presence Edgar Sellick. He had been like myself hard at work, and had
become weary, and anxious perhaps for a change, or, as I am now
compelled to think, eager to talk of one whose very existence I was
tempted to forget when she was, as then, away from home. He had come
into the room where I was, and was standing, flushed and handsome, in
the one bright streak of sunlight that flashed at that moment over the
floor. I had always liked him, and thought him the only real gentleman
in town, but something quite new in my experience made my heart swell as
I met his eyes that day, and though I will not call it love (not now),
it was something which greatly moved me and made me feel that in the
gaze and seeming interest of this man I saw the true road to happiness
and to the only life which would ever really satisfy me. For, let it be
my excuse, under all my vanity, a vanity greater for the seeming check
it had received, dwelt an ardent and irrepressible desire for affection,
such affection as I had never received since my dying mother laid her
trembling hand upon my head and bade me trust the good God for a
happiness I had never possessed. My disfigurement owed its deepest sting
to the fact, never revealed to others before, and scarcely acknowledged
to myself then, that it stood in the way, as I thought, to my ever being
passionately beloved. When, therefore, I saw the smile on Dr. Sellick's
face, and realized that he was looking for me, I rose up with new hopes
in my heart and a new brightness in my life.
"But we said nothing, he or I, beyond the merest commonplaces, and had
my powers of observation been as keen then as they are now, since a new
light has been shed upon those days, I would have perceived that his eye
did not brighten when it rested upon me, save when some chance mention
was made of Emma, and of the pleasures she was enjoying abroad. But no
doubts came to me at that time. Because my heart was warm I took it for
granted that his was so also, and not dreaming of any other reason for
his attentions than the natural one of his desiring my society for its
own sake, I gradually gave myself up to a feeling of which it is shame
now for me to speak, but which, as it was the origin of all my troubles,
I must compel myself to acknowledge here in all its force and fervor.
"The fact that he never uttered a word of love or showed me any
attention beyond that of being constantly at my side, did not serve to
alarm or even dispirit me. I knew him to have just started upon his
career as physician, and also knew him to be proud, and was quite
content to cherish my hopes and look towards a future that had
unaccountably brightened into something very brilliant indeed.
"It was while matters were in this condition that Emma came home from
her trip. I remember the occasion well, and how pretty she looked in her
foreign gowns. You, who have only seen her under a shadow, cannot
imagine how pleasing she was, fresh from her happy experiences abroad,
and an ocean trip, which had emphasized the roses on her cheek and the
brightness in her eyes. But though I saw it all and felt that I could
never compete with the gaiety which was her charm, I did not feel that
old sickly jealousy of her winsome ways which once distorted her figure
in my eyes, nor did I any longer hate her laugh or shrink from her merry
banter. For I had my own happiness, as I thought, and could afford to be
lenient towards a gay young thing who had no secret hope like mine to
fill her heart and make it too rich with joy for idle mirth.
"It was a gay season for humble little Marston, and various picnics
followed by a ball in Hartford promised festivities enough to keep us
well alive. I did not care for festivities, but I did care for Dr.
Sellick, and picnics and balls offered opportunities beyond those given
by his rather commonplace visits to the house. I therefore looked
forward to the picnics at the seashore with something like expectancy,
and as proof of my utter blindness to the real state of affairs, it
never even entered into my head that it would be the scene of his first
meeting with Emma after an absence of many months.
"Nor did any behavior on his part at this picnic enlighten me as to his
true feelings, or the direction in which they ran. He greeted Emma in my
presence, and the unusual awkwardness with which he took her hand told
me nothing, though it may have whispered something to her. I only
noticed that he had the most refined features and the most intellectual
head of any one present, and was very happy thereat, and disposed to
accord him an interview if he showed any inclination to draw me away
from the rest of the merry-makers. But he did not, though he strolled
several times away by himself; and once I saw him chatting with Emma;
but this fact made no impression upon me and my Fool's Paradise remained
still intact.
"But that night on reaching home I felt that something was going wrong.
Aunt Lovell was then with us, and I saw her cast a glance of dismay upon
me as I entered the room where she and Emma had been closeted together.
Emma, too, looked out of sorts, and hardly spoke to me when I passed her
in the hall. Indeed, that quick temper of which I have already spoken
was visible in her eyes, and if I had opened my own lips I am sure she
would have flashed out with some of her bitter speeches. But I was
ignorant of having given her any cause for anger; so, thinking she was
jealous of the acquirements which I had made in her absence, and the
advantages they now gave me in any gathering where cultured people came
together, I hurried by her in some disdain, and in the quiet of my own
room regained the equanimity my aunt's look and Emma's manifest
ill-feeling towards me had for a moment shaken.
"It was the last time I was to encounter anger in that eye. When I met
her next morning I discovered that some great change had passed over
her. The high spirits I had always secretly deprecated were gone, and in
their place behold an indescribable gentleness of manner which has never
since forsaken her.
"But this was not all; her attitude towards me was different. From
indifference it had budded into love; and if one can become devoted in a
night, then was it devotion that she showed in every look and every word
she bestowed upon me from that day. The occasion for this change I did
not then know; when I did, a change passed over me also.
"Meantime a grave event took place. I was out walking, and my path took
me by the church. I mean the one that stands by itself on the top of the
hill. Perhaps you have been there, perhaps you have not. It is a
lonesome-looking structure, but it has pleasant surroundings, while the
view of the sea which you get from its rear is superb. I often used to
go there, just for the breath of salt-water that seemed to hover about
the place, and as there was a big flat stone in the very spot most
favorable for observation, I was accustomed to sit there for hours with
my book or pencil for company.
"Had Edgar Sellick loved me he would have been acquainted with my
habits. This is apparent to me now, but then I seemed to see nothing
beyond my own wishes and hopes. But this does not explain what happened
to me there. I was sitting on the stone of which I have spoken, and was
looking at the long line of silver light on the horizon which we call
the sea, when I suddenly heard voices. Two men were standing on the
other side of the church, engaged, in all probability, in gazing at the
landscape, but talking on a subject very remote from what they saw
before them. I heard their words distinctly. They were these:
"'I tell you she is beautiful.'
"I did not recognize the voice making use of this phrase, but the one
that answered was well known to me, and its tones went through me like a
knife.
"'Oh, yes, if you only see one side of her face.'
"They were speaking of me, and the last voice, careless, indifferent,
almost disdainful as it was, was that of Edgar Sellick.
"I quailed as at a mortal blow, but I did not utter a sound. I do not
know as I even moved; but that only shows the control a woman
unconsciously holds over herself. For nothing short of a frenzied scream
could have voiced the agony I felt, or expressed the sudden revolt which
took place within me, sickening me at once with life, past, present, and
future. Not till they had strolled away did I rise and dash down the
hill into the wood that lies at its foot, but when I felt myself alone
and well shielded from the view of any chance observer, I groaned again
and again, and wrung my hands in a misery to which I can do but little
justice now. I had been thrust so suddenly out of paradise. I had been
so sure of _his_ regard, _his_ love. The scar which disfigured me in
other eyes had been, as I thought, no detriment in his. He loved me, and
saw nothing in me but what was consistent with that love. And now I
heard him with my own ears speak contemptuously of that scar. All that I
had hoped, all that I had confided in, was gone from me in an instant,
and I felt myself toppling into a misery I could neither contemplate nor
fathom. For an hour I walked the paths of that small wood, communing
with myself; then I took my resolve. Life, which had brought me nothing
but pain and humiliation, was not worth living. The hopes I had
indulged, the love in which I had believed, had proved a mockery, and
the shame which their destruction brought was worse than death, and so
to be more shunned than death. I was determined to die.
"The means were ready to my hand. Further on in that very wood I knew of
a pool. It was a deep, dark, deadly place, as its name of Devil's
Cauldron betokens, and in it I felt I could most fitly end the life that
was dear to no one. I began to stray towards that place. As I went I
thought of home, but with no feelings of longing or compunction. Emma
might be kind, had been kind for the last day or so, but Emma did not
love me, would not sacrifice anything for me, would not grieve, save in
the decent way her sisterhood would naturally require. As for my father,
he would feel the interruption it would cause in his experiments, but
that would not last long, and in a few days he would be again in his
beloved laboratory. No one, not a single being, unless it was dear Aunt
Lovell, would sincerely mourn me or sigh over the death of the poor girl
with a scar. Edgar Sellick might raise his eyebrows in some surprise,
and Edgar Sellick should know what a careless word could do. I had a
pencil and paper in my pocket, and I meant to use them. He should not go
through life happy and careless, when a line from me would show him that
the death of one who had some claims upon his goodness, lay at his door.
"The sight of the dim, dark pool did not frighten me from these
intentions. I was in that half-maddened state of disgust and shame which
makes the promise of any relief look inviting and peaceful. I loved the
depth of that cool, clear water. I saw in it rest, peace, oblivion. Had
I not had that letter to write I would have tasted that rest and peace,
and these words would never have come to your eyes. But the few minutes
I took to write some bitter and incoherent lines to Dr. Sellick saved me
from the doom I contemplated. Have I reason to be thankful it was so?
To-morrow morning will tell me.
"The passion which guided my pencil was still in my face when I laid the
paper down on the bank and placed a stone above it. The eyes which saw
those evidences of passion were doubtless terrified by them, for as I
passed to the brink of the pool and leaned over it I felt a frenzied
grasp on my arm, and turning, I met the look of Emma fixed upon me in
mortal terror and apprehension.
"'What are you going to do?' she cried. 'Why are you leaning over the
Devil's Cauldron like that?'
"I had not wished to see her or to say good-by to any one. But now, that
by some unaccountable chance she had come upon me, in my desperation I
would give her one kiss before I went to my doom.
"'Emma,' I exclaimed, meeting her look without any sharp sense of shame,
'life is not as promising for me as it is for you; life is not promising
for me at all, so I seek to end it.'
"The horror in her eyes deepened. The grasp on my arm became like that
of a man.
"'You are mad,' she cried. 'You do not know what you are doing. What
has happened to drive you to a deed like this? I--I thought--' and here
she stammered and lost for the moment her self-control--'that you seemed
very happy last night.'
"'I was,' I cried. 'I did not know then what a blighted creature I was.
I thought some one might be brought to love me, even with this
frightful, hideous scar on my face. But I know now that I am mistaken;
that no man will ever overlook this; that I must live a lonely life, a
suffering life; and I have not the strength or the courage to do so.
I--I might have been beautiful,' I cried, 'but----'
"Her face, suddenly distorted by the keenest pain, drew my attention,
even at that moment of immeasurable woe, and made me stop and say in
less harsh and embittered tones:
"'No one will miss me very much, so do not seek to stop me.'
"Her head fell forward, her eyes sought the ground, but she did not
loosen her hold on my arm. Instead of that, it tightened till it felt
like a band of steel.
"'You have left a letter there,' she murmured, allowing her eyes to
wander fearfully towards it. 'Was it to me? to our father?'
"'No,' I returned.
"She shuddered, but her eyes did not leave the spot. Suddenly her lips
gave a low cry; she had seen the word _Sellick_.
"'Yes,' I answered in response to what I knew were her thoughts. 'It is
that traitor who is killing me. He has visited me day by day, he has
followed me from place to place; he has sought me, smiled upon me, given
me every token of love save that expressed in words; and now, now I hear
him, when he does not know I am near, speak disrespectfully of my looks,
of this scar, as no man who loves, or ever will love, could speak of any
defect in the woman he has courted.'
"'You did not hear aright,' came passionately from her lips. 'You are
mistaken. Dr. Sellick could not so far forget himself.'
"'Dr. Sellick can and did. Dr. Sellick has given me a blow for which his
fine art of healing can find no remedy. Kiss me, Emma, kiss me, dear
girl, and do not hold me so tight; see, we might tumble into the water
together.'
"'And if we did,' she gasped, 'it would be better than letting you go
alone. No, no, Hermione, you shall never plunge into that pool while I
live to hold you back. Listen to me, listen. Am I nothing to you? Will
you not live for me? I have been careless, I know, happy in my own hopes
and pleasures, and thinking too little, oh, much too little, of the
possible griefs or disappointments of my only sister. But this shall be
changed; I promise you shall all be changed. I will live for you
henceforth; we will breathe, work, suffer, enjoy together. No sister
shall be tenderer, no lover more devoted than I will be to you. If you
do not marry, then will not I. No pleasure that is denied you shall be
accepted by me. Only come away from this dark pool; quit casting those
glances of secret longing into that gruesome water. It is too awful, too
loathsome a place to swallow so much beauty; for you are beautiful, no
matter what any one says; so beautiful that it is almost a mercy you
have some defect, or we should not dare to claim you for our own, you
are so far above what any of us could hope for or expect.'
"But the bitterness that was in my soul could not be so easily
exorcised.
"'You are a good girl,' I said, 'but you cannot move me from my
purpose.' And I tried to disengage myself from her clasp.
"But the young face, the young form which I had hitherto associated only
with what was gay, mirthful, and frivolous, met me with an aspect which
impressed even me and made me feel it was no child I had to deal with
but a woman as strong and in a state of almost as much suffering as
myself.
"'Hermione,' she cried, 'if you throw yourself into that pool, I shall
follow you. I will not live ten minutes after you. Do you know why?
Because I--_I_ caused you that scar which has been the torment of your
life. It was when we were children--babes, and I have only known it
since last night. Auntie Lovell told me, in her sympathy for you and her
desire to make me more sisterly. The knowledge has crushed me, Hermione;
it has made me hate myself and love you. Nothing I can do now can ever
atone for what I did then; though I was so young, it was anger that gave
me strength to deal the blow which has left this indelible mark behind
it. Isn't it terrible? I the one to blame and you the one to
suffer!--But there must be no dying, Hermione, no dying, or I shall feel
myself a murderess. And you do not want to add that horror to my
remorse, now that I am old enough to feel remorse, and realize your
suffering. You will be a little merciful and live for my sake if not for
your own.'
"She was clinging to me, her face white and drawn, upturned towards mine
with pitiful pleading, but I had no words with which to comfort her, nor
could I feel as yet any relenting in my fixed purpose. Seeing my unmoved
look she burst into sobs, then she cried suddenly:
"'I see I must prepare to die too. But not to-day, Hermione. Wait a
month, just one month, and then if you choose to rush upon your fate, I
will not seek to deter you, I will simply share it; but not to-day, not
in this rush of maddened feeling. Life holds too much,--may yet give you
too much, for any such reckless disregard of its prospects. Give it one
chance, then, and me one chance--it is all I ask. One month of quiet
waiting and then--decision.'
"I knew no month would make any difference with me, but her passionate
pleading began to work upon my feelings.
"'It will be a wretched time for me,' said I, 'a purgatory which I shall
be glad to escape.'
"'But for my sake,' she murmured, 'for my sake; I am not ready to die
yet, and your fate--I have said it--shall be mine.'
"'For your sake then,' I cried, and drew back from the dangerous brink
upon which we had both been standing. 'But do not think,' I added, as we
paused some few feet away, 'that because I yield now, I will yield then.
If after a month of trying to live, I find myself unable, I shall not
consult you, Emma, as to my determination, any more than I shall expect
you to embrace my doom because in the heat of your present terror you
have expressed your intention of doing so.'
"'Your fate shall be my fate, as far as I myself can compass it,' she
reiterated. And I, angry at what I thought to be an unwarrantable
attempt to put a check upon me, cried out in as bitter a tone as I had
ever used:
"'So be it,' and turned myself towards home."
XXI.
IN THE LABORATORY.
"But Emma, with a careful remembrance of what was due to my better
nature, stopped to pick up the letter I had left lying under a stone,
and joining me, placed it in my hand, by which it was soon crumpled up,
torn, and scattered to the wind. As the last bits blew by us, we both
sighed and the next minute walked rapidly towards home.
"You will say that all this was experience enough for one day, but fate
sometimes crowds us with emotions and eventful moments. As we entered
the house, I saw auntie waiting for us at the top of the first stairs;
and when she beckoned to Emma only, I was glad--if I could be glad of
anything--that I was to be left for a few minutes to myself. Turning
towards a little crooked staircase which leads to that part of the house
containing my own room and my father's laboratory, I went wearily up,
feeling as if each step I took dragged a whole weight of woe behind it.
"I was going to my own room, but as I passed the open laboratory door,
I perceived that the place was empty, and the fancy took me, I know not
why, to go in. I had never liked the room, it was so unnaturally long,
so unnaturally dismal, and so connected with the pursuits I had come to
detest. Now it had an added horror for me. Here Dr. Sellick had been
accustomed to come, and here was the very chair in which he had sat, and
the table at which he had worked. Why, then, with all this old and new
shrinking upon me did I persistently cross the threshold and darken my
already clouded spirit with the torturing suggestions I found there? I
do not know. Perhaps my evil spirit lured me on; perhaps--I am beginning
to believe in a Providence now--God had some good purpose in leading me
to fresh revelations, though up to this time they have seemed to cause
me nothing but agony and shame.
"No one was in the room, I say, and I went straight to its middle
window. Here my father's desk stood, for he used the room for nearly
every purpose of his life. I did not observe the desk; I did not observe
anything till I turned to leave; then I caught sight of a letter lying
on the desk, and stopped as if I had been clutched by an iron hand, for
it was an open letter, and the signature at the bottom of the sheet was
that of Edgar Sellick.
"'Can I never escape from that man?' thought I, and turned passionately
away. But next minute I found myself bending over it, devouring it first
with my eyes, and then taking it to my heart, for it was an expression
of love for the daughter of the man to whom it was addressed, and that
man was my father.
"This language as I now know referred to Emma, and she was under no
error in regard to it, nor was my father nor my aunt. But I thought it
referred to me, and as I read on and came upon the sentence in which he
asked, as I supposed, for my hand and the privilege of offering himself
to me at the coming ball, I experienced such a revulsion of feeling that
I lost all memory of the words I had overheard him speak, or attributed
them to some misunderstanding on my part, which a word or look from him
could easily explain.
"Life bloomed for me again, and I was happy, madly happy for a few short
moments. Even the horrible old room I was in seemed cheerful, and I was
just acknowledging to myself that I should have made a great mistake if
I had carried out my wicked impulse toward self-destruction, when my
father came in. He shrank back when he saw me; but I thought nothing of
that; I did not even wonder why Emma was closeted with aunt. I only
thought of the coming ball, and the necessity of preparing myself for it
right royally.
"I had come from the desk, and was crossing the floor to go out. My
happiness made me turn.
"'Father,' said I, taking what I thought to be an arch advantage of the
situation; 'may I not have a new dress for the ball?'
"He paused, cast a glance at his desk, and then another at me. He had
been, though I did not know it, in conversation with Emma and my aunt,
and was more alive to the matters of the hour than usual. It was
therefore with some display of severity that he confronted me and said:
"'You are not going to the ball, Hermione.'
"Struck as by a blow, the more severely that it was wholly unexpected, I
gasped:
"'Not going to the ball when you know what depends upon it? Do you not
like Dr. Sellick, father?'
"He mumbled something between his lips, and advancing to the desk, took
up the letter which he thus knew I had read, and ostentatiously folded
it.
"'I like Dr. Sellick well enough,' was his reply, 'but I do not approve
of balls, and desire you to keep away from them.'
"'But you said we might go,' I persisted, suspecting nothing, seeing
nothing in this but a parent's unreasonable and arbitrary display of
power. 'Why have you changed your mind? Is it because Dr. Sellick has
fixed upon that time for making me the offer of his hand?'
"'Perhaps,' his dry lips said.
"Angry as I had never been in all my life, I tried to speak, and could
not. Had I escaped suicide to have my hopes flung in this wanton way
again to the ground, and for no reason that I or any one else could
see?'
"'But you acknowledge,' I managed at last to stammer, 'that you like
him.'
"'That is not saying I want him for a son-in-law.'
"'Whom do you want?' I cried. 'Is there any one else in town superior to
him in wit or breeding? If he loves me----'
"My father's lip curled.
"'He says he does,' I flashed out fiercely.
"'You should not have read my letters,' was all my father replied.
"I was baffled, exasperated, at my wits' end; all the more that I saw
his eye roaming impatiently towards the pneumatic trough where some
hydrogen gas was collecting for use.
"'Father, father,' I cried, 'be frank to me. What are your objections to
Dr. Sellick? He is your friend; he works with you; he is promising in
his profession; he has every qualification but that of wealth----'
"'That is enough,' broke in my father.
"I looked at him in dismay and shrank back. How could I know he was
honestly trying to save me from a grief and shame they all thought me
unequal to meeting. I saw nothing but his cold smile, heard nothing but
his harsh words.
"'You are cruel; you are heartless,' burst from me in a rage. 'You never
have shown the least signs of a mercenary spirit before, and now you
make Dr. Sellick's lack of money an excuse for breaking my heart.'
"'Hermione,' my father slowly rejoined, 'you have a frightful temper.
You had better keep down the exhibitions of it when you are in this
room.'
"'This room!' I repeated, almost beside myself. 'This grave rather of
every gentle feeling and tender thought which a father should have
towards a most unfortunate child. If you loved me but half as well as
you love these old jars----'
"But here his face, usually mild in its abstraction, turned so pale and
hard that I was frightened at what I had said.
"'Hermione,' he cried, 'there is no use trying to show you any
consideration. Know the truth then; know that----'
"Why did he not go on? Why was he not allowed to tell me what I may have
been but little fitted to hear, but which if I had heard it at that time
would have saved me from many grave and fatal mistakes. I think he would
have spoken; I think he meant to tell me that Dr. Sellick's offer was
for Emma, and not for me, but Emma herself appeared just then at the
door, and though I did not detect the gesture she made, I gather that it
was one of entreaty from the way he paused and bit his lip.
"'It is useless to talk,' he exclaimed. 'I have said that you are to
stay home from the ball. I also say that you are not to accept or refuse
Dr. Sellick's addresses. I will answer his letter, and it will not be
one of acceptance.'
"Why did I not yield to his will and say nothing? When I saw how
everything was against me, why did I not succumb to circumstances, and
cease to maintain a struggle I knew then to be useless? Because it was
not in my nature to do so; because Providence had given me an
indomitable will which had never been roused into its utmost action till
now. Drawing myself up till I felt that I was taller than he, I advanced
with all the fury of suppressed rage, and quietly said the fatal words
which, once uttered, I never knew how to recall:
"'If you play the tyrant, I will not play the part of submissive slave.
Keep me here if you will; restrain me from going where my fancy and my
desires lead, and I will obey you. But, father, if you do this, if you
do not allow me to go to the ball, meet Dr. Sellick, and accept his
offer, then mark me, I will never go out of this house again. Where you
keep me I will stay till I am carried out a corpse, and no one and
nothing shall ever make me change my mind.'
"He stared, laughed, then walked away to his pneumatic trough. 'Suit
yourself about that,' said he, 'I have nothing to do with your whims.'
Probably he thought I was raving and would forget my words before the
day was out.
"But there was another person present who knew me better, and I only
realized what I had done when I beheld Emma's slight body lying
insensible at my feet."
XXII.
STEEL MEETS STEEL.
Up to this point Frank had read with an absorption which precluded the
receiving of all outward impressions. But the secret reached, he drew a
long breath and became suddenly conscious of a lugubrious sound breaking
in upon the silence with a gloomy iteration which was anything but
cheering.
The fog-horn was blowing out on Dog Island.
"I could have done without that accompaniment," thought he, glancing at
the sheets still before him. "It gives me a sense of doom."
But the fog was thick on the coast and the horn kept on blowing.
Frank took up the remaining sheets.
* * * * *
"Life for me was now at an end indeed, and not for me only, but for
Emma. I had not meant to involve her in my fate. I had forgotten her
promise, _forgotten_. But when I saw her lying there I remembered, and a
sharp pang pierced me for all my devouring rage. But I did not recall my
words, I could not. I had uttered them with a full sense of what they
meant to me, and the scorn with which they were received only deepened
my purpose to keep the threat I had made. Can you understand such a
disposition, and can you continue to love the possessor of it?
"My father, who was shocked at Emma's fall, knowing better than I did
perhaps the real misery which lay behind it, cast me a look which did
not tend to soften my obduracy, and advanced to pick her up. When he had
carried her to her own room, I went proudly to mine, and such was the
depth of my anger and the obstinate nature of my will that I really felt
better able to face the future now that I had put myself into a position
requiring pride and purpose to sustain it. But I did feel some relenting
when I next saw Emma--such a change was visible in her manner. Meekness
had taken the place of the merriment which once made the house to ring,
and the eye which once sparkled now showed sadness and concern. I did
not, however suspect she had given up anything but freedom, and though
this was much, as I very soon began to find, I was not yet by any means
so affected by her devotion, that I could do more than beg her to
reconsider her own determination and break a promise from which I would
be only too happy to release her.
"But the answer with which she always met my remonstrances was, 'Your
fate shall be my fate. When it becomes unbearable to us both you will
release me by releasing yourself.' Which answer always hardened me
again, for I did not wish to be forced to think that the breaking up of
our seclusion rested with me, or that anything but a relenting on my
father's part could make any change in my conduct.
"Meanwhile that father maintained towards me an air of the utmost
indifference. He worked at his experiments as usual, came and went
through the sombre house, which was unrelieved now by Emma's once bright
sallies and irrepressible laughter, and made no sign that he saw any
difference in it or us. Aunt Lovell alone showed sympathy, and when she
saw that sympathy accomplished nothing, tried first persuasion and then
argument.
"But she had iron and steel to deal with and she soon ceased her gentle
efforts, and as the time of her visit was drawing to a close, returned
again to those gentle expressions of silent sympathy more natural to her
nature; and so the first week passed.
"We had determined, Emma and I, that no one beside our four selves
should ever know the secret of our strange behavior. Neighbors might
guess, gossips might discuss it, but no one should ever know why we no
longer showed ourselves in the street, went to any of the social
gatherings of the place, or attended the church from which we had never
before been absent. When, therefore, the ball came off and we were not
seen there, many were the questions asked, and many were the surmises
uttered, but we did not betray our secret, nor was it for some time
after this that the people about us awoke to the fact that we no longer
left our home.
"What happened when this fact was fully realized, I will not pause to
relate, for matters of a much more serious nature press upon me and I
must now speak of the bitter and terrible struggle which gradually awoke
between my father and myself. He had as I have already related, shown
nothing at first but indifference, but after the first week had passed
he suddenly seemed to realize that I meant what I said. The result was a
conflict between us from the effects of which I am still suffering.
"The first intimation I received of his determination to make me break
my word came on a Sunday morning. He had been in his room dressing for
church, and when he came out he rapped at my door and asked if I were
ready to go with him.
"Naturally I flung wide the door and let him see my wrathful figure in
its morning dress.
"'Can you ask,' I cried, 'when you yourself have made it impossible for
me to enjoy anything outside of this house, even the breath of fresh air
to which all are entitled?'
"He looked as if he would like to strike me, but he did not--only
smiled. If I could have known all that lay under that smile, or been
able to fathom from what I knew of my own stubborn nature, the terrible
depths which its sarcasm barely suggested!
"'You would be a fool if you were not so wicked,' was all he said, and
shuffled away to my sister's door.
"In a few minutes he came back.
"'Hermione,' he cried, 'put on your hat and come directly with me to
church.'
"I simply looked at him.
"'Do you hear?' he exclaimed, stepping into the room and shutting the
door after him. 'I have had enough of this nonsense, and to-day you go
out with me to church or you never shall call me father again.'
"'Have you been a father to me?' I asked.
"He shook and quivered and was a picture of rage. I remembered as I
looked at him, thinking, 'Behold the source of my own temper,' but I
said nothing, and was in no other way affected by what I saw.
"'I have been such a father to you as your folly and blindness
deserved,' he exclaimed. 'Should I continue to treat you according to
your deserts, I would tell you what would lay you in shame at my feet.
But I have promised to be silent, and silent will I be, not out of
consideration for you, but because your punishment will some day be the
greater. Will you give up this whim and go with me, and so let your
sister go also, or will you not?'
"'I will not.'
"He showed a sudden change of manner. 'I will ask you the same question
next Sunday,' said he, and left my presence with his old air of
indifference and absorption. No subject disconnected with his work could
rouse more than a temporary passion in him.
"He kept his word. Every Sunday morning he came on the same errand to
my door, and every Sunday he went forth alone. During the week days he
did not trouble me. Indeed, I do not know as he thought of me then, or
even of Emma, who had always been dearer to him than I. He was engaged
on some new experiment, some vital discovery that filled him with
enthusiasm and made every moment passed out of his laboratory a trial
and a loss to him. He ate that he might work, he slept that he might
gather new strength and inspiration for the next day. If visitors came
he refused to see them; the one visitor who could have assisted him at
the retort and crucible had been denied the door, and any other was a
hindrance. Our troubles, our cares, our schemes, or our attempts to
supply the table and dress ourselves upon the few and fewer dollars he
now allowed us, sank into insignificance before the one idea with which
he was engrossed. I do not think he even knew when we ceased having meat
for dinner. That Emma was growing pale and I desperate did not attract
his attention as much as a speck of dust upon a favorite jar or a crack
in one of his miserable tubes.
"That this deep absorption of his was real and not assumed was made
evident to me the first Sunday morning he forgot to come to my door. It
was a relief not to have to go through the usual formula, but it alarmed
me too. I was afraid I was to be allowed to go my own way unhindered,
and I was beginning to feel a softness towards Emma and a longing for
the life of the world, which made me anxious for some excuse to break a
resolution which was entailing upon me so much more suffering than I had
anticipated. Indeed, I think if my father had persisted in his practice
and come but two or three Sunday mornings more to my door, that my pride
would have yielded at last, and my feet in spite of me have followed him
out of a house that, since it had become my prison, had become more than
ever hateful to me. But he stopped just as a crisis was taking place in
my feelings, and my heart hardened again. Before it could experience
again the softening effects of Emma's uncomplaining presence the news
came that Dr. Sellick had left the town, and my motive for quitting the
house was taken from me. Henceforth I felt no more life or hope or
ambition than if I had been an automaton.
"This mood received one day a startling interruption. As I was sitting
in my room with a book in my hand I felt too listless to read, the door
opened, and my father stood before me. As it was weeks since he had
appeared on a Sunday morning and months since he had showed himself
there on a week day, I was startled, especially as his expression was
more eager and impatient than I had ever seen it except when he was
leaning over his laboratory table. Was his heart touched at last? Had he
good news for me, or was he going to show his fatherhood once more by
proffering me an invitation to go out with him in a way which my pride
would allow me to accept? I rose in a state of trembling agitation, and
made up my mind that if he spoke kindly I would break the hideous bonds
which held me and follow him quickly into the street.
"But the words which fell from his lips drove every tender impulse back
into my heart.
"'Have you any jewels, Hermione? I think I gave your mother some pearls
when we were married. Have you them? I want them if you have.'
"The revulsion of feeling was too keen. Quivering with disappointment, I
cried out, bitterly:
"'What to do? To give us bread? We have not had any too much of it
lately.'
"He stared, but did not seem to take in my words.
"'Fetch the pearls,' he cried; 'I cannot afford to waste time like this;
my experiments will suffer.'
"'And have you no eye, no heart,' I asked, 'for the sufferings of your
daughters? With no motive but an arbitrary love of power, you robbed me
of my happiness. Now you want my jewels; the one treasure I have left
either in the way of value, or as a remembrance of the mother who loved
me.'
"Of all this he heard but one word.
"'Are they valuable?' he asked. 'I had hoped so, but I did not know. Get
them, child, get them. The discovery upon which my fame may rest will
yet be made.'
"'Father, father, you want to sell them,' I screamed. 'My mother's
jewels; my dead mother's jewels!'
"He looked at me; this protest had succeeded in entering his ears, and
his eye, which had been simply eager, became all at once dangerous.
"'I do not care whose they were,' he hissed, 'so long as they are now
mine. It is money I want, and money I will have, and if they will get it
for me you had better be thankful. Otherwise I shall have to find some
other way to raise it.'
"I was cowed; he did not say what other way, but I knew by his look I
had better not drive him into it, so I went to the place where I kept
these sacred relics, and taking them out, laid them in his trembling,
outstretched hand.
"'Are these all?' he asked. And I wondered, for he had never shown the
least shrewdness in any matter connected with money before.
"'All but a trivial little locket which Emma wears,' said I.
"'Is it worth much?'
"'Scarcely five dollars,' I returned.
"'Five dollars would buy the bit of platinum I want,' he muttered. But
he did not ask for the locket, for I saw it on Emma's neck the next day.
"This was the beginning of a fresh struggle. My father begrudged us
everything: the food we ate; the plain, almost homely, clothes we wore.
He himself wellnigh starved his own body, and when in the midst of an
experiment, his most valuable retort broke in his hand, you could have
heard his shriek of dismay all over the house. The following Sunday he
did not go to church; he no longer had a coat to wear; he had sold his
only broadcloth suit to a wandering pedlar.
"Our next shock was the dismissal of the man who had always kept our
garden in order. Doris would have been sent away also, but that father
knew this would mean a disorder in the household which might entail
interruption in his labors. He did not dare to leave himself to the
tender mercies of his daughters. But her pay was stopped.
"Meanwhile his discovery delayed. It was money that he needed, he said,
more money, much more money. He began to sell his books. In the midst of
this a stranger came to visit him, and now the real story of my misery
begins."
XXIII.
A GROWING HORROR.
"There are some men who fill you from the beginning with a feeling of
revulsion. Such a one was Antony Harding. When he came into the parlor
where I sat, I felt it difficult to advance and greet him with the
necessary formalities, so forcibly did I shrink from his glance, his
smile, his bow of easy assurance. Not that he was ugly of feature, or
possessed of any very distinguishing marks in face or form to render him
personally repulsive. He was what some might have called good-looking,
and many others a gentlemanly-appearing man. But to me he was simply
revolting, and I could not then or now tell why, for, as far as I know,
he has never done anything incompatible with his standing as a gentleman
and a man of family and wealth.
"He had some claim upon my father, and desired very much to see him. I,
who could not dispute that claim, was going to call my father, when Mr.
Harding stopped me, thinking, I really believe, that he would not see me
again, and I was forced, greatly against my will, to stand and answer
some half-dozen innocent enough questions, while his eyes roamed over my
features and took in the scar I turned towards him as a sort of defence.
Then he let me go, but not before I saw in him the beginning of that
fever which made me for a while hate the very name of love.
"With a sense of disgust quite new to me, I rushed from the room to the
laboratory. The name by which he had introduced himself was a strange
one to me, and I had no idea my father would see him. But as soon as I
uttered the word Harding, the impatience with which he always met any
interruption gave way to a sudden and irresistible joy, and, jumping up
from his seat, he cried:
"'Show him up! show him up. He is a rich man and interested in
chemistry. He cannot but foresee the fame which awaits the man who
brings to light the discovery I am seeking.'
"'He says he has some claim on you,' I murmured, anything but pleased at
this prospect of seeing a man whose presence I so disliked, inveigled
into matters which might demand his reappearance in the house.
"'Claims? claims? Perhaps he has; I cannot remember. But send him up; I
shall soon make him forget any claims he may have.'
"I did as my father bade me. I sent the smiling, dapper, disagreeably
attentive man to the laboratory, and when this was done, went to the
window and threw it up with some vague idea of cleansing the room from
an influence which stifled me.
"You may imagine then with what a sense of apprehension I observed that
my father fairly glowed with delight when he came to the supper-table.
From being the half-sullen, half-oblivious companion who had lately
chilled our board and made it the scene of anything but cheer or
comfort, he had brightened at once into a garrulous old man, ready with
jests and full of condescending speeches in regard to his great
experiments. Emma, to whom I had said nothing, looked her innocent
pleasure at this, and both of us started in amazement when he suddenly
turned towards me, and surveyed me with something like interest and
pleasurable curiosity.
"'Why do you look at me like that?' I could not help saying. 'I should
think you had never seen me before, father.'
"'Perhaps I never have,' he laughed. Then quite seriously: 'I was
looking to see if you were as handsome as Mr. Harding said you were. He
told me he had never seen so beautiful a woman in his life.'
"I was shocked; more than that, I was terrified; I half-rose from the
table, and forgetting everything else which made my life a burden to me,
I had some wild idea of rushing from the house, from the town, anywhere
to escape the purpose I perceived forming itself in my father's mind.
"'Father,' I cried, with a trembling in my tones that was not common to
them, even in the moments of my greatest displeasure; 'I hate that man,
and abominate the very idea of his presuming to admire me. Do not ever
mention him to me again. It makes my very soul turn sick.'
"It was an unwise speech; it was the unwisest speech I could have made.
I felt this to be so the moment I had spoken, and stole a look of secret
dismay at Emma, who sat quite still and helpless, gazing, in silent
consternation, from my father to myself.
"'You will hate no one who can help me perfect my experiments,' he
retorted. 'If I command you to do so, you must even love him, though we
have not got so far as that yet.'
"'I will never love anybody again,' I answered bitterly. 'And I would
not love this man if your discoveries and my own life even hung upon
it.'
"'You would not?' He was livid now. 'Well, we shall see. He is coming
here to dinner to-morrow, and if you dare to show him anything but the
respect due to an honored guest you will live to rue it as you have
never rued anything yet.'
"Threats that are idle on some lips are anything but idle on ours, as I
think you have already begun to perceive. I therefore turned pale and
said no more, but all night the tormenting terror was upon me, and when
the next day came I was but little fitted to sustain the reputation for
beauty which I had so unfortunately earned from a distasteful man's lips
the day before.
"But Antony Harding was not one to easily change his first impressions.
He had made up his mind that I was beautiful, and he kept to that
opinion to the last. I had dressed myself in my most expensive but least
becoming gown, and I wore my hair in a way to shock the taste of most
men. But I saw from the first moment that his eyes fell on my face that
this made no difference to him, and that I must take other means to
disillusionize him. So then I resorted to a display of stupidity. I did
not talk, and looked, if I looked at all, as if I did not understand.
But he had seen glimpses of brightness in me the day before, and this
ruse succeeded no better than the other. He even acted as if he admired
me more as a breathing, sullen image than as a living, combative woman.
"My father, who watched us as he never had watched anything before but
rising bubbles of gas or accumulating crystals, did not show the
displeasure I feared, possibly because he saw that I was failing in all
my endeavors; and when the meal over, he led the way to the parlor, he
even smiled upon me in a not altogether unfriendly way. I felt a sinking
of the heart when I saw that smile. Better to me were his frowns, for
that smile told me that, love or no love, liking or no liking, I was to
be made the bait to win this man's money for the uses of chemistry.
"Walking steadfastly into the parlor, I met the stranger's admiring eye.
"'You would not think,' I remarked, 'that my life at present was
enclosed within these four walls.'
"It was the first sentence I had voluntarily addressed him, and it must
have struck him as a very peculiar one.
"'I do not understand what you mean,' he returned, with that unctuous
smile which to me was so detestable. 'Something interesting, I have no
doubt.'
"'Very interesting,' I dryly rejoined. 'I have taken a vow never to
leave this house, and I mean to keep it.'
"He stared at me now in some apprehension, and my heart gave a bound of
delight. I had frightened him. He thought I was demented.
"My father, seeing his look of astonishment, but not knowing what I had
said, here advanced and unconsciously made matters worse by remarking,
with an effort at jocularity:
"'Don't mind what Hermione says; for a smart girl and a good one, she
sometimes talks very peculiarly.'
"'I should think so,' my companion's manner seemed to assert, but he
gave a sudden laugh, and made some observation which I scarcely heard in
my fierce determination to end this matter at once.
"'Do you not think,' I persisted, 'that a woman who has doomed herself
to perpetual seclusion has a right to be peculiar?'
"'A woman of such beauty possesses most any rights she chooses to
assert,' was his somewhat lame reply. He had evidently received a shock,
and was greatly embarrassed.
"'I laughed low to myself, but my father, comprehending as in a flash
what I was attempting, turned livid and made me a threatening gesture.'
"'I fear,' said he, 'that you will have to excuse my daughter for
to-night. The misfortune which has befallen her has soured her temper,
and this is not one of her amiable days.'
"I made a curtsey deep as my disdain. 'I leave you to the enjoyment of
your criticisms,' I exclaimed, and fled from the room in a flutter of
mingled satisfaction and fear.
"For though I had saved myself from any possible persecution on the part
of Mr. Harding, I had done it at the cost of any possible reconciliation
between my father and myself. And I was not yet so hardened that I could
contemplate years of such life as I was then living without a pang of
dread. Alas! if I had known what I was indeed preparing for myself, and
how much worse a future dwelt in his mind than any I had contemplated!
"Emma, who had been a silent and unobtrusive witness to what had
occurred, soon followed me to my room.
"'What have you done?' she asked. 'Why speak so to a stranger?'
"'Father wants me to like him; father wants me to accept his attentions,
and I detest him. I abhor his very presence in the house.'
"'But----'
"'I know he has only been here but twice; but that is enough, Emma; he
shall not come here again with any idea that he will receive the least
welcome from me.'
"'Is he a person known to father? Is he----'
"'Rich? Oh, yes; he is rich. That is why father thinks him an eligible
son-in-law. His thousands would raise the threatened discovery into a
fact.'
"'I see. I pity you, Hermione. It is hard to disappoint a father in his
dearest hopes.'
"I stared at her in sudden fury.
"'Is that what you are thinking of?' I demanded, with reckless
impetuosity. 'After all the cruel disappointment he has inflicted upon
me----'
"But Emma had slipped from the room. She had no words now with which to
meet my gusts of temper.
"A visit from my father came next. Though strong in my resolve not to be
shaken, I secretly quaked at the cold, cruel determination in his face.
A man after all is so much more unrelenting than a woman.
"'Hermione,' he cried, 'you have disobeyed me. You have insulted my
guest, and you have shaken the hopes which I thought I had a right to
form, being your father and the author of your being. I said if you did
this you should suffer, but I mean to give you one more chance. Mr.
Harding was startled rather than alienated. If you show yourself in
future the amiable and sensible woman which you can be, he will forget
this foolish ebullition and make you the offer his passion inspires.
This would mean worldly prosperity, social consideration, and everything
else which a reasonable woman, even if she has been disappointed in
love, could require. While for me--you cannot know what it would be for
me, for you have no capability for appreciating the noble study to which
I am devoted.'
"'No,' I said, hard and cold as adamant, 'I have no appreciation for a
study which, like another Moloch, demands, not only the sacrifice of the
self-respect, but even the lives of your unhappy children.'
"'You rave,' was his harsh reply. 'I offer you all the pleasures of
life, and you call it immolation. Is not Mr. Harding as much of a
gentleman as Dr. Sellick? Do I ask you to accept the attentions of a
boor or a scape-grace? He is called a very honorable man by those who
know him, and if you were ten times handsomer than you are, ten times
more amiable, and had no defect calculated to diminish the regard of
most men, you would still be scarcely worthy to bear the name of so
wealthy, honorable, and highly esteemed a young man.'
"'Father, father!' I exclaimed, scarcely able to bear from him this
allusion to my misfortune.
"'Why he has taken such a sudden, and, if I may say it, violent fancy
to you, I find it hard to understand myself. But he has done this, and
he has not scrupled to tell me so, and to intimate that he would like
the opportunity of cultivating your good graces. Will you, then--I ask
it for the last time--extend him a welcome, or must I see my hopes
vanish, and with them a life too feeble to survive the disappointment
which their loss must occasion.'
"'I cannot give any sort of welcome to this man,' I returned. 'If I did,
I would be doing him a wrong, as well as you and myself. I dislike him,
father, more than I can make you understand. His presence is worse than
death to me; I would rather go to my coffin than to his arms. But if I
liked him, if he were the beau-ideal of my dreams, could I break the vow
I made one day in your presence? This man is not Dr. Sellick; do not
then seek to make me forget the oath of isolation I have taken.'
"'Fool! fool!' was my father's furious retort. 'I know he is not Dr.
Sellick. If he were I should not have his cause to plead to _you_.'
"How nearly his secret came out in his rage. 'If I could make you
understand; make you see----'
"'You make me see that I am giving you a great and bitter
disappointment,' I broke in. 'But it only equalizes matters; you have
given me one.'
"He bounded to my side; he seized my arm and shook it.
"'Drop that foolish talk,' he cried. 'I will hear no more of it, nor of
your staying in the house on that account or any other. You will go out
to-morrow. You will go out with Mr. Harding. You will----'
"'Father,' I put in, chill as ice, 'do you expect to carry me out in
your arms?'
"He fell back; he was a small man, my father, and I, as you know, am
large for a woman.
"'You vixen!' he muttered, 'curses on the day when you were born!'
"'That curse has been already pronounced,' I muttered.
"He stood still, he made no answer, he seemed to be gathering himself
together for a final appeal. Had he looked at me a little longer; had he
shown any sympathy for my position, any appreciation for my wrongs, or
any compunction for the share he had taken in them, I might have shown
myself to have possessed some womanly softness and latent gentleness.
But instead of that he took on in those few frightful moments such a
look of cold, calculating hate that I was at once steeled and appalled.
I hardly knew what he said when he cried at last:
"'Once! twice! thrice! Will you do what I desire, Hermione?'
"I only knew he had asked something I could not grant, so I answered,
with what calmness I could, in the old formula, now for some months gone
into disuse, 'I will not,' and sank, weary with my own emotions, into a
chair.
"He gave me one look--I shall never forget it,--and threw up his arms
with what sounded like an imprecation.
"'Then your sin be upon your own head!' he cried, and without another
word left the room.
"I was frightened; never had I seen such an expression on mortal face
before. And this was my father; the man who had courted my mother; who
had put the ring upon her finger at the altar; who had sat at her dying
bed and smiled as she whispered: 'For a busy man, you have always been a
good husband to me.' Was this or that the real man as he was? Had these
depths been always hidden within him, or had I created them there by my
hardness and disobedience? I will never know."
XXIV.
FATHER AND CHILD.
"The night which followed this day was a sleepless one for me. Yet how I
dreaded the morning! How I shrank from the first sight of my father's
face! Had Auntie Lovell been with us I should have prevailed upon her to
have gone to him and tried to smooth the way to some sort of
reconciliation between us, but she was in Chicago, and I was not yet
upon such terms with Emma that I could bear to make of her a go-between.
I preferred to meet him without apology, and by dutifulness in all other
respects make him forget in time my failure to oblige him in one. _I had
made up my mind to go out of the house that day, though not with Mr.
Harding._
"But sometimes it seems as if Providence stepped in our way when we try
to recover from any false position into which we have been betrayed by
the heat and stress of our own passions. When I tried to rise I found
myself ill, and for several days after that I knew little and cared less
where I was, or what my future was like to be. When I was well enough to
get up and go about my duties again, I found the house and my father in
very much the same condition as they were before the fatal appearance of
Mr. Harding. No look from his eye revealed that any great change had
taken place in his attitude towards me, and after learning that Mr.
Harding had come once since my illness, been closeted with my father for
some time, and had then gone away with a rather formal and hard good-by
to the anxious Emma, I began to feel that my fears had been part of the
delirium of the fever which had afterwards set in, and that I was
alarming myself and softening my heart more than was necessary.
"The consequence was that I did not go out that afternoon, nor the next
morning, nor for a week after, though I was always saying to myself that
I would surprise them yet by a sudden dash out of the house when they
showed, or rather my father showed, any such relenting in his studied
attitude of indifference as would make such an action on the part of one
constituted like myself, possible.
"But he was thinking of anything else but relenting, and even I began
to see in a few days that something portentous lay behind the apparent
apathy of his manner. He worked as he had of old, or rather he shut
himself up in his laboratory from morning until night, but when he did
appear, there was something new in his manner that deeply troubled me. I
began to shrink at the sound of his step, and more than once went
without a meal rather than meet the cold glance of his eye.
"Emma, who seemed to have little idea of what I suffered and of what I
dreaded (what did I dread? I hardly knew) used to talk to me sometimes
of our father's failing health; but I either hushed her or sat like a
stone, I was in such a state of shuddering horror. I remember one day as
I stole past the laboratory door, I beheld her with her arms round his
neck, and the sight filled me with tumult, but whether it was one of
longing or repugnance, or a mixture of both, I can hardly tell. But I
know it was with difficulty I repressed a cry of grief, and that when I
found myself alone my limbs were shaking under me like those of one
stricken with ague. At last there came a day when father was no longer
to be seen at the table. He ordered his meals brought to the laboratory,
but denied being sick. I stared at Emma, who delivered this message, and
asked her what she thought of it.
"'That he _is_ ill,' she declared.
* * * * *
"Two weeks later my father called me into his presence. I went in fear
and trembling. He was standing by his desk in the laboratory, and I
could not repress a start of surprise when I saw the change which had
taken place in him. But I said nothing, only stood near the doorway and
waited for what he had to say.
"'Look at me,' he commanded. 'I am standing to-day; to-morrow I shall be
sitting. I wish you to watch your work; now go.'
"I turned, so shaken by his look and terrible wanness that I could
hardly stand. But at the door I paused and cried in irrepressible
terror:
"'You are ill; let me send for a doctor. I cannot see you dying thus
before my eyes.'
"'You cannot?' With what a grim chuckle he uttered the words. 'We will
see what you can bear.' Then as my eyes opened in terror, and I seemed
about to flee, he cried, 'No doctor, do you hear? I will see none. And
mark me, no talking about what goes on in this room, if you do not wish
my curse.'
"Aghast, I rushed from that unhallowed door. What did his words mean?
What was his purpose? Upon what precipice of horror was I stumbling?
"The next day he summoned me again. I felt too weak to go, but I dared
not disobey. I opened his door with a shaking hand, and found him
sitting, as he had promised, in an old arm-chair that had been his
mother's.
"'Do I look any better?' he asked.
"I shook my head. He was evidently much worse.
"'The poison of disobedience works slowly, but it works sure,' he cried.
"I threw up my arms with a shriek.
"He seemed to love the sound.
"'You do not enjoy the fruits of your actions,' said he. 'You love your
old father so dearly.'
"I held out my hands; I entreated; I implored.
"'Do not--do not look on me like this. Some dreadful thought is in your
mind--some dreadful revenge. Do not cherish it; do not make my already
ruined life a worse torture to me. Let me have help, let me send for a
doctor----'
"But his sternly lifted finger was already pointing at the door.
"'You have stayed too long,' he muttered. 'Next time you will barely
look in, and leave without a word.'
"I crouched, he cowed me so, and then fled, this time to find Emma,
Doris, some one.
"They were both huddled in the hall below. They had heard our voices and
were terrified at the sound.
"'Don't you think he is very ill?' asked Emma. 'Don't you think we ought
to have the doctor come, in spite of his commands to the contrary?'
"'Yes,' I gasped, 'and quickly, or we will feel like murderers.'
"'Dr. Dudgeon is a big know-nothing,' cried Doris.
"'But he is a doctor,' I said. And Doris went for him at once.
"When he came Emma undertook to take him to the laboratory; I did not
dare. I sat on the stairs and listened, shaking in every limb. What was
going on in that room? What was my father saying? What was the doctor
deciding? When the door opened at last I was almost unconscious. The
sound of the doctor's voice, always loud, struck upon my ears like
thunder, but I could not distinguish his words. Not till he had come
half-way down the stairs did I begin to understand them, and then I
heard:
"'A case of overwork! He will be better in a day or two. Send for me if
he seems any worse.'
"Overwork! that clay-white cheek! those dry and burning lips! the eyes
hollowed out as if death were already making a skeleton of him! I seized
the doctor's hand as he went by.
"'Are you sure that is all?' I cried.
"He gave me a pompous stare. 'I do not often repeat myself,' said he,
and went haughtily out without another word.
"Emma, standing at the top of the stairs, came down as the door closed
behind him.
"'Father was not so angry as I feared he would be. He smiled at the
doctor and seemed glad to see him. He even roused himself up to talk,
and for a few minutes did not look so ill as he really is.'
"'Did the doctor leave medicine?' I asked.
"'Oh, yes, plenty; powder and pills.'
"'Where is it?'
"'On father's desk. He says he will take it regularly. He would not let
me give it to him.'
"I reeled; everything seemed turning round with me.
"'Watch him,' I cried, 'watch----' and could say no more.
Unconsciousness had come to relieve me.
"It was dark when I came to myself. I was lying on my own bed, and by
the dim light burning on a small table near by I saw the form of Doris
bending over me. Starting up, I caught her by the arm.
"'What is going on?' I cried.
"Rude noises were in the house. A sound of breaking glass.
"'It comes from the laboratory,' she exclaimed, and rushed from the
room.
"I rose and had barely strength enough to follow her. When we reached
the laboratory door Emma was already there. A light was burning at one
end of the long and dismal room, and amid the weird shadows that it cast
we saw our father in a loose gown he often wore when at work, standing
over his table with lifted fist. It was bleeding; he had just brought it
down upon a favorite collection of tubes.
"'Ah!' he cried, tottering and seizing the table to steady himself; 'you
have come to see the end of my famous discovery. Here it is; look!' And
his fist came down again upon a jar containing the work of months.
"The smash that followed seemed to echo in my brain. I rushed forward,
but was stopped by his look.
"'Another result of your obduracy,' he cried, and sank back fainting
upon the hard floor.
"I let Emma and Doris lift him. What place had I at his side?
"'Shall I go for the doctor again?' inquired Doris as she came to my
room a half-hour later.
"'Does he seem worse?' I asked.
"'No; but he looks dreadfully. Ever since we got him on the lounge--he
would not leave the laboratory--he has lain in one position, his eye
upon those broken pieces of glass. He would not even let me wipe up the
red liquid that was in them, and it drips from table to floor in a way
to make your blood run cold.'
"'Can I see him,' I asked, 'without his seeing me?'
"'Yes,' said she, 'if you come very carefully; his head is towards the
door.'
"I did as she bade, and crept towards the open door. As I reached it he
was speaking low to himself.
"'Drop by drop,' he was saying, 'just as if it were my life-blood that
was dripping from the table to the floor.'
"It was a terrible thing to hear, for _me_ to hear, and I shrank back.
But soon a certain sense of duty drove me forward again, and I leaned
across the threshold, peering at his rigid and attenuated figure lying
just where he could watch the destruction of all his hopes. I could not
see his face, but his attitude was eloquent, and I felt a pang strike
through all my horror at the sight of a grief the death of both his
children could not have occasioned him.
"Suddenly he bounded up.
"'Curse her!' he began, in a frenzy; but instantly seemed to bethink
himself, for he sank back very meekly as Emma stooped over him and Doris
rushed to his side. 'Excuse me,' said he; 'I fear I am not just in my
right mind.'
"They thought so too, and in a few minutes Doris stole out after the
doctor, but I knew whatever delirium he had sprang from his hate of me,
and was awed into a shrinking inactivity which Emma excused while only
partially understanding.
"The doctor came and this time I stood watching. My father, who had not
expected this interference, showed anger at first, but soon settled back
into a half-jocular, half-indifferent endurance of the interloper, which
tended to impress the latter, and did succeed in doing so, with the
folly of those who thought he was sick enough to rouse a doctor up at
midnight. Few questions brought few replies, and the irritated physician
left us with something like a rebuke. He however said he would come
again in the morning, as there was a fitfulness in my father's pulse
which he did not like.
"But before the doctor appeared that morning father had called me for
the third and last time to his side.
"'I wish to see my eldest daughter alone,' he declared, as Emma lingered
and Doris hovered about the open door. They at once went out. 'Now shut
the door,' said he, as their footsteps were heard descending the stairs.
"I did as I was bid, though I felt as if I were shutting myself in with
some horrid doom.
"'Now come in front of me,' he commanded, 'I want to look at you. I
have just five minutes left in which to do it.'
"'Five minutes!' I repeated hoarsely, creeping round with tottering and
yet more tottering steps to where he pointed.
"'Yes; the poison has done its work at last. At eight o'clock I shall be
dead.'
"'Poison!' I shrieked, but in so choked a tone the word sounded like a
smothered whisper.
"But he was alarmed by it for all that.
"'Do not tell the world,' he cried. 'It is enough that you know it. Are
you pleased that you have driven your father to self-destruction? Will
it make your life in this house, in which you have vowed to remain, any
happier? I told you that your sin should be on your head; and it will
be. For, listen to me: now in this last dreadful hour, I command you,
heartless and disobedient one, to keep that vow. By this awful death, by
the despair which has driven me to it, beware of leaving these doors. In
your anger you swore to remain within these walls; in your remorse see
that you keep that oath. Not for love, not for hatred, dare to cross the
threshold, or I will denounce you in the grave where I shall be gone,
and my curse shall be upon you.'
"He had risen in his passion as he uttered these words, but he sank
back as he finished, and I thought he was dead. Terrified, crushed, I
sank upon my knees, having no words with which to plead for the mercy
for which I now longed. The next minute a horrible groan burst upon my
ear.
"'It eats--it burns into my vitals. The suffering has come,--the
suffering which I have often noted with unconcern in the animals upon
which I tested it. I cannot bear it; I had rather live. Get me the
antidote; there, there, in the long narrow drawer in the cabinet by the
wall. Not there, not there!' he shrieked, as I stumbled over the floor,
which seemed to rise in waves beneath my feet. 'The other cabinet, the
other drawer; _you are where the poison is_.'
"I halted; weights seemed to be upon my feet; I could not move. He was
writhing in agony on the floor; he no longer seemed to know where I
stood.
"'Open it--the drawer,' he cried. 'Bring me what is in it.'
"I reached out my hand; heaven and earth seemed to stand still; red
lights danced before my eyes; I drew out the drawer.
"'Quick, quick, the powder!' he moaned; 'fetch it!'
"I was staring at him, but my hand groped in the drawer. I felt a little
packet of powder; I took it and crossed the room. As soon as I was near
him he stretched out his hand and grasped it. I saw him empty it into
his mouth; at the same instant his eyes fixed themselves in horror on
the drawer I had left open behind me, the drawer in which the poison was
kept.
"'Curse you for a----' He never said what. With this broken imprecation
upon his lips, he sank back upon the floor, dead."
XXV.
EDGAR AND FRANK.
Frank, who had been reading these words as if swept along by a torrent,
started to his feet with a hoarse cry, as he reached this point. He
could not believe his eyes, he could not believe his understanding. He
shrank from the paper that contained the deadly revelation, as though a
snake had suddenly uncoiled itself from amid the sheets. With hair
slowly rising on his forehead, he stared and stared, hoping wildly,
hoping against hope, to see other words start from the sheet, and blot
out of existence the ones that had in an instant made his love a horror,
his life a desert.
But no, Heaven works no such miracle, even in sight of such an agony as
his; and the words met his gaze relentlessly till his misery was more
than he could endure, and he rushed from the room like a madman.
Edgar, who was busy over some medical treatise, rose rapidly as he heard
the unsteady footsteps of his friend.
"What is the matter?" he cried, as Frank came stumbling into his
presence. "You look----"
"Never mind how I look; comfort me, Edgar, comfort me!" and in his
anguish he burst into irrepressible sobs "Hermione is----" He could not
say what, but drew his friend after him to the room where the letter
lay, and pointed to the few ghastly lines which had undone him. "Read
those," he panted. "She had suffered; she was not herself, but, oh----"
He broke down again, and did not try to speak further till Edgar had
read the hideous confession contained in those closing lines, and some
of the revelations which had led up to it. Then he said: "Do not speak
to me yet; let me bear the horror alone. I loved her so; ah, I did love
her!"
Edgar, who had turned very pale, was considerate enough to respect this
grief, and silently wait for Frank to regain sufficient composure to
talk with him. This was not soon, but when the moment came, Edgar showed
that his heart beat truly under all his apparent indifference. He did
not say, "I bade you beware"; he merely took his friend's hand and wrung
it. Frank, who was almost overwhelmed with shame and sorrow, muttered
some words of acknowledgment.
"I must get out of the town," said he. "I feel as if the very atmosphere
here would choke me."
Here came again the long, doleful drone of the foghorn. "How like a
groan that is," said he. "An evil day it was for me when I first came
within its foreboding sound."
"We will say that when all is over," ventured Edgar, but in no very
hopeful tones. "You should not have shown me these words, Frank; the
wonder is that she was willing to show them to you."
"She could not otherwise get rid of my importunities. I would take no
hint, and so she tells me the truth."
"That shows nobleness," remarked Edgar. "She has some virtues which may
excuse you to yourself for the weakness you have shown in her regard."
"I dare not think of it," said Frank. "I dare not think of her again.
Yet to leave her when she is suffering so! Is not that almost as cruel a
fate as to learn that she is so unworthy?"
"I would you had never come here!" exclaimed Edgar, with unwonted
fervency.
"There are more words," observed Frank, "but I cannot read them. "Words
of sorrow and remorse, no doubt, but what do they avail? The fact
remains that she gave her father in his agony another dose of the poison
that was killing him, instead of the antidote for which he prayed."
"Yes," said Edgar, "only I feel bound to say that no antidote would have
saved him then. I know the poison and I know the antidote; we have
tested them together often."
Frank shuddered.
"He had the heart of a demon," declared Edgar, "to plan and carry out
such a revenge, even upon a daughter who had so grievously disappointed
him. I can hardly believe the tale, only that I have learned that one
may believe anything of human nature."
"She--she did not kill him, then?"
"No, but her guilt is as great as if she had, for she must have had the
momentary instinct of murder."
"O Hermione, Hermione! so beautiful and so unhappy!"
"A momentary instinct, which she is expiating fearfully. No wonder she
does not leave the house. No wonder that her face looks like a tragic
mask."
"No one seems to have suspected her guilt, or even his. We have never
heard any whispers about poison."
"Dudgeon is a conceited fool. Having once said overwork, he would stick
to overwork. Besides that poison is very subtle; I would have difficulty
in detecting its workings myself."
"And this is the tragedy of that home! Oh, how much worse, how much more
fearful than any I have attributed to it!"
The Doctor sighed.
"What has not Emma had to bear," he said.
"Emma!" Frank unconsciously roused himself. "If I remember rightly,
Hermione has said that Emma did not know all her trouble."
"Thank God! May she never be enlightened."
"Edgar," whispered Frank, "I do not think I can let you read all that
letter, though it tells much you ought to know. I have yet some
consideration--for--for Hermione--" (How hard the word came from lips
which once uttered it with so much pride!)--"and she never expected any
other eyes than mine to rest upon these revelations of her heart of
hearts. But one thing I must tell you in justice to yourself and the
girl upon whom no shadow rests but that of a most loyal devotion to a
most wretched sister. Not from her heart did the refusal come which
blighted your hopes and made you cynical towards women. There were
reasons she could not communicate, reasons she could not even dwell upon
herself, why she felt forced to dismiss you, and in the seemingly
heartless way she did."
"I am willing to believe it," said Edgar.
"Emma is a pure and beautiful spirit," observed Frank, and gave himself
up to grief for her who was not, and yet who commanded his pity for her
sufferings and possibly for her provocations.
Edgar now had enough of his own to think of, and if Frank had been less
absorbed in his own trouble he might have observed with what longing
eyes his friend turned every now and then towards the sheets which
contained so much of Emma's history as well as her sister's. Finally he
spoke:
"Why does Emma remain in the house to which the father only condemned
her sister?"
"Because she once vowed to share that sister's fate, whatever it might
be."
"Her love for her sister is then greater than any other passion she may
have had."
"I don't know; there were other motives beside love to influence her,"
explained Frank, and said no more.
Edgar sank again into silence. It was Frank who spoke next.
"Do you think"--He paused and moistened his lips--"Have you doubted what
our duty is about this matter?"
"To leave the girl--you said it yourself. Have you any other idea,
Frank?"
"No, no; that is not what I mean," stammered Etheridge. "I mean
about--about--the father's death. Should the world know? Is it a matter
for the--for the police?"
"No," cried Edgar, aghast. "Mr. Cavanagh evidently killed himself. It is
a dreadful thing to know, but I do not see why we need make it public."
Frank drew a long breath.
"I feared," he said,--"I did not know but you would think my duty would
lie in--in----"
"Don't speak of it," exclaimed Edgar. "If you do not wish to finish
reading her confession, put it up. Here is a drawer, in which you can
safely lock it."
Frank, recoiling from the touch of those papers which had made such a
havoc with his life, motioned to Edgar to do what he would with them.
"Are you not going to write--to answer this in some way?" asked Edgar.
"Thank God she has not made that necessary. She wrote somewhere, in the
beginning, I think, that, if I felt the terror of her words too deeply,
I was to pass by her house on the other side of the street at an early
hour in the morning. Did she dream that I could do anything else?"
Edgar closed the drawer in which he had hidden her letter, locked it,
and laid the key down on the table beside Frank.
Frank did not observe the action; he had risen to his feet, and in
another moment had left the room. He had reached the point of feeling
the need of air and a wider space in which to breathe. As he stepped
into the street, he turned in a contrary direction to that in which he
had been wont to walk. Had he not done this; had he gone southward, as
usual, he might have seen the sly and crouching figure which was drawn
up on that side of the house, peering into the room he had just left
through the narrow opening made by an imperfectly lowered shade.