DEATH.
While Ruth had thought her father resting from his dangerous
exertions, that poor man had been aroused into keen wakefulness which
brought back all his old powers of thought. His brain had been cleared
from the dull mists of fever, and the haze that had gathered over his
memory was swept away by the physical effort he had made. He began to
see things clearly that had seemed fantastic and dreamlike till then.
The events of that night, when he received his wound, came out before
him in pictures. The great cedar of Lebanon, the face he had seen for
a moment gleaming through the darkness, everything came to his memory
with the vividness of thoughts that burn like fire in an enfeebled
brain, driving out sleep and everything but themselves.
Slowly and surely dreams melted away into nothingness. For, in the
state of nervous excitement which sometimes comes with returning
powers, after long mental wanderings, all his ideas were supremely
vivid.
One by one he arranged past events in his mind. From the time that he
met young Storms in the park on his way home that fatal night, and
received the first cruel idea of his daughter's shame, for which he
cast the young man to the earth in his rage, as we wrestle with a mad
dog, which leaves its poison in our veins. He traced events down to
the moment when a flash of fire seemed to pass through him under the
cedars, and he awoke, helpless, in the little chamber whose walls
enclosed him now. Then he remembered the letter he had written to
young Hurst; hours before, he could not have given its import, or have
repeated a word of it. But now, it came before him like the rest, a
visible substance. He saw the very handwriting, uneven and irregular,
such as he had left in copy-books years before, and it rose up clearly
in judgment against him now. Reading these great, uncouth letters in
his mind, he groaned aloud.
That which, in his fever, he had resolved to keep secret forever, he
had written out in a wild effort to spare anxiety to another,
suffering like himself. What if that letter should fall into the hands
of an enemy? It conveyed a charge. It hinted at something that might
bring terrible suspicions on the young man who had been dear to him
almost as his own child. The evil he had tried to prevent had been
drawn ominously near by his own hand.
The old man lay there, wounding himself with the most bitter
reproaches. Into what mad folly had the fever thrown him!
William Jessup started up in bed, as these thoughts came crowding to
his brain. He would at once redeem the evil that had been done. That
letter should be revoked.
Yes, he would do it that moment; then, perhaps, he might sleep, for
the intense working of his brain was more than he could endure. It was
like the rush and thud of an engine, over which the master-hand had
lost control.
Ruth Jessup's little desk lay open on the table close by the bed,
where she had been using it. Pen and paper lay upon it, inviting the
sick man to act at once. He was still wrapped in a long flannel
dressing-gown, and his feet were thrust into slippers, which the hands
of his child had wrought with scrolls of glittering bead-work and
clusters of flowers--soft, dainty slippers, which made no noise as he
dropped his feet over the bedside, and drew the table toward him with
hands nerved to steadiness by a firm resolve.
Truly, that great hand shook, and the pen sometimes leaped from the
paper as some sharp, nervous thrill for a moment disabled it. But for
a time excitement was strength, and to that was added a firm will: so
the pen worked on, linking letter to letter, and word to word, until
the white surface of a page was black with them. Then he turned the
sheet over, pressed it down with both hands, and went on until his
task was done.
By this time his eyes were heavy with fatigue, and a dusky fever-flush
burned on his cheeks. He folded the sheet of paper, which was well
written over, and directed it on the blank side to "Walton Hurst,"
then he pushed the table aside, leaned back upon the pillow, and gave
way to the exhaustion which this great effort had brought upon him.
Still, the poor man could not sleep, the brain had been too much
disturbed. While his body lay supine, and his hands were almost
helplessly folded in his flannel dressing-gown, those deep-set eyes
were wide open, and burning with internal fires.
Thus the sun went down, and a glory of crimson gold and purple swept
through the window, slowly darkening the room.
All this time, Ruth was below, sad and thoughtful, gleaning a little
pleasure from the fact that all was silent overhead, which indicated a
long, healthful sleep for her father, after his first effort to cross
the room. She was very careful to make no noise that might disturb the
beloved sleeper, and thus sat hushed and watchful, when the sweet
shock of her husband's presence aroused her.
This noise had reached the chamber where Jessup lay.
"She is below," he thought, struggling up from his bed. "This very
hour she shall carry my letter to 'The Rest.' Will she ever forgive me
for doubting her, my sweet, good child? Ah, how did I find heart to
wrong her so?"
With the letter clasped in one hand, and that buried in the pocket of
his dressing-gown, the old man moved through the dusky starlight that
filled his room, and down the narrow stairs slowly, for he was weak,
and softly, for his slippers made no noise. He paused a moment in the
passage, holding by the banister, then, guided by an arrow of light
that shot through the door, which was ajar, stood upon the threshold,
struck through the heart by what he saw--wounded again and unto death
by the words he heard.
"It was true! it was true!" The words said to him by that vile man in
the park that night was a fact that struck him with a sharper pang
than the rifle had given. His child--his Ruth, his milk-white
lamb--where was she? "Whose head was that resting upon her bosom?
Whose voice was that murmuring in her ear?"
The pain of that awful moment made him reel upon his feet, a cry broke
to his lips, bringing waves of red blood with it. His hands lost their
hold on the door-frame, and his body fell across the threshold.
For a moment two white, scared faces looked down upon the fallen man,
then at each other, dazed by the sudden horror. Then Ruth sank to the
floor, with a piteous cry, lifted his head to her lap, and moaning
over it, besought her father to look up, to speak one word, to lift
but a finger, anything to prove that he was not dead.
Hurst bent over her, feeble and trembling. He had no power to lift the
old man from her arms, but leaned against the door-frame paralyzed.
"Oh, wipe his lips, they are so red! Help me to lift him up," cried
Ruth, with woeful entreaty. "He is not dead, you know. Remember how he
fainted before, but that was not death. Help me! Oh, Walton, help me,
or something dreadful may come to him."
The agony of this pleading aroused all that remained of strength in
the young husband's frame. He stooped down, and attempted to remove
the old man from the girl's clinging arms.
"No, no!" she cried. "I can take care of him best. Bring me some
brandy--brandy, I say! You will find it in--in the cupboard. Brandy,
quick--quick, or he may never come-to!"
Hurst went to the closet, brought forth a flask of brandy, and
attempted to force some drops between those parted lips, through which
the teeth were gleaming with ghastly whiteness.
"He cannot drink! Bring a glass. Father! father! try to move--try to
swallow. It frightens me so! Ah, try to understand! It frightens me
so!"
All efforts were in vain. Hurst knelt down, and, with a hopeless
effort, felt for the pulse that would never beat again.
"His head is growing heavier. See how he leans on me! Of course, he
knows--only--only--Oh, Walton! There is no breath!" whispered the poor
girl. "What can I do--what can I do?"
"Ruth, my poor child, I fear he will never breathe again."
"Never breathe again! Never breathe again! Why, that is death!"
"Yes, Ruth, it is death," answered the young man, folding the
dressing-gown over the body, reverently, as if it had been the
vestment of some old Roman.
"Then you and I have killed him," said the girl, in a hoarse whisper.
"You and I!"
The young man made no answer, but kindly and gently attempted to
remove the body that rested so heavily upon her.
"Not yet--oh, not yet! I cannot give him up! He might live long enough
to pardon me."
"If good men live hereafter, and you believe that, Ruth, he knows that
concealment is all the sin you have committed against him," answered
Hurst, gently.
"But that has brought my poor--poor father here," said the girl,
looking piteously up into the young man's face.
"Ruth--Ruth, do not reproach me! God knows I blame myself bitterly
enough," he said, at last.
"Blame yourself? Oh, no! I alone am to blame. It was I that tempted
you. I that listened--that loved, and made you love me.
Father--father! Oh, hear this! Stay with us! Oh, stay in your old home
long enough for that! He is not in fault. He never said a word or gave
me a look that was not noble. He never meant to harm me, or--or offend
you. I--I alone am the guilty one."
"Ruth, Ruth! you are breaking my heart!" whispered Hurst.
"Breaking your heart! Oh, I have done enough of that, miserable wretch
that I am!" answered the girl, speaking more and more faintly. "If I
could only make him understand how sorry I am; but oh, Walton! I think
he is growing cold. I have tried to warm him here in my arms, but his
cheek lies chilly against mine, and my--my heart is cold as--as his."
The head drooped on her bosom; her arms slackened their hold, and fell
away from the form they had embraced, and she settled down by her
father, lifeless, for the time, as he was--for William Jessup was
dead. A great shock had cast him down with his face in the dust.
Blasted, as it were, by a sudden conviction of his daughter's shame,
he had gone into eternity as if struck by a flash of lightning.