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128 Pages.]
[Complete.
BEADLE’S
[Illustration: DIME NOVELS No. 3.]
The Choicest Works of the Most Popular Authors.
MYRA
THE
CHILD OF ADOPTION.
BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.
New York:
IRWIN P. BEADLE & CO., 141 WILLIAM ST.
Ross & Tousey, General Agents.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1860,
by IRWIN P. BEADLE & CO., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of
the United States for the Southern District of New York.
BEADLE’S DIME NOVELS, No. 9.
[Illustration:
THE SLAVE SCULPTOR;
OR, THE PROPHETESS OF THE SECRET CHAMBERS.
]
[Illustration: MYRA MEETING HER MOTHER.]
MYRA:
THE
CHILD OF ADOPTION.
A
ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE.
BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.
NEW YORK:
IRWIN P. BEADLE AND COMPANY,
141 WILLIAM ST., CORNER OF FULTON.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1860, by
IRWIN P. BEADLE & CO.,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
PUDNEY & RUSSELL, Printers,
_79 John Street, N. Y._
MYRA,
THE
CHILD OF ADOPTION.
CHAPTER I.
MOTHER AND CHILD.
“One look upon thy face ere thou depart!
My daughter! it is soon to let thee go!
My daughter! with thy birth has gushed a spring
I knew not of—filling my heart with tears,
And turning with strange tenderness to thee—
A love, O God! it seems so—that must flow
Far as thou fleest, and wrap my soul and thee.
Henceforth thy love must be a yearning charm
Drawing me after thee. And so farewell!”—WILLIS.
The windows were all open, but shaded fold after fold with muslin
transparent as dew drops, and snowy as the drifts of a summer cloud. The
floor was spread with East India matting, and in a corner of a chamber
stood a couch shaded with clouds of delicate lace and clad in snow white
even to the floor—a great easy chair, covered with chaste dimity, stood
close by the bed, and further off a miniature couch, snow white also,
save where the soft rose tints of an inner curtain, light and silken,
broke through the waves of snowy gossamer that flowed over it. Upon the
pillow of this pretty couch lay a bouquet of flowers tied loosely by an
azure-colored ribbon, and more beautiful still a sleeping infant, with
one tiny hand resting like a torn peach-blossom, on its little bosom and
its sweet lips parted smilingly, as a bud uncloses to the warm sunbeam.
There, in its snowy nest, with the fragrant flowers sending their breath
in and out through the misty draperies, and half smothered in delicate
lace, lay the beautiful infant; and a little way off, upon the larger
couch reposed another being in the first bud and bloom of womanly
beauty, not asleep, but with her large eyes wandering tenderly toward
the infant, and from that to a bouquet of orange-blossoms and moss-roses
that, feebly clasped in her delicate fingers, was yet falling apart and
dropping its blossoms over the counterpane.
An air of gentle languor lay upon this young creature, and there was
something more than that affectionate tenderness with which a mother
regards her young child, in the look that she, from time to time, cast
upon the slumbering infant—a shade of sadness, that but for her feeble
state, might have taken the strength of passionate regret, seemed ready
to break from her eyes in a flood of tears, whenever they dwelt longer
than usual upon the babe. But when her grief was ready to break forth,
she would allow her eyes to droop toward the flowers that seemed to have
some pleasant association connected with their fragrance, and a sweet
smile—not the less sweet that there was sadness in it—would part her
lips while a faint sigh floated through them.
All at once the infant began to nestle in its crib, and opening its
large brown eyes, turned them upon the recumbent female. As if her tears
lay so near the surface as to require only this motion to set them
flowing, the young mother, as she encountered the infantile glance,
shuddered faintly, and large drops gathered in her eyes, and fell one by
one over her full but pale cheeks.
“I must not look at it, I must not learn to love it so,” she murmured,
turning her head away, and shading her tearful eyes with one hand. “Ah!
why should I, a mother so young, and with a husband like _him_, always
find every feeling, every impulse shackled as it springs from my heart?
Why was there no one to shield my youth from the blight, that I feel,
too surely, will cling around me to the end?”
The infant began to cry, and there came into the room a colored woman,
tall and with that superb luxuriance of form that so frequently
characterizes the dusky-hued woman of the South. She approached the crib
and took the child in her arms, hushing it with a sort of cajoling
attempt at tenderness, that seemed to annoy the young mother not a
little.
“Give the babe to me!” she said, feebly reaching forth her arms.
“Better not, better not, missus,” replied the woman, pressing her full
lips upon the velvet cheek resting on her bosom—a most unnatural pillow,
as the unhappy mother felt all too keenly. “Nurse said last night that
young missus must be kept quiet, and the baby not left to fret her so
much.”
“Fret me! my child fret me! Give it to me, I say,” cried the young
mother so passionately that the color broke over her pale cheek, like
the abrupt opening of a rose-bud. “It is cruel, it is unkind, thus to
keep a babe from its mother’s bosom. _He_ never ordered it. I know well
enough it is not his wish that I should be tortured in this manner.”
“Take the child to its mother. Why do you hesitate in obeying your
mistress?” cried a firm and manly voice from the door; and with his
lofty step somewhat subdued, a gentleman entered the chamber, whose air
of authority awed the negress at once. He approached the young female,
who had started eagerly up from her pillow, with every manifestation of
deep tenderness in her voice and manner.
“Have you been waiting for me, Zulima?” he said, bending down to kiss
the fair forehead of his wife. “I was kept longer than usual at the
counting-house this morning.”
“Oh! I knew that you would be here soon,” replied the young wife, taking
his hand between both hers, and kissing it with a degree of passionate
tenderness that thrilled through her feeble frame, till, in her weak
state, excess of feeling became almost painful.
“What! because I scattered my path to your bedside with the flowers you
have been wasting?” was the smiling reply.
“They were welcome and very sweet, for they told me that you were soon
to follow,” said the young wife, gathering the scattered flowers
together with her hand. “See! your little daughter has kept hers in
better condition. She is not old enough to tear her flowers to pieces
the moment they come within reach!”
“Like her mother, ha! Zulima!” said the gentleman, shaking his head, but
smiling fondly all the time. “She must have more patience and less pride
than her mother, this pretty child—or she will be”—
“As unfortunate and as unhappy as her mother has been,” said the young
wife, and her eyes filled with tears.
“I only hope she will be as lovely and as innocent, whatever her lot may
prove, and as truly beloved, Zulima,” he added, after a moment’s pause;
and with an expression of deep feeling, mingled with a shade of sadness,
the proud husband gazed upon his wife and child till the tears clouded
his own fine eyes.
For a moment there was silence between the husband and wife. Both were
gazing upon the infant, and both were occupied with thoughts where pain
and tenderness were almost equally blended. Pride, stern and lofty
pride, tinged the sweet current of his reflections, and she—impulsive
young creature—thought of nothing but her sufferings, her passionate
love for him, and of the beautiful child she was sheltering upon her
bosom with one fairy arm, from which she had impatiently flung back the
loose sleeve of her night-dress, as if detesting the delicate lawn for
coming between her and that little form.
“You will not send her away!” said the young creature, lifting her eyes
to the face of her husband, which was becoming more and more thoughtful
each moment. “Ah! if you knew how much I love her!”
“I know—I know, Zulima,” said the husband, interrupting the beautiful
pleader with an accent which, though not unkind, told how the slightest
opposition chafed his proud nature. “It is natural. You must love the
child; who could help it? but do you not love me better?—do you not love
its future fame? its father’s fame?—your own reputation, well enough to
relinquish her for a time?”
“I have thought of it all—I know what the world will say of me—but I
cannot give her up—indeed, indeed I cannot.” The young mother rose in
the bed, and with her child folded to her bosom with one arm, cast the
other round the proud man’s neck, and drew his face down till it touched
the infant, as she covered his forehead with kisses. “You will keep us
both—you will not take our child from me!”
“Zulima, it must be,” said the husband, drawing gently back, and freeing
himself from her fond embrace, while his fine features bespoke the
terrible pain which it cost him to be firm. “While the man who has once
claimed you for his wife remains unpunished, I cannot acknowledge you
mine, legally, innocently mine, as in the sight of Heaven you are.”
“I do not ask it. Let the world think of me as it likes. I will submit
to reproach—to suspicion—any thing—but leave my child—never!”
“Zulima!” was the firm and almost reproachful reply; “do you think that
your reputation is separate from mine? Shall I cast a stain upon my wife
which no after time can efface, and then produce her, wronged and
sullied, to society? Listen to me, Zulima; cease weeping and listen! The
man is yet alive who has called you wife”—
“I know—I know!” cried the poor young creature, shuddering from head to
foot, and burying her face in the pillows; “Oh say no more! I will give
up the child—but spare me that subject!”
“No, Zulima. Let us speak of it this once, and then it shall be banished
our lips forever. Think you that it is not painful to me as to you?”
How painful it was might be guessed by the colorless cheeks and the
quivering of that proud man’s lips while he was speaking.
“While a mere child you became the dupe and victim of this vile man, De
Grainges. He wronged your confidence, wronged your love”—
“No, no! I did not love him—I was a child—I knew not what love was!”
broke in passionate murmurs from the pillow where Zulima’s face was
buried. “Do not say I loved that man!”
“My poor wife! I know that you did not love him. I know quite as well
that you do love me. Look up, sweet child! I would give worlds that I
could speak of all this without distressing you thus. Bear with me only
a minute longer. My only wish is to reconcile you, if possible, to the
inevitable.”
“I will listen,” replied the tortured young mother.
“I know, Zulima, that you were deceived by this bad man—that he wedded
you while his wife was living, and that you fled from his home the
moment this truth was made known. Of all this I was thoroughly convinced
before you became my wife; but until this man is convicted in open court
and before the whole world, how can I convince society of that which to
me is a sacred truth? how, before the fact of his previous marriage is
thus publicly substantiated, can I proclaim the union which has made me
more than happy? Zulima, I am a proud man—sensitive to public
opinion—careful of my standing in the world. Were a breath of suspicion
to rest upon the fame of my wife, I should never be happy again. You are
young—supposed to be unmarried—living here under the roof of my dearest
friend, who, with one exception, is alone in my confidence. In a few
months this man, now in prison, will receive the punishment of his
crime. Do you not see the peril of keeping this child with you till
after that event enables me to claim my wife before the world? Zulima!
look up—say that you forgive me the pain I am causing—say, that, for my
sake, you will submit to have this little one sent from you for a
season—only for a season.”
Subdued and touched to the heart by the depth of feeling with which this
appeal was made, Zulima arose from the pillow where she had been
striving to subdue her grief, and taking the infant in her trembling
arms, motioned her husband to receive it. The moment she was relieved
from the sweet burden, the young creature fell back, and closing her
eyes, tried to check the grief that, however suppressed, still clamored
at her heart. It was all in vain: the tears gushed like shattered
diamonds though the thick and silky lashes, and she grasped the
counterpane nervously with one hand, in a terrible strife to force back
the agony that was choking her. Poor young mother! she felt with that
keen intuition, which is like a prophecy, that she was not parting from
her child for a season, but forever.
“You consent, Zulima? You will give up our little one with no anger, and
without all this bitter grief?” cried the strong man, pale as death, and
bending over the young mother, with the child pressed to his bosom.
“I will, I do,” burst from those pale and trembling lips.
The husband turned away; his limbs trembled, his eyes were blinded with
moisture, and the weight of that little babe seemed to bend and sway his
strong frame, as if he had been a reed. He looked back upon the mother.
There she lay, the wet eyelids closed and quivering—her white lips
pressed together, and so pale, that but for the agitation of her
features she might have seemed stricken dead in the midst of her
anguish. He returned to the couch.
“Zulima, would you kiss the babe before it goes!”
“I dare not—I dare not,” broke from those pale lips; then Zulima held
back her sobs, for his footsteps were departing—a door closed—husband
and child both were gone. Then the mother’s anguish broke forth, her
arms were flung upward, her quivering hands clasped wildly together—a
moment and they fell heavily upon the orange flowers that still littered
the bed, crushing them in her utter insensibility.
Then, while the young wife lay so pale and deathly there stole toward
the bed that negro woman, who bent down till the bright Madras ’kerchief
turbaning her forehead mingled with the chestnut tresses that lay
scattered over the shoulder and bosom of the sufferer. She listened a
moment, as if to make herself quite certain that what seemed so deathly
was not death itself, and then glided from the chamber.
The negress stole softly through the open hall, and into a spacious
garden; a row of small white buildings stood at the farther extremity,
gleaming in snowy patches through the vines and trees that embowered
that portion of the garden. These were the slave-dwellings belonging to
a rich plantation some three miles from New Orleans—belonging to the
husband of Zulima, and occupied for a season by his bosom friend that
the infancy of his child might be honorably sheltered. And here in a
little whitewashed room of the slave dwelling this bosom friend was
impatiently watching the approach of the female slave whom he had
placed—a dark spy—in the bed-chamber of that helpless young wife. With
his face close to one of the four panes of glass that admitted light to
the humble room, he watched the fiery colors of the Madras turban, which
the woman always wore, as it glided like some gorgeous bird through the
thick foliage, nearer and nearer to the den where he had for two hours
been waiting for news from the sick-chamber. The slave entered her
dwelling, and sat down before her master, full of that consequential
assumption that a little power is certain to call forth in one of her
ignorant and degraded class.
“Well, Louisa,” said the master, with a show of careless indifference,
for he was of a cool and subtle temperament, with passions slow and
calculating, but all the more grasping for the deliberation, with which,
like well-trained hounds, they were let free from the leash of his
strong will; “Well, Louisa, how is the lady this morning?”
“Oh, she am about de same, Massa Ross—no danger of her going off dis
bout anyhow,” replied the negress, turning her head on one side and
moving a palm-leaf fan before her face, with an air of self-conceit that
made her auditor smile, spite of his preoccupation.
“She just had a little fainting spell when I come out, but it won’t last
long—no danger!”
“Has she had any visitors this morning—has _he_ been there, Louisa?”
“Dar, now, you ask me dat, Massa Ross, just as if he didn’t come ebery
morning of him life.”
“Then he has been there,” rejoined the man, “and left her fainting. Tell
me, Louisa,—oh here is the Napoleon that I promised.”
“There, that am something like Massa Ross,” and the negress tied the
gold in a corner of her handkerchief, and thrust it into her bosom.
“Yes, he was there a long time.”
“Well,” interrupted Ross, evidently getting impatient, “tell me all that
passed, word for word; do not forget a look or a syllable—and another
gold piece is ready when you have done.”
And the negress, thus stimulated, told him all. That scene of tender
anguish—the struggle of love and pride which she had witnessed in the
sick chamber—all was related; and oh! how its exquisite pathos, its
touching dignity was desecrated by the vulgar mind and coarse speech of
that slave woman!
Ross listened to it all, his face changing with every sentence; for,
with only that coarse witness, he did not think it necessary to control
his features with the dissimulation that had become a habit. He
listened, and as he felt, thus the evil man looked. When the woman
ceased speaking the exultation of a fiend was in the smile that curled
his lip.
“And he was determined—spite of her caresses, spite of her tears. I knew
that it would be so. He is not a man to waver, having once taken a
resolution—but the child, Louisa? I have recommended a woman up the
river to take charge of it, but you, my good Louisa, must still be its
nurse. It seems a feeble little thing; do you not think so, Louisa?”
“Feeble! Lor a massa! No; it’s the best-natured, healthy little thing I
ever see,” was the reply, and Louisa agitated her palm-leaf fan with
considerable violence.
“But away from you, Louisa, with some one less kind, it may become
sickly in a very little time, you know.”
“Sure enough!” and Louisa half suspended the action of her fan, as she
fell into a fit of profound contemplation.
“With you to give it medicine and superintend, if it were ill, I should
feel quite safe,” said Ross, and a strange, fiendish smile crept over
his lips. “Of course, I should come and see you very often.”
“Oh! you would. Well, den, I haven’t nothing to say against going with
the baby.”
“Wherever I send you, Louisa?”
“Well, yes, I don’t care, if it isn’t so far off that you can’t come
once a week or so to see us, Massa Ross; but I won’t go far, now I tell
you.”
“Well, now, go to your charge. I will see you again to-morrow.”
The negress arose, and with an insolent twist of her head to the left
shoulder, stood in the door-way fanning herself.
“Well,” said Ross, impatiently, “well, what are you waiting for now!”
“Dis piece of gold in my bosom, Massa Ross,” and the negress placed a
plump ebony hand upon her heart. “It is ’gun beginning to feel
lonesome.”
“Oh! I had forgotten; here, here.”
Louisa drew forth the pocket handkerchief, which, from its embroidery
and exquisite lace, must have been purloined from her mistress, and a
second Napoleon was nested in her bosom.
“Stop,” said Ross, as she was going out; “You said that the lady was
fainting—that _he_ took the child forth in his arms. Where is it now?”
“How should I know? I s’pose he took the baby to your wife. She was in
the back parlor, and he turned that way.”
“There he is now. Go back into the room, Louisa, go back!” Ross seized
his hat as he spoke, and leaving the slave-house, wound through a grove
of fruit trees that sheltered him from sight, and taking a serpentine
path, came leisurely forth into that part of the garden, where he had
seen Mr. Clark. The proud man was walking hurriedly forward, his arms
folded, and one white aristocratic hand thrust into the bosom of his
black dress. He was very pale, and his finely cut features bore traces
of great internal anguish. He saw Ross, and turned quickly toward him.
“It is over, my friend; it is all over,” he said, grasping the hand
which Ross extended, and wringing it hard. A smile, full of proud
anguish, broke the firm and classical beauty of his mouth, and his eyes
spoke volumes of suffering.
“What is over? what has happened?” inquired Ross, startled and turning
almost as white as his friend.
“My wife! my child!”
“What of them? what has happened to them, my friend?”
“Nothing but that which was inevitable. But Zulima, my poor, poor wife!
It would wring your heart to see how she suffers from the separation
from her child.”
“But the child; is it yet with her?”
“Hark!” said the other, lifting his hand. “Do you not hear?”
It was the sound of a carriage driving rapidly from the house. Mr. Clark
seemed listening to the sound as if his life was departing with
it—fainter and fainter from his bosom. There was something in his
countenance which Ross dared not disturb, though his soul was burning
with curiosity to know why the common sound of carriage-wheels grinding
through the gravelly soil should so profoundly agitate his benefactor.
The sound grew distant, and died away before another word was spoken,
then Mr. Clark turned toward his false friend, his nerves hitherto drawn
to their most rigid tension relaxed, and his eye met the gaze with which
Ross was curiously regarding him with an appeal for sympathy, that would
have touched a heart for stone.
“It is gone!” he said, in a broken voice. “My child is gone!”
“Your child gone? when, where?” cried Ross, fearfully excited. “Surely
you have not sent the infant from its mother so abruptly—and—and without
consulting—I mean without informing your best friend.”
“That carriage—you heard it—bore away Zulima’s child!” said the unhappy
father, mournfully.
“But where has it gone? With whom is it placed?”
“It is placed with one whom I have long known, the noble and childless
wife of an old and dear friend. Myra will be to them as an own child,
till I claim her again.”
“And may I not know the people, and the place?” inquired the false
friend. “The child of my benefactor is dear to me as my own.”
“I have pledged myself to secrecy in this. It was the desire of my
friend,” repeated Mr. Clark; “but for that you should know every thing.
All this concealment will soon be over; a few weeks and this man must be
sentenced. Then wife and child shall take possession of their home
before the world. In this you can help me. I can not well appear in
person to press forward this man’s conviction, but you, my friend, will
use every effort to relieve me from this painful position. My poor wife
scarcely suffers more than I do!”
“I will do every thing that you desire. Indeed, the commonest gratitude
should insure that,” said Ross, pressing his patron’s hand, but with
restless and nervous haste in his manner. “Shall I set out for the city
at once?”
“No, no; seek your wife first; tell her to comfort my poor Zulima. I can
not see her now; without wishing to reproach me, she could not help it.
I tell you, Ross, I would rather encounter a squadron of armed men, than
the look of those soft eyes, as they followed her child this morning,
when I took it from her. It was the glance of a wounded fawn, as we have
often seen it, turned upon the hunter.”
“I will see my wife at once,” replied Ross, unable with all his
duplicity to conquer the disappointment that was consuming him; “then I
will depart for the city, and make a strong effort to bring De Grainges
to his trial.”
“It is strange,” said Mr. Clark; “but some influence that I can not
fathom seems to keep back this man’s sentence. The court, as if it were
trifling with his case only to perpetuate my troubles, keeps putting off
his sentence from day to day with cruel pertinacity. But now I am
resolved that it shall be more prompt; this hidden influence must and
shall be revealed.”
Ross listened to the first portion of this speech with a cold and crafty
smile playing and deepening about his mouth, but at the close this smile
died away, and with it every vestige of color—his eyes wandered rapidly
from object to object, avoiding the face of his benefactor, and when Mr.
Clark would have spoken again, he forgot all the habitual deference of
his manner and interrupted him.
“Have no trouble about this man, De Grainges; I will attend to him at
once. The cause of this unaccountable delay in the court shall be
ascertained and remedied. Now that I see how deeply your happiness is
involved, no effort shall be wanting on my part to bring the trial to an
issue. To this end, I must start for the city at once.”
Ross held out his hand, and grasped that of his patron.
“Accomplish this for me, Ross, and no being ever lived more grateful
than I shall be,” said the generous man. “I depend on you.”
“You may, most positively,” was the emphatic reply; and wringing the
hand he held, Ross left the garden. He met a servant in the hall, and
accosted him with the sharp command to have a horse saddled. Then,
passing into the inner room, he spoke a few hasty words, not to his
wife, but to the black woman, Louisa, and then hurried to the stable.
With the sluggish habits of his race, the negro was lazily dragging
forth a saddle from its repository, when his master came up booted, and
with a riding whip in his hand.
“Walk quick, you scoundrel!” he said, laying the whip over the sleek
negro with a force that made the old fellow start into something
resembling haste; but even this unheardof activity did not satisfy the
master; he snatched the saddle, flung it over the horse, and set his
teeth firmly together, as he buckled the girth. Sharply ordering the man
out of his way, he sprang upon the horse and dashed toward the city, at
first in a light canter; but the moment he was out of sight, the
high-spirited animal was put to the top of his speed, and horse and man
flew like lightning along the road.
At each turn of the road, Ross would lean forward on his saddle and take
a new survey of the distance, muttering his disappointment in
half-gasped sentences, as he sped along.
“Oh, if I could but overtake the carriage before it reaches the city! A
single glimpse of it might be enough—nothing should take me from the
track; nothing, nothing. Ha! that is it—no, only a sugar-cart. Why did I
let him keep me? I must, I will know who these people are—no, no, I am
foiled at last!”
This exclamation was followed by a sharp check to the horse, who was
still bounding forward at the top of his speed. The city lay before him;
but along the winding highway, over which his eye ran like lightning,
there was no carriage at all resembling the one that Louisa had
described to him as that which had borne her young charge away.
At a slow pace, but with his horse reeking with the effects of his
former hot speed, Ross rode into the city. He took a circuitous route,
to his own counting-house, and held a long consultation with a young man
whom he found there. This lasted several hours; and then the two walked
arm-in-arm toward the city prison.
Through the gloomy labyrinths of this prison the two men made their way,
conversing together in low voices; a turnkey went before them, humming a
tune to himself, and sometimes raising an accompaniment by playfully
dashing a huge iron key, which he held in one hand, against the door of
some prisoner’s cell, smiling grimly as he heard the poor inmate spring
forward, in the vain hope that some friend had come to break the gloom
of his bondage. From time to time, the two visitors seemed to study this
man’s face with close scrutiny; and as some new manifestation of
character broke forth in his manner or his song, they would exchange
glances that were full of meaning.
“Offer him gold!” whispered Ross to his companion; “say that is for his
trouble; we can judge something by the manner in which he receives it.”
“True,” was the emphatic but whispered reply, “it will be a sure test.”
The officer paused at the entrance of a cell, and placed his key in the
lock. “This is De Grainges’ cell, gentlemen; how long will you wish to
stay with him?”
“We may wish to remain so long that you will suffer some inconvenience,”
said Ross’s companion, dropping his hand into a pocket with that easy
grace which renders the most singular acts of some men perfectly natural
in their seeming. “Here is something to repay the trouble we may
occasion.”
The turnkey reached forth his hand eagerly for the silver coin which he
supposed the stranger was about to offer him, but when he saw a bright
piece of gold glittering in his palm, the sudden joy of his heart broke
with a sort of gloating ferocity over his face, and with a low chuckle
he folded his other hand over the gold, and began to rub the palms
together, with the coin between them in a warm clasp, as if he thought
thus to infuse some portion of the precious metal into his own person.
Ross and his companion had stepped within the cell, and thus, clouded
with semi-darkness themselves, watched the man, whose face was fully
revealed in the broadly-lighted corridor.
“It will do,” whispered Ross, smiling, “it will do.”
“Yes,” said the other thoughtfully; “he is one of those who would sell
his soul for money.”
The man said this with the air of one who reflected sadly upon the
infirmities of human nature, and really felt shocked at the gross
cupidity that himself had tempted; and so it was. He did not reflect
that he himself was there for no purpose on earth, but to barter _his
own_ soul for the very yellow dross, only in a larger amount; that he
was ready to yield to this man’s bartered treachery; that all the
difference between himself and the man he tempted, lay in the price
which each set upon his integrity. But the great villain despised the
lesser sincerely, and sighed that human nature could be so degraded. So
it is all over the world. Those who shroud their crimes in purple and
fine linen, ever do and ever will look down with benign contempt on
those who fold lesser crimes scantily in poverty and rags; so scantily
that the world sees them as they are, coarse, rude, and glaring.
Thus, shaking their heads and sighing over the degeneracy of the human
heart, these two arch-villains entered the cell of De Grainges, the
bigamist, leaving the officer without to gloat over his piece of gold.
A tall man, pale from confinement, and yet possessed of a certain air of
languid elegance, sat within the cell writing. He looked up, as the two
visitors entered, and regarded them with an expression of nervous
surprise, but observing that they were gentlemen in appearance, arose
courteously, and placed the chair, in which he had been sitting, for
Ross. The cell contained but two seats, and the prisoner stood up with
his arms folded, and leaning in a position that had much grace in it
against the wall.
“You have come, gentlemen,” said the prisoner, in a low, sad voice—“you
have doubtless come to tell me that the time of my sentence has
arrived?”
“No,” said Ross; “that would be a painful task, and one from which we
are happily saved. We come, as friends, to ask some questions regarding
this singular case. Perhaps we may have the power—we certainly have the
will—to serve you.”
“It is too late,” replied the prisoner, sadly. “My trial is over. Why
they have not sentenced me before this is incomprehensible.”
“To you, perhaps, but not to us. You have strong friends outside; those
who have done something in keeping back the sentence, and may do
more—obtain, for instance, a new trial.”
“To what end?” questioned the prisoner. “I am guilty. I have confessed
it. In the wild delirium of a passion that was never equaled in the
heart of man, I married the most confiding and lovely creature that ever
lived. The fraud was detected. My wife—my living wife forced herself
into the home where I had sheltered my falsely-won bride. Zulima would
not love the villain who had wronged her. She left me; and without her I
care very little whether it is to a prison or a grave.”
“But what if Zulima loved you yet? What if she only desired that in this
trial your right to her could be established?”
The prisoner shook his head.
“I only say,” continued Ross, “if this were the case; if a new trial
were granted, if there was no lack of funds to pave the way through
court, would you not, having a new trial, suppress the proofs of this
former marriage? Might not your wife herself be persuaded to aid in
clearing you?”
“No,” replied the prisoner, firmly. “It could not be. My wife pursues me
with that strong hate which is born of baffled passion. Zulima ceased to
love me.”
“Because she believed her marriage unlawful,” said Ross.
“It was unlawful. I have acknowledged it again and again. Zulima had
nothing left—nothing but her freedom from the man that had wronged her
to hope for. I would not deprive her of that.”
“And if the means were before you? If you could obtain a new trial, this
first marriage, you are certain, would be proven against you?”
“I am very certain,” replied the prisoner.
“Remember, if they fail to prove the first marriage, you are free
forever, and Zulima is your lawful wife. Is not this worth an effort?”
The unhappy man clasped his hands, and for a moment there broke through
his sad eyes a luster that was perfectly dazzling.
“Worth an effort!” he said. “Oh, heavens! I would die but to see her
look upon me again with love for a single moment.”
“Then why not make the effort?”
“Because I know that Zulima has ceased to love me. She is young,
beautiful. I feel that she has brought me here, not for revenge, but
that herself may attain honorable freedom. I would not raise my hand to
thwart her in the just object.”
The two men looked anxiously at each other. They were astounded by the
strange magnanimity of the prisoner.
“I tell you,” said Ross, earnestly “this thing can be brought about.
Your counsel have seen the witnesses. Gold is a potent agent. Even your
wife yields; she will not appear. You can be cleared of this charge; you
can claim Zulima as your lawful wife. We pledge ourselves to accomplish
all that we have proposed.”
“Gentlemen, you seem kind, and I thank you; but I _know_ that the wrong
which I inflicted on that young girl has been followed by her aversion;
she has told me so. She is not my lawful wife; without her love—her
firm, earnest love, I would not claim her if she were. All that she
desires is freedom; that she shall have, though it cost my life instead
of a few years’ imprisonment.”
Ross arose and went into the corridor, where he conversed in a low voice
and very earnestly with the turnkey. Meantime the prisoner sat down in
the empty chair, and burying his face in his hands, seemed to be lost in
bitter thought. When Ross returned he arose and stood up, but his face
was haggard, and he seemed to suffer much from the struggle that had
been aroused in his breast.
“Then you are determined not to claim a new trial?”
“I am,” was the reply.
“Perhaps it is as well; but we are the friends of Zulima. She suffers,
she shrinks from the thought of your imprisonment. This new appeal may
be impossible, but there is another way. Your trial has done all for
Zulima that can be accomplished; it sets her free. Now she would give
that to you, which your self devotion will secure to her—freedom.
To-night, De Grainges, the means of escape will be provided; at
daybreak, to-morrow, a vessel sails for Europe; you must become one of
her passengers.”
“And does _she_ desire this?” asked the prisoner, aroused all at once
from the stubborn resolve of self-sacrifice that had possessed him.
“She does; we are her messengers.”
“To-night—this is sudden! and she desires it? She deems the trial that
has taken place sufficient for her emancipation from the hateful bonds
that made her mine. You are certain of this?”
“Most certain.”
“And the means of escape?”
“Leave that to us. The time, midnight; be ready. That is all we desire
of you.”
“I will be ready,” said the young man, falling into the chair which Ross
had just left, and overcome with a sudden sense of freedom—freedom given
by the woman whom he had so deeply wronged. His nerves, hitherto so
firm, began to tremble, and covering his face with both hands, he burst
into tears. When he looked up the two strangers had left the cell.
The next morning, when Ross entered his counting-room, he found the
turnkey talking with his partner. Just then Mr. Clark entered also, but
with a harassed and anxious expression of countenance.
“My friend,” said Ross, advancing toward him, “you have come at the
right moment to hear this man’s news from his own lips. I fear it will
give you pain. No, I had better tell it myself; he is a stranger, and
knows nothing of your interest in the mother. Step this way, sir.”
“What is this? For what would you prepare me? Zulima—”
“Is well, and becoming reconciled to her loss; but De Grainges—”
“What of him, sir? what of that unhappy man?” inquired Mr. Clark,
sternly.
“He has broken prison; he escaped last night.”
Mr. Clark staggered. The color left his lip, and he leaned heavily on
the back of a chair. “My poor, poor wife! will her trials never have an
end?” he exclaimed with deep feeling, and, turning hastily, he left the
counting-room.
“It will be some time before he acknowledges her now,” said Ross, in a
low voice, to his partner. “See how his step wavers.”
“That may waver, but his pride never will,” was the low reply.
“Never!” said Campbell.
And he was right. Poor, poor Zulima!