THE note Alfred Hardie received, on the 10th of April, was from Peggy
Black. The letters were well formed, for she had been educated at the
national school: but the style was not upon a par.
“MR. ALFRED, SIR,--Margaret Black sends her respects, and if you want to
know the truth about the money, I can tell you all, and where it is at
this present time. Sir, I am now in situation at Silverton Grove House,
about a furlong from the station; and if you will be so good to call
there and ask for Margaret, I will tell you where it is, which I mean
the L. 14,000; for it is a sin the young lady should be beguiled of her
own. Only you must please come this evening, or else to-morrow before
ten o'clock, by reason my mistress and me we are going up to London that
day early, and she talk of taking me abroad along with her.--I remain,
Sir, yours respectfully to command,
“MARGARET BLACK.
“If you please, sir, not to show this letter on no account.”
Alfred read this twice over, and felt a contemptuous repugnance towards
the writer, a cashiered servant, who offered to tell the truth out of
spite, having easily resisted every worthy motive. Indeed, I think
he would have perhaps dismissed the subject into the fire, but for a
strange circumstance that had occurred to him this very afternoon; but I
had no opportunity to relate it till now. Well, just as he was going to
dress for dinner, he received a visit from Dr. Wycherley, a gentleman
he scarcely knew by name. Dr. Wycherley inquired after his kephalalgia:
Alfred stared and told him it was much the same; troubled him
occasionally.
“And your insomnia.”
“I don't know the word: have you any authority for it?”
Dr. Wycherley smiled with a sort of benevolent superiority that galled
his patient, and proceeded to inquire after his nightly visions and
voices. But at this Alfred looked grave as well as surprised and vexed.
He was on his guard now, and asked himself seriously what was the
meaning of all this, and could his father have been so mad as to talk
over his own shame with this stranger: he made no reply whatever.
Dr. Wycherley's curiosity was not of a very ardent kind: for he was one
of those who first form an opinion, and then collect the materials of
one: and a very little fact goes a long way with such minds. So, when he
got no answer about the nocturnal visions and voices, he glided calmly
on to another matter. “By-the-bye, that L. 14,000!”
Alfred started, and then eyed him keenly: “What L. 14,000?”
“The fabulous sum you labour under the impression of your father having
been guilty of clandestinely appropriating.”
This was too much for Alfred's patience. “I don't know who you are,
sir,” said he; “I never exchanged but three words in my life with you;
and do you suppose I will talk to a stranger on family matters of so
delicate a kind as this? I begin to think you have intruded yourself on
me simply to gratify an impertinent curiosity.”
“The hypothesis is at variance with my established character,” replied
the oleaginous one. “Do me the justice to believe in the necessity of
this investigation, and that it is one of a most friendly character.”
“Then I decline the double nuisance: your curiosity and your friendship!
Take them both out of my room, sir, or I shall turn them both out by one
pair of shoulders.”
“You shall smart for this,” said the doctor, driven to plain English
by anger, that great solvent of circumlocution with which Nature has
mercifully supplied us. He made to the door, opened it, and said in
considerable excitement to some one outside, “Excited!--Very!”
Now Dr. Pleonast had no sooner been converted to the vernacular, and
disappeared, than another stranger entered the room. He had evidently
been lurking in the passage: it was a man of smallish stature,
singularly gaunt, angular, and haggard, but dressed in a spruce suit
of black, tight, new, and glossy. In short, he looked like Romeo's
apothecary gone to Stultz with the money. He fluttered in with pale
cheek and apprehensive body, saying hurriedly, “Now, my _dear_ sir, _be_
calm: _pray_ be calm. I have come down all the way from London to see
you, and I am _sure_ you won't make me lose my journey; will you now?”
“And pray who asked you to come all the way from London, sir?”
“A person to whom your health is very dear.”
“Oh indeed; so I have secret friends, have I? Well, you may tell my
secret, underhand, _friends,_ I never was better in my life.”
“I am truly glad to hear it,” said the little man: “let me introduce
myself, as Dr. Wycherley forgot to do it.” And he handed Alfred a card,
on which his name and profession were written.
“Well, Mr. Speers,” said Alfred, “I have only a moment to give you, for
I must dress for dinner. What do you want?”
“I come, sir, in hopes of convincing your friends you are not so very
ill; not incurable. Why your eye is steady, your complexion good: a
little high with the excitement of this conversation; but, if we can
only get over this little delusion, all will be well.”
“What little delusion?”
“About the L. 14,000, you know.”
“What L. 14,000? I have not mentioned L. 14,000 to you, have I?”
“No, sir: you seem to shun it like poison; that is the worst of it. You
talk about it to others fast enough: but to Dr. Wycherley and myself,
who could cure you of it, you would hide all about it, if you could.”
At this Alfred rose and put his hands in his pockets and looked down
grimly on his inquisitor. “Mr. Speers,” said he, “you had better go.
There is no credit to be gained by throwing so small an apothecary as
you out of that window; and _you_ won't find it pleasant either; for, if
you provoke me to it, I shall not stand upon ceremony: I shan't open the
window first, as I should for Dr. What's his confounded name.”
At these suggestive words, spoken with suppressed ire and flashing eyes,
Speers scuttled to the door crabwise, holding the young lion in check
conventionally--to wit, with an eye as valiant as a sheep's; and a
joyful apothecary was he when he found himself safe outside the house
and beside Dr. Wycherley, who was waiting for him.
Alfred soon cooled, and began to laugh at his own anger and the
unbounded impudence of his visitors: but, on the other hand, it struck
him as a grave circumstance that so able a man as his father should stir
muddy water; should go and talk to these strangers about the money he
had misappropriated. He puzzled himself all the time he was dressing:
and, not to trouble the reader with all the conjectures that passed
through his mind, he concluded at last, that Mr. Hardie must feel very
strong, very sure there was no evidence against him but his son's, or he
would not take the eighth commandment by the horns like this.
“Injustice carries it with a high hand,” thought Alfred, with a sigh.
He was not the youth to imitate his father's shamelessness: so he locked
this last incident in his own breast; did not even mention it to Julia.
But now, on reading Peggy's note, his warlike instincts awoke, and,
though he despised his correspondent and her motives, he could not let
such a chance pass of defeating brazen injustice. It was unfortunate and
awkward to have to go to Silverton on his wedding morning; but, after
all, there was plenty of time. He packed up his things at once for
the wedding tour, and in the morning took them with him in the fly to
Silverton: his plan was to come back direct to Albion Villa: so he went
to Silverton Grove full dressed, all ready for the wedding.
As it happened he overtook his friend Peterson just outside the town,
called to him gaily, and invited him to church and breakfast.
To his surprise the young gentleman replied sullenly that he should
certainly not come.
“Not come, old fellow?” said Alfred, hurt.
“You have a good cheek to ask me,” retorted the other.
This led to an explanation. Peterson's complaint was that he had told
Alfred he was in love with Julia, and Alfred had gone directly and
fallen in love with her just to cut him out.
“What are you talking about?” said Alfred. “So this is the reason you
have kept away from me of late: why, I was engaged to her at the very
time; only my father was keeping us apart.”
“Then why didn't you say so?”
“Because my love is not of the prattling sort.”
“Oh, nonsense; I don't believe a word of it.”
“You don't believe my word! Did you ever know me tell a lie? At that
rate think what you please, sir: drive on, Strabo.”
And so ended that little friendship.
On the road our ardent youth arranged in his head a noble scheme. He
would bring Peggy Black home with him, compensating her liberally for
the place she would thereby lose: would confront her privately with his
father, and convince him it was his interest to restore the Dodds their
money with a good grace, take the L. 5000 he had already offered, and
countenance the wedding by letting Jane be present at it. It was hard to
do all this in the time, but well worth trying for, and not impossible.
A two-horse fly is not a slow conveyance, and he offered the man a
guinea to drive fast; so that it was not nine o'clock when they reached
Silverton Grove House, a place Alfred had never heard of. This,
however, I may observe, was no wonder: for it had not borne that name a
twelve-month.
It was a large square mansion of red brick, with stone facings and
corners, and with balustrades that hid the garret windows. It stood in
its own grounds, and the entrance was through handsome iron gates, one
of which was wide open to admit people on foot or horseback. The flyman
got down and tried to open the other, but could not manage it. “There,
don't waste time,” said Alfred impatiently, “let me out.”
He found a notice under the bell, “Ring and enter.” He rang accordingly,
and at the clang the hall-door opened, as if he had pulled a porter
along with the bell; and a grey-haired servant out of livery stood on
the steps to receive him. Alfred hurried across the plat, which was
trimmed as neatly as a college green, and asked the servant if he could
see Margaret Black.
“Margaret Black?” said the man doubtfully: “I'll inquire, sir. Please to
follow me.”
They entered a handsome hall, with antlers and armour: from this a
double staircase led up to a landing with folding doors in the centre
of it; one of these doors was wide open like the iron gate outside. The
servant showed Alfred up the left-hand staircase, through the open door,
into a spacious drawing-room, handsomely though not gaily furnished and
decorated, but a little darkened by Venetian blinds.
The old servant walked gravely on and on, till Alfred began to think
he would butt the wall; but he put his hand out and opened a door that
might very well escape a stranger's notice; for it was covered with
looking-glass, and matched another narrow mirror in shape and size.
This door led into a very long room, as plain and even sordid as the
drawing-room was inviting: the unpapered walls were a cold drab, and
wanted washing; there was a thick cobweb up in one corner, and from
the ceiling hung the tail of another, which the housemaid's broom had
scotched not killed: that side of the room they entered by was all
books. The servant said, “Stay here a moment, sir, and I'll send her
to you.” With this he retired into the drawing-room, closing the door
softly after him: once closed it became invisible; it fitted like wax,
and left nothing to be seen but books; not even a knob. It shut to with
that gentle but clean click which a spring bolt, however polished and
oiled and gently closed, will emit. Altogether it was enough to give
some people a turn. But Alfred's nerves were not to be affected by
trifles; he put his hands in his pockets and walked up and down the
room, quietly enough at first, but by-and-bye uneasily. “Confound her
for wasting my time,” thought he; “why doesn't she come?”
Then, as he had learned to pick up the fragments of time, and hated
dawdling, he went to take a book from the shelves.
He found it was a piece of iron, admirably painted: it chilled his hand
with its unexpected coldness: and all the books on and about the door
were iron and chilly.
“Well,” thought he, “this is the first dummy ever took me in. What a
fool the man must be! Why he could have bought books with ideas in them
for the price of these impostors.”
Still Peggy did not come. So he went to a door opposite, and at right
angles to the farthest window, meaning to open it and inquire after her:
lo and behold he found this was a knob without a door. There had been a
door but it was blocked up. The only available door on that side had a
keyhole, but no latch, nor handle.
Alfred was a prisoner.
He no sooner found this out than he began to hammer on the door with his
fists, and call out.
This had a good effect, for he heard a woman's dress come rustling: a
key was inserted, and the door opened. But, instead of Peggy, it was a
tall well-formed woman of thirty, with dark grey eyes, and straightish
eyebrows massive and black as jet. She was dressed quietly but like a
lady. Mrs. Archbold, for that was her name, cast on Alfred one of those
swift, all-devouring glances, with which her sex contrive to take in the
features, character, and dress of a person from head to foot, and smiled
most graciously on him, revealing a fine white set of teeth. She begged
him to take a seat; and sat down herself. She had left the door ajar.
“I came to see Margaret Black,” said Alfred.
“Margaret Black? There is no such person here,” was the quiet reply.
“What! has she gone away so early as this?”
Mrs. Archbold smiled, and said soothingly, “Are you sure she ever
existed; except in your imagination?”
Alfred laughed at this, and showed her Peggy's letter. She ran her eye
over it, and returned it him with a smile of a different kind, half
pitying, half cynical. But presently resuming her former manner, “I
remember now,” said she in dulcet tones: “the anxiety you are labouring
under is about a large sum of money, is it not?”
“What, can you give me any information about it?” said he, surprised.
“I think we can render you great _service_ in the matter, infinite
service, Mr. Hardie,” was the reply, in a voice of very honey.
Alfred was amazed at this. “You say you don't know Peggy! And yet you
seem to know me. I never saw you in my life before, madam; what on earth
is the meaning of all this?”
“Calm yourself,” said Mrs. Archbold, laying a white and finely moulded
hand upon his arm, “there is no wonder nor mystery in the matter: _you
were expected._”
The colour rushed into Alfred's face, and he started to his feet; some
vague instinct told him to be gone from this place.
The lady fixed her eyes on him, put her hand to a gold chain that was
round her neck, and drew out of her white bosom, not a locket, nor a
key, but an ivory whistle. Keeping her eye steadily fixed on Alfred, she
breathed softly into the whistle. Then two men stepped quietly in at the
door; one was a short, stout snob, with great red whiskers, the other
a wiry gentleman with iron-grey hair. The latter spoke to Alfred,
and began to coax him. If Mrs. Archbold was honey, this personage was
treacle. “Be calm, my dear young gentleman; don't agitate yourself. You
have been sent here for your good; and that you may be cured, and so
restored to society and to your anxious and affectionate friends.”
“What are you talking about? what do you mean?” cried Alfred; “are you
mad?”
“No, _we_ are not,” said the short snob, with a coarse laugh.
“Have done with this fooling, then,” said Alfred sharply; “the person I
came to see is not here; good morning.”
The short man instantly stepped to the door, and put his back to it.
The other said calmly, “No, Mr. Hardie, you cannot leave the house at
present.”
“Can't I? Why not, pray?” said Alfred, drawing his breath hard: and his
eyes began to glitter dangerously.
“We are responsible for your safety: we have force at hand if necessary;
pray do not compel us to summon it.”
“Why, where am I?” said Alfred, panting now; “is this a prison?”
“No, no,” said Mrs. Archbold soothingly: “it is a place where you will
be cured of your headaches and your delusions, and subjected to no
unnecessary pain nor restraint.”
“Oh, bother,” said the short snob brutally. “Why make two bites of a
cherry? You are in my asylum, young gentleman, and a devilish lucky
thing for you.”
At this fatal word, “asylum,” Alfred uttered a cry of horror and
despair, and his eyes roved wildly round the room in search of escape.
But the windows of the room, though outside the house they seemed to
come as low as those of the drawing-room, were partly bricked-up within,
and made just too high to be reached without a chair. And his captors
read that wild glance directly, and the doctor whipped one chair away,
while Mrs. Archbold, with more tact, sat quietly down on the other. They
all three blew their whistles shrilly.
Alfred uttered an oath and rushed at the door; but heard heavy feet
running on stone passages towards the whistles, and felt he had no
chance out that way: his dilating eye fell upon the handle of the old
defunct door: he made a high leap, came down with his left foot on its
knob of brass, and, though of course he could not stand on it, contrived
to spring from it slap at the window--Mrs. Archbold screamed--he broke
the glass with his shoulder, and tore and kicked the woodwork, and
squeezed through on to a stone ledge outside, and stood there bleeding
and panting, just as half a dozen keepers burst into the room at his
back. He was more than twenty feet from the ground: to leap down was
death or mutilation: he saw the flyman driving away. He yelled to him,
“Hy! hy! stop! stop!” The flyman stopped and looked round. But soon as
he saw who it was, he just grinned: Alfred could see his hideous grin;
and there was the rattle of chairs being brought to the window, and
men were mounting softly to secure him. A coarse hand stole towards
his ankle; he took a swift step and sprang desperately on to the next
ledge--it was an old manor house, and these ledges were nearly a foot
broad--from this one he bounded to the next, and then to a third, the
last but one on this side of the building. The corner ledge was but
half the size, and offered no safe footing: but close to it he saw
the outside leaves of a tree. That tree, then, must grow close to the
corner; could he but get round to it he might yet reach the ground
whole. Urged by that terror of a madhouse which is natural to a sane
man, and in England is fed by occasional disclosures, and the general
suspicion they excite, he leaped on to a piece of stone no bigger than
one's hat, and then whirled himself round into the tree, all eyes to see
and claws to grasp.
It was a weeping ash: he could get hold of nothing but soft yielding
slivers, that went through his fingers, and so down with him like a
bulrush, and souse he went with his hands full of green leaves over head
and ears into the water of an enormous iron tank that fed the baths.
The heavy plunge, the sudden cold water, the instant darkness, were
appalling: yet, like the fox among the hounds, the gallant young
gentleman did not lose heart nor give tongue. He came up gurgling and
gasping, and swimming for his life in manly silence: he swam round and
round the edge of the huge tank, trying in vain to get a hold upon its
cold rusty walls. He heard whistles and voices about: they came faint to
him where he was, but he knew they could not be very far off.
Life is sweet. It flashed across him how, a few years before, a
university man of great promise had perished miserably in a tank on some
Swiss mountain--a tank placed for the comfort of travellers. He lifted
his eyes to Heaven in despair, and gave one great sob.
Then he turned upon his back and floated: but he was obliged to paddle
with his hands a little to keep up.
A window opened a few feet above him, and a face peered out between the
bars.
Then he gave all up for lost, and looked to hear a voice denounce him;
but no: the livid face and staring eyes at the window took no notice of
him: it was a maniac, whose eyes, bereft of reason, conveyed no images
to the sentient brain. Only by some half vegetable instinct this
darkened man was turning towards the morning sun, and staring it full in
the face. Alfred saw the rays strike and sparkle on those glassy orbs,
and fire them; yet they never so much as winked. He was appalled yet
fascinated by this weird sight: could not take his eyes off it, and
shuddered at it in the very water. With such creatures as that he must
be confined, or die miserably like a mouse in a basin of water.
He hesitated between two horrors.
Presently his foot struck something, and he found it was a large pipe
that entered the tank to the distance of about a foot This pipe was not
more than three feet under water, and Alfred soon contrived to get upon
it, and rest his fingers upon the iron edge of the tank. The position
was painful: yet so he determined to remain till night: and then, if
possible, steal away. Every faculty of mind and body was strung up to
defend himself against the wretches who had entrapped him.
He had not been long in this position, when voices approached, and next
the shadow of a ladder moved across the wall towards him. The keepers
were going to search his pitiable hiding-place. They knew, what he did
not, that there was no outlet from the premises: so now, having
hunted every other corner and cranny, they came by what is called the
exhaustive process of reasoning to this tank; and when they got near it,
something in the appearance of the tree caught the gardener's quick eye.
Alfred quaking heard him say, “Look here! He is not far from this.”
Another voice said, “Then the Lord have mercy on him; why there's seven
foot of water; I measured it last night.”
At this Alfred was conscious of a movement and a murmur, that proved
humanity was not extinct; and the ladder was fixed close to the tank,
and feet came hastily up it.
Alfred despaired.
But, as usual with spirits so quickwitted and resolute, it was but for a
moment. “One man in his time plays many animals;” he caught at the words
he had heard, and played the game the jackal desperate plays in India,
the fox in England, the elephant in Ceylon: he feigned death; filled his
mouth with water, floated on his back paddling imperceptibly, and half
closed his eyes.
He was rewarded by a loud shout of dismay just above his head, and very
soon another ladder was placed on the other side, and with ropes
and hands he was drawn out and carried down the ladder: he took this
opportunity to discharge the water from his mouth, on which a coarse
voice said, “Look there! _His_ troubles are at an end.”
However, they laid him on the grass, and sent for the doctor; then took
off his coat, and one of them began to feel his heart to see whether
there was any pulsation left: he found it thumping. “Look out,” he cried
in some alarm; “he's shamming Abraham.”
But, before the words were well uttered, Alfred, who was a practised
gymnast, bounded off the ground without touching it with his hands, and
fled like a deer towards the front of the house: for he remembered the
open iron gate. The attendants followed shouting, and whistle answered
whistle all over the grounds. Alfred got safe to the iron gate: alas!
it had been closed at the first whistle twenty minutes ago. He turned in
rage and desperation, and the head-keeper, a powerful man, was rushing
incautiously upon him. Alfred instantly steadied himself, and with his
long arm caught the man in full career a left-handed blow like the
kick of a pony, that laid his cheek open and knocked him stupid and
staggering. He followed it up like lightning with his right, and,
throwing his whole weight into this second blow, sent the staggering man
to grass; slipped past another, and skirting the south side of the
house got to the tank again well in advance of his pursuers, seized the
ladder, carried it to the garden wall, and was actually half way up it,
and saw the open country and liberty, when the ladder was dragged away
and he fell heavily to the ground, and a keeper threw himself bodily on
him. Alfred half expected this, and drawing up his foot in time, dashed
it furiously in the coming face, actually knocking the man backwards.
Another kneeled on his chest: Alfred caught him by the throat so felly
that he lost all power, and they rolled over and over together, and
Alfred got clear and ran for it again, and got on the middle of the
lawn, and hallooed to the house:--“Hy! hy! Are there any more sane men
imprisoned there? Come out, and fight for your lives!” Instantly the
open windows were filled with white faces, some grinning, some exulting,
all greatly excited; and a hideous uproar shook the whole place--for the
poor souls were all sane in their own opinion--and the whole force of
attendants, two of them bleeding profusely from his blows, made a
cordon and approached him. But he was too cunning to wait to be fairly
surrounded; he made his rush at an under-keeper, feinted at his head,
caught him a heavy blow in the pit of the stomach, doubled him up in
a moment, and off again, leaving the man on his knees vomiting and
groaning. Several mild maniacs ran out in vast agitation, and, to curry
favour, offered to help catch him. Vast was their zeal. But when it came
to the point, they only danced wildly about and cried, “Stop him! for
God's sake stop him! he's ill, dreadfully ill; poor wretch! knock out
his brains!” And, whenever he came near them, away they ran whining like
kicked curs.
Mrs. Archbold, looking out at a window, advised them all to let him
alone, and she would come out and persuade him. But they would not be
advised: they chased him about the lawn; but so swift of foot was he,
and so long in the reach, that no one of them could stop him, nor
indeed come near him, without getting a facer that came like a flash of
lightning.
At last, however, they got so well round him, he saw his chance was
gone: he took off his hat to Mrs. Archbold at the window, and said
quietly, “I surrender to _you,_ madam.”
At these words they rushed on him rashly. On this he planted two blows
right and left, swift as a cat attacked by dogs; administered two
fearful black eyes, and instantly folded his arms, saying haughtily, “It
was to the lady I yielded, not to you fellows.”
They seized him, shook their fists in his face, cursed him, and pinned
him. He was quite passive: they handcuffed him, and drove him before
them, shoving him every now and then roughly by the shoulders. He made
no resistance, spoke no word. They took him to the strong-room, and
manacled his ankles together with an iron hobble, and then strapped them
to the bed-posts, and fastened his body down by broad bands of ticking
with leathern straps at the ends: and so left him more helpless than a
swaddled infant. The hurry and excitement of defence were over, and a
cold stupor of misery came down and sat like lead on him. He lay mute as
death in his gloomy cell, a tomb within a living tomb. And, as he lay,
deeper horror grew and grew in his dilating eyes: gusts of rage swept
over him, shook him, and passed: then gusts of despairing tenderness;
all came and went, but his bonds. What would his Julia think? If he
could only let her know! At this thought he called, he shouted, he
begged for a messenger; there was no reply. The cry of a dangerous
lunatic from the strong-room was less heeded here than a bark from any
dog-kennel in Christendom. “This is my father's doing,” he said. “Curse
him! Curse him Curse him!” and his brain seemed on fire, his temples
throbbed: he vowed to God to be revenged on his father.
Then he writhed at his own meanness in coming to visit a servant and his
folly in being caught by so shallow an artifice. He groaned aloud. The
clock in the hall struck ten. There was just time to get back if they
would lend him a conveyance. He shouted, he screamed, he prayed. He
offered terms humbly, piteously; he would forgive his father, forgive
them all, he would say no more about the money, would do anything,
consent to anything, if they would only let him keep faith with his
Julia: they had better consent, and not provoke his vengeance. “Have
mercy on me!” he cried. “Don't make me insult her I love. They will all
be waiting for me. It is my wedding-day; you can't have known it is my
wedding-day; fiends, monsters, I tell you it is my wedding-day. Oh, pray
send the lady to me; she can't be all stone, and my misery might melt
a stone.” He listened for an answer, he prayed for an answer. There was
none. Once in a mad-house, the sanest man is mad, however interested
and barefaced the motive of the relative who has brought two of the most
venal class upon the earth to sign away his wits behind his back. And
once hobbled and strapped, he is a _dangerous_ maniac, for just so many
days, weeks, or years, as the hobbles, handcuffs, and jacket happen to
be left upon him by inhumanity, economy, or simple carelessness. Poor
Alfred's cries and prayers were heard, but no more noticed than the
night howl of a wolf on some distant mountain. All was sullen silence,
but the grating tongue of the clock, which told the victim of a
legislature's shallowness and a father's avarice--that Time, deaf to his
woe, as were the walls, the men, the women, and the cutting bands, was
stealing away with iron finger his last chance of meeting his beloved at
the altar.
He closed his eyes, and saw her lovelier than ever, dressed all in
white, waiting for him with sweet concern in that peerless face. “Julia!
Julia!” he cried, with a loud heart-broken cry. The half-hour struck. At
that he struggled, he writhed, he bounded: he made the very room shake,
and lacerated his flesh; but that was all. No answer. No motion. No
help. No hope.
The perspiration rolled down his steaming body. The tears burst from
his young eyes and ran down his cheeks. He sobbed, and sobbing almost
choked, so tight were his linen bands upon his bursting bosom.
He lay still exhausted.
The clock ticked harshly on: the rest was silence. With this miserable
exception: ever and anon the victim's jammed body shuddered so terribly
it shook and rattled the iron bedstead, and told of the storm within,
the agony of the racked and all foreboding soul.
For then rolled over that young head hours of mortal anguish that no
tongue of man can utter, nor pen can shadow. Chained sane amongst the
mad; on his wedding-day; expecting with tied hands the sinister acts of
the soul-murderers who had the power to make their lie a truth! We can
paint the body writhing vainly against its unjust bonds; but who can
paint the loathing, agonised soul in a mental situation so ghastly? For
my part I feel it in my heart of hearts; but am impotent to convey it to
others; impotent, impotent.
Pray think of it for yourselves, men and women, if you have not _sworn_
never to think over a novel. Think of it for your own sakes: Alfred's
turn to-day, it may be yours to-morrow.