UNCLE AND NIECE.
XXVI.
THE WHITE POWDER.
It was nine o'clock in the morning, and Hermione stood in the laboratory
window overlooking the street. Pale from loss of sleep and exhausted
with the fever of anxiety which had consumed her ever since she had
despatched her letter to Mr. Etheridge, she looked little able to cope
with any disappointment which might be in store for her. But as she
leaned there watching for Frank, it was evident from her whole bearing
that she was moved by a fearful hope rather than by an overmastering
dread; perhaps because she had such confidence in his devotion; perhaps
because there was such vitality in her own love.
Her manner was that of one who thinks himself alone, and yet she was
not alone. At the other end of the long and dismal apartment glided the
sly figure of Huckins. No longer shabby and unkempt, but dressed with a
neatness which would have made his sister Cynthia stare in amazement if
she could have risen from her grave to see him, he flitted about with
noiseless tread, listening to every sigh that escaped from his niece's
lips, and marking, though he scarcely glanced her way, each turn of her
head and each bend of her body, as if he were fully aware of her reasons
for standing there, and the importance of the issues hanging upon the
occurrences of the next fifteen minutes.
She may have known of his presence, and she may not. Her preoccupation
was great, and her attention fixed not upon anything in the room, but
upon the street without. Yet she may have felt the influence of that
gliding Evil, moving, snake-like, at her back. If she did she gave no
sign, and the moments came and went without any change in her eager
attitude or any cessation in the ceaseless movements with which he
beguiled his own anxiety and the devilish purposes which were slowly
forming themselves in his selfish and wicked mind.
At length she gave a start, and leaned heavily forward. Huckins, who was
expecting this proof of sudden interest, paused where he was, and
surveyed her with undisguised eagerness in his baleful eyes, while the
words "She sees him; he is coming" formed themselves upon his thin and
quivering lips, though no sound disturbed the silence, and neither he
nor she seemed to breathe.
And he was right. Frank was coming down the street, not gayly and with
the buoyant step of a happy lover, but with head sunk upon his breast
and eyes lowered to the ground. Will he lift them as he approaches the
gate? Will he smile, as in the olden time--the olden time that was
yesterday--and raise his hand towards the gate and swing it back and
enter with that lightsome air of his at once protecting and
joy-inspiring? He looks very serious now, and his steps falter; but
surely, surely, his love is not going to fail him at the crisis; surely,
surely, he who has overlooked so much will not be daunted by the little
more with which she has tried his devotion; surely, surely---- But his
eyes do not lift themselves. He is at the gate, but his hand is not
raised to it, and the smile does not come. He is going by, not on the
other side of the street, but going by, going by, which means----
As the consciousness of what it did mean pierced her heart and soul,
Hermione gave a great cry--she never knew how great a cry--and, staring
like one demented after the beloved figure that in her disordered sight
seemed to shrink and waver as it vanished, sank helpless upon the window
sill, with her head falling forward, in a deadly faint.
Huckins, hearing that cry, slowly rubbed his hands together and smiled
as the Dark One might smile at the sudden downfall of some doubtful
soul. Then he passed softly to the door, and, shutting it carefully,
came back and recommenced his restless pacings, but this time with an
apparent purpose of investigation, for he opened and shut drawers, not
quietly, but with a decided clatter, and peered here and there into
bottles and jars, casting, as he did so, ready side-glances at the
drooping figure from which the moans of a fatal despair were now slowly
breaking.
When those moans became words, he stopped and listened, and this was
what he heard come faltering from her lips:
"Twice! twice! Once when I felt myself strong and now when I feel myself
weak. It is too much for a proud woman. I cannot bear it."
At this evidence of revolt and discouragement, Huckins' smile grew in
its triumph. He seemed to glide nearer to her; yet he did not stir.
She saw nothing. If she had once recognized his presence, he was to her
now as one blotted from existence. She was saying over and over to
herself: "No hope! no hope! I am cursed! My father's hate reaches higher
than my prayers. There is no escape; no love, no light. Solitude is
before me; solitude forever. Believing this, I cannot live; indeed I
cannot!"
As if this had been the word for which he was waiting, Huckins suddenly
straightened up his lean figure and began himself to talk, not as she
did, in wild and passionate tones, but in low, abstracted murmurs, as if
he were too intent upon a certain discovery he had made to know or care
whether there was or was not any one present to overhear his words.
And what did he say? what could he say at a moment like this? Listen
and gauge the evil in the man, for it is deep as his avarice and
relentless as his purpose to enjoy the riches which he considers his
due. He is standing by a cabinet, the cabinet on the left of the room,
and his hand is in a long and narrow drawer.
"What is this?" (Mark the surprise in his tone.) "A packet labelled
_Poison_? This is a strange thing to find lying about in an open drawer.
_Poison!_ I wonder what use brother Cavanagh had for poison?"
He pauses; was it because he had heard a moan or cry break from the spot
where Hermione crouched against the wall? No, there was silence there, a
deep and awful silence, which ought to have made the flesh creep upon
his bones, but which, instead, seemed to add a greater innocence to his
musing tones.
"I suppose it was what was left after some old experiment. It is very
dangerous stuff. I should not like to drop these few grains of white
powder upon my tongue, unless I wanted to be rid of all my troubles.
Guess I had better shake the paper out of the window, or those girls
will come across it some day, and may see that word Poison and be moved
by it. Life in this house hasn't many attractions."
Any sound now from that dim, distant corner? No, silence is there still;
deadly silence. He smiles darkly, and speaks again; very low now, but
oh, how clearly!
"But what business is it of mine? I find poison in this drawer, and I
leave it where I find it, and shut the drawer. It may be wanted for
rats, and it is always a mistake for old folks to meddle. But I should
like to; I'd like to throw this same innocent-looking white powder out
of the window; it makes _me_ afraid to think of it lying shut up here in
a drawer so easily opened---- My child! Hermione!" he suddenly shrieked,
"what do you want?"
She was standing before him, a white and terrible figure.
"Nothing," came from her set lips, in a low and even tone; but she laid
one hand upon the drawer he had half shut and with the other pointed to
the door.
He shrank from her, appalled perhaps at his work; perhaps at her
recognition of it.
"Don't," he feebly protested, shaking with terror, or was it with a
hideous anxiety? "There is poison in that drawer; do not open it."
"Go for my sister," was the imperious command. "I have no use for you
here, but for her I have."
"You won't open that drawer," he prayed, as he retreated before her eyes
in frightened jerks and breathless pauses.
"I tell you I do not need you," she repeated, her hand still on the
drawer, her form rigid, her face blue-white and drawn.
"I--I will bring Emma," he faltered, and shambled across the threshold,
throwing back upon her a look she may have noted and may not, but which
if she had understood, would certainly have made her pause. "I will go
for Emma," he said again, closing the door behind him with a touch which
seemed to make even that senseless wood fall away from him. Then he
listened--listened instead of going for the gentle sister whose presence
might have calmed the turbulent spirit he had just left. And as he
listened his face gradually took on a satisfied look, till, at a certain
sound from within, he allowed his hands the luxury of a final
congratulatory rub, and then gliding from the place, went below.
Emma was standing in the parlor window, fixed in dismay at the sight of
Frank's going by without word or look; but Huckins did not stop to give
her the message with which he had been entrusted. Instead of that he
passed into the kitchen, and not till he had crossed the floor and
shambled out into the open air of the garden did he venture to turn and
say to the watching Doris:
"I am afraid Miss Hermione is not quite well."
XXVII.
THE HAND OF HUCKINS.
Frank exhausted his courage in passing Hermione's door. When he heard
the cry she gave, he stopped for a moment, then rushed hastily on, not
knowing whither, and not caring, so long as he never saw the street or
the house or the poplars again.
He intended, as much as he intended anything, to take the train for New
York, but when he came sufficiently to himself to think of the hour, he
found that he was in a wood quite remote from the station, and that both
the morning and noon trains had long since passed.
It was not much of a disappointment. He was in that stage of misery in
which everything seems blurred, and life and its duties too unreal for
contemplation. He did not wish to act or even to think. The great
solitude about him was more endurable than the sight of human faces, but
I doubt if he would have been other than solitary anywhere, or seen
aught but her countenance in any place where he might have been.
And what made this the more torturing to him was the fact that he
always saw her with an accusing look on her face. Never with bowed
forehead or in an attitude of shame, but with the straightforward aspect
of one utterly grieved where she had expected consideration and
forbearance. This he knew to be a freak of his fancy, for had he not her
words to prove she had merited his condemnation? But fancy or not, it
followed him, softening unconsciously his thought of her, though it
never for an instant weakened his resolve not to see her again or
exchange another word with one whose conscience was laden with so heavy
a crime.
The wood in which he found himself wandering skirted the town towards
the west, so that when, in the afternoon, hunger and weariness drove him
back to the abodes of men, he had but to follow the beaten track which
ran through it, to come out at the other end of the village from that by
which he had entered.
The place where he emerged was near a dark pool at the base of the hill
on which was perched the Baptist church.
As he saw this pool and caught a sight of the steeple towering above
him in the summer sky, he felt himself grow suddenly frantic. Here she
had stood with Emma, halting between life and death. Here she had been
seized by her first temptation, and had been saved from it only to fall
into another one immeasurably greater and more damning. Horrible,
loathsome pool! why had it not swallowed her? Would it not have been
better that it had? He dared to think so, and bent above its dismal
depths with a fascination which in another moment made him recoil and
dash away in horror towards the open spaces of the high-road.
Edgar had just come in from his round of visits when Frank appeared
before him. Having supposed him to be in New York, he uttered a loud
exclamation. Whereupon Frank exclaimed:
"I could not go. I seemed to be chained to this place. I have been
wandering all day in the woods." And he sank into a chair exhausted,
caring little whether Edgar noted or not his weary and dishevelled
appearance.
"You look ill," observed the Doctor; "or perhaps you have not eaten; let
me get you a cup of coffee."
Frank looked up but made no further sign.
"You will stay with me to-night," suggested Edgar.
"I am chained," repeated Frank, and that was all.
With a look of sincerest compassion the Doctor quietly left the room. He
had his own griefs, but he could master them; beside, the angel of hope
was already whispering sweet messages to his secret soul. But Frank's
trouble was beyond alleviation, and it crushed him as his own had never
done, possibly because in this case his pride was powerless to sustain
him. When he came back, he found Frank seated at the desk poring over
the fatal letter. He had found the key of the drawer lying where he had
left it, and, using it under a sudden impulse, had opened the drawer and
taken out the sheets he had vowed never to touch again.
Edgar paused when he saw the other's bended head and absorbed air, and
though he was both annoyed and perplexed he said nothing, but set down
the tray he had brought very near to Frank's elbow.
The young lawyer neither turned nor gave it any attention.
Edgar, with the wonted patience of a physician, sat down and waited for
his friend to move. He would not interrupt him, but would simply be in
readiness to hand the coffee when Frank turned. But he never handed him
that cup of coffee, for suddenly, Frank, with a wild air and eyes fixed
in a dazed stare upon the paper, started to his feet, and uttering a
cry, began turning over the two or three sheets he was reading, as if he
had made some almost incomprehensible discovery.
"Edgar, Edgar," he hurriedly gasped, "read these over for me; I cannot
see the words; there is something different here; we have made a
mistake! Oh, what has happened! my head is all in a whirl."
He sank back in his chair. Edgar, rushing forward, seized the half dozen
sheets offered him and glanced eagerly over them.
"I see no difference," he cried; but as he went on, driven by Frank's
expectant eye, he gave a surprised start also, and turning back the
pages, read them again and again, crying at last:
"We must have overlooked one of these sheets. We read her letter
without this page. What a mischance! for with these words left in it is
no longer a confession we have before us, but a narrative. Frank, Frank,
we have wronged the girl. She has no crime to bemoan, only a misery to
relate."
"Read it aloud," broke from Frank's lips. "Let me hear it from your
mouth. How could we have overlooked such a page? Oh, my poor girl! my
poor girl!"
Edgar, beginning back a page or two from the one which had before
escaped their attention, read as follows. The portion marked by brackets
is the one that was new to both their eyes:
"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 had 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.
{ "'The antidote!' he moaned, 'the antidote!' }
{ I burst the bonds which held me, and leaving open }
{ the drawer which I had half pulled out in my eagerness }
{ to relieve him, I rushed across the room to the }
{ cabinet he had pointed out. }
{ }
{ "'The long drawer,' he murmured, 'the one }
{ like the other. Pull it hard; it is not locked!' }
{ }
{ "I tried to do as he commanded, but my hand }
{ slid helplessly from drawer to drawer. I could }
{ hardly see. He moaned and shrieked again. }
{ }
{ "'The long one, I say, the long one!' }
{ }
{ "As he spoke my hand touched it. }
{ }
{ "'I have it,' I panted forth. }
"'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."
"God, what a difference!" cried Edgar. But Frank, trembling from head to
foot, reached out and took the sheets, and laying them on the desk
before him, buried his face in them. When he looked up again, Edgar, for
all his own relief, was startled by the change in him.
"Her vindication comes late," said he, "but I will go at once and
explain----"
"Wait; let us first understand how we both were led to make such a
mistake. Could the leaves have stuck together?"
There were no signs of this having happened. Yet who could say that
this was not the real explanation of the whole matter? The most curious
feature of the occurrence was that just the missing of that one sheet
should have so altered the sense of what they read. They did not know
then or ever that this very fact had struck Huckins also in his stolen
reading of the same, and that it had been his hand which had abstracted
it and then again restored it when he thought the mutilated manuscript
had done its work. They never knew this, as I say, but they thought the
chance which had occurred to them a very strange one, and tried to lay
it to their agitation at the time, or to any cause but the real one.
The riddle proving insolvable, they abandoned it, and Frank again rose.
But Edgar drawing his attention to the few additional sheets which he
had never read, he sat down again in eagerness to peruse them. Let us
read them with him, for in them we shall find the Hermione of to-day,
not the angry and imperious woman upon whom her father revenged himself
by a death calculated to blot the sun from her skies and happiness from
her heart forever.
"When Emma came to the room she discovered me kneeling, rigid
and horror-stricken, above my father's outstretched form. She
says that I met her eyes with mine, but that there was no look
of life within them. Indeed, I was hardly alive, and have no
remembrance of how I was taken from that room or what happened
in the house for hours. When I did rouse, Emma was beside me.
Her look was one of grief but not of horror, and I saw she had
no idea of what had passed between my father and myself during
the last few days. Dr. Dudgeon had told her that our father had
died of heart-disease, and she believed him, and thought my
terror was due to the suddenness of his end and the fact that I
was alone with him at the time.
"She therefore smiled with a certain faint encouragement when I
opened my eyes upon her face, but pushed me back with gentle
hand when I tried to rise, saying:
"'All is well with father, Hermione,--so think only of yourself
just now; I do not think you are able to get up.'
"I was only too happy not to make the effort. If only my eyes
had never opened! If only I had sunk from unconsciousness into
the perfect peace of death! But even that idea made me quake.
_He_ was _there_, and I had such a horror of him, that it seemed
for a moment that I would rather live forever than to encounter
him again, even in a world where the secrets of all hearts lie
open.
"'Did not father forgive you?' murmured Emma, marking perhaps
the expression of my face.
"I smiled a bitter smile.
"'Do not ever let us talk about father,' I prayed. 'He has
condemned me to this house, and that will make me remember him
sufficiently without words.'
"She rose horror-stricken.
"'O Hermione!' she murmured; 'O Hermione!' and hid her face in
her hands and wept.
"But I lay silent, tearless.
"When the funeral procession passed out of the house without
us, the people stared. But no thought of there being anything
back of this seeming disrespect, save the caprice of two very
whimsical girls, seemed to strike the mind of any one. The paper
which had held the antidote I had long ago picked up from the
laboratory floor; while the open drawer with the packet in it
marked _Poison_ had doubtless been shut by Doris on her first
entrance into the room after his death. For I not only found it
closed, but I never heard any one speak of it, or of any
peculiar symptoms attending my father's death.
"But the arrow was in my heart for all that, and for weeks my
life was little more than a nightmare. All the pride which had
upheld me was gone. I felt myself a crushed woman. The pall
which my father had thrown over me in his self-inflicted death,
hung heavy and stifling about me. I breathed, but it seemed to
be in gasps, and when exhausted nature gave way and I slept, it
was to live over again in dreams those last fearful moments of
his life, and hear, with even more distinctness than in my
waking hours, the words of the final curse with which he sank to
the floor.
"I had not deserved it--that I felt; but I suffered all the
same, and suffered all the more that I could take no confidant
into my troubles. Emma, with her broken life, had had
disappointments enough without this revelation of a father's
vindictiveness, and though it might have eased me for the moment
to hear her words of sympathy, I knew that I should find it
harder to face her day by day, if this ghost of horror once rose
between us. No; the anguish was mine, and must be borne by me
alone. So I crushed it down into my heart and was silent.
"Meantime the command which had been laid upon me by my father,
never to leave the house, was weaving a chain about me I soon
found it impossible to break. Had I immediately upon his death
defied his will and rushed frenziedly out of the gate, I might
have grown to feel it easy to walk the streets again in the face
of a curse which should never have been laid upon me. But the
custom of obeying his dying mandate soon got its hold upon me,
and I could not overcome it. At the very thought of crossing the
threshold I would tremble; and though when I looked at Emma
heroically sharing my fate without knowing the reasons for my
persistency, I would dream for a moment of breaking the spell
those dying lips had laid upon me, I always found myself drawing
back in terror, almost as if I had been caught by fleshless
fingers.
"And so the weeks passed and we settled into the monotonous
existence of an uninterrupted seclusion. What had been the
expression of my self-will, became now a species of expiation.
For though I had not deserved the awful burden which had been
imposed upon me of a father's death and curse, I had deserved
punishment, and this I now saw, and this I now endeavored to
meet, with something like the meekness of repentance. I accepted
my doom, and tried not to dwell so much upon my provocations as
upon the temper with which I met them, and the hardness with
which I strove to triumph over my disappointments. And in doing
this I became less hard, preparing my heart, though I did not
know it, for that new seed of love which fate was about to drop
into it.
"Mr. Etheridge, I have told you all my story. If it strikes you
with dismay and you shrink in your noble manhood from a woman
whom, rightfully or wrongfully, is burdened with the weight of a
father's death, do not try to overcome that shrinking or defy
that dismay. We could never be happy if you did. Nothing but
whole-souled love will satisfy me or help me to forget the
shadows that bear so heavily upon my head. You say you love me,
but your emotions upon reading this letter will prove to
yourself what is the true strength and nature of your feelings.
Let them, then, have their honest way. If they are in my favor I
shall be the happiest girl alive, but if they lead you to go by
on the other side of the street, then will I strive to bear this
sorrow also, as one who has been much to blame for the evils
which have befallen her."
That was all. As Frank folded the last sheet and put it and the rest
quietly away in his pocket, Edgar saw, or thought he saw, that happier
hours were about to dawn for Hermione Cavanagh. It made him think of his
own love and of the claims of the gentle Emma.
"Frank," said he, with the effort of a reticent man compelled at last
to make an admission, "if you are going to the Cavanaghs, I
think--I--will--go--with you."
Frank started and leaped forward warmly with outstretched hand. But
before their two palms could meet, the door was violently opened and a
messenger came panting in with the announcement:
"Dr. Sellick's wanted. Hermione Cavanagh is at the point of death."
XXVIII.
IN EXTREMITY.
Frank and Edgar were equally pale as they reached the Cavanagh house. No
time had been lost on the way, and yet the moments had been long enough
for them both to be the prey of the wildest conjectures. The messenger
who had brought the startling news of Hermione's illness knew nothing
concerning the matter beyond the fact that Doris, their servant, had
called to him, as he was passing their house, to run for Dr. Sellick, as
Miss Hermione was dying. They were therefore entirely in the dark as to
what had happened, and entered the house, upon their arrival, like men
for whom some terrible doom might be preparing.
The first person they encountered was Huckins. He was standing in the
parlor window, rubbing his hands slowly together and smiling very softly
to himself. But when he saw the two young men, he came forward with a
cringing bow and an expression of hypocritical grief, which revived all
Frank's distrust and antipathy.
"Oh, sir," he exclaimed to Frank, "you here? You should not have come;
indeed you should not. Sad case," he added, turning to the Doctor; "very
sad case, this which we have upstairs. I fear we are going to lose the
dear young lady." And he wiped his half-shut eyes with his fine white
handkerchief.
"Let me see her; where is she?" cried the Doctor, not stopping to look
around him, though the place must have been full of the most suggestive
associations.
"Doris will show you. She was in the laboratory when I saw her last. A
dangerous place for a young lady who has been jilted by her lover!" And
he turned a very twinkling eye on Frank.
"What do you mean?" cried Frank. "The laboratory! The place where---- O
Edgar, go to her, go at once."
But Edgar was already half-way upstairs, at the top of which he was met
by Doris.
"What is this?" he cried. "What has happened to Miss Cavanagh?"
"Come and see," she said. "O that she should go out of the house first
in this way!"
Alarmed more by the woman's manner than her words, Dr. Sellick hurried
forward and entered the open laboratory door almost without realizing
that in another instant he would be in the presence of Emma. And when he
did see her, and met the eyes he had not looked into since that night a
year before when she listened to his vows with such a sweet and bashful
timidity, he hardly felt the shock of the change observable in her, for
the greater shock her sister's appearance inspired. For Hermione lay on
that same old couch which had once held her father, ill to
speechlessness, and though the Doctor did not know what had brought her
to this condition, he began to suspect and doubt if he were in time to
revive her.
"What has she taken?" he demanded. "Something, or she would not be as
low as this without more warning."
Emma, quaking, put a little piece of paper in his hand.
"I found this in her pocket," she whispered. "It was only a little while
ago. It is quite empty," said she, "or you would have had two patients."
He stared at her, hardly taking in her words. Then he leaped to the
door.
"Frank," he cried, tossing down a slip of paper on which he had hastily
written a word, "go with this to the druggist at once! Run, for moments
are precious!"
They heard a shout in answer; then the noise of the front door opening
and shutting, and the sound of rapidly departing steps.
"Thank God!" the young physician murmured, as he came back into the
laboratory, "that I studied chemistry with Mr. Cavanagh, or I might not
know just what antidote was required here."
"Look!" Emma whispered; "she moved, when you said the word _Frank_."
The Doctor leaned forward and took Emma's hand.
"If we can rouse her enough to make her speak, she will be saved. When
did she take that powder?"
"I fear she took it this morning, shortly after--after nine o'clock;
but she did not begin to grow seriously ill till an hour ago, when she
suddenly threw up her arms and shrieked."
"And didn't you know; didn't you suspect----"
"No, for she said nothing. She only looked haggard and clung to me;
clung as if she could not bear to have me move an inch away from her
side."
"And how long has she been unconscious and in that clammy, cold sweat?"
"A little while; just before we sent for you. I--I hated to disturb you
at first, but life is everything, and----"
He gave her one deep, reassuring look.
"Emma," he softly murmured, "if we save your sister, four hearts shall
be happy. See if you can make her stir. Tell her that Frank is here, and
wants to see her."
Emma, with a brightening countenance, leaned over and kissed Hermione's
marble-like brow.
"Hermione," she cried, "Hermione! Frank wants you; he is tired of
waiting. Come, dear; shall I not tell him you will come?"
A quiver at the word _Frank_, but that was all.
"It is Frank, dear; Frank!" Emma persisted. "Rouse up long enough just
to see him. He loves you, Hermione."
Not even a quiver now. Dr. Sellick began to turn pale.
"Hermione, will you leave us now, just as you are going to be happy?
Listen, listen to Emma. You know I have always told you the truth. Frank
is here, ready to love you. Wake, darling; wake, dearest----"
There was no use. No marble could be more unresponsive. Dr. Sellick
rushed in anguish to the door. But the step he heard there was that of
Huckins, and it was Huckins' face he encountered at the head of the
stairs.
"Is she dead?" cried that worthy, bending forward to look into the room.
"I was afraid, _very_ much afraid, you could not do any good, when I saw
how cold she was, poor dear."
The Doctor, not hearing him, shouted out: "The antidote! the antidote!
Why does not Frank come!"
At that instant Frank was heard below: "Am I in time?" he gasped. "Here
it is; I ran all the way"; and he came rushing up the stairs just as
Huckins slipped from the step where he was and fell against him.
"Oh," whimpered that old hypocrite, "I beg your pardon; I am so
agitated!" But his agitation seemed to spring mainly from the fact that
the antidote Frank brought was in powder and not in a bottle, which
might have been broken in their encounter.
Dr. Sellick, who saw nothing but the packet Frank held, grasped the
remedy and dashed back into the room. Frank followed and stood in
anguished suspense within the open doorway. Huckins crouched and
murmured to himself on the stair.
"Can we get her to take it? Is there hope?" murmured Emma.
No word came in reply; the Doctor was looking fixedly at his patient.
"Frank," he said solemnly, "come and take her hand in yours. Nothing
else will ever make her unlock her lips."
Frank, reeling in his misery, entered and fell at her feet.
"Hermione," he endeavored to say, but the word would not come. Breaking
into sobs he took her hand and laid his forehead upon it. Would that
anguish of the beloved one arouse her? Dr. Sellick and Emma drew near
together in their anxiety and watched. Suddenly a murmur escaped from
the former, and he bent rapidly forward. The close-locked lips were
parting, parting so slowly, so imperceptibly, that only a physician's
eye could see it. Waiting till they were opened enough to show the
pearly teeth, he stooped and whispered in Frank's ear. Instantly the
almost overwhelmed lover, roused, saw this evidence of existing life,
and in his frenzied relief imprinted one wild kiss upon the hand he
held. It seemed to move her, to reach her heart, to stay the soul just
hovering on the confines of life, for the lips parted further, the lids
of the eyes trembled, and before the reaction came, Dr. Sellick had
succeeded in giving her a few grains of the impalpable powder he was
holding.
"It will either kill or restore her," said he. "In five minutes we
shall know the result."
And when at the end of those five minutes they heard a soft sigh, they
never thought, in their sudden joy and relief, to look for the sneaking
figure trembling on the staircase, who, at this first sign of reviving
life in one he thought dead, slid from his station and went creeping
down the stairs, with baffled looks that would have frightened even
Doris had she seen them.
XXIX.
IN THE POPLAR WALK.
Two days had passed. Hermione was sitting in the cheerful sitting-room
with the choicest of flowers about her and the breeze from the open
window fluttering gayly in her locks. She was weak yet, but there was
promise of life in her slowly brightening eye, and from the language of
the smile which now and then disturbed the lines of her proud lips,
there was hope of happiness in the heart which but two short days before
had turned from life in despair.
Yet it was not a perfect hope, or the smiles would have been deeper and
more frequent. She had held a long talk with Frank, but he had not
touched upon a certain vital question, perhaps because he felt she had
not yet the strength to argue it. He was her lover and anticipated
marrying her, but he had not said whether he expected her to disobey her
father and leave her home. She felt that he must expect this; she also
felt that he had the right to do so; but when she thought of yielding to
his wishes, the old horror returned to her, and a suffocating feeling of
fear, as if it would never be allowed. The dead have such a hold upon
us. As the pleasure of living and the ecstasy of love began to make
themselves felt again in her weakened frame, she could not refrain from
asking herself by what right she contemplated taking up the joys of
life, who had not only forfeited them by her attempt at suicide, but who
had been cursed by a father and doomed by his will to perpetual
imprisonment. Had he not said, "Let not hatred, let not _love_, lead you
to leave these doors"? How then presume to think of it or dream that she
could be happy with such remembrances as hers ever springing up to
blight her life? She wished, oh! how she wished, that Frank would not
ask her to leave her home. Yet she knew this was weakness, and that
soon, at the next interview, perhaps, she would have to dash his hopes
by speaking of her fears. And so Hermione was not perfectly happy.
Emma, on the contrary, was like a bird loosed from a cage. She sang,
yes, sang as she flitted up and down the stairs, and once Hermione
started and blushed with surprise as her voice in a merry peal of
laughter came from the garden. Such a sound had not been heard in that
house for a year; such a sound seemed an anomaly there. Yet how sweet it
was, and how it seemed to lift the shadows.
There was another person who started as this unusual note of merriment
disturbed the silence of the garden. It was Huckins, who was slowly
walking up and down beneath the poplars. He was waiting for Doris, and
this sound went through him like an arrow.
"Laughter," he muttered, shaking his trembling hands in menace towards
her. "That is a sound I must crush. It speaks too much of hope, and hope
means the loss to me of all for which I have schemed for years. Why
didn't that poison work? Why did I let that doctor come? I might have
locked the door against him and left them to hunt for the key. But I was
afraid; that Etheridge is so ready to suspect me."
He turned and walked away from the house. He dreaded to hear that
silvery sound again.
"If she had died, as I had every reason to suspect after such a dose,
Emma would have followed her in a day. And then who could have kept me
out of my property? Not Etheridge, for all his hatred and suspicion of
me." He shook his hand again in menace and moved farther down the path.
As his small black figure disappeared up the walk Doris appeared at the
kitchen door. She also looked cheerful, yet there was a shade of anxiety
in her expression as she glanced up the walk.
"He says he is going away," she murmured. "The shock of Miss Hermione's
illness was too much for him, poor man! and he does not seem to consider
how lonesome I will be. If only he had asked me to go with him! But then
I could not have left the young ladies; not while they stick to this old
horror of a house. What is it, Miss Emma?"
"A four-leaved clover! one, two, _three_ of them," cried her young
mistress from the lawn at the side of the house. "We are in luck! Times
are going to change for us all, I think."
"The best luck we can have is to quit this house forever," answered
Doris, with a boldness unusual on her lips.
"Ah," returned Emma, with her spirits a little dashed, "I cannot say
about that, but we will try and be happy in it."
"Happy in it!" repeated Doris, but this time to herself. "I can never be
happy in it, now I have had my dreams of pleasure abroad." And she left
the kitchen door and began her slow walk towards the end of the garden.
Arrived at the place where Huckins waited for her, she stopped.
"Good afternoon," said she. "Pleasant strolling under these poplars."
He grunted and shook his head slowly to and fro.
"Nothing is very pleasant here," said he. "I have stood it as long as I
can. My nieces are good girls, but I have failed to make them see
reason, and I must leave it now to these two lovers of theirs to do what
they can."
"And do you think they will succeed? That the young ladies will be
influenced by them to break up their old habits?"
This was what Huckins did think, and what was driving him to extremity,
but he veiled his real feelings very successfully under a doleful shake
of the head.
"I do not know," said he. "I fear not. The Cavanagh blood is very
obstinate, very obstinate indeed."
"Do you mean," cried Doris, "that they won't leave the house to be
married? That they will go on living here in spite of these two young
gentlemen who seem to be so fond of them?"
"I do," said he, with every appearance of truth. "I don't think anything
but fire will ever drive them out of this house."
It was quietly said, almost mournfully, but it caused Doris to give a
sudden start. Looking at him intently, she repeated "Fire?" and seemed
to quake at the word, even while she rolled it like a sweet morsel under
her tongue.
He nodded, but did not further press the subject. He had caught her look
from the corner of his eye, and did not think it worth while to change
his attitude of innocence.
"I wish," he insinuated, "there was another marriage which could take
place."
"Another marriage?" she simpered.
"I have too much money for one to spend," said he. "I wish I knew of a
good woman to share it."
Doris, before whose eyes the most dazzling dreams of wealth and
consequence at once flashed, drooped her stout figure and endeavored to
look languishing.
"If it were not for my duty to the young ladies," sighed she.
"Yes, yes," said he, "you must never leave them."
She turned, she twisted, she tortured her hands in her endeavor to keep
down the evidences of her desire and her anxiety.
"If--if this house should be blown down in a storm or--or a fire should
consume it as you say, they would have to go elsewhere, have to marry
these young men, have to be happy in spite of themselves."
"But what cyclones ever come here?" he asked, with his mockery of a
smile. "Or where could a fire spring from in a house guarded by a
Doris?"
She was trembling so she could not answer. "Come out here again at six
o'clock," said she; "they will miss me if I stay too long now. Oh, sir,
how I wish I could see those two poor loves happy again!"
"How I wish you could!" said he, and there was nothing in his tone for
her ears but benevolence.
As Huckins crept from the garden-gate he ran against Frank, who was on
his way to the station.
"Oh, sir," he exclaimed, cringing, "I am sure I beg your pardon. Going
up to town, eh?"
"Yes, and I advise you to do the same," quoth the other, turning upon
him sharply. "The Misses Cavanagh are not well enough at present to
entertain visitors."
"You are no doubt right," returned Huckins with his meekest and most
treacherous aspect. "It is odd now, isn't it, but I was just going to
say that it was time I left them, much as I love the poor dears. They
seem so happy now, and their prospects are so bright, eh?"
"I hope so; they have had trouble enough."
"Um, um, they will go to Flatbush, I suppose, and I--poor old outcast
that I am--may rub my hands in poverty."
He looked so cringing, and yet so saturnine, that Frank was tempted to
turn on his heel and leave him with his innuendoes unanswered. But his
better spirit prevailing, he said, after a moment's pregnant silence:
"Yes; the young ladies will go to Flatbush, and the extent of the
poverty you endure will depend upon your good behavior. I do not think
either of your nieces would wish to see you starve."
"No, no, poor dears, they are very kind, and the least I can do is to
leave them. Old age and misery are not fit companions for youth and
hope, are they, Mr. Etheridge?"
"I have already intimated what I thought about that."
"So you have, so you have. You are such a lawyer, Mr. Etheridge, such an
admirable lawyer!"
Frank, disgusted, attempted to walk on, but Huckins followed close after
him.
"You do not like me," he said. "You think because I was violent once
that I envy these sweet girls their rights. But you don't know me, Mr.
Etheridge; you don't know my good heart. Since I have seen them I have
felt very willing to give up my claims, they are such nice girls, and
will be so kind to their poor old uncle."
Frank gave him a look as much as to say he would see about that, but he
said nothing beyond a short "What train do you take?"
As Huckins had not thought seriously of taking any, he faltered for a
moment and then blurted out:
"I shall get off at eight. I must say good-by to the young ladies, you
know."
Frank, who did not recognize this _must_, looked at his watch and said:
"You have just a half hour to get the train with me; you had better take
it."
Huckins, a little startled, looked doubtfully at the lawyer and
hesitated. He did not wish to arouse his antagonism or to add to his
suspicion; indeed it was necessary to allay both. He therefore, after a
moment of silent contemplation of the severe and inscrutable face before
him, broke into a short wheedling laugh, and saying, "I had no idea my
company was so agreeable," promised to make what haste he could and
catch the six o'clock train if possible.
But of course it was not possible. He had his second interview with
Doris to hold, and after that was over there were the young ladies to
see and impress with the disinterested state of his feelings. So that it
was eight o'clock before he was ready to leave the town. But he did
leave it at that hour, though it must have been with some intention of
returning, or why did he carry away with him the key of the side-door of
the old Cavanagh mansion?
XXX.
THE FINAL TERROR.
A week went by and Frank returned to Marston full of hope and definite
intention. He had notified the Surrogate of the discovery of the real
heirs to the Wakeham estate, and he had engaged workmen to put in order
the old house in Flatbush against the arrival of the youthful claimants.
All that there now remained to do was to induce the young ladies to
leave the accursed walls within which they had so long immured
themselves.
Edgar was awaiting him at the station, and together they walked up the
street.
"Is it all right?" asked Frank. "Have you seen them daily?"
"Every day but to-day. You would hardly know Emma."
"And--and Hermione?"
"She shows her feelings less, but she is evidently happier than she has
been for a year."
"And her health?"
"Is completely re-established."
"Have you kept your word? Have you talked of everything but what we
propose to do?"
"I never break my word."
"And they? Have they said anything about leaving the house, or of going
to Flatbush, or--or----"
"No; they have preserved as close a silence as ourselves. I imagine they
do not think it proper to speak till we have spoken first."
"It may be; but I should have been pleased if you could have told me
that Hermione had been seen walking outside the gate."
"You would?"
"Yes. I dread the struggle which I now see before me. It is the first
step which costs, and I was in hopes she would have taken this in my
absence."
"Yes, it would have prevented argument. But perhaps you will not have to
argue. She may be merely waiting for the support of your arm."
"Whatever she is waiting for, she takes her first step down the street
to-night. What a new world it will open before her!" And Frank
unconsciously quickened his pace.
Edgar followed with a less impatient step but with fully as much
determination. Pride was mingled with his love, and pride demanded that
his future wife should not be held in any bonds forged by the obstinacy
or the superstitious fears of a wayward sister.
They expected to see the girls at the windows, but they found the
shutters closed and the curtains drawn. Indeed, the whole house had a
funereal look which staggered Frank and made even Edgar stare in
astonishment. "It was not like this yesterday," he declared. "Do they
not expect you?"
"Yes, if my telegram was delivered."
"Let us see at once what is the matter."
It was Doris who came to the door. When her eyes fell upon the two young
men, especially upon Frank, her whole countenance changed.
"Oh, Mr. Etheridge, is it you?" she cried. "I thought--I understood----"
She did not say what, but her relieved manner made quite an impression
on Frank, although it was, of course, impossible for him to suspect what
a dangerous deed she had been contemplating at that very moment.
"Are the young ladies well?" he asked, in his haste to be relieved from
his anxiety.
"Oh, yes, quite well," she admitted, somewhat mysteriously. "They are in
there," she added, pointing to the parlor on the left.
Frank and Edgar looked at each other. They had always before this been
received in the cheerful sitting-room.
"If something is not soon done to make Miss Hermione leave the house,"
Doris whispered passionately to Frank as she passed him, "there will be
worse trouble here than there has ever been before."
"What do you mean?" he demanded, gliding swiftly after her and catching
her by the arm just as she reached the back hall.
"Go in and see," said she, "and when you come out tell me what success
you have had. For if you fail, then----"
"Then what----"
"Providence must interpose to help you."
She was looking straight at him, but that glance told him nothing. He
thought her words strange and her conduct strange, but everything was
strange in this house, and not having the key to her thoughts, the word
_Providence_ did not greatly startle him.
"I will see what I can do," said he, and returning to Edgar, who had
remained standing by the parlor-door, he preceded him into that gloomy
apartment.
The girls were both there, seated, as Frank perceived with a certain
sinking of the heart, in the farthest and dimmest corner of this most
forbidding place. Emma was looking towards them, but Hermione sat with
downcast eyes and an air of discouragement about her Frank found it hard
to behold unmoved.
"Hermione," said he, advancing into the middle of the room, "have you no
welcome for me?"
Trembling with sudden feeling, she rose slowly to her feet; and her eyes
lifted themselves painfully to his.
"Forgive me," she entreated, "I have had such a shock."
"Shock?"
"Yes. Look at my head! look at my hair!"
She bent forward; he hastened to her side and glanced at the rich locks
towards which she pointed. As he did so, he recoiled in sudden awe and
confusion. "What does it mean?" he asked. There were gray spots in those
dusky tresses, spots which had never been there before.
"The fingers of a ghost have touched me," she whispered. "Wherever they
fell, a mark has been left, and those marks sear my brain."
And then Frank noticed, with inward horror, that the spots were regular
and ran in a distinct circle about her head.
"Hermione," he cried, "has your imagination carried you so far? Ghost?
Do you believe in ghosts?"
"I believe in anything _now_," she murmured.
Frightened by her shudders and dazed by words he found it impossible to
treat lightly with those mysterious marks before him, Frank turned for
relief to Emma, who had risen also and stood a few steps behind them,
with her face bent downward though the Doctor pressed close at her side.
"Do you understand her?" said Frank.
With an effort Emma moved forward. "It has frightened _me_," she
whispered.
"What has? Let us hear all about it," demanded the Doctor, speaking for
the first time.
Hermione gave him a wistful glance. "We are wretched girls," said she.
"If you expected to relieve us from the curse, it is impossible; my
father will not have it so."
"Your father!" quoth both of the young men, appalled not at the
superstition thus evinced, but at the effect they saw it was likely to
have upon her mind.
"Did you think you saw _him_?" added Frank. "When? Where?"
"In the laboratory--last night. I did not see him but I felt him; felt
him strike my head with his fingers and drag me back. It was worse than
death! I shall never get over it."
"Tell me the particulars; explain the whole matter to me. Imagination
plays us ghastly tricks sometimes. Were you alone? Was it late?"
"Why didn't I come here this morning?" cried Edgar.
"It was long after midnight. I had received your letter and could not
sleep, so I went into the laboratory, as we often do, to walk. It was
the first time I had been there since I was ill, and it made me tremble
to cross its hated threshold, but I had a question to decide, and I
thought I ought to decide it there. But I trembled, as I say, and my
hand shook so as I opened the door that I was more disturbed than
astonished when my light went suddenly out, leaving me in total
darkness. As I was by this time inside the laboratory I did not turn
back to relight my candle, for the breeze I presently felt blowing
through the room convinced me that this would be idle, and that till the
window was shut, which let in such a stream of air, any attempt to bring
a light into the room would be attended by the same results. I therefore
moved rapidly across the room to the window, and was about to close it
when I was suddenly arrested, and my arms were paralyzed by the feeling
of a presence in the room behind my back. It was so vivid, so clear to
my thoughts, that I seemed to see it, though I did not turn from the
window. It was that of an old man--my father's,--and the menace with
which the arms were lifted froze the blood in my veins.
"I had merited it; I had been near to breaking his command. I had
meditated, if I had not decided, upon a sudden breaking away from the
bondage he had imposed upon me; I had been on the point of daring his
curse, and now it was to fall upon me. I felt the justice of his
presence and fell, as if stricken, on my knees.
"The silence that followed may have been short, and it may have been
long. I was almost unconscious from fright, remorse, and apprehension.
But when I did rouse and did summon courage to turn and crawl from the
room, I was conscious of the thing following me, and would have
screamed, but that I had no voice. Suddenly I gave a rush; but the
moment I started forward I felt those fingers fall upon my head and draw
me back, and when I did escape it was with a force that carried me
beyond the door and then laid me senseless on the floor; for I am no
longer strong, Mr. Etheridge, and the hatred of the dead is worse than
that of the living."
"You had a dream, a fearful dream, and these marks prove its
vividness," declared Edgar. "You must not let your life be ruined by any
such fantasies."
"Oh, that it had been a dream," moaned Hermione, "but it was more than
that, as we can prove."
"Prove?"
"Come to the laboratory," cried Emma, suddenly. "There is something we
want to show you there; something which I saw early this morning when I
went in to close the window Hermione did not shut."
The young men, startled, did not wait for a second bidding; they
followed the two girls immediately up-stairs.
"No one has been up these stairs but Doris and ourselves since you went
down them a week ago," declared Hermione, as they entered the
laboratory. "Now look at the lid of the mahogany desk--my father's
desk."
They all went over to it, and Emma, pointing, seemed to ask what they
thought of it. They did not know what to think, for there on its even
surface they beheld words written with the point of a finger in the
thick dust which covered it; and the words were legible and ran thus:
"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."
"My father's words to me in the dreadful hour of his death," whispered
Hermione. "You may remember them, Mr. Etheridge; they were in the letter
I wrote you."
Frank did remember them quite well, and for a moment he, like Edgar,
stood a little dazed and shaken by a mystery he could not immediately
fathom. But only for a moment. He was too vigorous, and his
determination was too great, for him to be daunted long by even an
appearance of the supernatural. So leaping forward, with a bright laugh,
he drew his hand across the menacing words, and, effacing them at once,
cried with a confident look at Hermione:
"So will I erase them from your heart if you only will let me,
Hermione."
But she pointed with an awful look at her hair.
"Can you take these spots out also? Till you can, do not expect me to
follow the beck of any hand which would lead me to defy my father's
curse by leaving this house."
At this declaration both men turned pale, and unconsciously moved
towards each other with a single thought. Had they looked at the door,
they would have seen the inquisitive face of Doris disappear towards the
staircase, with that air of determination which only ends in action. But
they only saw each other and the purpose which was slowly developing in
each of their minds.
"Come, Hermione," urged Frank, "this is no place for you. If you are
going to stay in this house, I am going to stay with you; but this room
is prohibited; you shall never enter it again."
He did not know how truly he spoke.
"Come," said Edgar, in his turn, to Emma, "we have had all the horrors
we want; now let us go down-stairs and have a little cheerful talk in
the sitting-room."
And Emma yielded; but Hermione hung back.
"I dread to go down," said she; "this seems the only place in which I
can say farewell."
But Frank was holding out his hand, and she gradually gave in to its
seduction and followed him down-stairs into the sitting-room, which was
fast growing dusky.
"Now," said he, without heeding Emma and the Doctor, who had retreated
to one of the farther windows, "if you wish to say farewell, I will
listen to you; but before you speak, hear what I have to say. In a
certain box which came with me this day from New York, and which is now
at Mr. Lothrop's, there lies a gown of snowy satin made with enough lace
to hide any deficiencies it may have in size or fit. With this gown is a
veil snowy as itself, and on the veil there lies a wreath of orange
blossoms, while under the whole are piled garments after garments,
chosen with loving care by the only sister I have in the world, for the
one woman in that world I wish to make my wife. If you love me,
Hermione, if you think my devotion a true one, fly from this nest of
hideous memories and superstitious fears, and in that place where you
are already expected, put on these garments I have brought you, and with
them a crown of love, joy, and hope, which will mean a farewell, not to
me, but to the old life forever."
But Hermione, swaying aside from him, cried: "I cannot, I cannot; the
rafters would fall if I tried to pass the door."
"Then," said Frank, growing in height and glowing with purpose, "they
shall fall first on me." And seizing her in his arms, he raised her to
his breast and fled with her out of the room and out of the house, her
wild shriek of mingled terror and love trailing faintly after them till
he stopped on the farther side of the gate, which softly closed behind
them.
Emma, who was taken as much by surprise as her sister had been, looked
at the empty place where Hermione had so lately stood, and cowered low,
as if the terrible loneliness of the house, now _she_ was gone, crushed
upon her like a weight. Then she seized Edgar by the hand and ran out
also; and Edgar pulled the great door to behind them, and the Cavanagh
mansion, for the first time in a year, was a shell without inmates, a
body without soul.
They found Hermione standing in the dark shadows cast here in the street
by the overhanging trees. Frank's arm was about her and she looked both
dazed and pleased.
When she saw Emma she started.
"Oh, it releases you too," she cried; "that is happiness. I did not
like to see you suffer for my sins." Then she drooped a little, then she
looked up, and a burden seemed to roll away from her heart. "The rafters
did not fall," she murmured, "and you, Frank, will keep all spectres
away from me, won't you? He can never reach me when I am by your side."
"Never, never," was the glad reply. And Frank began to draw her gently
up the street. "It is but a step," said he, "to Mr. Lothrop's; no one
will ever notice that you are without a hat."
"But----"
"You are expected," he whispered. "You are never to go back into your
old home again."
Again he did not know how truly he spoke.
"Emma, Emma," appealed Hermione, "shall I do this thing, without any
preparation, any thought, anything but my love and gratitude to make it
a true bridal?"
"Ah, Hermione, in making yourself happy, you make me so; therefore I am
but a poor adviser."
"What, will you be married too, to-night, at the minister's house with
me?"
"No, dear, but soon, very soon, as soon as you can give me a home to be
married in."
"Then let us make her happy," cried Hermione. "It is the only
reparation I can offer for all I have made her suffer."
XXXI.
AN EVENTFUL QUARTER OF AN HOUR.
When Edgar closed the front door of the Cavanagh mansion behind himself
and Emma, the noise he made was slight, and yet it was heard by ears
that were listening for it in the remote recesses of the kitchen.
"The gentlemen are gone," decided Doris, without any hesitation. "They
could not move Miss Hermione from her resolves, and I did not think they
could. Nothing can move her but fire, and fire there shall be, and that
to-night."
Stealing towards the front of the house, she listened. All was quiet.
She instantly concluded that the young ladies were in the parlor, and
glided back to a certain closet under the stairs, into which she peered
with a satisfied air. "Plenty of stuff there," she commented, and
shivered slightly as she thought of putting a candle to the combustible
pile before her. Shutting the door, she crept to another spot where lay
a huge pile of shavings, and again she nodded with satisfaction at the
sight. Finally, she went into the shed, and when she came back she
walked like one who sees the way clear to her purposes.
"I promised Mr. Huckins I would not start the blaze till after
midnight," said she almost audibly, as she passed again towards the
front. "He was so afraid if the fire got started early that the
neighbors would put it out before any harm was done. But I haven't the
nerve to do such a thing with the young ladies up-stairs. They might not
get down safely, or I might not have the power to wake them. No, I will
fire it now, while they are in the parlor, and trust to its going like
tinder, as it will. Won't the young gentlemen thank me, and won't the
young ladies do the same, when they get over the shock of being suddenly
thrown upon the world."
Chuckling softly to herself, she looked up-stairs and finally ran
quietly up. With a woman's thoughtfulness she remembered certain
articles which she felt were precious to the young ladies. To gather
these together would be the work of a moment, and it would ease her
conscience. Going first to Hermione's room, she threw such objects as
she considered valuable into a sheet, and tied them up. Then she tossed
the bundle thus made out of one of the side windows. Running to Emma's
room, she repeated her operations; and letting her own things go,
hastened down-stairs and went again into the kitchen. When she reissued
it was with a lighted candle in her hand.
Meantime from the poplar walk two eyes were gazing with restless
eagerness upon the house. They belonged to Huckins, who, unknown to
Etheridge, unknown to Doris even, had returned to Marston for the
purpose of watching the development of his deadly game. He had stolen
into the garden and was surveying the place, not so much from any
expectation of fire at this hour, as because his whole interest was
centred in the house and he could not keep his eyes from it.
But suddenly, as he looks, he detects something amiss, and starting
forward, with many muttered exclamations, he draws nearer and nearer to
the house, which he presently enters by means of the key he draws from
his pocket. As he does so, a faint smell of smoke comes to his nostrils,
causing him to mutter: "She is three hours too soon; what does she mean
by it?"
The door by which he had entered was at the end of a side hall. He
found the house dark, but he was so accustomed to it by this time, that
he felt no hesitancy as to his steps. He went at first to the
sitting-room and looked in; there was no one there. Then he proceeded to
the parlor, which was also empty. "Good," thought he, "they are
up-stairs"; and he slid with his quiet step to the staircase, up which
he went like the ghost or spectre which he had perhaps simulated the
night before. There was a door at the top of the first landing, and he
had some thoughts of simply locking this, and escaping. But, he said to
himself, it would be much more satisfactory to first make sure that the
two girls were really above, before he locked them in; so he crept up
farther, and finally came to Hermione's room. The door was shut, but
from the light which shone through the keyhole (a light which Doris had
left there in her haste and trepidation), he judged Hermione to be
within, so he softly turned the key that was in the lock, and glided
away to Emma's apartment. This was also closed, but there was a light
there, also from the same cause, so there being no key visible he drew a
heavy piece of furniture across the doorway, and fled back to the
stairs. As he reached them, a blinding gust of smoke swept up through
the crevices beneath his feet, but he thought he saw his way clearly,
and rushed for the landing. But just as he reached it, the door--the
door he had intended to close behind him--shut sharply in his face, and
he found himself imprisoned. With a shriek, he dashed against it; but it
was locked; and just as he staggered upright again from his violent
efforts to batter it down, a red-hot flame shot up through a gap in the
staircase and played about his feet. He yelled, and dashed up the
stairs. If he were to suffer for his own crime, he would at least have
companions in his agony. Calling upon Emma and Hermione, he rushed to
the piece of furniture with which he had barred the former's apartment,
and frantically drew it aside. The door remained shut; there was no
agonized one within to force it open the moment the pressure against it
was relieved. Stupefied, he staggered away and ran up the twisted
staircase to Hermione's room. Perhaps they were here, perhaps they were
both here. But all was silent within, and when he had entered and
searched the space before him, even beneath and behind the curtains of
the bed for its expected occupant, and found no one there, he uttered
such a cry as that house had never listened to, not even when it echoed
to its master's final yell of rage and despair.
Doris meanwhile was suffering her own punishment below. When she had
lighted the three several piles she had prepared, she fled into the
front of the house to spread the alarm and insure the safety of her
young mistresses. Passing the staircase she had one quick thought of the
likelihood there might be of Hermione or Emma dashing up those stairs in
an endeavor to save some of their effects, so she quietly locked the
door above in order to prevent them. But when she had done this she
heard a shriek, and, startled, she was about to unlock it again when a
vivid flame shot up between her and the door making any such attempt
impossible. Aghast with terror, fearing that by some error of
calculation she had shut her young ladies up-stairs after all, she went
shrieking their names through the lower rooms and halls, now filling
with smoke and lurid with shooting jets of flame. As no response came
and she could find no one in any of the rooms, her terror grew to frenzy
and she would have dashed up-stairs at the risk of her life. But it was
too late; the stairs had already fallen, and the place was one volcano
of seething flame.
XXXII.
THE SPECTRE OF THE LABORATORY.
Had Hermione been allowed time to think, she might have drawn back from
such a sudden marriage. But Frank, who recognized this possibility,
urged her with gentle speed down the street, and never ceased his
persuasions till they stood at the minister's door. Mrs. Lothrop, who
had a heart for romance, opened it, and seeing the blushing face and
somewhat dishevelled appearance of Hermione, she cast one comprehending
look at Frank, and drew them in joyfully.
"You are to be married, are you not?" she asked, welcoming the whole
four with the gayest of bows. "I congratulate you, dear, and will take
you right away to my best room, where you will find your box and
everything else you may need. I am so glad you decided to come here
instead of having us go to you. It is so pleasant and so friendly and
the Doctor does so dread to go out evenings now."
Small chatter is ofttimes our salvation. Under this little lady's fire
of bright talk Hermione lost the tragic feelings of months and seemed to
awake to the genialities of life. Turning her grand head towards the
smiling little woman she let her own happiness shine from the corners of
her mouth, and then following the other's lead, allowed herself to be
taken to a cosy chintz-furnished room whose home-like aspect struck warm
upon her heart and completed the work of her rejuvenation.
Emma, who was close behind her, laughed merrily.
"Such a chrysalis of a bride," cried she. "Where are the wings with
which to turn her into a butterfly?"
Mrs. Lothrop showed them a great box, and then left them. Emma, lifting
the lid, glanced shyly at Hermione, who blushed scarlet. Such a lovely
array of satin, lace, and flowers! To these girls, who had denied
themselves everything and been denied everything, it was a glimpse of
Paradise. As one beautiful garment after another was taken out,
Hermione's head drooped lower in her delight and the love it inspired,
till at last the tears came and she wept for a few minutes
unconstrainedly. When this mood had passed, she gave herself up to
Emma's eager fingers, and was dressed in her bridal garments.
The clock was striking ten when Frank's impatience was rewarded by the
first glimpse of his bride. She came into the room with Emma and Mrs.
Lothrop, and her beauty, heightened by her feelings to the utmost, was
such as to fill him with triumph and delight.
To Edgar it was a revelation, for always before, he had seen the scar
before he did her; but now he was compelled to see her first, for the
scar was hidden under fold upon fold of lace.
"No wonder Frank is daft over her," thought he, "if she always looks
like this to him."
As for Frank, he bowed with all his soul to the radiant vision, and
then, leading her up to Mr. Lothrop, awaited the sacred words which were
to make them one. As they were being uttered, strange noises broke out
in the street, and the cry of "Fire! fire!" rang out; but if the bride
and bridegroom heard the ominous word they did not betray the fact, and
the ceremony proceeded. It was soon over, and Frank turned to kiss his
wife; but just as Emma advanced with her congratulations, the front door
burst open and a neighbor's voice was heard to cry in great excitement:
"The Cavanagh house is burning, and we are all afraid that the girls
have perished in the flames."
It was Emma who gave the one shriek that responded to these words.
Hermione seemed like one frozen. Edgar, dashing to the door, looked out,
and came slowly back.
"Yes, it is burning," said he. "Emma will have to go with you to New
York."
"It is a judgment," moaned Hermione, clinging to Frank, who perhaps felt
a touch of superstitious awe himself. "It is a judgment upon me for
forgetting; for being happy; for accepting a deliverance I should not
have desired."
But at these words Frank regained his composure.
"No," corrected he, "it is your deliverance made complete. Without it
you might have had compunctions and ideas of returning to a place to
which you felt yourself condemned. Now you never can. It is a merciful
Providence."
"Let us go and see the old house burn," she whispered. "If it is a
funeral pyre of the past, let us watch the dying embers. Perhaps my
fears will vanish with them."
He did not refuse her; so Emma relieved her of her veil and threw about
her a long cloak, and together they stepped into the street. The glare
that struck their faces made them shrink, but they soon overcame the
first shock and hastened on.
The town was in a tumult, but they saw nothing save the flaming skeleton
of their home, with the gaunt outlines of the poplars shining vividly in
the scarlet glow.
As they drew near to it the front of the house fell in, and Hermione,
with a shriek, pointed to the corner where the laboratory had been.
"My father! my father! See! see! he is there! He is denouncing me! Look
at his lifted arms! It _is_ a judgment, it is----"
Her words trailed off in choking horror. They all looked, and they all
saw the figure of an old man writhing against a background of flame. Was
it a spectre? Was it the restless ghost of the old professor showing
itself for the last time in the place of his greatest sin and suffering?
Even Edgar was silent, and Frank refused to say, while the girls,
sinking upon their knees with inarticulate moans and prayers, seemed to
beg for mercy and cry against this retribution, when suddenly Hermione
felt herself clasped in two vigorous arms, and a voice exclaimed in the
husky accents of great joy:
"You are here! You are here! You are not burned! O my dear young
mistresses, my dear, dear young mistresses!"
Hermione, pushing the weeping Doris back, pointed again towards the
toppling structure, and cried:
"Do you see who is there? My father, Doris, my father! See how he
beckons and waves, see----"
Doris, startled, gave a cry in her turn:
"It is Mr. Huckins! O save----"
But the words were lost in the sudden crash of falling walls. The scene
of woe was gone, and the dayspring of hope had risen for the two girls.
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Transcriber's Note:
Punctuation has been standardised. Spelling and hyphenation have been
retained as in the original publication except as follows:
Page 19
before her head could and its _changed to_
before her head could add its
Page 87
advisable to have an an inventory _changed to_
advisable to have an inventory
Page 120
heeded neither his works nor _changed to_
heeded neither his words nor
Page 135
so may their hearts be. Wont _changed to_
so may their hearts be. Won't
Page 144
Hermoine, and then I could _changed to_
Hermione, and then I could
Page 209
"since Hariet Smith is _changed to_
"since Harriet Smith is
End of Project Gutenberg's Cynthia Wakeham's Money, by Anna Katharine Green