to which this most
noble of actions justly entitles him."
The frank-hearted Aide-de-camp promised compliance with this parting
message, and after pointing out the route it would be necessary to
follow, warmly pressed the hand of his charge in a final grasp, that
told how little he deemed the man before him capable of the foul
intention with which his soul had been so recently sullied.
How often during those hours of mad infatuation, when his weakened mind
had been balancing between the possession of Matilda at the price of
crime, and his abandonment of her at that of happiness, had the
observation of the Aide-de-camp, on a former occasion, that he "was
never born to be an assassin," occurred to his mind, suffusing his cheek
with shame and his soul with remorse. Now, too, that conscious of having
fallen in all but the positive commission of the deed, he saw that the
unsuspecting American regarded him merely as one whom accident or
intrigue had made an unwilling witness of the deadly act of a desperate
woman, his feelings were those of profound abasement and self-contempt.
There was a moment, when urged by an involuntary impulse, he would have
undeceived Captain Jackson as to his positive share in the transaction;
but pride suddenly interposed and saved him from the degradation of the
confession. He returned the pressure of the American's hand with
emphasis, and then turning his horse in the direction which he had been
recommended to take, quitted Frankfort for ever.