AFTER THE DARK DEED.
Mary Grey was lifted, in an apparently fainting condition, from her own
little boat into the larger one beside it. She was laid down carefully
and waited on tenderly by the sympathizing ladies in the larger boat.
Meanwhile the little boat was tied to the stern of the larger one, to be
towed up the river.
"Where are we to take the poor unfortunate woman, I wonder?" said one of
the ladies.
"If she does not come to her senses in time to tell us where she lives
you can bring her to my house," answered another lady.
"Or to mine," said a third.
"Or mine," added a fourth.
"Or mine," "or mine," chimed in others.
Everybody was emulous to succor this unhappy one.
As they neared the city Mary Grey condescended to heave a deep sigh,
shudder and open her eyes.
Then a chorus of sympathizing voices saluted her. But she wept and
moaned, and pretended to refuse to be comforted.
It was some time before the persevering efforts of a gentleman succeeded
in persuading her to understand and answer his question as to where she
lived.
"At the Star Hotel," she said, with a gasp and a sigh, as if her heart
were broken.
The boat landed; and the "poor lady," as she was compassionately called,
was tenderly lifted out by the gentlemen and carefully supported between
two of them while she was led to the hotel, followed by the ladies.
The sad news of the young gentleman's fate was immediately communicated
to the people at the hotel, and soon spread through the town.
Ah, the drowning of a man at that point was not such an unusual event
after all, and it made much less impression than it ought to have done.
Some people said they felt sorry for the poor young woman so suddenly
bereaved and left among strangers; and perhaps they really believed that
they did so; but the next instant they thought of something else.
But the ladies who had been present near the scene of the catastrophe,
and had witnessed Mary Grey's well-acted terror, grief and despair,
really did sympathize with her supposed sorrows to a very painful
extent.
After following her to the hotel, they went with her to her room, and
helped to undress her and put her to bed.
And two among them offered to remain and watch with her during the
night.
The sinful woman, already a prey to the horrors of remorse and
superstition, dreading the darkness and solitude of the night, fearing
almost to see the dripping specter of the drowned man standing over her
bed, gratefully accepted their offer, and begged, at the same time, for
morphia.
Her kind attendants were afraid to administer a dangerous opiate without
the advice of a physician; so they sent for one immediately, who, on his
arrival and his examination of the terribly excited patient, gave her a
dose that soon sent her to sleep.
The two ladies took their places by her bed and watched her.
She slept well through the night, and awoke quite calmly in the morning.
The composing influence of the morphia had not yet left her.
And with the returning daylight much of her remorse and all of her
superstition vanished for the time being.
She thanked the ladies who had watched her during the night, and, in
reply to their inquiries, assured them that she felt better, but begged
them to keep her room dark.
They expressed their gratification to hear her say so. One of them
bathed her face and hands and combed her hair, while the other one rang
the bell, and ordered tea and toast to be brought to the room.
And they tenderly pressed her to eat and drink, and they waited on her
while she partook slightly of this light breakfast.
Then they rang and sent the breakfast service away, and they put her
room in order, and smoothed her pillows and the coverlet of her bed, and
finally they kissed her and bade her good-morning for a while, promising
to return again in the course of the afternoon, and begging that she
would send for them, at the address they gave her, in case she should
require their services sooner.
When she was left alone, Mary Grey slipped out of bed, locked the door
after the ladies, and then, having secured herself from intrusion, she
opened her traveling-bag and took from it a small white envelope, from
which she drew a neatly-folded white paper.
This was the marriage certificate, setting forth that on the fifteenth
day of September, eighteen hundred and ----, at the parish church of
St. ----, in the city of Philadelphia, Alden Lytton, attorney at law, of
the city of Richmond, and Mary Grey, widow, of the same city, were
united in the holy bonds of matrimony by the Rev. Mr. Borden, rector of
the church, in the presence of John Martin, sexton, and Sarah Martin,
his daughter.
The certificate was duly signed by the Rev. Mr. Borden and by John
Martin and Sarah Martin.
Mary Grey sat down with this document before her, read it over slowly,
and laughed a demoniac laugh as she folded it up and put it carefully
into its envelope and returned it to her traveling-bag, while she
reviewed her plot and "summed up the evidence" she had accumulated
against the peace and honor of Alden Lytton and Emma Cavendish.
"Yes, I will let him marry her," she said, "and then, in the midst of
their fancied security and happiness, I will come down upon them like an
avalanche of destruction. I will claim him for my own husband by a
previous marriage. I have evidence enough to convict and ruin him.
"First, I have all his impassioned letters, written to me from
Charlottesville, while I was a guest at the Government House in
Richmond.
"Secondly, I have those perfectly manufactured letters addressed to me
in a fac-simile of his handwriting, signed by his name and mailed from
Wendover to me at Richmond.
"Why, these alone would be sufficient to prove his perfidy even to Emma
Cavendish's confiding heart! And they would be good for heavy damages in
a breach of promise case.
"But I do not want damages--I want revenge. I do not want to touch his
pocket--I want to ruin his life. Yes--and hers! I want to dishonor,
degrade and utterly ruin them both! And I have evidence enough to do
this," she said, resuming her summing up, "for there is--
"Thirdly, his meeting me at Forestville and his journey with me to
Richmond.
"Fourthly, his journey with me to Philadelphia.
"Fifthly, the rector's certificate, setting forth the marriage of Alden
Lytton and Mary Grey.
"Sixthly, the testimony of the rector, who will swear that he performed
the ceremony, and of the sexton and the sexton's daughter, who will
swear that they witnessed the marriage of Alden Lytton and Mary Grey;
and swear, furthermore--from his exact resemblance to Craven Kyte--to
the identity of Alden Lytton as the bridegroom.
"Alden Lytton can not disprove this by an alibi, for at the very time
Craven Kyte personated him, and under his name and character married me,
Alden Lytton, in a dead stupor, was locked up in his darkened chamber,
and no one knew of his whereabouts but myself, who had the key of his
room.
"Nor can Craven Kyte 'ever rise to explain,' for death and the
Susquehanna mud has stopped his mouth.
"So this chain of evidence must be conclusive not only to the minds of
the jury, who will send my gentleman to rusticate in a penitentiary for
a term of years, but also to Miss Cavendish, who will find her proud
escutcheon blotted a little, I think."
While Mary Grey gloated over the horrors of her plotted vengeance, there
came a rap at the door. She hastily put on a dressing-gown, softly
unlocked the door, threw herself into an easy-chair, with her back to
the window, and bade the rapper to come in.
The door opened and the clerk of the house entered, bringing with him
the house register, which he held open in his hand.
"I beg your pardon for this unseasonable intrusion, madam," he said, as
he laid the open book down on the table before her; "but being called
upon to report this sad case of the drowning of a guest of this house, I
find some difficulty in making out the name, for the poor young
gentleman does not seem to have written very clearly. The name is
registered C. or G. something or other. But whether it is Hyte or Flyte
or Kyle or Hyle, none of us can make out."
Mary Grey smiled within herself, as she secretly rejoiced at the
opportunity of concealing the real name and identity of Craven Kyte with
the drowned man.
So she drew the book toward her and said, with an affectation of
weariness and impatience, as she gazed upon poor Craven's illegible
hieroglyphics:
"Why, the name is quite plain! It is G. Hyle--H-y-l-e. Don't you see?"
"Oh, yes, madam! I see now quite plainly. Excuse me: they ask for the
full name. Would you please to tell me what the initial G stands for?"
"Certainly. It stands for Gaston. His name was Gaston Hyle. He was a
foreigner, as his name shows. There, there, pray do not talk to me any
more! I can not bear it," said Mary Grey, affecting symptoms of
hysterical grief.
"I beg your pardon for having troubled you, madam, indeed! And I thank
you for the information you have given me. Good-day, madam," said the
clerk, bowing kindly and courteously as he withdrew.
The next day the newspapers, under the head of casualties, published the
following paragraph:
"On Friday evening last a young man, a foreigner, of
the name of Gaston Hyle, who had been stopping at the
Star Hotel, Havre-de-Grace, was accidentally drowned
while boating on the river. His body has not yet been
recovered."
No, nor his body never was recovered.
Mary Grey, for form's sake, remained a week at Havre-de-Grace, affecting
great anxiety for the recovery of that body. But she shut herself up in
her room, pretending the deepest grief, and upon this pretext refusing
all sympathizing visits, even from the ladies who had shown her so much
kindness on the night of the catastrophe, and from the clergy, who would
have offered her religious consolation.
The true reason of her seclusion was that she did not wish her features
to become familiar to these people, lest at some future time they might
possibly be inconveniently recognized.
As yet no one had seen her face except by night or in her darkened room.
And she did not intend that they should.
Her supposed grievous bereavement was her all-sufficient excuse for her
seclusion.
At the end of the week Mary Grey paid her bill at the Star, and,
closely-veiled, left the hotel and took the evening train for
Washington, _en route_ for Richmond.
In due time she reached the last-named city and took up her residence at
her old quarters with the Misses Crane, there to wait patiently until
the marriage of Alden Lytton and Emma Cavendish should give her the
opportunity of consummating their ruin and her own triumph. Meanwhile
poor Craven Kyte's leave of absence having expired, he began to be
missed and inquired for.
But to all questions his partner answered that he did not know where he
was or when he would be back, but thought he was all right.