attractive lover of mine, was alarmed by our growing intimacy. Taking an
opportunity when we were both in a more sensible mood than common, he
put the case before Mr. Randolph in a very decided way. He told him that
either he must marry me at once or quit seeing me altogether. No delay
was to be considered and no compromise allowed.
"As my father was a man with whom no one ever disputed, John Randolph
prepared to leave the town, declaring that he could marry no one at that
stage of his career. But before he could carry out his intention, the
old intoxication returned, and he came back in a fever of love and
impatience to marry me.
"Had I been older or more experienced in the ways of the world, I would
have known that such passion as this evinced was short-lived; that there
is no witchery in a smile lasting enough to make men like him forget the
lack of those social graces to which they are accustomed. But I was mad
with happiness, and was unconscious of any cloud lowering upon our
future till the day of our first separation came, when an event occurred
which showed me what I might expect if I could not speedily raise myself
to his level.
"We were out walking, and we met a lady who had known Mr. Randolph
elsewhere. She was well dressed, which I was not, though I had not
realized it till I saw how attractive she looked in quiet colors and
with only a simple ribbon on her hat; and she had, besides, a way of
speaking which made my tones sound harsh, and robbed me of that feeling
of superiority with which I had hitherto regarded all the girls of my
acquaintance.
"But it was not her possession of these advantages, keenly as I felt
them, which awakened me to the sense of my position. It was the surprise
she showed (a surprise the source of which was not to be mistaken) when
he introduced me to her as his wife; and though she recovered herself in
a moment, and tried to be kind and gracious, I felt the sting of it and
saw that he felt it too, and consequently was not at all astonished
when, after she had passed us, he turned and looked at me critically for
the first time.
"But his way of showing his dissatisfaction gave me a shock it took me
years to recover from. 'Take off that hat,' he cried, and when I had
obeyed him, he tore out the spray which to my eyes had been its chief
adornment, and threw it into some bushes near by; then he gave me back
the hat and asked for the silk neckerchief which I had regarded as the
glory of my bridal costume. Giving it to him I saw him put it in his
pocket, and understanding now that he was trying to make me look more
like the lady we had passed, I cried out passionately: 'It is not these
things that make the difference, John, but my voice and way of walking
and speaking. Give me money and let me be educated, and then we will see
if any other woman can draw your eyes away from me.'
"But he had received a shock that made him cruel. 'You cannot make a
silk purse out of a sow's ear,' he sneered, and was silent all the rest
of the way home. I was silent too, for I never talk when I am angry, but
when we arrived in our own little room I confronted him.
"'Are you going to say any more such cruel things to me?' I asked, 'for
if you are, I should like you to say them now and be done with it.'
"He looked desperately angry, but there was yet a little love left in
his heart for me, for he laughed after he had looked at me for a minute,
and took me in his arms and said some of the fine things with which he
had previously won my heart, but not with the old fire and not with the
old effect upon me. Yet my love had not grown cold, it had only changed
from the unthinking stage to the thinking one, and I was quite in
earnest when I said: 'I know I am not as pretty or as nice as the ladies
you are accustomed to. But I have a heart that has never known any other
passion than its love for you, and from such a heart you ought to expect
a lady to grow, and there will. Only give me the chance, John; only let
me learn to read and write.'
"But he was in an incredulous state of mind, and it ended in his going
away without making any arrangements for my education. He was bound for
San Francisco, where he had business to transact, and he promised to be
back in four weeks, but before the four weeks elapsed, he wrote me that
it would be five, and later on that it would be six, and afterwards that
it would be when he had finished a big piece of work he was engaged
upon, and which would bring him a large amount of money. I believed him
and I doubted him at the same time, but I was not altogether sorry he
delayed his return for I had begun school on my own account and was fast
laying the foundation of a solid education.
"My means came from my father, who, now it was too late, saw the
necessity of my improving myself. The amount of studying I did that
first year was amazing, but it was nothing to what I went through the
second, for my husband's letters had begun to fail me, and I was forced
to work in order to drown grief and keep myself from despair. Finally no
letters came at all, and when the second year was over, and I could at
least express myself correctly, I woke to the realization that, so far
as my husband was concerned, I had gone through all this labor for
nothing, and that unless by some fortunate chance I could light upon
some clue to his whereabouts in the great world beyond our little town,
I would be likely to pass the remainder of my days in widowhood and
desolation.
"My father dying at this time and leaving me a thousand dollars, I knew
no better way of spending it than in the hopeless search I have just
mentioned. Accordingly after his burial I started out on my travels,
gaining experience with every mile. I had not been away a week before I
realized what a folly I had indulged in in ever hoping to see John
Randolph back at my side. I saw the homes in which such men as he lived,
and met in cars and on steamboats the kind of people with whom he must
associate to be happy, and a gulf seemed to open between us which even
such love as mine would be powerless to bridge.
"But though hope thus sank in my breast, I did not lose my old ambition
of making myself as worthy of him as circumstances would permit. I read
only the best books and I allowed myself to become acquainted with only
the best people, and as I saw myself liked by such the awkwardness of my
manner gradually disappeared, and I began to feel that the day would
come when I should be universally recognized as a lady.
"Meantime I did not advance an iota in the object of my journey; and at
last, with every expectation gone of ever seeing my husband again, I
made my way to Toledo. Here I speedily found employment, and what was
better still to one of my ambitious tendencies, an opportunity to add to
the sum of my accomplishments a knowledge of French and music. The
French I learned from the family I lived with, and the music from a
professor in the same house whose love for his pet art was so great that
he found it simple happiness to impart it to one so greedy for
improvement as myself.
"Here, in course of time, I also learned type-writing, and it was for
the purpose of seeking employment in this capacity that I finally came
to New York. This was three months ago.
"I was in complete ignorance of the city when I entered it, and for a
day or two I wandered to and fro, searching for a suitable
lodging-house. It was while I was on my way to Mrs. Desberger's that I
saw advancing towards me a gentleman in whose air and manner I detected
a resemblance to the husband who some five years since had deserted me.
The shock was too much for my self-control. Quaking in every limb, I
stood awaiting his approach, and when he came up to me, and I saw by his
startled recognition of me that it was indeed he, I gave a loud cry and
threw myself upon his arm. The start he gave was nothing to the
frightful expression which crossed his face at this encounter, but I
thought both due to his surprise, though now I am convinced they had
their origin in the deepest and worst emotions of which a man is
capable.
"'John! John!' I cried, and could say no more, for the agitations of
five solitary, despairing years were choking me; but he was entirely
voiceless, stricken, I have no doubt, beyond any power of mine to
realize. How could I dream that in consideration, power, and prestige he
had advanced even more rapidly than myself, and that at this very moment
he was not only the idol of society, but on the verge of uniting himself
to a woman--I will not say of marrying her, for marry her he could not
while I lived--who would make him the envied possessor of millions. Such
fortune, such daring, yes and such depravity, were beyond the reach of
my imagination, and while I thought his pleasure less than mine, I did
not dream that my existence was a menace to all his hopes, and that
during this moment of speechlessness he was sounding his nature for
means to rid himself of me even at the cost of my life.
"His first movement was to push me away, but I clung to him all the
harder; at which his whole manner changed and he began to make futile
efforts to calm me and lead me away from the spot. Seeing that these
attempts were unavailing, he turned pale and raised his arm up
passionately, but speedily dropped it again, and casting glances this
way and that, broke suddenly into a loud laugh and became, as by the
touch of a magician's wand, my old lover again.
"'Why, Olive!' he cried; 'why, Olive! is it you? (Did I say my name was
Olive?) Happily met, my dear! I did not know what I had been missing all
these years, but now I know it was you. Will you come with me, or shall
I go home with you?'
"'I have no home,' said I, 'I have just come into town.'
"'Then I see but one alternative.' He smiled, and what a power there was
in his smile when he chose to exert it! 'You must come to my apartments;
are you willing?'
"'I am your wife,' I answered.
"He had taken me on his arm by this time and the recoil he made at these
words was quite perceptible; but his face still smiled, and I was too
mad with joy to be critical.
"'And a very pretty and charming wife you have become,' said he, drawing
me on for a few steps. Suddenly he paused, and I felt the old shadow
fall between us again. 'But your dress is very shabby,' he remarked.
"It was not; it was not near as shabby as the linen duster he himself
wore.
"'Is that rain?' he inquired, looking up as a drop or two fell.
"'Yes, it is raining.'
"'Very well, let us go into this store we are coming to and buy a
gossamer. That will cover up your gown. I cannot take you to my house
dressed as you are now.'
"Surprised, for I had thought my dress very neat and lady-like, but
never dreaming of questioning his taste any more than in the old days in
Michigan, I went with him into the shop he had pointed out and bought me
a gossamer, for which he paid. When he had helped me to put it on and
had tied my veil well over my face, he seemed more at his ease and gave
me his arm quite cheerfully.
"'Now,' said he, 'you look well, but how about the time when you will
have to take the gossamer off? I tell you what it is, my dear, you will
have to refit yourself entirely before I shall be satisfied.' And again
I saw him cast about him that furtive and inquiring look which would
have awakened more surprise in me than it did had I known that we were
in a part of the city where he ran but little chance of meeting any one
he knew.
"'This old duster I have on,' he suddenly laughed, 'is a very
appropriate companion to your gossamer,' and though I did not agree with
him, for my clothes were new, and his old and shabby, I laughed also and
never dreamed of evil.
"As this garment which so disfigured him that morning has been the
occasion of much false speculation on the part of those whose business
it was to inquire into the crime with which it is in a most unhappy way
connected, I may as well explain here and now why so fastidious a
gentleman as Randolph Stone came to wear it. The gentleman called Howard
Van Burnam was not the only person who visited the Van Burnam offices on
the morning preceding the murder. Randolph Stone was there also, but he
did not see the brothers, for finding them closeted together, he decided
not to interrupt them. As he was a frequent visitor there, his presence
created no remark nor was his departure noted. Descending the stairs
separating the offices from the street, he was about to leave the
building, when he noticed that the clouds looked ominous. Being dressed
for a luncheon with Miss Althorpe, he felt averse to getting wet, so he
stepped back into the adjoining hall and began groping for an umbrella
in a little closet under the stairs where he had once before found such
an article. While doing this he heard the younger Van Burnam descend and
go out, and realizing that he could now see Franklin without difficulty,
he was about to return up-stairs when he heard that gentleman also come
down and follow his brother into the street.
"His first impulse was to join him, but finding nothing but an old
duster in the closet, he gave up this intention, and putting on this
shabby but protecting garment, started for his apartments, little
realizing into what a course of duplicity and crime it was destined to
lead him. For to the wearing of this old duster on this especial
morning, innocent as the occasion was, I attribute John Randolph's
temptation to murder. Had he gone out without it, he would have taken
his usual course up Broadway and never met _me_; or even if he had taken
the same roundabout way to his apartments as that which led to our
encounter, he would never have dared, in his ordinary fine dress,
conspicuous as it made him, to have entered upon those measures, which,
as he is clever enough to know, lead to disgrace, if they do not end in
a felon's cell. It was John Randolph, then, or Randolph Stone, as he is
pleased to call himself in New York, and not Franklin Van Burnam (who
had doubtless proceeded in another direction) who came up to where
Howard had stood, saw the keys he had dropped, and put them in his own
pocket. It was as innocent an action as the donning of the duster, and
yet it was fraught with the worst consequences to himself and others.
"Being of the same height and complexion as Franklin Van Burnam, and
both gentlemen wearing at that time a moustache (my husband shaved his
off after the murder), the mistakes which arose out of this strange
equipment were but natural. Seen from the rear or in the semi-darkness
of a hotel-office they might look alike, though to me or to any one
studying them well, their faces are really very different.
"But to return. Leading me through streets of which I knew nothing, he
presently stopped before the entrance of a large hotel.
"'I tell you what, Olive,' said he, 'we had better go in here, take a
room, and send for such things as you require to make you look like a
lady.'
"As I had no objection to anything which kept me at his side, I told him
that whatever suited him suited me, and followed him quite eagerly into
the office. I did not know then that this hotel was a second-rate one,
not having had experience with the best, but if I had, I should not have
wondered at his choice, for there was nothing in his appearance, as I
have already intimated, or in his manners up to this point, to lead me
to think he was one of the city's great swells, and that it was only in
such an unfashionable house as this he would be likely to pass
unrecognized. How with his markedly handsome features and distinguished
bearing he managed so to carry himself as to look like a man of inferior
breeding, I can no more explain than I can the singular change which
took place in him when once he found himself in the midst of the crowd
which lounged about this office.
"From a man to attract all eyes he became at once a man to attract none,
and slouched and looked so ordinary that I stared at him in
astonishment, little thinking that he had assumed this manner as a
disguise. Seeing me at a loss, he spoke up quite peremptorily:
"'Let us keep our secret, Olive, till you can appear in the world
full-fledged. And look here, darling, won't you go to the desk and ask
for a room? I am no hand at any such business.'
"Confounded at a proposition so unexpected, but too much under the spell
of my feelings to dispute his wishes, I faltered out:
"'But supposing they ask me to register?'
"At which he gave me a look which recalled the old days in Michigan, and
quietly sneered:
"'Give them a fictitious name. You have learned to write by this time,
have you not?'
"Stung by his taunt, but more in love with him than ever, for his
momentary display of passion had made him look both masterful and
handsome, I went up to the desk to do his bidding.
"'A room!' said I; and when asked to write our names in the book that
lay before me, I put down the first that suggested itself. I wrote with
my gloves on, which was why the writing looked so queer that it was
taken for a disguised hand.
"This done, he rejoined me, and we went up-stairs, and I was too happy
to be in his company again to wonder at his peculiarities or weigh the
consequences of the implicit confidence I accorded him. I was
desperately in love once more, and entered into every plan he proposed
without a thought beyond the joyous present. He was so handsome without
his hat; and when after some short delay he threw aside the duster, I
felt myself for the first time in my life in the presence of a finished
gentleman. Then his manner was so changed. He was so like his oldest and
best self, so dangerously like what he was in those long vanished hours
under the pines in my sand-swept home on the shores of Lake Michigan.
That he faltered at times and sank into strange spells of silence which
had something in them that made my breath come fitfully, did not awaken
my apprehension or rouse in me more than a passing curiosity. I thought
he regretted the past, and when, after one such pause in our
conversation, he drew out of his pocket a couple of keys tied together
with a string, and surveyed the card attached to them with a strange
look, easily enough to be understood by me now, I only laughed at his
abstraction, and indulged in a fresh caress to make him more mindful of
my presence.
"These keys were the ones which Mrs. Van Burnam's husband had dropped,
and which he had picked up before meeting me; and after he had put them
back into his pocket he became more talkative than before, and more
systematically lover-like. I think he had not seen his way clearly till
this moment, the dark and dreadful way which was to end, as he supposed,
in my death.
"But I feared nothing, suspected nothing. Such deep and desperate
wickedness as he was planning was beyond the wildest flight of my
imagination. When he insisted upon sending for a complete set of
clothing for me, and when at his dictation I wrote a list of the
articles I wanted, I thought he was influenced by his wish as my husband
to see me dressed in articles of his own buying. That it was all a plot
to rob me of my identity could not strike such a mind as mine, and when
the packages came and were received by him in the sly way already known
to the public, I saw nothing in his caution but a playful display of
mystery that was to end in my romantic establishment in a home of love
and luxury.
"Or rather it is thus that I account for my conduct now, and yet the
precaution I took not to change the shoes in which my money was hidden,
may argue that I was not without some underlying doubt of his complete
sincerity. But if so, I hid it from myself, and, as I have every reason
to believe, from him also, doubtless excusing my action to myself by
considering that I would be none the worse off for a few dollars of my
own, even if he was my husband, and had promised me no end of pleasure
and comfort.
"That he did intend to make me happy, he had assured me more than once.
Indeed, before we had been long in this hotel room, he informed me that
great experiences lay before me; that he had prospered much in the last
five years and had now a house of his own to offer me and a large circle
of friends to make our life in it agreeable.
"'We will go to our house to-night,' said he. 'I have not been living in
it lately, and you may find it a little uncomfortable, but we will
remedy that to-morrow. Anything is better than staying here under a
false name and I cannot take you to my bachelor apartment.'
"I had doubted some of his previous statements, but this one I
implicitly believed. Why should not so elegant a man have a house of his
own; and if he had told me it was built of marble and hung with
Florentine tapestries, I should still have credited it all. I was in
fairy-land and he was my knight of romance, even when he again hung his
head in leaving the hotel and looked at once so ordinary and
uninteresting.
"The ruse he made use of to cut off all connection between ourselves and
the Mr. and Mrs. James Pope who had registered at the Hotel D---- was
accepted by me with the same lack of suspicion. That he should wish to
carry no remembrance of our old life into our new home I thought a
delightful piece of folly, and when he proposed that we should bequeath
my gossamer and his own disfiguring duster to the coachman in whose hack
we were then riding, I laughed gleefully and helped him fold them up and
place them under the cushions, though I did wonder why he cut a piece
out of the neck of the former, and pouted with the happy freedom of a
self-confident woman when he said:
"'It is the first thing I ever bought for you, and I am just foolish
enough to wish to preserve this much of it for a keepsake. Do you
object, my dear?'
"As I was conscious of cherishing a similar folly in his regard, and
could have pressed even that old duster of his to my heart, I offered
him a kiss and said 'No,' and he put the scrap away in his pocket. That
it was the portion on which was stamped the name of the firm from which
it was bought did not occur to me.
"When the coach stopped, he urged me away on foot in a direction
entirely strange to me, saying we would take another hack as soon as we
had disposed of the bundles we were carrying. How he intended to do
this, I did not know. But presently he drew me towards a Chinese
laundry, where he bade me leave one of them as washing, and the other he
dropped before the opening of a sewer as we stepped up a neighboring
curb-stone.
"And still I did not suspect.
"Our ride to Gramercy Park was short, but during it he had time to put a
bill in my hand and tell me I was to pay the driver. He had also time to
secure the weapon upon which he had probably had his eye fixed from the
first. His manner of doing this I can never forgive, for it was a
lover's manner, and as such intended to deceive and cajole me. Drawing
my head down on his shoulder, he drew off my veil, saying that it was
the only article left of my own buying, and that we would leave it
behind us in this coach as we had left the gossamer in the other. 'Only
I will make sure that no other woman ever wears it,' he laughed,
slitting it up and down with his knife. When this was done he kissed me,
and then while my heart was tender and the warm tears stood in my eyes,
he drew out the pin from my hat, meeting my remonstrances with the
assurance that he hated to see my head covered, and that no hat was as
pretty as my own brown hair.
"As this was nonsense, and as the coach was beginning to stop, I shook
my head at him and put my hat on again, but he had dropped the pin, or
so he said, and I had to alight without it.
"When I had paid the driver and the coach had driven off, I had a chance
to look up at the house before which we had stopped. Its height and
imposing appearance daunted me in spite of the great expectations I had
formed, and I ran up the stoop after him in a condition of mingled awe
and wild delight that was the poorest preparation possible for what lay
before me in the dark interior we were entering.
"He was fumbling nervously in the keyhole with his key, and I heard a
whispered oath escape him. But presently the door fell back, and we
stepped in to what looked to me like a cavern of darkness.
"'Do not be frightened!' he admonished me. 'I will strike a light in a
moment.' And after carefully closing the street door behind us, he
stretched out his hand to take mine, or so I judge, for I heard him
whisper impatiently, 'Where are you?'