A nervous headache, that confined me to my bed for several days,
succeeded the degrading and exciting scene through which I had passed,
and, as Mrs. Clayton had at the same time one of her prostrating
neuralgic attacks, the services of Dinah were in active requisition.
During my own peculiar phase of suffering, the small racket of Ernie,
unnoticed in hours of health, grated painfully on my ear, and I caught
eagerly at the proposition of the negress to take him down-stairs for a
walk and hours of play in the sunshine, privileges he did not very often
obtain in these latter days.
I was much the better for having lain silently for a time, when he
returned with his hands filled with flowers, his lips smelling of
peppermint-drops, and his eyes, always his finest feature, dancing with
delight.
He had seen Ady, he told me, with eagerness, and she had kissed him, and
tied a string of beads about his neck--red ones--which he displayed; and
"Ady had a comb in her head, and her toof was broke"--touching one of
his own front teeth lightly, so that I knew he was not pointing out any
deficiency in the afore-mentioned comb. From this description, vague as
it was, I identified Ada Greene as the person intended to be described;
for I too had observed the imperfection he made a point of--a broken
tooth, impairing the beauty of otherwise faultless ones.
"And who gave you the flowers, Ernie?" I asked, receiving them from his
generous hands as I spoke, and raising the white roses to my nostrils to
inhale their delicate breath, "Did Ady give you these?"
"No--Angy!" he answered, solemnly.
"Tell me about Angy, Ernie--had she wings?"
"No wings! Poor Angy could not fly. She was walking in the garden with
Adam and Eve, with their clothes on," he said, earnestly.
"Mr. and Mrs. Claude Bainrothe, no doubt," I thought, smiling at the
strange mixture of the real and the ideal--the plates of the old Bible
evidently supplied the latter, from which many of his impressions were
derived--and the practical pair in question the former, quietly
perambulating together.
But "Angy!" Could I doubt for one moment to whom he applied that
celestial title? The face of one of the angels in the transfiguration
did, indeed, resemble Mabel's. I had often remarked and pondered over
it.
"Tell me about Angy, Ernie," I entreated. "O Heaven! to think her hands
have touched these flowers--her sweet face bent above him! Darling,
darling! to be divided and yet so near! It breaks my heart!" and tears
flowed freely while he tried to describe the vision that had so
impressed him, in his earnest way.
"Poor Angy got no wings," he began again; "bu hair, and bu eyes, and bu
dress"--every thing he admired was blue--"and she kissed Ernie and gave
him peppermint-drops. Then Adam and Eve laughed just so"--grinning
wonderfully--"and said, 'Go home, bad, ugly child, with a back on!' Then
Angy pulled flowers and gave Ernie!"
"It is only the little gal next door--I means de young lady ob de
'stabishment, wut de poor, foolish, humped-shouldered baby talking
about," Dinah explained. "He calls her 'Angy,' I s'pose, 'cause she's so
purty like; and you tells him 'bout dem hebbenly kine of people, so de
say, mos' ebbery night. Does you think dar is such tings, sure enough,
Mirry?"
"Certainly, Dinah--the Bible tells us so; but what is the name of the
pretty little girl of whom you speak? Tell me, if you know"--and I laid
my hand upon her arm and whispered this inquiry, waiting impatiently for
a confirmation of my almost certainty. For, that my darling _was_
Ernie's Angy, I could not doubt, and the thought moved me to tremulous
emotion.
"Dar, now! you is going to hab one ob dem bad turns agin--I sees it in
your eyes. You see," dropping her voice for a moment, "I darsn't dar to
speak out plain and 'bove-board heah, as if I was at home in Georgy!
Ehbery ting is wat dey calls a 'mist'ry hereabouts; an' I has bin
notified not to tell ob no secret doins ob deirn to any airthly creeter,
onless I wants to be smacked into jail an' guv up to my wrong owners. My
own folks went down on de 'Scewsko;' an' I means to wait till I see how
dat 'state's gwine to be settled up afore I pursents myself as 'mong de
live ones. We is all published as dead, you sees, honey, an' it would be
no lie to preach our funeral, or eben put up our foot-board. He--he--he!
I wonder wat my ole man 'll say ef he ebber sees me comin' back agin wid
a bag full ob money? I guess it 'll skeer de ole creeter out ob a year's
growfe; but dis is de trufe! Ef Miss Polly Allen gits de 'state (she was
my mistis's born full-sifter, an' a mity fine ole maid, I tells you,
chile!), wy, den Sabra 'll he found to be no ghose; fur it's easier to
lib wid good wite folks Souf dan Norf. We hab our own housen dar, an'
pigs, an' poultry, an' taturs, an' a heap besides, an' time to come an'
go, an' doctors won we's sick, an' our own preachin', an' de banjo an'
bones to dance by, an' de best ob funeral 'casions an' weddin's bofe,
an' no cole wedder, an' nuffin to do but set by de light wood-fiah, an'
smoke a pipe wen we gits past work; an' we chooses our own time to lay
by--some sooner, some later, 'cordin' as de jints holes out. But here it
is work--work--work--all de time; good pay, but no holiday, no yams, no
possum-meat, an' mity mean colored siety!"
"But what has all this to do with the name of the little girl next door?
Whisper that, and tell me the rest afterward."
"But, if Master Jack Dillard gits de 'state," she proceeded, as though
she had not heard my eager question, "wy, den Sabra Smif am as dead as a
door-nail from dis time to de day ob judgment, an' de ole man 'll have
to git anoder 'fectionate companion, I'se mity sorry for de poor ole
soul, but I a'n't gwine to put myself in Jack Dillard's claws, not ef I
knows myself. He's one ob dem young wite sort wat lubs de card-table,
an' don't 'scriminate atween ole an' young folks. You see, he's my
masta's nevy--for de ole folks had no chillun but Miss May Jane, an'
she's bin dead dis fifteen yeer; and bofe her chilluns dun follered her
to de grabe, so dere is only Miss Polly Ann lef, and--"
Here Mrs. Clayton groaned audibly, and, calling Dinah to her aid, broke
up the _tete-a-tete_, if such might justly have been called our
interview. It was not very long, however, before Dinah returned to my
bedside, by Mrs. Clayton's directions, to offer to comb out my hair,
which was tangled beyond my skill to thread in my prostrate condition.
Yet, to make an effort so far as to rise and have this done, I knew
would be of benefit to me.
We were sitting by the toilet, while the process of untangling my
massive length of locks was going on, and the upper drawer thereof was
half open, thus affording me a glimpse of its contents. Among these was
my silent watch with its chain of gold, its pencil and seal attached. I
wore it usually (though useless now in its silent condition--the
mainspring was broken) from habit and for safe keeping, but had laid it
there when I staggered to my bed, ill and weak after my terrible
interview with Mr. Bainrothe.
It caught the eye of Dinah and stirred her master-passion, avarice, and
she began to question me, I soon saw, with a view of getting it in her
own possession. The selfishness of the old negress had struck me on the
raft as something rare even in one of her shallow race, and my
conviction of her cowardice and coldness prevented me from taking
advantage of her cupidity, as I might have done otherwise.
She was fully capable, I felt convinced, of accepting my watch as a
bribe, and failing afterward to come up to her bargain. Yet, dear as it
was to me from association of ideas, I should not have weighed it an
instant against the merest probability of escape. I knew if I could gain
an hour upon my pursuers, I should be safe in the house of Dr.
Pemberton, or even in that of Dr. Craig, another friend of my father's.
I was comparatively at home anywhere in the city of my nativity,
acquainted as I was with its streets and people, and I fully determined,
when I found Sabra's avarice excited, to offer her as a reward this
golden treasure, should she first place me in circumstances to gain my
freedom.
"Dey calls you pore, honey," she said softly, "but wen I sees dat bright
gole watch and chain I knows better. Now I reckon dey would bring enough
bright silver dollars at a juglar's shop ty buy my ole man twice over
agin! He is but porely, and our chilluns is all dead and gone, anyway,
all but one, way down in New Orleans, an' ef I could git his free papers
he might come here and jine his wife in freedom, even if Massa Jack
Dillard did heir masta's estate. How much would dat watch and chain be
worth, honey?"
"Two or three hundred dollars, I suppose, I don't know exactly; but
certainly enough to buy your old man at Southerners' value set upon aged
negroes; but whether it be or not--"
An apparition, of which I fortunately caught the reflection in the glass
before me, cut short the promise that hovered on my lips. It was that of
Mrs. Clayton, in her bed-gown and swathed in flannel, peering, peeping,
listening at the door of her chamber, as unlovely a vision, certainly,
as ever broke up an _entretien_ or dissolved a delusion.
I maintained my self-possession, though my agitation was extreme (the
crisis had seemed so favorable!), while she limped forward and accosted
me civilly, with a demand as peremptory as a highwayman's for my watch
and chain, of which I took no notice.
"I should be doing you great injustice in your condition," she added,
coolly, "to let you sell your watch, even to benefit Dinah and her old
man, benevolent as is your motive; so I must take possession of it, or
send for Dr. Englehart to do so, whichever you prefer."
"The watch is there," I said, rising haughtily, with my still unadjusted
hair falling about me. "It was my father's and is precious to me far
beyond its intrinsic value; and I shall hold you accountable for it some
day. Take it at once, though, rather than recall the person before me
with whose presence you menace me. Keep it yourself, however; I would
rather deal with you than the others, false as you have shown yourself
to every promise."
"I wish you would be reasonable," she said, "and do what your friends
ask of you. This confinement is wearing us both out; it will be the
death of me, and you will be to blame."
"The sooner the better," I rejoined, heartlessly.
"Ah, Miss Monfort, you have no better friend than I am, perhaps, but you
are ungrateful."
"I hope not; but some things of late have shaken, I confess, what little
faith I had in you; this confiscation of my property is one of them."
"You know why this is done; I need not explain, but I shall trust you
fearlessly in Dinah's society in future. I believe you have no other
treasure to bribe her with," and, smiling in her sardonic way, she
turned and limped to her bedroom, which it had cost her so great an
effort to leave. Her groans and moans during the remainder of the
evening were piteous, and Dinah could do nothing to comfort her. A
sudden determination possessed me. My own system recuperated rapidly,
and after a nervous headache I was always conscious of renewed vital
power and of keener sensations. I would try the experiment once
more--hazarded under circumstances so different that it made me
tremulous but to think of the vast abyss between my _now_ and then--and
essay to magnetize Mrs. Clayton.
She could not sleep naturally, and she feared evidently to avail herself
of opiates, lest in her heavy slumber, perhaps, I should escape. In her
normal condition this seemed impossible, for she slept habitually as
lightly as a cat, or bird upon its perch, yet lying, and with her key
beneath her head (never dreaming of other outlet) she felt at ease. I
had already learned that since her illness there were additional
precautions taken to insure my safety, and, as she had alleged, her own
fidelity.
The Dragon was watched in turn by a Cerberus--no other than the
long-trusted colored coachman of Basil Bainrothe, of whom mention has
been made far back in these pages.
Thus secure and secured, Mrs. Clayton might have surrendered herself to
slumber with all serenity, one would suppose, had it not absolutely
refused to visit her eyelids, and the suggestion of an opiate, on my
part, was received for some reason in dumb derision.
I went to her at last, and said: "Mrs. Clayton, I hear you groaning
grievously, and I fancy I could relieve you. The laying on of hands is a
sort of gift of mine; let me try by such means to ease your pain."
"Thank you, Miss Monfort," very dryly, "you are very kind, indeed, but I
don't think you can relieve me. I have excruciating neuralgia in my
eyebones and temples, and my hands are cramped again. Dinah has been,
rubbing, without bettering them, for the last half hour."
"Let me try," and, without farther parley, I sat down to my
self-appointed, loathed, and detested task, first quietly dismissing
Dinah to the next room, where Ernie was eating his supper, and I knew
would soon be wanting to be put to bed. We changed places for a time,
and it was not long before Mrs. Clayton pronounced the pain, in her eyes
"almost gone." The experiment was a desperate one, and I bore to it all
the powers of my organization--mental and physical--and had the
satisfaction in less than an hour to see her sleeping profoundly. She
had been failing fast under her painful vigils, and I knew that a few
hours of refreshing sleep would be worth to her more than all the drugs
in the Pharmacopoeia. Now came the test which was to make this slumber
worth nothing or every thing to me. If she could be awakened from it
without my coincidence, it would prove, perhaps, only a snare to my
feet, but if her waking depended on my will, then might I indeed hope to
baffle my Dragon, and, as far as she was concerned, make sure of my
escape. I willed then earnestly that she should sleep until twelve
o'clock; and at ten, when Dinah became impatient to retire, I gave her
permission, in order to gain egress to try and arouse Mrs. Clayton.
In consequence of this immurement of our servant, I had remained
supperless--beyond the crusts of bread left by Ernie and some cold tea
in Mrs. Clayton's teapot, of which I partook with an appetite born of
exhaustion. Those who have undertaken this "laying on of hands," for the
purpose of soothing pain, will comprehend what the succeeding sensation
of nerveless prostration is--those only--and give me their sympathy.
From her errand to arouse our sleeper in quest of the key, of course
Dinah returned disconsolate. Greatly to my satisfaction, she stated that
it was "out ob de question to try to git her eyes open. Why honey," she
pursued, "ef I didn't know what a steady-goin' Christian creetur she
was, I mout suppose she had bin 'bibin' of whisky or peach-brandy--dat's
de sleepiest stuff goin', chile; but I does believe she has the fallin'
fits, caze, even wen I pulled open one corner of her eyes, dey was
rolled clean back in her head. Mebbe she's dyin', chile, an' ef she
is--but no!" she muttered, "dat ole creetur down-stairs nebber leaves
dem back-doors opun one minute, you had better believe, even ef he
happens to turn his back a spell, an' it would be no use tryin' to git
out ob de 'stablishment dat way, but I knows whar she keeps her key, an'
I kin go to bed myself if you say so, an' you kin lock de do' inside,
an' lay de key back undernefe her pillow: you see dar's a bolt outside,
too, honey, an' I means to draw dat after me, as ole Caleb always does
ob nights wen he goes to bed."
Chuckling low at the manifest disappointment in my face, she
disappeared, to return almost instantly.
"I thought she must be possumin'," she said, "but I know she is as fas'
asleep now as de bar' in de hollow ob a tree in cole wedder, for she
made no 'sistance like wen I grabbed de key from undernefe her head, an'
here it is, chile, an' ef you wants to try your 'speriment you kin, but
I spec you'd better wait a spell," and she looked cunningly at me;
"dere's traps everywhar in dese woods!"
It occurred to me as well that Mrs. Clayton might be feigning slumber,
having penetrated my design of lulling and soothing her fitful spirit to
rest; and feeling, as I did, an utter want of confidence in Sabra, not
only as free agent but as watched attendant, I determined as far as in
me lay to disarm suspicion by duplicity. So I lifted up my voice in
testimony of deceit, and declared my weariness of bondage to be such
that I had determined to embrace Mr. Bainrothe's conditions, and that in
a few days I should be free again without assistance.
"So take the key, Dinah," I said, after observing it closely, and
perceiving that it was several sizes larger than that I had made, as
clumsy as that was, and, therefore, could be of no use to me. "Let
yourself out, and bolt the door behind you, and Mrs. Clayton shall see
that I will take no mean advantage of her slumbers."
This arrangement having been carried with speedy effect, I returned to
my own chamber after a close scrutiny of Mrs. Clayton's condition, and
employed myself at, once in running my penknife around the door
concealed by my bed-head, and thus loosening the paper, pasted on cotton
cloth, that covered it, from that of the wall, with which it was
connected so intimately as to make the whole surface within the chamber
seem to form one partition.
Long before this I had cut that which surrounded the lock, so that it
lay like a flap over it, fastened down lightly, however, with gum-arabic
(part of Ernie's draught for a catarrh), so as to baffle slight
inspection. My heart beat wildly as, after having effected this
preliminary step, I cautiously unlocked the door, which, for aught I
knew, might be, like that of Mrs. Clayton's closet, bolted without, so
as to frustrate all my efforts. It opened outwardly, and could have been
readily so secured.
In the great providence of God, it was not bolted. I sank on my knees,
weak and prayerful, I remember, as the door swung slightly back,
revealing the platform beyond, and the short stair that led from it up
to the second story. The hinges creaked a little, and these I hastened
to oil; then closing and relocking the door softly, I crept (without
pushing my bedstead back again the few inches I had wheeled it forward)
to look once more upon the sleeping face of Mrs. Clayton.
It was still calm and unconscious. Ernie, too, slumbered peacefully.
Every thing seemed propitious to my purpose. I threw on hastily the
famous, flimsy black silk and mantle that had been prepared for me on
shipboard, tied a dark veil over my head, and, with no other
precaution, went forth, as I hoped, to freedom.
My heart seemed to suspend its action as, cautiously unlocking and
opening the door, I stepped forth on the platform. It will be remembered
that I knew the topography of the lower part of the house of old
thoroughly.
I had been entertained there with my father more than once, when, as
heiress of my mother's great estate, I had commanded the reverence of my
hosts, and the situation of parlors, study, and dining-room, was
perfectly familiar to me.
It was what in those days was called a single house, though a
spacious-enough mansion; that is, all the rooms, with one exception,
were placed either on the same side of the wide hall of entrance, or
behind it in the ell. The study alone formed a small lateral projection
on the other hand. The door of this apartment opened at the foot of that
stair, on the tipper platform of which I now stood trembling, weighing
my fate by a hair. I had left the door ajar through which I had crept
quietly, so that, in case of failure, I might have a chance of retreat
before discovery should be made. It was well, perhaps, that I did so on
this occasion, for otherwise I should scarcely have had nerve enough to
avoid the sure and speedy detection which must have followed the
slightest delay or noise made in returning.
I lingered to reconnoitre some minutes on the platform before I ventured
to commence the wary descent of the broad, carpeted stairway. I had
convinced myself that the second story was empty, though a lighted lamp
swung in the upper entry, as well as in that below, throwing a flood of
radiance on the scene with which I would fain have dispensed.
I heard the sound of voices from the closed parlors, and saw reposing on
the rack before me several hats and canes, indicative of visitors. From
the study, however, there fortunately came no murmur, and I found that
it was dark. The front-door stood invitingly open; I could see the
opposite lamp-post without, and I had made up my mind to dart on and
downward, and reach at a bound the pavement, when the door of the first
parlor was suddenly thrown back, and left so, by a servant coming out
with a tray of wines and fruits which he had been evidently handing, and
I had just time to shrink into shadow, favored in my wish for
concealment by the black dress and veil I wore, when a once familiar
form appeared in the door-way of the front hall, which I recognized at a
glance as that of Gregory. Closing the door firmly after him, he
prepared to divest himself of hat and cape in the hall, without a look
in my direction. After the completion of which process he entered the
parlor by the nearest door, setting that also wide open as he did so,
with some exclamation about the heat of the apartment, which seemed to
meet with acquiescence from the powers within.
I caught a panoramic view of that interior before I fled swiftly,
noiselessly, hopelessly, back to my cage again, having lost my only
chance of escape by that fatal delay of five minutes on the platform. I
should have been out and away on the wings of the wind ere Gregory
entered the inclosure before the house, had I not hesitated. Yet, after
all, perhaps, I miscalculated. What if I had met him face to face--been
seized and dragged back again to captivity! Perchance it was better as
it was. Time would develop and determine this; but, in the interval, how
woeful was my disappointment!
I had time to get to bed again, and in some degree recover my
composure; indeed, I had been in bed an hour when the clock in the
dining-room beneath me, which, since the evident occupancy of that
long-deserted hall, had been wound and put in running order, struck
twelve, with its deep-mouthed, melodramatic tones, and at the very
moment I heard sounds indicative of the resurrection of the mesmeric
sleeper.
She was evidently startled in some way on finding herself awake again,
or perhaps from having fallen so soundly asleep in hands like mine, for
she called aloud first for "Dinah," then, repeatedly, on "Miriam," both
without effect. In a few moments after these appeals had died away she
came in person, as I knew she would, to reconnoitre.
The bedstead had been pushed carefully and noiselessly back again on its
grooved castors against the door, from the lock of which the wooden key
had been removed, rewashed in oil, and hidden away in that hollow
aperture in the bedstead, which formed a perfect box, by the skillful
readjustment of one loosened compartment of the veneering of the massive
post.
She shook me slightly, and I rose in my bed with a start and shudder,
admirably simulated, I fancied, and which completely deceived her
evidently. "I am sorry to have startled you so," she said, hurriedly,
"but where is Dinah, Miss Monfort, and how did she get out?"
"I really cannot inform you where she is," I answered, petulantly. "I
scarcely think it was worth while to disturb me for the sake of asking
me a question you must have known, my inability to answer."
"But how did she get out, Miss Harz?"
"By means of the key under your head, which you will find in the lock,
no doubt, where it was left. She promised me, insolently enough, to
bolt the door outside to prevent egress, and I, to prevent ingress,
locked it within."
"So she assured you we were both prisoners by night, did she? Well, I am
glad you have proof at last of what I told you."
"I have no proof; but, as I have made up my mind to come to terms of
some kind very soon, I thought it useless to investigate. Do you feel
better for my laying on of hands? You seem refreshed."
"Yes, greatly better; a good sleep was what I needed, and I fell into a
doze while you were beside the bed, I believe. I have heard of magnetism
before as a means of relief for pain; now I am convinced of its
efficacy."
"Magnetism! You don't think it amounts to that, do you? You flatter me;"
and I laughed.
"I do, indeed, and I am sure I am much obliged to you, Miss Monfort;
though, for that matter, you can never say, even when you come to your
own again--which you will now do shortly--that I have not been
considerate and attentive to you while in confinement."
"You need not be afraid of any complaint as far as you are concerned. I
think I comprehend you and your motives by this time. Let there be peace
between us from this hour." And I extended my hand to her, which, very
unexpectedly to me, she seized and kissed--a proceeding deprecated
loathingly. "I assure you," I added, laughingly, "I would rather even
marry Englehart than continue here."
"Then you will marry Mr. Gregory?"
"I do not know--either that or die, I suppose--whichever God pleases. I
am weary of being a prisoner--weary of you, of every thing about me. All
that I cared for is lost to me, and I might as well surrender, I
suppose; not at discretion, however!"
She turned from me silently, and sought her couch again; but I felt
instinctively that she slept no more; and so we lay, silently watching
one another, until morning. I dared not renew my efforts to escape, at
all events, in the night-time, when I knew the house was locked, and
watched without, as well as within--for this was the old habit of the
square.
One--two--three--four o'clock came, and passed, and were reported by the
deep-tongued clock in the room beneath me, before I slept, and then I
dreamed a vision so vivid, that I wakened from it excited--exhausted--as
though its frightful figments had been stern realities.
I thought that the noble dog Ossian came to me again and laid the
double-footed key upon my lap, as he had done at Beauseincourt--staining
my white dress with blood, not mud, this time, and that Colonel La Vigne
struck it furiously to the floor, and handed me instead the wooden one I
had carved, with the words of the proverb:
"The opportunity lost is like the arrow sped: it comes no more. Your
wooden key will fail you next time, as it has failed you this, and you
will be baffled--baffled--as you tried to baffle me! Miriam, unseen I
pursue you!"
Then he laughed horribly, and faded in the gray dawn, to which I awoke,
covered with cold dew, and trembling in every limb. Had he been there,
indeed, in spiritual presence? Was it his hand that had left that hand
about my brow--that surging in my brain--that weight upon my heart? O
God! had I indeed become the sport of fiends? At last I wept, and in my
tears found sullen comfort. The image so often caviled at as false in
_Hamlet_ came to me then as the readiest interpretation of what I
suffered, and thus proved its own fidelity and truth. "A sea of sorrow"
did indeed seem to roll above me, against which I felt the vanity of
"taking arms."
My destruction was decreed, and I had nothing to do but suffer and
submit!
All the persecution I had sustained since my father's death, at the
hands of Evelyn and Basil Bainrothe--all my wrongs, beginning at the
heart-betrayal of Claude, and ending with the immurement I was suffering
now at the hands of his father--all my strange life at Beauseincourt,
with its episode of horror, its one reality of perfect happiness too
fair to last, its singular revelations, its warm and deep attachments,
my fearful and nightmare-like experience on the burning ship, the level
raft, with the green waves curling above it, the rescue, the snare into
which I had inevitably fallen, the Inquisition-walls closing around
me--all were there in one vivid and overwhelming mental summary!
I think if ever madness came near me in my life, it came that night, so
crushing, so terrific was this weight which, Sysiphus like, memory was
rolling to the summit of the present moment, to fall back again by the
power of its own weight to the valley below--the valley of despair--and
destroy all that it encountered or found beneath it. Yet, by the time
the sun was up, my eyes were sealed again in slumber.
Before I close this chapter, it will be as well to describe the tableau
I had caught sight of through the open parlor door when I tempted my
fate and failed.
Standing close in the shadow, so that, even if directed toward me
unconsciously, the glance of those within, I knew, could not penetrate
the mystery of my presence, I scanned with a sad derision the scene
before me. With a glance I received the impression that it required
moments to convey in narrative.
On the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, his legs apart, his
coat-skirts parted behind him, stood Basil Bainrothe, monarch of all he
surveyed, with extended hand, evidently demonstrating some axiom to the
two visitors ensconced on the sofa near him, who, with the exception of
their booted feet, and the straps of their pantaloons, were beyond my
angle of vision. On the opposite side of the chimney from these
inscrutable guests sat two ladies, elaborately dressed and rouged, in
whom I recognized at a glance Evelyn Erie and Mrs. Raymond. Just before
I vanished, Claude Bainrothe, courteous in manner and elegant in
exterior, approached them from the other parlor, in time to witness the
_entree_ of Gregory, to which I have referred, and to salute him
cordially. That these were all confederated I could not doubt, and
prepared to aid each other. How could I know that one pair of those
evident feet belonged to the invisible body of a man who was one of the
few whom I could have called to my defense from the ends of the earth,
had choice of champions been afforded me? It was not until long
afterward that I ascertained beyond a doubt that Major Favraud had
formed one of that company on the occasion of my fatal failure. Had I
dreamed of his presence, I should fearlessly have entered the parlor,
and thrown myself on his brotherly protection, secure of his best
efforts to rescue me, even though his own heart's blood had been the
sacrifice.
Alas! should I ever find another dart like that, never to be recalled,
to launch in the right direction, and fix quivering in the eye of the
target?--God alone could know.