though apparently thinking only of refolding and rearranging his
papers. It was precisely what he had expected; and, feeling quite
secure, for the moment, from Carice's observation, he took occasion, as
he returned Bergan's letter to his pocket-book, to let the postscript
drop to the ground, taking care to conceal it with his foot during the
remainder of his stay, which he wisely made short.
"Can I do anything more for you?" he asked, graciously, as he put up
his pocket-book.
Carice gave a slight start, and turned toward him, with an inquiring
look. She had heard, but she had not understood. He repeated his
question.
"No, thank you," replied Carice, letting her eyes go back to the far,
dark line of the pine forest.
"Then I must leave you. I only stopped to say good morning and
good-bye. I had already spent my few moments of leisure with Mrs.
Bergan."
He raised his hat courteously, and was gone.
Carice remained, trying her best to reduce the confusion of her mind to
order, and, especially, to discover some clue to the mystery of
Bergan's doings and intentions. She gave up the difficult task, at
last, with a weary little shake of the head, and a smile of pity at her
own helplessness.
"It is too deep for me," she said to herself, "but Bergan will be sure
to explain it all. I must just go on trusting till he comes, or
writes. He shall never be able to say that my faith in him was
conquered by the first difficulty!"
There was something quieting and strengthening in the mere resolve.
Trust has its own special delight,--a far subtler and sweeter thing
than any satisfaction of the understanding. Carice's face was almost
bright, as she turned to go home.
A folded paper lay directly in her path. Mechanically she picked it
up; mechanically she read it almost through, before her mind, busy with
other thoughts, began, even vaguely, to grasp its meaning.
It ran thus:--
"P.S. I cannot understand how my foolish engagement to Astra Lyte
should have leaked out. With all due respect for your opinion, I
cannot think of fulfilling it; indeed, I wrote to break it off
immediately after coming home. I should never have entered into it,
but for a mistaken notion that it would advance my interests in a
certain quarter. Finding that it was likely to do just the opposite,
there was nothing for it but to take the shortest cut out of the
scrape. Never fear for Astra, she does not belong to the Ophelia order
of women, she has pride and pluck enough to carry her through a worse
disappointment; besides, hearts are never broken except in novels and
plays. I am much obliged to her for leaving Berganton, the affair will
blow over the sooner. In order to give it time to do so, I think I
shall postpone my return until after Christmas. "Yours, B.A."
Twice did Carice read the paper's contents through, before she began to
understand what it was, and whence it came. She had seen Bergan's
handwriting a few times, in notes addressed to her mother; and she
remembered enough of its peculiarities to recognize them in the lines
before her, as soon as her mind was able to grasp the fact that, in
this heartless production, she beheld the postscript which she had seen
in Doctor Remy's hand, and which he had doubtless dropped accidentally,
while replacing his papers in his pocket-book. That it should have
been deliberately forged, and designedly put in her way--a sort of
moral torpedo, loaded with mischief--was a depth of wickedness, of
which, in her innocence, she could never have conceived. She could
scarcely make herself comprehend the evil tenor of the words before her
eyes. She read them over again, with a feeling that either their form
or their purport must change, if she only studied them carefully
enough; it was impossible that she had read them aright.
No, they would not alter. Her efforts only served to brand them more
deeply on her mind. She looked up, at last, with a kind of wonder that
the earth was still firm under her feet, and the sky's arch entire
above her head. It would have seemed more in keeping to have beheld
the universe crashing backward into chaos.
Not that she suffered very keenly yet. She was too much stunned to
realize the extent of her wounds and bruises. She picked herself up,
as it were, after the fall and the shock, and walked mechanically
homeward. Her strength did not give way until she found herself in her
room, shutting her door behind her, and felt what a different being had
gone out of it only a little while before.
An hour after, Mrs. Bergan found her lying on her bed, white and still,
more like a corpse than a living, suffering girl.
"Carice!" she cried, appalled, but not without an intuitive perception
of the truth,--"Carice, my child! what is the matter?"
"I don't know--don't ask me," replied Carice, turning her face to the
wall.
Mrs. Bergan burst into tears, and stole softly away. Here was a grief
in which even she could only intermeddle as a stranger. She could
simply commend her child to tenderer, wiser hands than hers.
A day or two went by, and Carice was down-stairs again, white; still,
patient; filling her old place, and doing her old tasks, with a sad
composure that was more affecting than any abandonment of sorrow. Her
woe seemed to take the form of torpor, rather than of anguish. It was
that chill and heavy misery, that dismal realization of the actual
presence and power of evil in the world, which never comes to us except
through the sin of some cherished, trusted friend; standing hitherto as
the representative of all that is good and true, the earthly type of
the Divine perfection. Falling, he falls not alone, but drags down
with him the supports of every earthly confidence, and even makes the
foundation of our heavenly faith to tremble. Such grief is dumb and
tearless; it coils itself round the heart in cold, serpent-like folds,
chilling the blood, and oppressing the breath; but it makes no single,
special wound, to call forth cries and sobs of pain.
Meanwhile, the yellow fever, as foreseen long ago by Doctor Remy, made
its silent entry into Berganton. One day a single case was reported in
the outskirts of the town; another week, and there was scarcely a
threshold which it had not crossed, either to strike or slay. The town
put on sackcloth and ashes; business was suspended, except the business
of nursing the sick and burying the dead; the streets were deserted,
except by hearses and doctors. Or, it would be truer to say, a doctor;
for Doctor Gerrish, being unacclimated, was one of the earliest
patients; and Doctor Harris, being old and infirm, quickly sank
exhausted; so Doctor Remy was soon left to face the pestilence alone,
and multiply himself as best he could, to meet the demands of a whole
people.
Let us do him ample justice. All that an iron frame, a steady courage,
admirable executive ability, profound medical skill, and deep
scientific interest, could prompt or do, he did. He organized and
instructed a corps of nurses, and made them do effective work; he
scattered printed suggestions and directions broadcast over the town,
for the behoof of sick and well; he was himself constantly in the
thickest of the fight, animating the workers, cheering the sick,
wellnigh raising the dead,--doing everything but comfort the mourners,
for that he had neither time nor talent. The town rang with praises of
his energy and skill; his presence had brought back hope to many a
house whence it seemed to have flown forever, joy into many a heart
that had only made itself ready for sorrow. Even Carice, as her
private grief half-sank, for the time, under the great wave of public
calamity, was moved to a degree of respect and admiration for the
doctor, of which, two or three weeks before, she could not have
believed herself capable. There was still a hero, and room for
heroism, in the world!
By and by, Mr. Bergan fell ill, not of the fever, but of one of the
sympathetic diseases, which often go hand in hand with it. There were
a few days of intense anxiety, during which the wife and daughter
lived, as it were, on the words of Doctor Remy's mouth, and the look of
his eyes. After these came slow weeks of convalescence, of exacting
feebleness and irritable complaint.
It was during these that Doctor Remy spoke.
Is it necessary to describe the conflict, or designate the result? On
the one side were parental wisdom, love, and authority, with the strong
sanction of recent danger and present feebleness; on the other, filial
respect, affection, and obedience, and a great self-distrust. For
Carice remembered that she had taken her own way before, and whither it
had led; now, ought she not to submit to the guidance ordained of God?
October found her bound fast by a promise, held irrevocably to a day.
The outward conflict was over; but the inward struggle, she found, was
scarce begun! Under that, she paled and wasted; sleep and appetite
forsook her; her eyes grew to have the pathetic, pleading look of a
dumb animal taken in a net. Finally, worn-out nature took refuge in
apathy that nothing seemed to disturb.
XI
A CLUE.
A chill November day was drawing near its close. With the evening dusk
snowflakes filled the air, and began to whiten the swells and slopes of
the Arling farm, and lay the foundation of future drifts beside the
doorstep and under the eaves of the Arling homestead. This structure
had begun life as a log cabin, but had grown, by the simple and natural
process of adding on a room or a wing, as fast as it was required and
could be afforded, into a large, and somewhat picturesque, cluster of
roofs and gables; beneath which there might easily be not only room for
the fullest, heartiest flow of domestic and social life, but also means
and influences to a considerable degree of refinement and culture.
Toward it, a stout, broad-shouldered personage was making his way,
through the dusk and the snow, with a cheery face and an energetic
tread, that plainly minded neither. Tramp, tramp, went the brisk
footfalls up the gravel walk, the bright brass knocker was made to send
a note of warning through the house, and the wayfarer admitted himself
into a lighted hall, through which he strode to the open door of the
sitting-room at the farther end.
A pleasant family picture was before him. Bergan Arling, on one side
of the crimson-covered centre-table, looked up, smiling, from the book
out of which he had been reading aloud. Two of his sisters sat near
him, busy with crotchet needles and bright worsteds. Still another was
drawing at a side-table; and over her, giving her the benefit of his
criticism, leaned her brother Hubert, scarce two years younger than
Bergan, and so strikingly like him, that one was often taken for the
other, outside the family circle. At one side of the fire-place sat
the master of the house, a tall, noble-looking man, with eye undimmed
and hair unfrosted by the snows of over sixty years. Opposite him was
the home's true light and centre, the house-mother. She reclined in a
large, low easy chair, the paleness on her face half concealed by the
glow of the blazing fire, and her eyes shining with that tender joy and
peace which convalescents sometimes bring back from the edge of the
grave,--a reflection, perhaps, from the paradise that was already
opening before the gaze of the half-freed spirit.
Doctor Trubie paused for a moment in the doorway, to master the details
of the scene. He has changed but little since he was introduced to the
reader, fourteen years ago, in his medical Alma Mater. His figure has
gained in breadth and strength, and his features in character, but it
is the same frank, genial face, and the same good-humored smile. No
one that knew him then, could fail to recognize him now.
In a moment, he caught sight of Mrs. Arling, and hastened toward her
with outstretched hand. "I don't know whether to congratulate or to
scold you," he began, smiling, yet shaking his head with mild
disapproval.
Hubert Arling came forward to Bergan's side. "I can settle the
question for you," said he. "Congratulate her, and scold us. We
brought her down, chair and all; she did not touch foot to the floor in
the transit."
"Then I will save my scolding until it is needed. It seems little less
than miraculous to see you here," he went on, turning to Mrs. Arling,
"when I think how things seemed to be going, a few weeks ago. It has
been a hard pull, and a long one."
"And a strong one, and a pull altogether," added Hubert Arling,
merrily, by way of arresting the tears that he saw starting into his
sisters' eyes.
"The strong pull," remarked Doctor Trubie, "came from my medical
brother, down South."
"You underrate yourself," replied Mr. Arling. "Of what avail would
Doctor Remy's suggestions have been, without your indefatigable
vigilance, and your professional skill and knowledge to carry them out?"
"That is to say," returned Doctor Trubie, "that a good
commander-in-chief can do nothing without good generals. At all
events, Doctor Remy is a wonderfully talented fellow. He seems to keep
not only abreast of medical science, but in advance of it. That very
suggestion of his, which proved most valuable to us, was mentioned in
my last medical review, as the latest discovery at Paris. There is
something about his bold, yet scientific mode of reasoning which
reminds me strangely of an old fellow-student. But Doctor Remy, I
hope, is a better fellow than _he_ was. By the way," he added, turning
to Bergan, "I came near forgetting that I have brought you a letter
from him, as I judge from the handwriting."
Bergan tore open the letter, and with an apologetic bow to the company,
began eagerly to read it. Doctor Trubie seated himself by the table,
picked up the rejected envelope, and gave it a critical examination.
"That's what I call a good hand," said he, "a round, clear, energetic
hand, that neither tries your eyesight, nor rouses your distrust.
There is no crookedness nor meanness in it; yet there is plenty of
character; one can see, at a glance, that the writer is bold and
sagacious as well as profound, a man of action as well as a man of
science."
Bergan had finished the letter, which was short; and he now looked up
with a much amused face. "I ought to tell you," said he, "that Doctor
Remy possesses the rare accomplishment of being able to write with
either hand; he uses the right or the left, at pleasure. But the two
handwritings are entirely distinct. That address was written with his
left hand, and so, I remember, were the suggestions and prescriptions
that I handed over to you. But this letter was written with his right
hand; see what you can make of it," and Bergan pushed the open sheet
across the table.
The change in Doctor Trubie's face was startling. "This!" he
exclaimed, his voice trembling with excitement, "who did you say wrote
this?"
"Doctor Remy, the same man who wrote that address."
Doctor Trubie glanced back at the letter, and his eyes lit with a
strange, stern joy. "At last!" he muttered through his set teeth.
Mrs. Arling leaned forward, and her face grew pale. "What is it,
doctor?" she asked, trembling. "What is the matter?"
Doctor Trubie glanced at her excited face, and saw what mischief he was
doing. "Nothing," he hastened to answer, "nothing, only an old sore
pressed on suddenly. This handwriting reminds me of one that--I never
expected to see again."
He gave the letter a long, moody look, then refolded it, and handed it
back to Bergan.
Mrs. Arling looked anxiously at her son. "Does Doctor Remy give you
any special news?" she asked.
"Not much. Uncle Godfrey is better, and the fever is over. Business
is still dull."
"Then you will not need to hurry back?"
Bergan knelt by his mother's side. "My dear mother," he whispered,
"you know it is not for the sake of my business that I am anxious to
return, as soon as I may. I must see Carice, and satisfy myself that
nothing is amiss."
Mrs. Arling smiled, yet she sighed, too. "Ah, yes, I remember," said
she, "and you are quite right."
Doctor Trubie rose, and came to the other side of Mrs. Arling's chair.
"I am glad to see that I am not wanted here any longer," he began,
pleasantly;--
"But you are wanted," interrupted Mrs. Arling; "you are always wanted,
as a friend."
"Thank you; but I am wanted elsewhere as a physician; so I must take my
leave, for the present."
He shook hands with Mrs. Arling, and gave Bergan a meaning glance, as
he did so. The young man rose. "I will walk a little way with you, if
you like," said he. "I have a boyish delight in the first snow, and I
did not see any last winter, you remember."
The two gentlemen were hardly outside the gate, before Doctor Trubie
asked;--"What do you know of this Doctor Remy's antecedents?"
Bergan narrated the facts which he had gathered, from time to time,
from Doctor Remy's conversation.
"So, he would have us believe," said Doctor Trubie, contemptuously,
"that he transformed himself from a poor lawyer into a scientific
physician, in a year and a half, by the help of a friendly doctor, and
a course of lectures! There is falsehood on the face of it."
"He had a genius for the study," replied Bergan.
"Aye, I'll warrant! that is the saving grain of truth in the whole
story. Do you remember the circumstances of your elder brother's
death?"
"Not very distinctly. I was so young, at the time; and then, you know,
mother could never bear to hear any allusion to them."
"You know that he was murdered?"
Bergan looked surprised. "I know there was talk of suicide," said he,
"but I thought it was decided that he was poisoned by mistake."
"He was murdered," asserted Doctor Trubie, getting his teeth, "foully
murdered by the man who professed to be his friend,--a man who wrote a
hand as much like this Doctor Remy's as one side of your face is like
the other. I charged him with it, at the time, and I have always
believed that I should live to see the charge proven." And he finished
by giving a succinct account of the circumstances attending Alec
Arling's death.
Bergan listened attentively and critically, as became his legal
training. "I do not understand why the finding of the diamond was such
conclusive evidence of guilt," said he, when the doctor paused.
"Because Roath swore, at the inquest, that he did not touch either
bottle or glass, and did not even go to that end of the table. That
was where he overreached himself; without that, the stone in the glass
would not have been such a damning circumstance. He recognized it as
such himself;--else why did he fly?"
"Well, you may be right about the murder," said Bergan, after a little
consideration, "but I think you have mistaken the man."
"Let us see," said Doctor Trubie. "He is about my height?"
"Yes,--perhaps a little taller."
"He stoops a little?"
"Not at all, he is uncommonly erect."
"He has dark hair?"
"It may have been so, it is prematurely gray."
Doctor Trubie looked a little discomfited. "Give me a sketch of his
character," said he.
Bergan hesitated. It was a difficult thing to do, on the instant. His
impressions of Doctor Remy's character had varied, as he remembered.
"On second thought," said Doctor Trubie, "I will give you one. All of
him, that is not intellect, is ice. In religious matters, he is an
utter sceptic. Socially, he is brilliant; but he has no intimate
friends, and he makes no confidants. Men and women, to him, are
subjects of study, not objects of affection. He cares for nothing but
himself and his profession. And no one cares for him--much. They may
admire, but they cannot love."
Bergan looked considerably startled. "Your sketch tallies well with
some impressions of mine, which I did my best to rid myself of," said
he. "But Doctor Remy has befriended me, from the first, and you
yourself say that he has been largely the means of saving my mother's
life."
"He has had his own reasons for both; Edmund Roath never did anything
without a reason, and a selfish one. Has he anything to gain by
keeping you out of the way?"
"Nothing, that I can imagine."
"When do you return to Berganton?"
"Mother has consented that I shall start on Monday, if she is no worse."
"She will be much better. Do not delay longer than that. I will
accompany you; I want to see this Doctor Remy. Seeing is believing.
But, mind, not a word of my coming, to him or any one else. Now, go
back to your mother, or she will be alarmed. Good night."
Bergan walked back slowly and thoughtfully. Without being fully
convinced of the truth of Doctor Trubie's suspicions, he was strangely
disturbed and startled. Reaching the gate, he turned his face
south-eastward, and gazed across the white meadows, toward the dim
outline of the distant hills. His thoughts overleaped even that far
barrier, and took an air line to Oakstead and to Carice. Her face rose
vividly before him, not, strange to say, as he had seen it last, rosy
and bright, but pale and piteous, and gazing toward him with a look
that besought sympathy and succor, plainer than any speech. His eyes
grew moist, his breath tremulous; his heart swelled with passionate
love and longing.
"I will beg my mother to consent to my going at once," said he to
himself. "I cannot wait another day."
The next afternoon, he was on his way to Berganton, whither Doctor
Trubie was shortly to follow him.
XII.
TOO LATE.
In those days, there was a pleasant spice of uncertainty about Southern
journeyings. Cars, steamboats, and stages ran in happy independence of
each other and the time-table. The traveller never knew at what point
of juniper swamp, or pine barren, or cotton plantation, he would be set
down to while away some hours in botanical or ethnological
investigations, if his mind were sufficiently at ease, or in chewing
the bitter cud of impatience, if it were not. Defective machinery and
lazy officials labored mightily together to miss connections, and
wherever human inefficiency came short, down swept a hurricane from the
skies, and strewed the roads with prostrate trunks of trees, through
which the cumbrous stage coach had literally to hew its path.
More than one such delay attended Bergan's progress southward. Under
their teasing friction, the shadowy anxiety with which he had set out,
increased to a positive weight of alarm. Reaching Savalla on the
twelfth evening, he stopped neither for rest nor refreshment, but
looked up a horse, flung himself into the saddle, and set off toward
Berganton at a rapid rate. Outside the city limits, however, he was
forced to slacken his pace. The night was dark, no faintest gleam of
moon or star tempered the black obscurity of the tree-arched and
swamp-bordered road. Compelled thus to feel his way, as it were, it
was near midnight when he came upon the outlying fields of Oakstead.
Reluctantly he told himself that an interview with Carice, to-night,
was out of the question; she and all the household were certain to be
fast asleep, it was doubtful if even the faintest outline of the
darkened dwelling would be discernible through the murky night. He had
no choice but to ride on to Berganton.
Scarcely had he reached this conclusion, when a radiant window shone
vision-like through the trees; a little farther on, and the cottage,
though yet distant, came full into view through an opening in the
forest, brilliantly illuminated from roof to foundation as for a
festivity of no ordinary magnitude. Even the surrounding lawn was
lighted up into the semblance of day; and in its remotest corner, a
group of negroes, dancing to some strain of music inaudible to the
wondering spectator, looked fantastic enough for the unsubstantial
images of a dream.
For a moment or two, Bergan suspected his jaded senses of playing him
false, as a step preparatory to taking leave of him altogether. There
was something too incongruous to be real, between this gay scene of
festivity and the picture presented by Doctor Remy's last letter,--a
dull, silent house, its master a feeble, exacting convalescent, its
mistress and daughter worn out with anxiety and watching. An intuition
of some unlooked-for calamity seized him. Putting spurs to his horse,
he dashed over the mile that intervened between him and the cottage, at
a scarcely less furious rate than that with which Vic had borne him
over the same road--how well he remembered it!--just one year ago. He
did not suspect that he was now to taste the bitterest consequences of
that ride.