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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1624-0.txt b/1624-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..09ca571 --- /dev/null +++ b/1624-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9873 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Two Destinies, by Wilkie Collins + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Two Destinies + +Author: Wilkie Collins + +Release Date: February, 1999 [Etext #1624] +Posting Date: November 18, 2009 +[Last Updated: February 13, 2019] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWO DESTINIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk + + + + + +THE TWO DESTINIES + +By Wilkie Collins + + + + +The Prelude. + +THE GUEST WRITES AND TELLS THE STORY OF THE DINNER PARTY. + +MANY years have passed since my wife and I left the United States to pay +our first visit to England. + +We were provided with letters of introduction, as a matter of course. +Among them there was a letter which had been written for us by my wife's +brother. It presented us to an English gentleman who held a high rank on +the list of his old and valued friends. + +"You will become acquainted with Mr. George Germaine," my brother-in-law +said, when we took leave of him, "at a very interesting period of his +life. My last news of him tells me that he is just married. I know +nothing of the lady, or of the circumstances under which my friend +first met with her. But of this I am certain: married or single, George +Germaine will give you and your wife a hearty welcome to England, for my +sake." + +The day after our arrival in London, we left our letter of introduction +at the house of Mr. Germaine. + +The next morning we went to see a favorite object of American interest, +in the metropolis of England--the Tower of London. The citizens of the +United States find this relic of the good old times of great use in +raising their national estimate of the value of republican institutions. +On getting back to the hotel, the cards of Mr. and Mrs. Germaine told us +that they had already returned our visit. The same evening we received +an invitation to dine with the newly married couple. It was inclosed in +a little note from Mrs. Germaine to my wife, warning us that we were not +to expect to meet a large party. "It is the first dinner we give, on our +return from our wedding tour" (the lady wrote); "and you will only be +introduced to a few of my husband's old friends." + +In America, and (as I hear) on the continent of Europe also, when your +host invites you to dine at a given hour, you pay him the compliment of +arriving punctually at his house. In England alone, the incomprehensible +and discourteous custom prevails of keeping the host and the dinner +waiting for half an hour or more--without any assignable reason and +without any better excuse than the purely formal apology that is implied +in the words, "Sorry to be late." + +Arriving at the appointed time at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Germaine, we +had every reason to congratulate ourselves on the ignorant punctuality +which had brought us into the drawing-room half an hour in advance of +the other guests. + +In the first place, there was so much heartiness, and so little +ceremony, in the welcome accorded to us, that we almost fancied +ourselves back in our own country. In the second place, both husband and +wife interested us the moment we set eyes on them. The lady, especially, +although she was not, strictly speaking, a beautiful woman, quite +fascinated us. There was an artless charm in her face and manner, a +simple grace in all her movements, a low, delicious melody in her voice, +which we Americans felt to be simply irresistible. And then, it was so +plain (and so pleasant) to see that here at least was a happy marriage! +Here were two people who had all their dearest hopes, wishes, and +sympathies in common--who looked, if I may risk the expression, born to +be man and wife. By the time when the fashionable delay of the half +hour had expired, we were talking together as familiarly and as +confidentially as if we had been all four of us old friends. + +Eight o'clock struck, and the first of the English guests appeared. + +Having forgotten this gentleman's name, I must beg leave to distinguish +him by means of a letter of the alphabet. Let me call him Mr. A. When +he entered the room alone, our host and hostess both started, and both +looked surprised. Apparently they expected him to be accompanied by some +other person. Mr. Germaine put a curious question to his friend. + +"Where is your wife?" he asked. + +Mr. A answered for the absent lady by a neat little apology, expressed +in these words: + +"She has got a bad cold. She is very sorry. She begs me to make her +excuses." + +He had just time to deliver his message, before another unaccompanied +gentleman appeared. Reverting to the letters of the alphabet, let me +call him Mr. B. Once more, I noticed that our host and hostess started +when they saw him enter the room alone. And, rather to my surprise, I +heard Mr. Germaine put his curious question again to the new guest: + +"Where is your wife?" + +The answer--with slight variations--was Mr. A's neat little apology, +repeated by Mr. B. + +"I am very sorry. Mrs. B has got a bad headache. She is subject to bad +headaches. She begs me to make her excuses." + +Mr. and Mrs. Germaine glanced at one another. The husband's face plainly +expressed the suspicion which this second apology had roused in his +mind. The wife was steady and calm. An interval passed--a silent +interval. Mr. A and Mr. B retired together guiltily into a corner. My +wife and I looked at the pictures. + +Mrs. Germaine was the first to relieve us from our own intolerable +silence. Two more guests, it appeared, were still wanting to complete +the party. "Shall we have dinner at once, George?" she said to her +husband. "Or shall we wait for Mr. and Mrs. C?" + +"We will wait five minutes," he answered, shortly--with his eye on Mr. A +and Mr. B, guiltily secluded in their corner. + +The drawing-room door opened. We all knew that a third married lady was +expected; we all looked toward the door in unutterable anticipation. Our +unexpressed hopes rested silently on the possible appearance of Mrs. C. +Would that admirable, but unknown, woman, at once charm and relieve +us by her presence? I shudder as I write it. Mr. C walked into the +room--and walked in, _alone_. + +Mr. Germaine suddenly varied his formal inquiry in receiving the new +guest. + +"Is your wife ill?" he asked. + +Mr. C was an elderly man; Mr. C had lived (judging by appearances) in +the days when the old-fashioned laws of politeness were still in force. +He discovered his two married brethren in their corner, unaccompanied by +_their_ wives; and he delivered his apology for _his_ wife with the air +of a man who felt unaffectedly ashamed of it: + +"Mrs. C is so sorry. She has got such a bad cold. She does so regret not +being able to accompany me." + +At this third apology, Mr. Germaine's indignation forced its way outward +into expression in words. + +"Two bad colds and one bad headache," he said, with ironical politeness. +"I don't know how your wives agree, gentlemen, when they are well. But +when they are ill, their unanimity is wonderful!" + +The dinner was announced as that sharp saying passed his lips. + +I had the honor of taking Mrs. Germaine to the dining-room. Her sense of +the implied insult offered to her by the wives of her husband's friends +only showed itself in a trembling, a very slight trembling, of the hand +that rested on my arm. My interest in her increased tenfold. Only +a woman who had been accustomed to suffer, who had been broken and +disciplined to self-restraint, could have endured the moral martyrdom +inflicted on her as _this_ woman endured it, from the beginning of the +evening to the end. + +Am I using the language of exaggeration when I write of my hostess in +these terms? Look at the circumstances as they struck two strangers like +my wife and myself. + +Here was the first dinner party which Mr. and Mrs. Germaine had given +since their marriage. Three of Mr. Germaine's friends, all married men, +had been invited with their wives to meet Mr. Germaine's wife, and had +(evidently) accepted the invitation without reserve. What discoveries +had taken place between the giving of the invitation and the giving of +the dinner it was impossible to say. The one thing plainly discernible +was, that in the interval the three wives had agreed in the resolution +to leave their husbands to represent them at Mrs. Germaine's table; +and, more amazing still, the husbands had so far approved of the +grossly discourteous conduct of the wives as to consent to make the most +insultingly trivial excuses for their absence. Could any crueler slur +than this have been cast on a woman at the outs et of her married life, +before the face of her husband, and in the presence of two strangers +from another country? Is "martyrdom" too big a word to use in describing +what a sensitive person must have suffered, subjected to such treatment +as this? Well, I think not. + +We took our places at the dinner-table. Don't ask me to describe that +most miserable of mortal meetings, that weariest and dreariest of +human festivals! It is quite bad enough to remember that evening--it is +indeed. + +My wife and I did our best to keep the conversation moving as easily +and as harmlessly as might be. I may say that we really worked hard. +Nevertheless, our success was not very encouraging. Try as we might to +overlook them, there were the three empty places of the three absent +women, speaking in their own dismal language for themselves. Try as we +might to resist it, we all felt the one sad conclusion which those empty +places persisted in forcing on our minds. It was surely too plain that +some terrible report, affecting the character of the unhappy woman at +the head of the table, had unexpectedly come to light, and had at one +blow destroyed her position in the estimation of her husband's friends. +In the face of the excuses in the drawing-room, in the face of the empty +places at the dinner-table, what could the friendliest guests do, to +any good purpose, to help the husband and wife in their sore and sudden +need? They could say good-night at the earliest possible opportunity, +and mercifully leave the married pair to themselves. + +Let it at least be recorded to the credit of the three gentlemen, +designated in these pages as A, B, and C, that they were sufficiently +ashamed of themselves and their wives to be the first members of the +dinner party who left the house. In a few minutes more we rose to follow +their example. Mrs. Germaine earnestly requested that we would delay our +departure. + +"Wait a few minutes," she whispered, with a glance at her husband. "I +have something to say to you before you go." + +She left us, and, taking Mr. Germaine by the arm, led him away to the +opposite side of the room. The two held a little colloquy together in +low voices. The husband closed the consultation by lifting the wife's +hand to his lips. + +"Do as you please, my love," he said to her. "I leave it entirely to +you." + +He sat down sorrowfully, lost in his thoughts. Mrs. Germaine unlocked +a cabinet at the further end of the room, and returned to us, alone, +carrying a small portfolio in her hand. + +"No words of mine can tell you how gratefully I feel your kindness," +she said, with perfect simplicity, and with perfect dignity at the same +time. "Under very trying circumstances, you have treated me with the +tenderness and the sympathy which you might have shown to an old friend. +The one return I can make for all that I owe to you is to admit you to +my fullest confidence, and to leave you to judge for yourselves whether +I deserve the treatment which I have received to-night." + +Her eyes filled with tears. She paused to control herself. We both +begged her to say no more. Her husband, joining us, added his entreaties +to ours. She thanked us, but she persisted. Like most sensitively +organized persons, she could be resolute when she believed that the +occasion called for it. + +"I have a few words more to say," she resumed, addressing my wife. "You +are the only married woman who has come to our little dinner party. The +marked absence of the other wives explains itself. It is not for me to +say whether they are right or wrong in refusing to sit at our table. +My dear husband--who knows my whole life as well as I know it +myself--expressed the wish that we should invite these ladies. He +wrongly supposed that _his_ estimate of me would be the estimate +accepted by his friends; and neither he nor I anticipated that the +misfortunes of my past life would be revealed by some person acquainted +with them, whose treachery we have yet to discover. The least I can +do, by way of acknowledging your kindness, is to place you in the same +position toward me which the other ladies now occupy. The circumstances +under which I have become the wife of Mr. Germaine are, in some +respects, very remarkable. They are related, without suppression or +reserve, in a little narrative which my husband wrote, at the time of +our marriage, for the satisfaction of one of his absent relatives, whose +good opinion he was unwilling to forfeit. The manuscript is in this +portfolio. After what has happened, I ask you both to read it, as +a personal favor to me. It is for you to decide, when you know all, +whether I am a fit person for an honest woman to associate with or not." + +She held out her hand, with a sweet, sad smile, and bid us good night. +My wife, in her impulsive way, forgot the formalities proper to the +occasion, and kissed her at parting. At that one little act of sisterly +sympathy, the fortitude which the poor creature had preserved all +through the evening gave way in an instant. She burst into tears. + +I felt as fond of her and as sorry for her as my wife. But +(unfortunately) I could not take my wife's privilege of kissing her. On +our way downstairs, I found the opportunity of saying a cheering word to +her husband as he accompanied us to the door. + +"Before I open this," I remarked, pointing to the portfolio under my +arm, "my mind is made up, sir, about one thing. If I wasn't married +already, I tell you this--I should envy you your wife." + +He pointed to the portfolio in his turn. + +"Read what I have written there," he said; "and you will understand what +those false friends of mine have made me suffer to-night." + +The next morning my wife and I opened the portfolio, and read the +strange story of George Germaine's marriage. + + + + +The Narrative. + + + + +GEORGE GERMAINE WRITES, AND TELLS HIS OWN LOVE STORY. + + + + +CHAPTER I. GREENWATER BROAD + +LOOK back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the past, through +the mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. Rise again, my boyhood's +days, by the winding green shores of the little lake. Come to me once +more, my child-love, in the innocent beauty of your first ten years of +life. Let us live again, my angel, as we lived in our first paradise, +before sin and sorrow lifted their flaming swords and drove us out into +the world. + + +The month was March. The last wild fowl of the season were floating +on the waters of the lake which, in our Suffolk tongue, we called +Greenwater Broad. + +Wind where it might, the grassy banks and the overhanging trees tinged +the lake with the soft green reflections from which it took its name. +In a creek at the south end, the boats were kept--my own pretty sailing +boat having a tiny natural harbor all to itself. In a creek at the north +end stood the great trap (called a "decoy"), used for snaring the +wild fowl which flocked every winter, by thousands and thousands, to +Greenwater Broad. + +My little Mary and I went out together, hand in hand, to see the last +birds of the season lured into the decoy. + +The outer part of the strange bird-trap rose from the waters of the lake +in a series of circular arches, formed of elastic branches bent to the +needed shape, and covered with folds of fine network, making the roof. +Little by little diminishing in size, the arches and their net-work +followed the secret windings of the creek inland to its end. Built back +round the arches, on their landward side, ran a wooden paling, high +enough to hide a man kneeling behind it from the view of the birds on +the lake. At certain intervals a hole was broken in the paling just +large enough to allow of the passage through it of a dog of the +terrier or the spaniel breed. And there began and ended the simple yet +sufficient mechanism of the decoy. + +In those days I was thirteen, and Mary was ten years old. Walking on our +way to the lake we had Mary's father with us for guide and companion. +The good man served as bailiff on my father's estate. He was, besides, a +skilled master in the art of decoying ducks. The dog that helped him (we +used no tame ducks as decoys in Suffolk) was a little black terrier; +a skilled master also, in his way; a creature who possessed, in equal +proportions, the enviable advantages of perfect good-humor and perfect +common sense. + +The dog followed the bailiff, and we followed the dog. + +Arrived at the paling which surrounded the decoy, the dog sat down to +wait until he was wanted. The bailiff and the children crouched behind +the paling, and peeped through the outermost dog-hole, which commanded +a full view of the lake. It was a day without wind; not a ripple stirred +the surface of the water; the soft gray clouds filled all the sky, and +hid the sun from view. + +We peeped through the hole in the paling. There were the wild +ducks--collected within easy reach of the decoy--placidly dressing their +feathers on the placid surface of the lake. + +The bailiff looked at the dog, and made a sign. The dog looked at the +bailiff; and, stepping forward quietly, passed through the hole, so as +to show himself on the narrow strip of ground shelving down from the +outer side of the paling to the lake. + +First one duck, then another, then half a dozen together, discovered the +dog. + +A new object showing itself on the solitary scene instantly became an +object of all-devouring curiosity to the ducks. The outermost of them +began to swim slowly toward the strange four-footed creature, planted +motionless on the bank. By twos and threes, the main body of the +waterfowl gradually followed the advanced guard. Swimming nearer and +nearer to the dog, the wary ducks suddenly came to a halt, and, poised +on the water, viewed from a safe distance the phenomenon on the land. + +The bailiff, kneeling behind the paling, whispered, "Trim!" + +Hearing his name, the terrier turned about, and retiring through the +hole, became lost to the view of the ducks. Motionless on the water, +the wild fowl wondered and waited. In a minute more, the dog had trotted +round, and had shown himself through the next hole in the paling, +pierced further inward where the lake ran up into the outermost of the +windings of the creek. + +The second appearance of the terrier instantly produced a second fit of +curiosity among the ducks. With one accord, they swam forward again, +to get another and a nearer view of the dog; then, judging their +safe distance once more, they stopped for the second time, under the +outermost arch of the decoy. Again the dog vanished, and the puzzled +ducks waited. An interval passed, and the third appearance of Trim took +place, through a third hole in the paling, pierced further inland up +the creek. For the third time irresistible curiosity urged the ducks to +advance further and further inward, under the fatal arches of the decoy. +A fourth and a fifth time the game went on, until the dog had lured the +water-fowl from point to point into the inner recesses of the decoy. +There a last appearance of Trim took place. A last advance, a last +cautious pause, was made by the ducks. The bailiff touched the strings, +the weighed net-work fell vertically into the water, and closed the +decoy. There, by dozens and dozens, were the ducks, caught by means of +their own curiosity--with nothing but a little dog for a bait! In a +few hours afterward they were all dead ducks on their way to the London +market. + +As the last act in the curious comedy of the decoy came to its end, +little Mary laid her hand on my shoulder, and, raising herself on +tiptoe, whispered in my ear: + +"George, come home with me. I have got something to show you that is +better worth seeing than the ducks." + +"What is it?" + +"It's a surprise. I won't tell you." + +"Will you give me a kiss?" + +The charming little creature put her slim sun-burned arms round my neck, +and answered: + +"As many kisses as you like, George." + +It was innocently said, on her side. It was innocently done, on mine. +The good easy bailiff, looking aside at the moment from his ducks, +discovered us pursuing our boy-and-girl courtship in each other's arms. +He shook his big forefinger at us, with something of a sad and doubting +smile. + +"Ah, Master George, Master George!" he said. "When your father comes +home, do you think he will approve of his son and heir kissing his +bailiff's daughter?" + +"When my father comes home," I answered, with great dignity, "I shall +tell him the truth. I shall say I am going to marry your daughter." + +The bailiff burst out laughing, and looked back again at his ducks. + +"Well, well!" we heard him say to himself. "They're only children. +There's no call, poor things, to part them yet awhile." + +Mary and I had a great dislike to be called children. Properly +understood, one of us was a lady aged ten, and the other was a gentleman +aged thirteen. We left the good bailiff indignantly, and went away +together, hand in hand, to the cottage. + +CHAPTER II. TWO YOUNG HEARTS. + +"HE is growing too fast," said the doctor to my mother; "and he is +getting a great deal too clever for a boy at his age. Remove him from +school, ma'am, for six months; let him run about in the open air +at home; and if you find him with a book in his hand, take it away +directly. There is my prescription." + +Those words decided my fate in life. + +In obedience to the doctor's advice, I was left an idle boy--without +brothers, sisters, or companions of my own age--to roam about the +grounds of our lonely country-house. The bailiff's daughter, like me, +was an only child; and, like me, she had no playfellows. We met in +our wanderings on the solitary shores of the lake. Beginning by being +inseparable companions, we ripened and developed into true lovers. Our +preliminary courtship concluded, we next proposed (before I returned to +school) to burst into complete maturity by becoming man and wife. + +I am not writing in jest. Absurd as it may appear to "sensible people," +we two children were lovers, if ever there were lovers yet. + +We had no pleasures apart from the one all-sufficient pleasure which +we found in each other's society. We objected to the night, because it +parted us. We entreated our parents, on either side, to let us sleep in +the same room. I was angry with my mother, and Mary was disappointed in +her father, when they laughed at us, and wondered what we should want +next. Looking onward, from those days to the days of my manhood, I can +vividly recall such hours of happiness as have fallen to my share. But I +remember no delights of that later time comparable to the exquisite and +enduring pleasure that filled my young being when I walked with Mary in +the woods; when I sailed with Mary in my boat on the lake; when I met +Mary, after the cruel separation of the night, and flew into her open +arms as if we had been parted for months and months together. + +What was the attraction that drew us so closely one to the other, at an +age when the sexual sympathies lay dormant in her and in me? + +We neither knew nor sought to know. We obeyed the impulse to love one +another, as a bird obeys the impulse to fly. + +Let it not be supposed that we possessed any natural gifts, or +advantages which singled us out as differing in a marked way from other +children at our time of life. We possessed nothing of the sort. I had +been called a clever boy at school; but there were thousands of other +boys, at thousands of other schools, who headed their classes and +won their prizes, like me. Personally speaking, I was in no way +remarkable--except for being, in the ordinary phrase, "tall for my age." +On her side, Mary displayed no striking attractions. She was a +fragile child, with mild gray eyes and a pale complexion; singularly +undemonstrative, singularly shy and silent, except when she was alone +with me. Such beauty as she had, in those early days, lay in a certain +artless purity and tenderness of expression, and in the charming +reddish-brown color of her hair, varying quaintly and prettily in +different lights. To all outward appearance two perfectly commonplace +children, we were mysteriously united by some kindred association of the +spirit in her and the spirit in me, which not only defied discovery by +our young selves, but which lay too deep for investigation by far older +and far wiser heads than ours. + +You will naturally wonder whether anything was done by our elders to +check our precocious attachment, while it was still an innocent love +union between a boy and a girl. + +Nothing was done by my father, for the simple reason that he was away +from home. + +He was a man of a restless and speculative turn of mind. Inheriting his +estate burdened with debt, his grand ambition was to increase his small +available income by his own exertions; to set up an establishment +in London; and to climb to political distinction by the ladder of +Parliament. An old friend, who had emigrated to America, had proposed +to him a speculation in agriculture, in one of the Western States, which +was to make both their fortunes. My father's eccentric fancy was struck +by the idea. For more than a year past he had been away from us in the +United States; and all we knew of him (instructed by his letters) +was, that he might be shortly expected to return to us in the enviable +character of one of the richest men in England. + +As for my poor mother--the sweetest and softest-hearted of women--to see +me happy was all that she desired. + +The quaint little love romance of the two children amused and interested +her. She jested with Mary's father about the coming union between the +two families, without one serious thought of the future--without even a +foreboding of what might happen when my father returned. "Sufficient for +the day is the evil (or the good) thereof," had been my mother's motto +all her life. She agreed with the easy philosophy of the bailiff, +already recorded in these pages: "They're only children. There's no +call, poor things, to part them yet a while." + +There was one member of the family, however, who took a sensible and +serious view of the matter. + +My father's brother paid us a visit in our solitude; discovered what +was going on between Mary and me; and was, at first, naturally enough, +inclined to laugh at us. Closer investigation altered his way of +thinking. He became convinced that my mother was acting like a fool; +that the bailiff (a faithful servant, if ever there was one yet) was +cunningly advancing his own interests by means of his daughter; and that +I was a young idiot, who had developed his native reserves of imbecility +at an unusually early period of life. Speaking to my mother under the +influence of these strong impressions, my uncle offered to take me back +with him to London, and keep me there until I had been brought to +my senses by association with his own children, and by careful +superintendence under his own roof. + +My mother hesitated about accepting this proposal; she had the advantage +over my uncle of understanding my disposition. While she was still +doubting, while my uncle was still impatiently waiting for her decision, +I settled the question for my elders by running away. + +I left a letter to represent me in my absence; declaring that no mortal +power should part me from Mary, and promising to return and ask my +mother's pardon as soon as my uncle had left the house. The strictest +search was made for me without discovering a trace of my place of +refuge. My uncle departed for London, predicting that I should live to +be a disgrace to the family, and announcing that he should transmit his +opinion of me to my father in America by the next mail. + +The secret of the hiding-place in which I contrived to defy discovery is +soon told. I was hidden (without the bailiff's knowledge) in the bedroom +of the bailiff's mother. And did the bailiff's mother know it? you will +ask. To which I answer: the bailiff's mother did it. And, what is +more, gloried in doing it--not, observe, as an act of hostility to my +relatives, but simply as a duty that lay on her conscience. + +What sort of old woman, in the name of all that is wonderful, was this? +Let her appear, and speak for herself--the wild and weird grandmother of +gentle little Mary; the Sibyl of modern times, known, far and wide, in +our part of Suffolk, as Dame Dermody. + +I see her again, as I write, sitting in her son's pretty cottage parlor, +hard by the window, so that the light fell over her shoulder while she +knitted or read. A little, lean, wiry old woman was Dame Dermody--with +fierce black eyes, surmounted by bushy white eyebrows, by a high +wrinkled forehead, and by thick white hair gathered neatly under her +old-fashioned "mob-cap." Report whispered (and whispered truly) that +she had been a lady by birth and breeding, and that she had deliberately +closed her prospects in life by marrying a man greatly her inferior +in social rank. Whatever her family might think of her marriage, she +herself never regretted it. In her estimation her husband's memory was +a sacred memory; his spirit was a guardian spirit, watching over her, +waking or sleeping, morning or night. + +Holding this faith, she was in no respect influenced by those grossly +material ideas of modern growth which associate the presence of +spiritual beings with clumsy conjuring tricks and monkey antics +performed on tables and chairs. Dame Dermody's nobler superstition +formed an integral part of her religious convictions--convictions which +had long since found their chosen resting-place in the mystic doctrines +of Emanuel Swedenborg. The only books which she read were the works +of the Swedish Seer. She mixed up Swedenborg's teachings on angels and +departed spirits, on love to one's neighbor and purity of life, with +wild fancies, and kindred beliefs of her own; and preached the visionary +religious doctrines thus derived, not only in the bailiff's household, +but also on proselytizing expeditions to the households of her humble +neighbors, far and near. + +Under her son's roof--after the death of his wife--she reigned a supreme +power; priding herself alike on her close attention to her domestic +duties, and on her privileged communications with angels and spirits. +She would hold long colloquys with the spirit of her dead husband before +anybody who happened to be present--colloquys which struck the simple +spectators mute with terror. To her mystic view, the love union between +Mary and me was something too sacred and too beautiful to be tried by +the mean and matter-of-fact tests set up by society. She wrote for us +little formulas of prayer and praise, which we were to use when we met +and when we parted, day by day. She solemnly warned her son to look +upon us as two young consecrated creatures, walking unconsciously on +a heavenly path of their own, whose beginning was on earth, but whose +bright end was among the angels in a better state of being. Imagine my +appearing before such a woman as this, and telling her with tears of +despair that I was determined to die, rather than let my uncle part +me from little Mary, and you will no longer be astonished at the +hospitality which threw open to me the sanctuary of Dame Dermody's own +room. + +When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I committed a +serious mistake. In thanking the old woman at parting, I said to her +(with a boy's sense of honor), "I won't tell upon you, Dame. My mother +shan't know that you hid me in your bedroom." + +The Sibyl laid her dry, fleshless hand on my shoulder, and forced me +roughly back into the chair from which I had just risen. + +"Boy!" she said, looking through and through me with her fierce black +eyes. "Do you dare suppose that I ever did anything that I was ashamed +of? Do you think I am ashamed of what I have done now? Wait there. Your +mother may mistake me too. I shall write to your mother." + +She put on her great round spectacles with tortoise-shell rims and sat +down to her letter. Whenever her thoughts flagged, whenever she was at a +loss for an expression, she looked over her shoulder, as if some visible +creature were stationed behind her, watching what she wrote; consulted +the spirit of her husband, exactly as she might have consulted a living +man; smiled softly to herself, and went on with her writing. + +"There!" she said, handing me the completed letter with an imperial +gesture of indulgence. "_His_ mind and _my_ mind are written there. Go, +boy. I pardon you. Give my letter to your mother." + +So she always spoke, with the same formal and measured dignity of manner +and language. + +I gave the letter to my mother. We read it, and marveled over it +together. Thus, counseled by the ever-present spirit of her husband, +Dame Dermody wrote: + + +"MADAM--I have taken what you may be inclined to think a great liberty. +I have assisted your son George in setting his uncle's authority at +defiance. I have encouraged your son George in his resolution to be +true, in time and in eternity, to my grandchild, Mary Dermody. + +"It is due to you and to me that I should tell you with what motive I +have acted in doing these things. + +"I hold the belief that all love that is true is foreordained and +consecrated in heaven. Spirits destined to be united in the better world +are divinely commissioned to discover each other and to begin their +union in this world. The only happy marriages are those in which the two +destined spirits have succeeded in meeting one another in this sphere of +life. + +"When the kindred spirits have once met, no human power can really part +them. Sooner or later, they must, by divine law, find each other again +and become united spirits once more. Worldly wisdom may force them into +widely different ways of life; worldly wisdom may delude them, or may +make them delude themselves, into contracting an earthly and a fallible +union. It matters nothing. The time will certainly come when that union +will manifest itself as earthly and fallible; and the two disunited +spirits, finding each other again, will become united here for the world +beyond this--united, I tell you, in defiance of all human laws and of +all human notions of right and wrong. + +"This is my belief. I have proved it by my own life. Maid, wife, and +widow, I have held to it, and I have found it good. + +"I was born, madam, in the rank of society to which you belong. I +received the mean, material teaching which fulfills the worldly notion +of education. Thanks be to God, my kindred spirit met _my_ spirit while +I was still young. I knew true love and true union before I was twenty +years of age. I married, madam, in the rank from which Christ chose +his apostles--I married a laboring-man. No human language can tell my +happiness while we lived united here. His death has not parted us. He +helps me to write this letter. In my last hours I shall see him standing +among the angels, waiting for me on the banks of the shining river. + +"You will now understand the view I take of the tie which unites the +young spirits of our children at the bright outset of their lives. + +"Believe me, the thing which your husband's brother has proposed to you +to do is a sacrilege and a profanation. I own to you freely that I look +on what I have done toward thwarting your relative in this matter as an +act of virtue. You cannot expect _me_ to think it a serious obstacle to +a union predestined in heaven, that your son is the squire's heir, and +that my grandchild is only the bailiff's daughter. Dismiss from your +mind, I implore you, the unworthy and unchristian prejudices of rank. +Are we not all equal before God? Are we not all equal (even in this +world) before disease and death? Not your son's happiness only, but your +own peace of mind, is concerned in taking heed to my words. I warn you, +madam, you cannot hinder the destined union of these two child-spirits, +in after-years, as man and wife. Part them now--and YOU will be +responsible for the sacrifices, degradations and distresses through +which your George and my Mary may be condemned to pass on their way back +to each other in later life. + +"Now my mind is unburdened. Now I have said all. + +"If I have spoken too freely, or have in any other way unwittingly +offended, I ask your pardon, and remain, madam, your faithful servant +and well-wisher, HELEN DERMODY." + +So the letter ended. + +To me it is something more than a mere curiosity of epistolary +composition. I see in it the prophecy--strangely fulfilled in later +years--of events in Mary's life, and in mine, which future pages are now +to tell. + +My mother decided on leaving the letter unanswered. Like many of her +poorer neighbors, she was a little afraid of Dame Dermody; and she +was, besides, habitually averse to all discussions which turned on the +mysteries of spiritual life. I was reproved, admonished, and forgiven; +and there was the end of it. + +For some happy weeks Mary and I returned, without hinderance or +interruption, to our old intimate companionship The end was coming, +however, when we least expected it. My mother was startled, one +morning, by a letter from my father, which informed her that he had been +unexpectedly obliged to sail for England at a moment's notice; that he +had arrived in London, and that he was detained there by business which +would admit of no delay. We were to wait for him at home, in daily +expectation of seeing him the moment he was free. + +This news filled my mother's mind with foreboding doubts of the +stability of her husband's grand speculation in America. The sudden +departure from the United States, and the mysterious delay in London, +were ominous, to her eyes, of misfortune to come. I am now writing of +those dark days in the past, when the railway and the electric telegraph +were still visions in the minds of inventors. Rapid communication +with my father (even if he would have consented to take us into his +confidence) was impossible. We had no choice but to wait and hope. + +The weary days passed; and still my father's brief letters described him +as detained by his business. The morning came when Mary and I went out +with Dermody, the bailiff, to see the last wild fowl of the season lured +into the decoy; and still the welcome home waited for the master, and +waited in vain. + +CHAPTER III. SWEDENBORG AND THE SIBYL. + +MY narrative may move on again from the point at which it paused in the +first chapter. + +Mary and I (as you may remember) had left the bailiff alone at the +decoy, and had set forth on our way together to Dermody's cottage. + +As we approached the garden gate, I saw a servant from the house waiting +there. He carried a message from my mother--a message for me. + +"My mistress wishes you to go home, Master George, as soon as you can. A +letter has come by the coach. My master means to take a post-chaise from +London, and sends word that we may expect him in the course of the day." + +Mary's attentive face saddened when she heard those words. + +"Must you really go away, George," she whispered, "before you see what I +have got waiting for you at home?" + +I remembered Mary's promised "surprise," the secret of which was only +to be revealed to me when we got to the cottage. How could I disappoint +her? My poor little lady-love looked ready to cry at the bare prospect +of it. + +I dismissed the servant with a message of the temporizing sort. My love +to my mother--and I would be back at the house in half an hour. + +We entered the cottage. + +Dame Dermody was sitting in the light of the window, as usual, with one +of the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg open on her lap. She solemnly +lifted her hand on our appearance, signing to us to occupy our customary +corner without speaking to her. It was an act of domestic high treason +to interrupt the Sibyl at her books. We crept quietly into our places. +Mary waited until she saw her grandmother's gray head bend down, and +her grandmother's bushy eyebrows contract attentively, over her reading. +Then, and then only, the discreet child rose on tiptoe, disappeared +noiselessly in the direction of her bedchamber, and came back to +me carrying something carefully wrapped up in her best cambric +handkerchief. + +"Is that the surprise?" I whispered. + +Mary whispered back: "Guess what it is?" + +"Something for me?" + +"Yes. Go on guessing. What is it?" + +I guessed three times, and each guess was wrong. Mary decided on helping +me by a hint. + +"Say your letters," she suggested; "and go on till I stop you." + +I began: "A, B, C, D, E, F--" There she stopped me. + +"It's the name of a Thing," she said; "and it begins with F." + +I guessed, "Fern," "Feather," "Fife." And here my resources failed me. + +Mary sighed, and shook her head. "You don't take pains," she said. "You +are three whole years older than I am. After all the trouble I have +taken to please you, you may be too big to care for my present when you +see it. Guess again." + +"I can't guess." + +"You must!" + +"I give it up." + +Mary refused to let me give it up. She helped me by another hint. + +"What did you once say you wished you had in your boat?" she asked. + +"Was it long ago?" I inquired, at a loss for an answer. + +"Long, long ago! Before the winter. When the autumn leaves were falling, +and you took me out one evening for a sail. Ah, George, _you_ have +forgotten!" + +Too true, of me and of my brethren, old and young alike! It is always +_his_ love that forgets, and _her_ love that remembers. We were only two +children, and we were types of the man and the woman already. + +Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the terrible presence of her +grandmother, she jumped up, and snatched the concealed object out of her +handkerchief. + +"There!" she cried, briskly, "_now_ do you know what it is?" + +I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my boat, all those +months ago, was a new flag. And here was the flag, made for me in secret +by Mary's own hand! The ground was green silk, with a dove embroidered +on it in white, carrying in its beak the typical olive-branch, wrought +in gold thread. The work was the tremulous, uncertain work of a child's +fingers. But how faithfully my little darling had remembered my wish! +how patiently she had plied the needle over the traced lines of the +pattern! how industriously she had labored through the dreary winter +days! and all for my sake! What words could tell my pride, my gratitude, +my happiness? + +I too forgot the presence of the Sibyl bending over her book. I took +the little workwoman in my arms, and kissed her till I was fairly out of +breath and could kiss no longer. + +"Mary!" I burst out, in the first heat of my enthusiasm, "my father is +coming home to-day. I will speak to him to-night. And I will marry you +to-morrow!" + +"Boy!" said the awful voice at the other end of the room. "Come here." + +Dame Dermody's mystic book was closed; Dame Dermody's weird black eyes +were watching us in our corner. I approached her; and Mary followed me +timidly, by a footstep at a time. + +The Sibyl took me by the hand, with a caressing gentleness which was new +in my experience of her. + +"Do you prize that toy?" she inquired, looking at the flag. "Hide it!" +she cried, before I could answer. "Hide it--or it may be taken from +you!" + +"Why should I hide it?" I asked. "I want to fly it at the mast of my +boat." + +"You will never fly it at the mast of your boat!" With that answer she +took the flag from me and thrust it impatiently into the breast-pocket +of my jacket. + +"Don't crumple it, grandmother!" said Mary, piteously. + +I repeated my question: + +"Why shall I never fly it at the mast of my boat?" + +Dame Dermody laid her hand on the closed volume of Swedenborg lying in +her lap. + +"Three times I have opened this book since the morning," she said. +"Three times the words of the prophet warn me that there is trouble +coming. Children, it is trouble that is coming to You. I look there," +she went on, pointing to the place where a ray of sunlight poured +slanting into the room, "and I see my husband in the heavenly light. He +bows his head in grief, and he points his unerring hand at You. George +and Mary, you are consecrated to each other! Be always worthy of your +consecration; be always worthy of yourselves." She paused. Her voice +faltered. She looked at us with softening eyes, as those look who know +sadly that there is a parting at hand. "Kneel!" she said, in low tones +of awe and grief. "It may be the last time I bless you--it may be the +last time I pray over you, in this house. Kneel!" + +We knelt close together at her feet. I could feel Mary's heart +throbbing, as she pressed nearer and nearer to my side. I could feel my +own heart quickening its beat, with a fear that was a mystery to me. + +"God bless and keep George and Mary, here and hereafter! God prosper, +in future days, the union which God's wisdom has willed! Amen. So be it. +Amen." + +As the last words fell from her lips the cottage door was thrust open. +My father--followed by the bailiff--entered the room. + +Dame Dermody got slowly on her feet, and looked at him with a stern +scrutiny. + +"It has come," she said to herself. "It looks with the eyes--it will +speak with the voice--of that man." + +My father broke the silence that followed, addressing himself to the +bailiff. + +"You see, Dermody," he said, "here is my son in your cottage--when he +ought to be in my house." He turned, and looked at me as I stood with +my arm round little Mary, patiently waiting for my opportunity to speak. +"George," he said, with the hard smile which was peculiar to him, +when he was angry and was trying to hide it, "you are making a fool of +yourself there. Leave that child, and come to me." + +Now, or never, was my time to declare myself. Judging by appearances, +I was still a boy. Judging by my own sensations, I had developed into a +man at a moment's notice. + +"Papa," I said, "I am glad to see you home again. This is Mary Dermody. +I am in love with her, and she is in love with me. I wish to marry her +as soon as it is convenient to my mother and you." + +My father burst out laughing. Before I could speak again, his humor +changed. He had observed that Dermody, too, presumed to be amused. He +seemed to become mad with anger, all in a moment. + +"I have been told of this infernal tomfoolery," he said, "but I didn't +believe it till now. Who has turned the boy's weak head? Who has +encouraged him to stand there hugging that girl? If it's you, Dermody, +it shall be the worst day's work you ever did in your life." He turned +to me again, before the bailiff could defend himself. "Do you hear what +I say? I tell you to leave Dermody's girl, and come home with me." + +"Yes, papa," I answered. "But I must go back to Mary, if you please, +after I have been with you." + +Angry as he was, my father was positively staggered by my audacity. + +"You young idiot, your insolence exceeds belief!" he burst out. "I tell +you this: you will never darken these doors again! You have been taught +to disobey me here. You have had things put into your head, here, which +no boy of your age ought to know--I'll say more, which no decent people +would have let you know." + +"I beg your pardon, sir," Dermody interposed, very respectfully and very +firmly at the same time. "There are many things which a master in a hot +temper is privileged to say to the man who serves him. But you have gone +beyond your privilege. You have shamed me, sir, in the presence of my +mother, in the hearing of my child--" + +My father checked him there. + +"You may spare the rest of it," he said. "We are master and servant +no longer. When my son came hanging about your cottage, and playing at +sweethearts with your girl there, your duty was to close the door on +him. You have failed in your duty. I trust you no longer. Take a month's +notice, Dermody. You leave my service." + +The bailiff steadily met my father on his ground. He was no longer the +easy, sweet-tempered, modest man who was the man of my remembrance. + +"I beg to decline taking your month's notice, sir," he answered. "You +shall have no opportunity of repeating what you have just said to me. +I will send in my accounts to-night. And I will leave your service +to-morrow." + +"We agree for once," retorted my father. "The sooner you go, the +better." + +He stepped across the room and put his hand on my shoulder. + +"Listen to me," he said, making a last effort to control himself. "I +don't want to quarrel with you before a discarded servant. There must be +an end to this nonsense. Leave these people to pack up and go, and come +back to the house with me." + +His heavy hand, pressing on my shoulder, seemed to press the spirit +of resistance out of me. I so far gave way as to try to melt him by +entreaties. + +"Oh, papa! papa!" I cried. "Don't part me from Mary! See how pretty and +good she is! She has made me a flag for my boat. Let me come here and +see her sometimes. I can't live without her." + +I could say no more. My poor little Mary burst out crying. Her tears and +my entreaties were alike wasted on my father. + +"Take your choice," he said, "between coming away of your own accord, or +obliging me to take you away by force. I mean to part you and Dermody's +girl." + +"Neither you nor any man can part them," interposed a voice, speaking +behind us. "Rid your mind of that notion, master, before it is too +late." + +My father looked round quickly, and discovered Dame Dermody facing him +in the full light of the window. She had stepped back, at the outset +of the dispute, into the corner behind the fireplace. There she had +remained, biding her time to speak, until my father's last threat +brought her out of her place of retirement. + +They looked at each other for a moment. My father seemed to think it +beneath his dignity to answer her. He went on with what he had to say to +me. + +"I shall count three slowly," he resumed. "Before I get to the last +number, make up your mind to do what I tell you, or submit to the +disgrace of being taken away by force." + +"Take him where you may," said Dame Dermody, "he will still be on his +way to his marriage with my grandchild." + +"And where shall I be, if you please?" asked my father, stung into +speaking to her this time. + +The answer followed instantly in these startling words: + +"_You_ will be on your way to your ruin and your death." + +My father turned his back on the prophetess with a smile of contempt. + +"One!" he said, beginning to count. + +I set my teeth, and clasped both arms round Mary as he spoke. I had +inherited some of his temper, and he was now to know it. + +"Two!" proceeded my father, after waiting a little. + +Mary put her trembling lips to my ear, and whispered: "Let me go, +George! I can't bear to see it. Oh, look how he frowns! I know he'll +hurt you." + +My father lifted his forefinger as a preliminary warning before he +counted Three. + +"Stop!" cried Dame Dermody. + +My father looked round at her again with sardonic astonishment. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am--have you anything particular to say to me?" +he asked. + +"Man!" returned the Sibyl, "you speak lightly. Have I spoken lightly to +You? I warn you to bow your wicked will before a Will that is mightier +than yours. The spirits of these children are kindred spirits. For time +and for eternity they are united one to the other. Put land and sea +between them--they will still be together; they will communicate in +visions, they will be revealed to each other in dreams. Bind them by +worldly ties; wed your son, in the time to come, to another woman, and +my grand-daughter to another man. In vain! I tell you, in vain! You may +doom them to misery, you may drive them to sin--the day of their union +on earth is still a day predestined in heaven. It will come! it will +come! Submit, while the time for submission is yours. You are a doomed +man. I see the shadow of disaster, I see the seal of death, on your +face. Go; and leave these consecrated ones to walk the dark ways of +the world together, in the strength of their innocence, in the light of +their love. Go--and God forgive you!" In spite of himself, my father was +struck by the irresistible strength of conviction which inspired those +words. The bailiff's mother had impressed him as a tragic actress might +have impressed him on the stage. She had checked the mocking answer on +his lips, but she had not shaken his iron will. His face was as hard as +ever when he turned my way once more. + +"The last chance, George," he said, and counted the last number: +"Three!" + +I neither moved nor answered him. + +"You _will_ have it?" he said, as he fastened his hold on my arm. + +I fastened _my_ hold on Mary; I whispered to her, "I won't leave you!" +She seemed not to hear me. She trembled from head to foot in my arms. A +faint cry of terror fluttered from her lips. Dermody instantly stepped +forward. Before my father could wrench me away from her, he had said in +my ear, "You can give her to _me_, Master George," and had released +his child from my embrace. She stretched her little frail hands out +yearningly to me, as she lay in Dermody's arms. "Good-by, dear," she +said, faintly. I saw her head sink on her father's bosom as I was +dragged to the door. In my helpless rage and misery, I struggled against +the cruel hands that had got me with all the strength I had left. I +cried out to her, "I love you, Mary! I will come back to you, Mary! I +will never marry any one but you!" Step by step, I was forced further +and further away. The last I saw of her, my darling's head was still +resting on Dermody's breast. Her grandmother stood near, and shook her +withered hands at my father, and shrieked her terrible prophecy, in +the hysteric frenzy that possessed her when she saw the separation +accomplished. "Go!--you go to your ruin! you go to your death!" While +her voice still rang in my ears, the cottage door was opened and closed +again. It was all over. The modest world of my boyish love and my boyish +joy disappeared like the vision of a dream. The empty outer wilderness, +which was my father's world, opened before me void of love and void of +joy. God forgive me--how I hated him at that moment! + +CHAPTER IV. THE CURTAIN FALLS. + +FOR the rest of the day, and through the night, I was kept a close +prisoner in my room, watched by a man on whose fidelity my father could +depend. + +The next morning I made an effort to escape, and was discovered before +I had got free of the house. Confined again to my room, I contrived +to write to Mary, and to slip my note into the willing hand of the +housemaid who attended on me. Useless! The vigilance of my guardian was +not to be evaded. The woman was suspected and followed, and the letter +was taken from her. My father tore it up with his own hands. + +Later in the day, my mother was permitted to see me. + +She was quite unfit, poor soul, to intercede for me, or to serve my +interests in any way. My father had completely overwhelmed her by +announcing that his wife and his son were to accompany him, when he +returned to America. + +"Every farthing he has in the world," said my mother, "is to be thrown +into that hateful speculation. He has raised money in London; he has let +the house to some rich tradesman for seven years; he has sold the plate, +and the jewels that came to me from his mother. The land in America +swallows it all up. We have no home, George, and no choice but to go +with him." + +An hour afterward the post-chaise was at the door. + +My father himself took me to the carriage. I broke away from him, with +a desperation which not even his resolution could resist. I ran, I flew, +along the path that led to Dermody's cottage. The door stood open; the +parlor was empty. I went into the kitchen; I went into the upper rooms. +Solitude everywhere. The bailiff had left the place; and his mother and +his daughter had gone with him. No friend or neighbor lingered near with +a message; no letter lay waiting for me; no hint was left to tell me in +what direction they had taken their departure. After the insulting words +which his master had spoken to him, Dermody's pride was concerned in +leaving no trace of his whereabouts; my father might consider it as a +trace purposely left with the object of reuniting Mary and me. I had no +keepsake to speak to me of my lost darling but the flag which she had +embroidered with her own hand. The furniture still remained in the +cottage. I sat down in our customary corner, by Mary's empty chair, and +looked again at the pretty green flag, and burst out crying. + +A light touch roused me. My father had so far yielded as to leave to my +mother the responsibility of bringing me back to the traveling carriage. + +"We shall not find Mary here, George," she said, gently. "And we _may_ +hear of her in London. Come with me." + +I rose and silently gave her my hand. Something low down on the clean +white door-post caught my eye as we passed it. I stooped, and discovered +some writing in pencil. I looked closer--it was writing in Mary's hand! +The unformed childish characters traced these last words of farewell: + +"Good-by, dear. Don't forget Mary." + +I knelt down and kissed the writing. It comforted me--it was like a +farewell touch from Mary's hand. I followed my mother quietly to the +carriage. + +Late that night we were in London. + +My good mother did all that the most compassionate kindness could do +(in her position) to comfort me. She privately wrote to the solicitors +employed by her family, inclosing a description of Dermody and his +mother and daughter and directing inquiries to be made at the various +coach-offices in London. She also referred the lawyers to two of +Dermody's relatives, who lived in the city, and who might know +something of his movements after he left my father's service. When she +had done this, she had done all that lay in her power. We neither of us +possessed money enough to advertise in the newspapers. + +A week afterward we sailed for the United States. Twice in that interval +I communicated with the lawyers; and twice I was informed that the +inquiries had led to nothing. + + +With this the first epoch in my love story comes to an end. + +For ten long years afterward I never again met with my little Mary; I +never even heard whether she had lived to grow to womanhood or not. I +still kept the green flag, with the dove worked on it. For the rest, +the waters of oblivion had closed over the old golden days at Greenwater +Broad. + +CHAPTER V. MY STORY. + +WHEN YOU last saw me, I was a boy of thirteen. You now see me a man of +twenty-three. + +The story of my life, in the interval between these two ages, is a story +that can be soon told. + +Speaking of my father first, I have to record that the end of his career +did indeed come as Dame Dermody had foretold it. Before we had been a +year in America, the total collapse of his land speculation was followed +by his death. The catastrophe was complete. But for my mother's little +income (settled on her at her marriage) we should both have been left +helpless at the mercy of the world. + +We made some kind friends among the hearty and hospitable people of the +United States, whom we were unaffectedly sorry to leave. But there were +reasons which inclined us to return to our own country after my father's +death; and we did return accordingly. + +Besides her brother-in-law (already mentioned in the earlier pages of my +narrative), my mother had another relative--a cousin named Germaine--on +whose assistance she mainly relied for starting me, when the time came, +in a professional career. I remember it as a family rumor, that Mr. +Germaine had been an unsuccessful suitor for my mother's hand in the +days when they were young people together. He was still a bachelor at +the later period when his eldest brother's death without issue placed +him in possession of a handsome fortune. The accession of wealth made +no difference in his habits of life: he was a lonely old man, estranged +from his other relatives, when my mother and I returned to England. If +I could only succeed in pleasing Mr. Germaine, I might consider my +prospects (in some degree, at least) as being prospects assured. + +This was one consideration that influenced us in leaving America. There +was another--in which I was especially interested--that drew me back to +the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad. + +My only hope of recovering a trace of Mary was to make inquiries among +the cottagers in the neighborhood of my old home. The good bailiff had +been heartily liked and respected in his little sphere. It seemed at +least possible that some among his many friends in Suffolk might have +discovered traces of him, in the year that had passed since I had left +England. In my dreams of Mary--and I dreamed of her constantly--the +lake and its woody banks formed a frequent background in the visionary +picture of my lost companion. To the lake shores I looked, with a +natural superstition, as to my way back to the one life that had its +promise of happiness for _me_--my life with Mary. + +On our arrival in London, I started for Suffolk alone--at my mother's +request. At her age she naturally shrank from revisiting the home scenes +now occupied by the strangers to whom our house had been let. + +Ah, how my heart ached (young as I was) when I saw the familiar green +waters of the lake once more! It was evening. The first object that +caught my eye was the gayly painted boat, once mine, in which Mary and I +had so often sailed together. The people in possession of our house were +sailing now. The sound of their laughter floated toward me merrily over +the still water. _Their_ flag flew at the little mast-head, from which +Mary's flag had never fluttered in the pleasant breeze. I turned my eyes +from the boat; it hurt me to look at it. A few steps onward brought me +to a promontory on the shore, and revealed the brown archways of the +decoy on the opposite bank. There was the paling behind which we had +knelt to watch the snaring of the ducks; there was the hole through +which "Trim," the terrier, had shown himself to rouse the stupid +curiosity of the water-fowl; there, seen at intervals through the trees, +was the winding woodland path along which Mary and I had traced our way +to Dermody's cottage on the day when my father's cruel hand had torn us +from each other. How wisely my good mother had shrunk from looking again +at the dear old scenes! I turned my back on the lake, to think with +calmer thoughts in the shadowy solitude of the woods. + +An hour's walk along the winding banks brought me round to the cottage +which had once been Mary's home. + +The door was opened by a woman who was a stranger to me. She civilly +asked me to enter the parlor. I had suffered enough already; I made my +inquiries, standing on the doorstep. They were soon at an end. The woman +was a stranger in our part of Suffolk; neither she nor her husband had +ever heard of Dermody's name. + +I pursued my investigations among the peasantry, passing from cottage +to cottage. The twilight came; the moon rose; the lights began to vanish +from the lattice-windows; and still I continued my weary pilgrimage; and +still, go where I might, the answer to my questions was the same. Nobody +knew anything of Dermody. Everybody asked if I had not brought news of +him myself. It pains me even now to recall the cruelly complete defeat +of every effort which I made on that disastrous evening. I passed the +night in one of the cottages; and I returned to London the next day, +broken by disappointment, careless what I did, or where I went next. + +Still, we were not wholly parted. I saw Mary--as Dame Dermody said I +should see her--in dreams. + +Sometimes she came to me with the green flag in her hand, and repeated +her farewell words--"Don't forget Mary!" Sometimes she led me to our +well-remembered corner in the cottage parlor, and opened the paper on +which her grandmother had written our prayers for us. We prayed together +again, and sung hymns together again, as if the old times had come back. +Once she appeared to me, with tears in her eyes, and said, "We must +wait, dear: our time has not come yet." Twice I saw her looking at me, +like one disturbed by anxious thoughts; and twice I heard her say, "Live +patiently, live innocently, George, for my sake." + +We settled in London, where my education was undertaken by a private +tutor. Before we had been long in our new abode, an unexpected change +in our prospects took place. To my mother's astonishment she received an +offer of marriage (addressed to her in a letter) from Mr. Germaine. + +"I entreat you not to be startled by my proposal!" (the old gentleman +wrote). "You can hardly have forgotten that I was once fond of you, +in the days when we were both young and both poor. No return to the +feelings associated with that time is possible now. At my age, all I ask +of you is to be the companion of the closing years of my life, and to +give me something of a father's interest in promoting the future welfare +of your son. Consider this, my dear, and tell me whether you will take +the empty chair at an old man's lonely fireside." + +My mother (looking almost as confused, poor soul! as if she had become +a young girl again) left the whole responsibility of decision on the +shoulders of her son! I was not long in making up my mind. If she said +Yes, she would accept the hand of a man of worth and honor, who had +been throughout his whole life devoted to her; and she would recover +the comfort, the luxury, the social prosperity and position of which my +father's reckless course of life had deprived her. Add to this, that +I liked Mr. Germaine, and that Mr. Germaine liked me. Under these +circumstances, why should my mother say No? She could produce no +satisfactory answer to that question when I put it. As the necessary +consequence, she became, in due course of time, Mrs. Germaine. + +I have only to add that, to the end of her life, my good mother +congratulated herself (in this case at least) on having taken her son's +advice. + +The years went on, and still Mary and I were parted, except in my +dreams. The years went on, until the perilous time which comes in every +man's life came in mine. I reached the age when the strongest of all +the passions seizes on the senses, and asserts its mastery over mind and +body alike. + +I had hitherto passively endured the wreck of my earliest and dearest +hopes: I had lived patiently, and lived innocently, for Mary's sake. Now +my patience left me; my innocence was numbered among the lost things of +the past. My days, it is true, were still devoted to the tasks set me by +my tutor; but my nights were given, in secret, to a reckless profligacy, +which (in my present frame of mind) I look back on with disgust and +dismay. I profaned my remembrances of Mary in the company of women +who had reached the lowest depths of degradation. I impiously said to +myself: "I have hoped for her long enough; I have waited for her long +enough. The one thing now to do is to enjoy my youth and to forget her." + +From the moment when I dropped into this degradation, I might sometimes +think regretfully of Mary--at the morning time, when penitent thoughts +mostly come to us; but I ceased absolutely to see her in my dreams. +We were now, in the completest sense of the word, parted. Mary's pure +spirit could hold no communion with mine; Mary's pure spirit had left +me. + +It is needless to say that I failed to keep the secret of my depravity +from the knowledge of my mother. The sight of her grief was the first +influence that sobered me. In some degree at least I restrained myself: +I made the effort to return to purer ways of life. Mr. Germaine, though +I had disappointed him, was too just a man to give me up as lost. +He advised me, as a means of self-reform, to make my choice of a +profession, and to absorb myself in closer studies than any that I had +yet pursued. + +I made my peace with this good friend and second father, not only by +following his advice, but by adopting the profession to which he had +been himself attached before he inherited his fortune--the profession of +medicine. Mr. Germaine had been a surgeon: I resolved on being a surgeon +too. + +Having entered, at rather an earlier age than usual, on my new way of +life, I may at least say for myself that I worked hard. I won, and kept, +the interest of the professors under whom I studied. On the other hand, +it cannot be denied that my reformation was, morally speaking, far from +being complete. I worked; but what I did was done selfishly, bitterly, +with a hard heart. In religion and morals I adopted the views of a +materialist companion of my studies--a worn-out man of more than double +my age. I believed in nothing but what I could see, or taste, or feel. +I lost all faith in humanity. With the one exception of my mother, I had +no respect for women. My remembrances of Mary deteriorated until they +became little more than a lost link of association with the past. I +still preserved the green flag as a matter of habit; but it was +no longer kept about me; it was left undisturbed in a drawer of my +writing-desk. Now and then a wholesome doubt, whether my life was not +utterly unworthy of me, would rise in my mind. But it held no long +possession of my thoughts. Despising others, it was in the logical order +of things that I should follow my conclusions to their bitter end, and +consistently despise myself. + +The term of my majority arrived. I was twenty-one years old; and of the +illusions of my youth not a vestige remained. + +Neither my mother nor Mr. Germaine could make any positive complaint of +my conduct. But they were both thoroughly uneasy about me. After anxious +consideration, my step-father arrived at a conclusion. He decided that +the one chance of restoring me to my better and brighter self was to try +the stimulant of a life among new people and new scenes. + +At the period of which I am now writing, the home government had decided +on sending a special diplomatic mission to one of the native princes +ruling over a remote province of our Indian empire. In the disturbed +state of the province at that time, the mission, on its arrival in +India, was to be accompanied to the prince's court by an escort, +including the military as well as the civil servants of the crown. The +surgeon appointed to sail with the expedition from England was an old +friend of Mr. Germaine's, and was in want of an assistant on whose +capacity he could rely. Through my stepfather's interest, the post was +offered to me. I accepted it without hesitation. My only pride left was +the miserable pride of indifference. So long as I pursued my profession, +the place in which I pursued it was a matter of no importance to my +mind. + +It was long before we could persuade my mother even to contemplate the +new prospect now set before me. When she did at length give way, she +yielded most unwillingly. I confess I left her with the tears in my +eyes--the first I had shed for many a long year past. + +The history of our expedition is part of the history of British India. +It has no place in this narrative. + +Speaking personally, I have to record that I was rendered incapable of +performing my professional duties in less than a week from the time when +the mission reached its destination. We were encamped outside the city; +and an attack was made on us, under cover of darkness, by the fanatical +natives. The attempt was defeated with little difficulty, and with only +a trifling loss on our side. I was among the wounded, having been struck +by a javelin, or spear, while I was passing from one tent to another. + +Inflicted by a European weapon, my injury would have been of no serious +consequence. But the tip of the Indian spear had been poisoned. I +escaped the mortal danger of lockjaw; but, through some peculiarity in +the action of the poison on my constitution (which I am quite unable to +explain), the wound obstinately refused to heal. + +I was invalided and sent to Calcutta, where the best surgical help was +at my disposal. To all appearance, the wound healed there--then broke +out again. Twice this happened; and the medical men agreed that the +best course to take would be to send me home. They calculated on +the invigorating effect of the sea voyage, and, failing this, on +the salutary influence of my native air. In the Indian climate I was +pronounced incurable. + +Two days before the ship sailed a letter from my mother brought me +startling news. My life to come--if I _had_ a life to come--had +been turned into a new channel. Mr. Germaine had died suddenly, of +heart-disease. His will, bearing date at the time when I left England, +bequeathed an income for life to my mother, and left the bulk of his +property to me, on the one condition that I adopted his name. I accepted +the condition, of course, and became George Germaine. + +Three months later, my mother and I were restored to each other. + +Except that I still had some trouble with my wound, behold me now to all +appearance one of the most enviable of existing mortals; promoted to the +position of a wealthy gentleman; possessor of a house in London and of a +country-seat in Perthshire; and, nevertheless, at twenty-three years of +age, one of the most miserable men living! + + +And Mary? + +In the ten years that had now passed over, what had become of Mary? + +You have heard my story. Read the few pages that follow, and you will +hear hers. + +CHAPTER VI. HER STORY. + +WHAT I have now to tell you of Mary is derived from information obtained +at a date in my life later by many years than any date of which I have +written yet. Be pleased to remember this. + + +Dermody, the bailiff, possessed relatives in London, of whom he +occasionally spoke, and relatives in Scotland, whom he never mentioned. +My father had a strong prejudice against the Scotch nation. Dermody knew +his master well enough to be aware that the prejudice might extend to +_him_, if he spoke of his Scotch kindred. He was a discreet man, and he +never mentioned them. + +On leaving my father's service, he had made his way, partly by land and +partly by sea, to Glasgow--in which city his friends resided. With his +character and his experience, Dermody was a man in a thousand to any +master who was lucky enough to discover him. His friends bestirred +themselves. In six weeks' time he was placed in charge of a gentleman's +estate on the eastern coast of Scotland, and was comfortably established +with his mother and his daughter in a new home. + +The insulting language which my father had addressed to him had sunk +deep in Dermody's mind. He wrote privately to his relatives in London, +telling them that he had found a new situation which suited him, and +that he had his reasons for not at present mentioning his address. In +this way he baffled the inquiries which my mother's lawyers (failing +to discover a trace of him in other directions) addressed to his +London friends. Stung by his old master's reproaches, he sacrificed his +daughter and he sacrificed me--partly to his own sense of self-respect, +partly to his conviction that the difference between us in rank made it +his duty to check all further intercourse before it was too late. + +Buried in their retirement in a remote part of Scotland, the little +household lived, lost to me, and lost to the world. + +In dreams, I had seen and heard Mary. In dreams, Mary saw and heard me. +The innocent longings and wishes which filled my heart while I was still +a boy were revealed to her in the mystery of sleep. Her grandmother, +holding firmly to her faith in the predestined union between us, +sustained the girl's courage and cheered her heart. She could hear her +father say (as my father had said) that we were parted to meet no more, +and could privately think of her happy dreams as the sufficient promise +of another future than the future which Dermody contemplated. So she +still lived with me in the spirit--and lived in hope. + +The first affliction that befell the little household was the death +of the grandmother, by the exhaustion of extreme old age. In her last +conscious moments, she said to Mary, "Never forget that you and George +are spirits consecrated to each other. Wait--in the certain knowledge +that no human power can hinder your union in the time to come." + +While those words were still vividly present to Mary's mind, our +visionary union by dreams was abruptly broken on her side, as it had +been abruptly broken on mine. In the first days of my self-degradation, +I had ceased to see Mary. Exactly at the same period Mary ceased to see +me. + +The girl's sensitive nature sunk under the shock. She had now no elder +woman to comfort and advise her; she lived alone with her father, who +invariably changed the subject whenever she spoke of the old times. The +secret sorrow that preys on body and mind alike preyed on _her_. A cold, +caught at the inclement season, turned to fever. For weeks she was in +danger of death. When she recovered, her head had been stripped of its +beautiful hair by the doctor's order. The sacrifice had been +necessary to save her life. It proved to be, in one respect, a cruel +sacrifice--her hair never grew plentifully again. When it did reappear, +it had completely lost its charming mingled hues of deep red and brown; +it was now of one monotonous light-brown color throughout. At first +sight, Mary's Scotch friends hardly knew her again. + +But Nature made amends for what the head had lost by what the face and +the figure gained. + +In a year from the date of her illness, the frail little child of the +old days at Greenwater Broad had ripened, in the bracing Scotch air and +the healthy mode of life, into a comely young woman. Her features were +still, as in her early years, not regularly beautiful; but the change +in her was not the less marked on that account. The wan face had filled +out, and the pale complexion had found its color. As to her figure, its +remarkable development was perceived even by the rough people about her. +Promising nothing when she was a child, it had now sprung into womanly +fullness, symmetry, and grace. It was a strikingly beautiful figure, in +the strictest sense of the word. + +Morally as well as physically, there were moments, at this period of +their lives, when even her own father hardly recognized his daughter of +former days. She had lost her childish vivacity--her sweet, equable +flow of good humor. Silent and self-absorbed, she went through the daily +routine of her duties enduringly. The hope of meeting me again had sunk +to a dead hope in her by this time. She made no complaint. The bodily +strength that she had gained in these later days had its sympathetic +influence in steadying her mind. When her father once or twice ventured +to ask if she was still thinking of me, she answered quietly that she +had brought herself to share his opinions. She could not doubt that I +had long since ceased to think of her. Even if I had remained faithful +to her, she was old enough now to know that the difference between us in +rank made our union by marriage an impossibility. It would be best (she +thought) not to refer any more to the past, best to forget me, as I had +forgotten her. So she spoke now. So, tried by the test of appearances, +Dame Dermody's confident forecast of our destinies had failed to justify +itself, and had taken its place among the predictions that are never +fulfilled. + +The next notable event in the family annals which followed Mary's +illness happened when she had attained the age of nineteen years. Even +at this distance of time my heart sinks, my courage fails me, at the +critical stage in my narrative which I have now reached. + +A storm of unusual severity burst over the eastern coast of Scotland. +Among the ships that were lost in the tempest was a vessel bound from +Holland, which was wrecked on the rocky shore near Dermody's place of +abode. Leading the way in all good actions, the bailiff led the way in +rescuing the passengers and crew of the lost ship. He had brought one +man alive to land, and was on his way back to the vessel, when two heavy +seas, following in close succession, dashed him against the rocks. +He was rescued, at the risk of their own lives, by his neighbors. The +medical examination disclosed a broken bone and severe bruises and +lacerations. So far, Dermody's sufferings were easy of relief. But, +after a lapse of time, symptoms appeared in the patient which revealed +to his medical attendant the presence of serious internal injury. In the +doctor's opinion, he could never hope to resume the active habits of +his life. He would be an invalid and a crippled man for the rest of his +days. + +Under these melancholy circumstances, the bailiff's employer did +all that could be strictly expected of him, He hired an assistant to +undertake the supervision of the farm work, and he permitted Dermody to +occupy his cottage for the next three months. This concession gave the +poor man time to recover such relics of strength as were still left to +him, and to consult his friends in Glasgow on the doubtful question of +his life to come. + +The prospect was a serious one. Dermody was quite unfit for any +sedentary employment; and the little money that he had saved was not +enough to support his daughter and himself. The Scotch friends were +willing and kind; but they had domestic claims on them, and they had no +money to spare. + +In this emergency, the passenger in the wrecked vessel (whose life +Dermody had saved) came forward with a proposal which took father and +daughter alike by surprise. He made Mary an offer of marriage; on the +express understanding (if she accepted him) that her home was to be her +father's home also to the end of his life. + +The person who thus associated himself with the Dermodys in the time +of their trouble was a Dutch gentleman, named Ernest Van Brandt. He +possessed a share in a fishing establishment on the shores of the +Zuyder Zee; and he was on his way to establish a correspondence with the +fisheries in the North of Scotland when the vessel was wrecked. Mary had +produced a strong impression on him when they first met. He had lingered +in the neighborhood, in the hope of gaining her favorable regard, with +time to help him. Personally he was a handsome man, in the prime of +life; and he was possessed of a sufficient income to marry on. In making +his proposal, he produced references to persons of high social position +in Holland, who could answer for him, so far as the questions of +character and position were concerned. + +Mary was long in considering which course it would be best for her +helpless father, and best for herself, to adopt. + +The hope of a marriage with me had been a hope abandoned by her years +since. No woman looks forward willingly to a life of cheerless celibacy. +In thinking of her future, Mary naturally thought of herself in the +character of a wife. Could she fairly expect in the time to come to +receive any more attractive proposal than the proposal now addressed +to her? Mr. Van Brandt had every personal advantage that a woman could +desire; he was devotedly in love with her; and he felt a grateful +affection for her father as the man to whom he owed his life. With no +other hope in her heart--with no other prospect in view--what could she +do better than marry Mr. Van Brandt? + +Influenced by these considerations, she decided on speaking the fatal +word. She said, "Yes." + +At the same time, she spoke plainly to Mr. Van Brandt, unreservedly +acknowledging that she had contemplated another future than the future +now set before her. She did not conceal that there had once been an old +love in her heart, and that a new love was more than she could command. +Esteem, gratitude, and regard she could honestly offer; and, with time, +love might come. For the rest, she had long since disassociated herself +from the past, and had definitely given up all the hopes and wishes once +connected with it. Repose for her father, and tranquil happiness for +herself, were the only favors that she asked of fortune now. These she +might find under the roof of an honorable man who loved and respected +her. She could promise, on her side, to make him a good and faithful +wife, if she could promise no more. It rested with Mr. Van Brandt to say +whether he really believed that he would be consulting his own happiness +in marrying her on these terms. + +Mr. Van Brandt accepted the terms without a moment's hesitation. + +They would have been married immediately but for an alarming change +for the worse in the condition of Dermody's health. Symptoms showed +themselves, which the doctor confessed that he had not anticipated when +he had given his opinion on the case. He warned Mary that the end might +be near. A physician was summoned from Edinburgh, at Mr. Van Brandt's +expense. He confirmed the opinion entertained by the country doctor. For +some days longer the good bailiff lingered. On the last morning, he +put his daughter's hand in Van Brandt's hand. "Make her happy, sir," he +said, in his simple way, "and you will be even with me for saving your +life." The same day he died quietly in his daughter's arms. + +Mary's future was now entirely in her lover's hands. The relatives in +Glasgow had daughters of their own to provide for. The relatives in +London resented Dermody's neglect of them. Van Brandt waited, delicately +and considerately, until the first violence of the girl's grief had worn +itself out, and then he pleaded irresistibly for a husband's claim to +console her. + +The time at which they were married in Scotland was also the time at +which I was on my way home from India. Mary had then reached the age of +twenty years. + + +The story of our ten years' separation is now told; the narrative leaves +us at the outset of our new lives. + +I am with my mother, beginning my career as a country gentleman on the +estate in Perthshire which I have inherited from Mr. Germaine. Mary is +with her husband, enjoying her new privileges, learning her new duties, +as a wife. She, too, is living in Scotland--living, by a strange +fatality, not very far distant from my country-house. I have no +suspicion that she is so near to me: the name of Mrs. Van Brandt (even +if I had heard it) appeals to no familiar association in my mind. Still +the kindred spirits are parted. Still there is no idea on her side, and +no idea on mine, that we shall ever meet again. + +CHAPTER VII. THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE. + +MY mother looked in at the library door, and disturbed me over my books. + +"I have been hanging a little picture in my room," she said. "Come +upstairs, my dear, and give me your opinion of it." + +I rose and followed her. She pointed to a miniature portrait, hanging +above the mantelpiece. + +"Do you know whose likeness that is?" she asked, half sadly, half +playfully. "George! Do you really not recognize yourself at thirteen +years old?" + +How should I recognize myself? Worn by sickness and sorrow; browned by +the sun on my long homeward voyage; my hair already growing thin over +my forehead; my eyes already habituated to their one sad and weary look; +what had I in common with the fair, plump, curly-headed, bright-eyed +boy who confronted me in the miniature? The mere sight of the portrait +produced the most extraordinary effect on my mind. It struck me with +an overwhelming melancholy; it filled me with a despair of myself too +dreadful to be endured. Making the best excuse I could to my mother, I +left the room. In another minute I was out of the house. + +I crossed the park, and left my own possessions behind me. Following +a by-road, I came to our well-known river; so beautiful in itself, so +famous among trout-fishers throughout Scotland. It was not then the +fishing season. No human being was in sight as I took my seat on the +bank. The old stone bridge which spanned the stream was within a hundred +yards of me; the setting sun still tinged the swift-flowing water under +the arches with its red and dying light. + +Still the boy's face in the miniature pursued me. Still the portrait +seemed to reproach me in a merciless language of its own: "Look at what +you were once; think of what you are now!" + +I hid my face in the soft, fragrant grass. I thought of the wasted years +of my life between thirteen and twenty-three. + +How was it to end? If I lived to the ordinary life of man, what prospect +had I before me? + +Love? Marriage? I burst out laughing as the idea crossed my mind. Since +the innocently happy days of my boyhood I had known no more of love than +the insect that now crept over my hand as it lay on the grass. My money, +to be sure, would buy me a wife; but would my money make her dear to +me? dear as Mary had once been, in the golden time when my portrait was +first painted? + +Mary! Was she still living? Was she married? Should I know her again if +I saw her? Absurd! I had not seen her since she was ten years old: she +was now a woman, as I was a man. Would she know _me_ if we met? The +portrait, still pursuing me, answered the question: "Look at what you +were once; think of what you are now!" + +I rose and walked backward and forward, and tried to turn the current of +my thoughts in some new direction. + +It was not to be done. After a banishment of years, Mary had got back +again into my mind. I sat down once more on the river bank. The sun was +sinking fast. Black shadows hovered under the arches of the old stone +bridge. The red light had faded from the swift-flowing water, and had +left it overspread with one monotonous hue of steely gray. The +first stars looked down peacefully from the cloudless sky. The first +shiverings of the night breeze were audible among the trees, and visible +here and there in the shallow places of the stream. And still, the +darker it grew, the more persistently my portrait led me back to the +past, the more vividly the long-lost image of the child Mary showed +itself to me in my thoughts. + +Was this the prelude of her coming back to me in dreams; in her +perfected womanhood, in the young prime of her life? + +It might be so. + +I was no longer unworthy of her, as I had once been. The effect produced +on me by the sight of my portrait was in itself due to moral and mental +changes in me for the better, which had been steadily proceeding since +the time when my wound had laid me helpless among strangers in a strange +land. Sickness, which has made itself teacher and friend to many a man, +had made itself teacher and friend to me. I looked back with horror at +the vices of my youth; at the fruitless after-days when I had impiously +doubted all that is most noble, all that is most consoling in human +life. Consecrated by sorrow, purified by repentance, was it vain in me +to hope that her spirit a nd my spirit might yet be united again? Who +could tell? + +I rose once more. It could serve no good purpose to linger until night +by the banks of the river. I had left the house, feeling the impulse +which drives us, in certain excited conditions of the mind, to take +refuge in movement and change. The remedy had failed; my mind was as +strangely disturbed as ever. My wisest course would be to go home, and +keep my good mother company over her favorite game of piquet. + +I turned to take the road back, and stopped, struck by the tranquil +beauty of the last faint light in the western sky, shining behind the +black line formed by the parapet of the bridge. + +In the grand gathering of the night shadows, in the deep stillness of +the dying day, I stood alone and watched the sinking light. + +As I looked, there came a change over the scene. Suddenly and softly a +living figure glided into view on the bridge. It passed behind the black +line of the parapet, in the last long rays of the western light. It +crossed the bridge. It paused, and crossed back again half-way. Then it +stopped. The minutes passed, and there the figure stood, a motionless +black object, behind the black parapet of the bridge. + +I advanced a little, moving near enough to obtain a closer view of the +dress in which the figure was attired. The dress showed me that the +solitary stranger was a woman. + +She did not notice me in the shadow which the trees cast on the bank. +She stood with her arms folded in her cloak, looking down at the +darkening river. + +Why was she waiting there at the close of evening alone? + +As the question occurred to me, I saw her head move. She looked along +the bridge, first on one side of her, then on the other. Was she +waiting for some person who was to meet her? Or was she suspicious of +observation, and anxious to make sure that she was alone? + +A sudden doubt of her purpose in seeking that solitary place, a sudden +distrust of the lonely bridge and the swift-flowing river, set my heart +beating quickly and roused me to instant action. I hurried up the +rising ground which led from the river-bank to the bridge, determined on +speaking to her while the opportunity was still mine. + +She neither saw nor heard me until I was close to her. I approached with +an irrepressible feeling of agitation; not knowing how she might receive +me when I spoke to her. The moment she turned and faced me, my composure +came back. It was as if, expecting to see a stranger, I had unexpectedly +encountered a friend. + +And yet she _was_ a stranger. I had never before looked on that grave +and noble face, on that grand figure whose exquisite grace and symmetry +even her long cloak could not wholly hide. She was not, perhaps, +a strictly beautiful woman. There were defects in her which were +sufficiently marked to show themselves in the fading light. Her hair, +for example, seen under the large garden hat that she wore, looked +almost as short as the hair of a man; and the color of it was of that +dull, lusterless brown hue which is so commonly seen in English women +of the ordinary type. Still, in spite of these drawbacks, there was a +latent charm in her expression, there was an inbred fascination in her +manner, which instantly found its way to my sympathies and its hold on +my admiration. She won me in the moment when I first looked at her. + +"May I inquire if you have lost your way?" I asked. + +Her eyes rested on my face with a strange look of inquiry in them. She +did not appear to be surprised or confused at my venturing to address +her. + +"I know this part of the country well," I went on. "Can I be of any use +to you?" + +She still looked at me with steady, inquiring eyes. For a moment, +stranger as I was, my face seemed to trouble her as if it had been a +face that she had seen and forgotten again. If she really had this idea, +she at once dismissed it with a little toss of her head, and looked away +at the river as if she felt no further interest in me. + +"Thank you. I have not lost my way. I am accustomed to walking alone. +Good-evening." + +She spoke coldly, but courteously. Her voice was delicious; her bow, as +she left me, was the perfection of unaffected grace. She left the bridge +on the side by which I had first seen her approach it, and walked slowly +away along the darkening track of the highroad. + +Still I was not quite satisfied. There was something underlying the +charming expression and the fascinating manner which my instinct felt +to be something wrong. As I walked away toward the opposite end of the +bridge, the doubt began to grow on me whether she had spoken the truth. +In leaving the neighborhood of the river, was she simply trying to get +rid of me? + +I at once resolved to put this suspicion of her to the test. Leaving the +bridge, I had only to cross the road beyond, and to enter a plantation +on the bank of the river. Here, concealed behind the first tree which +was large enough to hide me, I could command a view of the bridge, and I +could fairly count on detecting her, if she returned to the river, while +there was a ray of light to see her by. It was not easy walking in the +obscurity of the plantation: I had almost to grope my way to the nearest +tree that suited my purpose. + +I had just steadied my foothold on the uneven ground behind the tree, +when the stillness of the twilight hour was suddenly broken by the +distant sound of a voice. + +The voice was a woman's. It was not raised to any high pitch; its accent +was the accent of prayer, and the words it uttered were these: + +"Christ, have mercy on me!" + +There was silence again. A nameless fear crept over me, as I looked out +on the bridge. + +She was standing on the parapet. Before I could move, before I could +cry out, before I could even breathe again freely, she leaped into the +river. + +The current ran my way. I could see her, as she rose to the surface, +floating by in the light on the mid-stream. I ran headlong down the +bank. She sank again, in the moment when I stopped to throw aside my +hat and coat and to kick off my shoes. I was a practiced swimmer. The +instant I was in the water my composure came back to me--I felt like +myself again. + +The current swept me out into the mid-stream, and greatly increased +the speed at which I swam. I was close behind her when she rose for +the second time--a shadowy thing, just visible a few inches below the +surface of the river. One more stroke, and my left arm was round her; I +had her face out of the water. She was insensible. I could hold her in +the right way to leave me master of all my movements; I could devote +myself, without flurry or fatigue, to the exertion of taking her back to +the shore. + +My first attempt satisfied me that there was no reasonable hope, +burdened as I now was, of breasting the strong current running toward +the mid-river from either bank. I tried it on one side, and I tried +it on the other, and gave it up. The one choice left was to let myself +drift with her down the stream. Some fifty yards lower, the river took +a turn round a promontory of land, on which stood a little inn much +frequented by anglers in the season. As we approached the place, I made +another attempt (again an attempt in vain) to reach the shore. Our last +chance now was to be heard by the people of the inn. I shouted at the +full pitch of my voice as we drifted past. The cry was answered. A +man put off in a boat. In five minutes more I had her safe on the bank +again; and the man and I were carrying her to the inn by the river-side. + +The landlady and her servant-girl were equally willing to be of service, +and equally ignorant of what they were to do. Fortunately, my medical +education made me competent to direct them. A good fire, warm blankets, +hot water in bottles, were all at my disposal. I showed the women myself +how to ply the work of revival. They persevered, and I persevered; and +still there she lay, in her perfect beauty of form, without a sign of +life perceptible; there she lay, to all outward appearance, dead by +drowning. + +A last hope was left--the hope of restoring her (if I could construct +the apparatus in time) by the process called "artificial respiration." +I was just endeavoring to tell the landlady what I wanted and was just +conscious o f a strange difficulty in expressing myself, when the good +woman started back, and looked at me with a scream of terror. + +"Good God, sir, you're bleeding!" she cried. "What's the matter? Where +are you hurt?" + +In the moment when she spoke to me I knew what had happened. The old +Indian wound (irritated, doubtless, by the violent exertion that I had +imposed on myself) had opened again. I struggled against the sudden +sense of faintness that seized on me; I tried to tell the people of the +inn what to do. It was useless. I dropped to my knees; my head sunk on +the bosom of the woman stretched senseless upon the low couch beneath +me. The death-in-life that had got _her_ had got _me_. Lost to the world +about us, we lay, with my blood flowing on her, united in our deathly +trance. + +Where were our spirits at that moment? Were they together and conscious +of each other? United by a spiritual bond, undiscovered and unsuspected +by us in the flesh, did we two, who had met as strangers on the fatal +bridge, know each other again in the trance? You who have loved and +lost--you whose one consolation it has been to believe in other worlds +than this--can you turn from my questions in contempt? Can you honestly +say that they have never been _your_ questions too? + +CHAPTER VIII. THE KINDRED SPIRITS + +THE morning sunlight shining in at a badly curtained window; a clumsy +wooden bed, with big twisted posts that reached to the ceiling; on one +side of the bed, my mother's welcome face; on the other side, an elderly +gentleman unremembered by me at that moment--such were the objects that +presented themselves to my view, when I first consciously returned to +the world that we live in. + +"Look, doctor, look! He has come to his senses at last." + +"Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this." My mother was rejoicing +over me on one side of the bed; and the unknown gentleman, addressed as +"doctor," was offering me a spoonful of whisky-and-water on the other. +He called it the "elixir of life"; and he bid me remark (speaking in +a strong Scotch accent) that he tasted it himself to show he was in +earnest. + +The stimulant did its good work. My head felt less giddy, my mind became +clearer. I could speak collectedly to my mother; I could vaguely recall +the more marked events of the previous evening. A minute or two more, +and the image of the person in whom those events had all centered became +a living image in my memory. I tried to raise myself in the bed; I +asked, impatiently, "Where is she?" + +The doctor produced another spoonful of the elixir of life, and gravely +repeated his first address to me. + +"Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this." + +I persisted in repeating my question: + +"Where is she?" + +The doctor persisted in repeating his formula: + +"Take a sup of this." + +I was too weak to contest the matter; I obeyed. My medical attendant +nodded across the bed to my mother, and said, "Now, he'll do." My mother +had some compassion on me. She relieved my anxiety in these plain words: + +"The lady has quite recovered, George, thanks to the doctor here." + +I looked at my professional colleague with a new interest. He was the +legitimate fountainhead of the information that I was dying to have +poured into my mind. + +"How did you revive her?" I asked. "Where is she now?" + +The doctor held up his hand, warning me to stop. + +"We shall do well, sir, if we proceed systematically," he began, in a +very positive manner. "You will understand, that every time you open +your mouth, it will be to take a sup of this, and not to speak. I shall +tell you, in due course, and the good lady, your mother, will tell you, +all that you have any need to know. As I happen to have been first on +what you may call the scene of action, it stands in the fit order of +things that I should speak first. You will just permit me to mix a +little more of the elixir of life, and then, as the poet says, my plain +unvarnished tale I shall deliver." + +So he spoke, pronouncing in his strong Scotch accent the most carefully +selected English I had ever heard. A hard-headed, square-shouldered, +pertinaciously self-willed man--it was plainly useless to contend with +him. I turned to my mother's gentle face for encouragement; and I let my +doctor have his own way. + +"My name," he proceeded, "is MacGlue. I had the honor of presenting +my respects at your house yonder when you first came to live in this +neighborhood. You don't remember me at present, which is natural +enough in the unbalanced condition of your mind, consequent, you will +understand (as a professional person yourself) on copious loss of +blood." + +There my patience gave way. + +"Never mind me!" I interposed. "Tell me about the lady!" + +"You have opened your mouth, sir!" cried Mr. MacGlue, severely. "You +know the penalty--take a sup of this. I told you we should proceed +systematically," he went on, after he had forced me to submit to the +penalty. "Everything in its place, Mr. Germaine--everything in its +place. I was speaking of your bodily condition. Well, sir, and how did +I discover your bodily condition? Providentially for _you_ I was driving +home yesterday evening by the lower road (which is the road by the river +bank), and, drawing near to the inn here (they call it a hotel; it's +nothing but an inn), I heard the screeching of the landlady half a mile +off. A good woman enough, you will understand, as times go; but a poor +creature in any emergency. Keep still, I'm coming to it now. Well, +I went in to see if the screeching related to anything wanted in the +medical way; and there I found you and the stranger lady in a position +which I may truthfully describe as standing in some need of improvement +on the score of propriety. Tut! tut! I speak jocosely--you were both in +a dead swoon. Having heard what the landlady had to tell me, and having, +to the best of my ability, separated history from hysterics in the +course of the woman's narrative, I found myself, as it were, placed +between two laws. The law of gallantry, you see, pointed to the lady as +the first object of my professional services, while the law of humanity +(seeing that you were still bleeding) pointed no less imperatively to +you. I am no longer a young man: I left the lady to wait. My word! it +was no light matter, Mr. Germaine, to deal with your case, and get you +carried up here out of the way. That old wound of yours, sir, is not to +be trifled with. I bid you beware how you open it again. The next time +you go out for an evening walk and you see a lady in the water, you will +do well for your own health to leave her there. What's that I see? Are +you opening your mouth again? Do you want another sup already?" + +"He wants to hear more about the lady," said my mother, interpreting my +wishes for me. + +"Oh, the lady," resumed Mr. MacGlue, with the air of a man who found no +great attraction in the subject proposed to him. "There's not much that +I know of to be said about the lady. A fine woman, no doubt. If you +could strip the flesh off her bones, you would find a splendid skeleton +underneath. For, mind this! there's no such thing as a finely made woman +without a good bony scaffolding to build her on at starting. I don't +think much of this lady--morally speaking, you will understand. If I +may be permitted to say so in your presence, ma'am, there's a man in the +background of that dramatic scene of hers on the bridge. However, not +being the man myself, I have nothing to do with that. My business with +the lady was just to set her vital machinery going again. And, Heaven +knows, she proved a heavy handful! It was even a more obstinate case to +deal with, sir, than yours. I never, in all my experience, met with two +people more unwilling to come back to this world and its troubles than +you two were. And when I had done the business at last, when I was +wellnigh swooning myself with the work and the worry of it, guess--I +give you leave to speak for this once--guess what were the first words +the lady said to me when she came to herself again." + +I was too much excited to be able to exercise my ingenuity. "I give it +up!" I said, impatiently. + +"You may well give it up," remarked Mr. MacGlue. "The first words she +addressed, sir, to the man who had dragged her out of the very jaws of +death were these: 'How dare you meddle with me? why didn't you leave +me to die?' Her exact language--I'll take my Bible oath of it. I was so +provoked that I gave her the change back (as the saying is) in her own +coin. 'There's the river handy, ma'am,' I said; 'do it again. I, for +one, won't stir a hand to save you; I promise you that.' She looked up +sharply. 'Are you the man who took me out of the river?' she said. 'God +forbid!' says I. 'I'm only the doctor who was fool enough to meddle +with you afterward.' She turned to the landlady. 'Who took me out of +the river?' she asked. The landlady told her, and mentioned your name. +'Germaine?' she said to herself; 'I know nobody named Germaine; I wonder +whether it was the man who spoke to me on the bridge?' 'Yes,' says the +landlady; 'Mr. Germaine said he met you on the bridge.' Hearing that, +she took a little time to think; and then she asked if she could see Mr. +Germaine. 'Whoever he is,' she says, 'he has risked his life to save me, +and I ought to thank him for doing that.' 'You can't thank him tonight,' +I said; 'I've got him upstairs between life and death, and I've sent +for his mother: wait till to-morrow.' She turned on me, looking half +frightened, half angry. 'I can't wait,' she says; 'you don't know what +you have done among you in bringing me back to life. I must leave this +neighborhood; I must be out of Perthshire to-morrow: when does the first +coach southward pass this way?' Having nothing to do with the first +coach southward, I referred her to the people of the inn. My business +(now I had done with the lady) was upstairs in this room, to see how you +were getting on. You were getting on as well as I could wish, and your +mother was at your bedside. I went home to see what sick people might be +waiting for me in the regular way. When I came back this morning, there +was the foolish landlady with a new tale to tell 'Gone!' says she. +'Who's gone?' says I. 'The lady,' says she, 'by the first coach this +morning!'" + +"You don't mean to tell me that she has left the house?" I exclaimed. + +"Oh, but I do!" said the doctor, as positively as ever. "Ask madam your +mother here, and she'll certify it to your heart's content. I've got +other sick ones to visit, and I'm away on my rounds. You'll see no more +of the lady; and so much the better, I'm thinking. In two hours' time +I'll be back again; and if I don't find you the worse in the interim, +I'll see about having you transported from this strange place to the +snug bed that knows you at home. Don't let him talk, ma'am, don't let +him talk." + +With those parting words, Mr. MacGlue left us to ourselves. + +"Is it really true?" I said to my mother. "Has she left the inn, without +waiting to see me?" + +"Nobody could stop her, George," my mother answered. "The lady left the +inn this morning by the coach for Edinburgh." + +I was bitterly disappointed. Yes: "bitterly" is the word--though she +_was_ a stranger to me. + +"Did you see her yourself?" I asked. + +"I saw her for a few minutes, my dear, on my way up to your room." + +"What did she say?" + +"She begged me to make her excuses to you. She said, 'Tell Mr. Germaine +that my situation is dreadful; no human creature can help me. I must +go away. My old life is as much at an end as if your son had left me to +drown in the river. I must find a new life for myself, in a new place. +Ask Mr. Germaine to forgive me for going away without thanking him. I +daren't wait! I may be followed and found out. There is a person whom I +am determined never to see again--never! never! never! Good-by; and try +to forgive me!' She hid her face in her hands, and said no more. I tried +to win her confidence; it was not to be done; I was compelled to leave +her. There is some dreadful calamity, George, in that wretched woman's +life. And such an interesting creature, too! It was impossible not to +pity her, whether she deserved it or not. Everything about her is a +mystery, my dear. She speaks English without the slightest foreign +accent, and yet she has a foreign name." + +"Did she give you her name?" + +"No, and I was afraid to ask her to give it. But the landlady here +is not a very scrupulous person. She told me she looked at the poor +creature's linen while it was drying by the fire. The name marked on it +was, 'Van Brandt.'" + +"Van Brandt?" I repeated. "That sounds like a Dutch name. And yet you +say she spoke like an Englishwoman. Perhaps she was born in England." + +"Or perhaps she may be married," suggested my mother; "and Van Brandt +may be the name of her husband." + +The idea of her being a married woman had something in it repellent +to me. I wished my mother had not thought of that last suggestion. I +refused to receive it. I persisted in my own belief that the stranger +was a single woman. In that character, I could indulge myself in the +luxury of thinking of her; I could consider the chances of my being able +to trace this charming fugitive, who had taken so strong a hold on my +interest--whose desperate attempt at suicide had so nearly cost me my +own life. + +If she had gone as far as Edinburgh (which she would surely do, being +bent on avoiding discovery), the prospect of finding her again--in that +great city, and in my present weak state of health--looked doubtful +indeed. Still, there was an underlying hopefulness in me which kept +my spirits from being seriously depressed. I felt a purely imaginary +(perhaps I ought to say, a purely superstitious) conviction that we who +had nearly died together, we who had been brought to life together, were +surely destined to be involved in some future joys or sorrows common to +us both. "I fancy I shall see her again," was my last thought before my +weakness overpowered me, and I sunk into a peaceful sleep. + +That night I was removed from the inn to my own room at home; and that +night I saw her again in a dream. + +The image of her was as vividly impressed on me as the far different +image of the child Mary, when I used to see it in the days of old. +The dream-figure of the woman was robed as I had seen it robed on the +bridge. She wore the same broad-brimmed garden-hat of straw. She looked +at me as she had looked when I approached her in the dim evening light. +After a little her face brightened with a divinely beautiful smile; and +she whispered in my ear, "Friend, do you know me?" + +I knew her, most assuredly; and yet it was with an incomprehensible +after-feeling of doubt. Recognizing her in my dream as the stranger +who had so warmly interested me, I was, nevertheless, dissatisfied with +myself, as if it had not been the right recognition. I awoke with this +idea; and I slept no more that night. + +In three days' time I was strong enough to go out driving with my +mother, in the comfortable, old-fashioned, open carriage which had once +belonged to Mr. Germaine. + +On the fourth day we arranged to make an excursion to a little waterfall +in our neighborhood. My mother had a great admiration of the place, and +had often expressed a wish to possess some memorial of it. I resolved +to take my sketch-book: with me, on the chance that I might be able to +please her by making a drawing of her favorite scene. + +Searching for the sketch-book (which I had not used for years), I found +it in an old desk of mine that had remained unopened since my departure +for India. In the course of my investigation, I opened a drawer in the +desk, and discovered a relic of the old times--my poor little Mary's +first work in embroidery, the green flag! + +The sight of the forgotten keepsake took my mind back to the bailiff's +cottage, and reminded me of Dame Dermody, and her confident prediction +about Mary and me. + +I smiled as I recalled the old woman's assertion that no human power +could "hinder the union of the kindred spirits of the children in the +time to come." What had become of the prophesied dreams in which we were +to communicate with each other through the term of our separation? Years +had passed; and, sleeping or waking, I had seen nothing of Mary. Years +had passed; and the first vision of a woman that had come to me had +been my dream a few nights since of the stranger whom I had saved from +drowning. I thought of these chances and changes in my life, but not +contemptuously or bitterly. The new love that was now stealing its way +into my heart had softened and humanized me. I said to myself, "Ah, poor +little Mary!" and I kissed the green flag, in grateful memory of the +days that were gone forever. + +We drove to the waterfall. + +It was a beautiful day; the lonely sylvan scene was at its brightest +and best. A wooden summer-house, commanding a prospect of the falling +stream, had been built for the accommodation of pleasure parties by the +proprietor of the place. My mother suggested that I should try to make +a sketch of the view from this point. I did my best to please her, but I +was not satisfied with the result; and I abandoned my drawing before it +was half finished. Leaving my sketch-book and pencil on the table of the +summer-house, I proposed to my mother to cross a little wooden bridge +which spanned the stream, below the fall, and to see how the landscape +looked from a new point of view. + +The prospect of the waterfall, as seen from the opposite bank, presented +even greater difficulties, to an amateur artist like me, than the +prospect which he had just left. We returned to the summer-house. + +I was the first to approach the open door. I stopped, checked in my +advance by an unexpected discovery. The summer-house was no longer empty +as we had left it. A lady was seated at the table with my pencil in her +hand, writing in my sketch-book! + +After waiting a moment, I advanced a few steps nearer to the door, and +stopped again in breathless amazement. The stranger in the summer-house +was now plainly revealed to me as the woman who had attempted to destroy +herself from the bridge! + +There was no doubt about it. There was the dress; there was the +memorable face which I had seen in the evening light, which I had +dreamed of only a few nights since! The woman herself--I saw her as +plainly as I saw the sun shining on the waterfall--the woman herself, +with my pencil in her hand, writing in my book! + +My mother was close behind me. She noticed my agitation. "George!" she +exclaimed, "what is the matter with you?" + +I pointed through the open door of the summer-house. + +"Well?" said my mother. "What am I to look at?" + +"Don't you see somebody sitting at the table and writing in my +sketch-book?" + +My mother eyed me quickly. "Is he going to be ill again?" I heard her +say to herself. + +At the same moment the woman laid down the pencil and rose slowly to her +feet. + +She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes: she lifted her hand +and beckoned me to approach her. I obeyed. Moving without conscious will +of my own, drawn nearer and nearer to her by an irresistible power, I +ascended the short flight of stairs which led into the summer-house. +Within a few paces of her I stopped. She advanced a step toward me, and +laid her hand gently on my bosom. Her touch filled me with strangely +united sensations of rapture and awe. After a while, she spoke in low +melodious tones, which mingled in my ear with the distant murmur of the +falling water, until the two sounds became one. I heard in the murmur, +I heard in the voice, these words: "Remember me. Come to me." Her hand +dropped from my bosom; a momentary obscurity passed like a flying shadow +over the bright daylight in the room. I looked for her when the light +came back. She was gone. + +My consciousness of passing events returned. + +I saw the lengthening shadows outside, which told me that the evening +was at hand. I saw the carriage approaching the summerhouse to take us +away. I felt my mother's hand on my arm, and heard her voice speaking +to me anxiously. I was able to reply by a sign entreating her not to be +uneasy about me, but I could do no more. I was absorbed, body and soul, +in the one desire to look at the sketch-book. As certainly as I had +seen the woman, so certainly I had seen her, with my pencil in her hand, +writing in my book. + +I advanced to the table on which the book was lying open. I looked at +the blank space on the lower part of the page, under the foreground +lines of my unfinished drawing. My mother, following me, looked at the +page too. + +There was the writing! The woman had disappeared, but there were her +written words left behind her: visible to my mother as well as to me, +readable by my mother's eyes as well as by mine! + +These were the words we saw, arranged in two lines, as I copy them here: + + When the full moon shines + On Saint Anthony's Well. + + +CHAPTER IX. NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. + +I POINTED to the writing in the sketch book, and looked at my mother. I +was not mistaken. She _had_ seen it, as I had seen it. But she refused +to acknowledge that anything had happened to alarm her--plainly as I +could detect it in her face. + +"Somebody has been playing a trick on you, George," she said. + +I made no reply. It was needless to say anything. My poor mother was +evidently as far from being satisfied with her own shallow explanation +as I was. The carriage waited for us at the door. We set forth in +silence on our drive home. + +The sketch-book lay open on my knee. My eyes were fastened on it; my +mind was absorbed in recalling the moment when the apparition beckoned +me into the summer-house and spoke. Putting the words and the writing +together, the conclusion was too plain to be mistaken. The woman whom I +had saved from drowning had need of me again. + +And this was the same woman who, in her own proper person, had not +hesitated to seize the first opportunity of leaving the house in which +we had been sheltered together--without stopping to say one grateful +word to the man who had preserved her from death! Four days only had +elapsed since she had left me, never (to all appearance) to see me +again. And now the ghostly apparition of her had returned as to a tried +and trusted friend; had commanded me to remember her and to go to her; +and had provided against all possibility of my memory playing me false, +by writing the words which invited me to meet her "when the full moon +shone on Saint Anthony's Well." + +What had happened in the interval? What did the supernatural manner of +her communication with me mean? What ought my next course of action to +be? + +My mother roused me from my reflections. She stretched out her hand, and +suddenly closed the open book on my knee, as if the sight of the writing +in it were unendurable to her. + +"Why don't you speak to me, George?" she said. "Why do you keep your +thoughts to yourself?" + +"My mind is lost in confusion," I answered. "I can suggest nothing and +explain nothing. My thoughts are all bent on the one question of what +I am to do next. On that point I believe I may say that my mind is made +up." I touched the sketch-book as I spoke. "Come what may of it," I +said, "I mean to keep the appointment." + +My mother looked at me as if she doubted the evidence of her own senses. + +"He talks as if it were a real thing!" she exclaimed. "George, you don't +really believe that you saw somebody in the summer-house? The place was +empty. I tell you positively, when you pointed into the summer-house, +the place was empty. You have been thinking and thinking of this woman +till you persuade yourself that you have actually seen her." + +I opened the sketch-book again. "I thought I saw her writing on this +page," I answered. "Look at it, and tell me if I was wrong." + +My mother refused to look at it. Steadily as she persisted in taking the +rational view, nevertheless the writing frightened her. + +"It is not a week yet," she went on, "since I saw you lying between +life and death in your bed at the inn. How can you talk of keeping the +appointment, in your state of health? An appointment with a shadowy +Something in your own imagination, which appears and disappears, and +leaves substantial writing behind it! It's ridiculous, George; I wonder +you can help laughing at yourself." + +She tried to set the example of laughing at me--with the tears in her +eyes, poor soul! as she made the useless effort. I began to regret +having opened my mind so freely to her. + +"Don't take the matter too seriously, mother," I said. "Perhaps I may +not be able to find the place. I never heard of Saint Anthony's Well; I +have not the least idea where it is. Suppose I make the discovery, and +suppose the journey turns out to be an easy one, would you like to go +with me?" + +"God forbid" cried my mother, fervently. "I will have nothing to do +with it, George. You are in a state of delusion; I shall speak to the +doctor." + +"By all means, my dear mother. Mr. MacGlue is a sensible person. We +pass his house on our way home, and we will ask him to dinner. In the +meantime, let us say no more on the subject till we see the doctor." + +I spoke lightly, but I really meant what I said. My mind was sadly +disturbed; my nerves were so shaken that the slightest noises on the +road startled me. The opinion of a man like Mr. MacGlue, who looked +at all mortal matters from the same immovably practical point of view, +might really have its use, in my case, as a species of moral remedy. + + +We waited until the dessert was on the table, and the servants had left +the dining-room. Then I told my story to the Scotch doctor as I have +told it here; and, that done, I opened the sketch-book to let him see +the writing for himself. + +Had I turned to the wrong page? + +I started to my feet, and held the book close to the light of the lamp +that hung over the dining table. No: I had found the right page. There +was my half-finished drawing of the waterfall--but where were the two +lines of writing beneath? + +Gone! + +I strained my eyes; I looked and looked. And the blank white paper +looked back at me. + +I placed the open leaf before my mother. "You saw it as plainly as I +did," I said. "Are my own eyes deceiving me? Look at the bottom of the +page." + +My mother sunk back in her chair with a cry of terror. + +"Gone?" I asked. + +"Gone!" + +I turned to the doctor. He took me completely by surprise. No +incredulous smile appeared on his face; no jesting words passed his +lips. He was listening to us attentively. He was waiting gravely to hear +more. + +"I declare to you, on my word of honor," I said to him, "that I saw the +apparition writing with my pencil at the bottom of that page. I declare +that I took the book in my hand, and saw these words written in it, +'When the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' Not more than three +hours have passed since that time; and, see for yourself, not a vestige +of the writing remains." + +"Not a vestige of the writing remains," Mr. MacGlue repeated, quietly. + +"If you feel the slightest doubt of what I have told you," I went on, +"ask my mother; she will bear witness that she saw the writing too." + +"I don't doubt that you both saw the writing," answered Mr. MacGlue, +with a composure that surprised me. + +"Can you account for it?" I asked. + +"Well," said the impenetrable doctor, "if I set my wits at work, I +believe I might account for it to the satisfaction of some people. For +example, I might give you what they call the rational explanation, to +begin with. I might say that you are, to my certain knowledge, in a +highly excited nervous condition; and that, when you saw the apparition +(as you call it), you simply saw nothing but your own strong impression +of an absent woman, who (as I greatly fear) has got on the weak or +amatory side of you. I mean no offense, Mr. Germaine--" + +"I take no offense, doctor. But excuse me for speaking plainly--the +rational explanation is thrown away on me." + +"I'll readily excuse you," answered Mr. MacGlue; "the rather that I'm +entirely of your opinion. I don't believe in the rational explanation +myself." + +This was surprising, to say the least of it. "What _do_ you believe in?" +I inquired. + +Mr. MacGlue declined to let me hurry him. + +"Wait a little," he said. "There's the _ir_rational explanation to try +next. Maybe it will fit itself to the present state of your mind better +than the other. We will say this time that you have really seen the +ghost (or double) of a living person. Very good. If you can suppose a +disembodied spirit to appear in earthly clothing--of silk or merino, as +the case may be--it's no great stretch to suppose, next, that this same +spirit is capable of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortal +words in a mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost vanishes (which your +ghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the writing should +follow the example and vanish too. And the reason of the vanishment may +be (if you want a reason), either that the ghost does not like letting a +stranger like me into its secrets, or that vanishing is a settled habit +of ghosts and of everything associated with them, or that this ghost +has changed its mind in the course of three hours (being the ghost of +a woman, I am sure that's not wonderful), and doesn't care to see +you 'when the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' There's the +_ir_rational explanation for you. And, speaking for myself, I'm bound to +add that I don't set a pin's value on _that_ explanation either." + +Mr. MacGlue's sublime indifference to both sides of the question began +to irritate me. + +"In plain words, doctor," I said, "you don't think the circumstances +that I have mentioned to you worthy of serious investigation?" + +"I don't think serious investigation capable of dealing with the +circumstances," answered the doctor. "Put it in that way, and you put it +right. Just look round you. Here we three persons are alive and hearty +at this snug table. If (which God forbid!) good Mistress Germaine or +yourself were to fall down dead in another moment, I, doctor as I am, +could no more explain what first principle of life and movement had +been suddenly extinguished in you than the dog there sleeping on the +hearth-rug. If I am content to sit down ignorant in the face of such an +impenetrable mystery as this--presented to me, day after day, every time +I see a living creature come into the world or go out of it--why may I +not sit down content in the face of your lady in the summer-house, and +say she's altogether beyond my fathoming, and there is an end of her?" + +At those words my mother joined in the conversation for the first time. + +"Ah, sir," she said, "if you could only persuade my son to take +your sensible view, how happy I should be! Would you believe it?--he +positively means (if he can find the place) to go to Saint Anthony's +Well!" + +Even this revelation entirely failed to surprise Mr. MacGlue. + +"Ay, ay. He means to keep his appointment with the ghost, does he? Well, +I can be of some service to him if he sticks to his resolution. I can +tell him of another man who kept a written appointment with a ghost, and +what came of it." + +This was a startling announcement. Did he really mean what he said? + +"Are you in jest or in earnest?" I asked. + +"I never joke, sir," said Mr. MacGlue. "No sick person really believes +in a doctor who jokes. I defy you to show me a man at the head of our +profession who has ever been discovered in high spirits (in medical +hours) by his nearest and dearest friend. You may have wondered, I dare +say, at seeing me take your strange narrative as coolly as I do. It +comes naturally, sir. Yours is not the first story of a ghost and a +pencil that I have heard." + +"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that you know of another man who has +seen what I have seen?" + +"That's just what I mean to tell you," rejoined the doctor. "The man was +a far-away Scots cousin of my late wife, who bore the honorable name +of Bruce, and followed a seafaring life. I'll take another glass of the +sherry wine, just to wet my whistle, as the vulgar saying is, before +I begin. Well, you must know, Bruce was mate of a bark at the time I'm +speaking of, and he was on a voyage from Liverpool to New Brunswick. At +noon one day, he and the captain, having taken their observation of the +sun, were hard at it below, working out the latitude and longitude on +their slates. Bruce, in his cabin, looked across through the open door +of the captain's cabin opposite. 'What do you make it, sir?' says Brace. +The man in the captain's cabin looked up. And what did Bruce see? The +face of the captain? Devil a bit of it--the face of a total stranger! +Up jumps Bruce, with his heart going full gallop all in a moment, and +searches for the captain on deck, and finds him much as usual, with his +calculations done, and his latitude and longitude off his mind for the +day. 'There's somebody at your desk, sir,' says Bruce. 'He's writing on +your slate; and he's a total stranger to me.' 'A stranger in my cabin?' +says the captain. 'Why, Mr. Bruce, the ship has been six weeks out of +port. How did he get on board?' Bruce doesn't know how, but he sticks to +his story. Away goes the captain, and bursts like a whirlwind into his +cabin, and finds nobody there. Bruce himself is obliged to acknowledge +that the place is certainly empty. 'If I didn't know you were a sober +man,' says the captain, 'I should charge you with drinking. As it is, +I'll hold you accountable for nothing worse than dreaming. Don't do it +again, Mr. Bruce.' Bruce sticks to his story; Bruce swears he saw the +man writing on the captain's slate. The captain takes up the slate and +looks at it. 'Lord save us and bless us!' says he; 'here the writing is, +sure enough!' Bruce looks at it too, and sees the writing as plainly +as can be, in these words: 'Steer to the nor'-west.' That, and no +more.--Ah, goodness me, narrating is dry work, Mr. Germaine. With your +leave, I'll take another drop of the sherry wine. + +"Well (it's fine old wine, that; look at the oily drops running down the +glass)--well, steering to the north-west, you will understand, was +out of the captain's course. Nevertheless, finding no solution of the +mystery on board the ship, and the weather at the time being fine, the +captain determined, while the daylight lasted, to alter his course, and +see what came of it. Toward three o'clock in the afternoon an iceberg +came of it; with a wrecked ship stove in, and frozen fast to the ice; +and the passengers and crew nigh to death with cold and exhaustion. +Wonderful enough, you will say; but more remains behind. As the mate +was helping one of the rescued passengers up the side of the bark, who +should he turn out to be but the very man whose ghostly appearance Bruce +had seen in the captain's cabin writing on the captain's slate! And more +than that--if your capacity for being surprised isn't clean worn out by +this time--the passenger recognized the bark as the very vessel which he +had seen in a dream at noon that day. He had even spoken of it to one +of the officers on board the wrecked ship when he woke. 'We shall be +rescued to-day,' he had said; and he had exactly described the rig of +the bark hours and hours before the vessel herself hove in view. Now you +know, Mr. Germaine, how my wife's far-away cousin kept an appointment +with a ghost, and what came of it."* + +Concluding his story in these words, the doctor helped himself to +another glass of the "sherry wine." I was not satisfied yet; I wanted to +know more. + +"The writing on the slate," I said. "Did it remain there, or did it +vanish like the writing in my book?" + +Mr. MacGlue's answer disappointed me. He had never asked, and had never +heard, whether the writing had remained or not. He had told me all +that he knew, and he had but one thing more to say, and that was in the +nature of a remark with a moral attached to it. "There's a marvelous +resemblance, Mr. Germaine, between your story and Bruce's story. The +main difference, as I see it, is this. The passenger's appointment +proved to be the salvation of a whole ship's company. I very much doubt +whether the lady's appointment will prove to be the salvation of You." + +I silently reconsidered the strange narrative which had just been +related to me. Another man had seen what I had seen--had done what I +proposed to do! My mother noticed with grave displeasure the strong +impression which Mr. MacGlue had produced on my mind. + +"I wish you had kept your story to yourself, doctor," she said, sharply. + +"May I ask why, madam?" + +"You have confirmed my son, sir, in his resolution to go to Saint +Anthony's Well." + +Mr. MacGlue quietly consulted his pocket almanac before he replied. + +"It's the full moon on the ninth of the month," he said. "That gives Mr. +Germaine some days of rest, ma'am, before he takes the journey. If he +travels in his own comfortable carriage--whatever I may think, morally +speaking, of his enterprise--I can't say, medically speaking, that I +believe it will do him much harm." + +"You know where Saint Anthony's Well is?" I interposed. + +"I must be mighty ignorant of Edinburgh not to know that," replied the +doctor. + +"Is the Well in Edinburgh, then?" + +"It's just outside Edinburgh--looks down on it, as you may say. You +follow the old street called the Canongate to the end. You turn to your +right past the famous Palace of Holyrood; you cross the Park and the +Drive, and take your way upward to the ruins of Anthony's Chapel, on the +shoulder of the hill--and there you are! There's a high rock behind +the chapel, and at the foot of it you will find the spring they call +Anthony's Well. It's thought a pretty view by moonlight; and they tell +me it's no longer beset at night by bad characters, as it used to be in +the old time." + +My mother, in graver and graver displeasure, rose to retire to the +drawing-room. + +"I confess you have disappointed me," she said to Mr. MacGlue. "I should +have thought you would have been the last man to encourage my son in an +act of imprudence." + +"Craving your pardon, madam, your son requires no encouragement. I can +see for myself that his mind is made up. Where is the use of a person +like me trying to stop him? Dear madam, if he won't profit by your +advice, what hope can I have that he will take mine?" + +Mr. MacGlue pointed this artful compliment by a bow of the deepest +respect, and threw open the door for my mother to pass out. + +When we were left together over our wine, I asked the doctor how soon I +might safely start on my journey to Edinburgh. + +"Take two days to do the journey, and you may start, if you're bent +on it, at the beginning of the week. But mind this," added the +prudent doctor, "though I own I'm anxious to hear what comes of +your expedition--understand at the same time, so far as the lady is +concerned, that I wash my hands of the consequences."-- + + * The doctor's narrative is not imaginary. It will be found + related in full detail, and authenticated by names and + dates, in Robert Dale Owen's very interesting work called + "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World." The author + gladly takes this opportunity of acknowledging his + obligations to Mr. Owen's remarkable book. + + +CHAPTER X. SAINT ANTHONY'S WELL. + +I STOOD on the rocky eminence in front of the ruins of Saint Anthony's +Chapel, and looked on the magnificent view of Edinburgh and of the old +Palace of Holyrood, bathed in the light of the full moon. + +The Well, as the doctor's instructions had informed me, was behind +the chapel. I waited for some minutes in front of the ruin, partly to +recover my breath after ascending the hill; partly, I own, to master +the nervous agitation which the sense of my position at that moment had +aroused in me. The woman, or the apparition of the woman--it might be +either--was perhaps within a few yards of the place that I occupied. Not +a living creature appeared in front of the chapel. Not a sound caught +my ear from any part of the solitary hill. I tried to fix my whole +attention on the beauties of the moonlit view. It was not to be done. My +mind was far away from the objects on which my eyes rested. My mind was +with the woman whom I had seen in the summer-house writing in my book. + +I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps more over the +broken ground brought me within view of the Well, and of the high +boulder or rock from the foot of which the waters gushed brightly in the +light of the moon. + +She was there. + +I recognized her figure as she stood leaning against the rock, with her +hands crossed in front of her, lost in thought. I recognized her face as +she looked up quickly, startled by the sound of my footsteps in the deep +stillness of the night. + +Was it the woman, or the apparition of the woman? I waited, looking at +her in silence. + +She spoke. The sound of her voice was not the mysterious sound that +I had heard in the summer-house. It was the sound I had heard on the +bridge when we first met in the dim evening light. + +"Who are you? What do you want?" + +As those words passed her lips, she recognized me. "_You_ here!" she +went on, advancing a step, in uncontrollable surprise. "What does this +mean?" + +"I am here," I answered, "to meet you, by your own appointment." + +She stepped back again, leaning against the rock. The moonlight shone +full upon her face. There was terror as well as astonishment in her eyes +while they now looked at me. + +"I don't understand you," she said. "I have not seen you since you spoke +to me on the bridge." + +"Pardon me," I replied. "I have seen you--or the appearance of +you--since that time. I heard you speak. I saw you write." + +She looked at me with the strangest expression of mingled resentment and +curiosity. "What did I say?" she asked. "What did I write?" + +"You said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' You wrote, 'When the full moon +shines on Saint Anthony's Well.'" + +"Where?" she cried. "Where did I do that?" + +"In a summer-house which stands by a waterfall," I answered. "Do you +know the place?" + +Her head sunk back against the rock. A low cry of terror burst from +her. Her arm, resting on the rock, dropped at her side. I hurriedly +approached her, in the fear that she might fall on the stony ground. + +She rallied her failing strength. "Don't touch me!" she exclaimed. +"Stand back, sir. You frighten me." + +I tried to soothe her. "Why do I frighten you? You know who I am. Can +you doubt my interest in you, after I have been the means of saving your +life?" + +Her reserve vanished in an instant. She advanced without hesitation, and +took me by the hand. + +"I ought to thank you," she said. "And I do. I am not so ungrateful as +I seem. I am not a wicked woman, sir--I was mad with misery when I tried +to drown myself. Don't distrust me! Don't despise me!" She stopped; I +saw the tears on her cheeks. With a sudden contempt for herself, she +dashed them away. Her whole tone and manner altered once more. Her +reserve returned; she looked at me with a strange flash of suspicion and +defiance in her eyes. "Mind this!" she said, loudly and abruptly, "you +were dreaming when you thought you saw me writing. You didn't see me; +you never heard me speak. How could I say those familiar words to a +stranger like you? It's all your fancy--and you try to frighten me by +talking of it as if it was a real thing!" She changed again; her eyes +softened to the sad and tender look which made them so irresistibly +beautiful. She drew her cloak round her with a shudder, as if she felt +the chill of the night air. "What is the matter with me?" I heard her +say to herself. "Why do I trust this man in my dreams? And why am I +ashamed of it when I wake?" + +That strange outburst encouraged me. I risked letting her know that I +had overheard her last words. + +"If you trust me in your dreams, you only do me justice," I said. "Do +me justice now; give me your confidence. You are alone--you are in +trouble--you want a friend's help. I am waiting to help you." + +She hesitated. I tried to take her hand. The strange creature drew it +away with a cry of alarm: her one great fear seemed to be the fear of +letting me touch her. + +"Give me time to think of it," she said. "You don't know what I have got +to think of. Give me till to-morrow; and let me write. Are you staying +in Edinburgh?" + +I thought it wise to be satisfied--in appearance at least--with this +concession. Taking out my card, I wrote on it in pencil the address of +the hotel at which I was staying. She read the card by the moonlight +when I put it into her hand. + +"George!" she repeated to herself, stealing another look at me as the +name passed her lips. "'George Germaine.' I never heard of 'Germaine.' +But 'George' reminds me of old times." She smiled sadly at some passing +fancy or remembrance in which I was not permitted to share. "There is +nothing very wonderful in your being called 'George,'" she went on, +after a while. "The name is common enough: one meets with it everywhere +as a man's name And yet--" Her eyes finished the sentence; her eyes said +to me, "I am not so much afraid of you, now I know that you are called +'George.'" + +So she unconsciously led me to the brink of discovery! + +If I had only asked her what associations she connected with my +Christian name--if I had only persuaded her to speak in the briefest and +most guarded terms of her past life--the barrier between us, which the +change in our names and the lapse of ten years had raised, must have +been broken down; the recognition must have followed. But I never even +thought of it; and for this simple reason--I was in love with her. The +purely selfish idea of winning my way to her favorable regard by taking +instant advantage of the new interest that I had awakened in her was the +one idea which occurred to my mind. + +"Don't wait to write to me," I said. "Don't put it off till to-morrow. +Who knows what may happen before to-morrow? Surely I deserve some little +return for the sympathy that I feel with you? I don't ask for much. Make +me happy by making me of some service to you before we part to-night." + +I took her hand, this time, before she was aware of me. The whole woman +seemed to yield at my touch. Her hand lay unresistingly in mine; her +charming figure came by soft gradations nearer and nearer to me; her +head almost touched my shoulder. She murmured in faint accents, broken +by sighs, "Don't take advantage of me. I am so friendless; I am so +completely in your power." Before I could answer, before I could move, +her hand closed on mine; her head sunk on my shoulder: she burst into +tears. + +Any man, not an inbred and inborn villain, would have respected her at +that moment. I put her hand on my arm and led her away gently past the +ruined chapel, and down the slope of the hill. + +"This lonely place is frightening you," I said. "Let us walk a little, +and you will soon be yourself again." + +She smiled through her tears like a child. + +"Yes," she said, eagerly. "But not that way." I had accidentally taken +the direction which led away from the city; she begged me to turn toward +the houses and the streets. We walked back toward Edinburgh. She eyed +me, as we went on in the moonlight, with innocent, wondering looks. +"What an unaccountable influence you have over me!" she exclaimed. + +"Did you ever see me, did you ever hear my name, before we met that +evening at the river?" + +"Never." + +"And I never heard _your_ name, and never saw _you_ before. Strange! +very strange! Ah! I remember somebody--only an old woman, sir--who might +once have explained it. Where shall I find the like of her now?" + +She sighed bitterly. The lost friend or relative had evidently been dear +to her. "A relation of yours?" I inquired--more to keep her talking than +because I felt any interest in any member of her family but herself. + +We were again on the brink of discovery. And again it was decreed that +we were to advance no further. + +"Don't ask me about my relations!" she broke out. "I daren't think of +the dead and gone, in the trouble that is trying me now. If I speak of +the old times at home, I shall only burst out crying again, and distress +you. Talk of something else, sir--talk of something else." + + +The mystery of the apparition in the summer-house was not cleared up +yet. I took my opportunity of approaching the subject. + +"You spoke a little while since of dreaming of me," I began. "Tell me +your dream." + +"I hardly know whether it was a dream or whether it was something else," +she answered. "I call it a dream for want of a better word." + +"Did it happen at night?" + +"No. In the daytime--in the afternoon." + +"Late in the afternoon?" + +"Yes--close on the evening." + +My memory reverted to the doctor's story of the shipwrecked passenger, +whose ghostly "double" had appeared in the vessel that was to rescue +him, and who had himself seen that vessel in a dream. + +"Do you remember the day of the month and the hour?" I asked. + +She mentioned the day, and she mentioned the hour. It was the day when +my mother and I had visited the waterfall. It was the hour when I had +seen the apparition in the summer-house writing in my book! + +I stopped in irrepressible astonishment. We had walked by this time +nearly as far on the way back to the city as the old Palace of Holyrood. +My companion, after a glance at me, turned and looked at the rugged old +building, mellowed into quiet beauty by the lovely moonlight. + +"This is my favorite walk," she said, simply, "since I have been in +Edinburgh. I don't mind the loneliness. I like the perfect tranquillity +here at night." She glanced at me again. "What is the matter?" she +asked. "You say nothing; you only look at me." + +"I want to hear more of your dream," I said. "How did you come to be +sleeping in the daytime?" + +"It is not easy to say what I was doing," she replied, as we walked on +again. "I was miserably anxious and ill. I felt my helpless condition +keenly on that day. It was dinner-time, I remember, and I had no +appetite. I went upstairs (at the inn where I am staying), and lay down, +quite worn out, on my bed. I don't know whether I fainted or whether I +slept; I lost all consciousness of what was going on about me, and I got +some other consciousness in its place. If this was dreaming, I can only +say it was the most vivid dream I ever had in my life." + +"Did it begin by your seeing me?" I inquired. + +"It began by my seeing your drawing-book--lying open on a table in a +summer-house." + +"Can you describe the summer-house as you saw it?" + +She described not only the summer-house, but the view of the waterfall +from the door. She knew the size, she knew the binding, of my +sketch-book--locked up in my desk, at that moment, at home in +Perthshire! + +"And you wrote in the book," I went on. "Do you remember what you +wrote?" + +She looked away from me confusedly, as if she were ashamed to recall +this part of her dream. + +"You have mentioned it already," she said. "There is no need for me to +go over the words again. Tell me one thing--when _you_ were at the +summer-house, did you wait a little on the path to the door before you +went in?" + +I _had_ waited, surprised by my first view of the woman writing in my +book. Having answered her to this effect, I asked what she had done or +dreamed of doing at the later moment when I entered the summer-house. + +"I did the strangest things," she said, in low, wondering tones. "If you +had been my brother, I could hardly have treated you more familiarly. +I beckoned to you to come to me. I even laid my hand on your bosom. I +spoke to you as I might have spoken to my oldest and dearest friend. I +said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' Oh, I was so ashamed of myself when +I came to my senses again, and recollected it. Was there ever such +familiarity--even in a dream--between a woman and a man whom she had +only once seen, and then as a perfect stranger?" + +"Did you notice how long it was," I asked, "from the time when you lay +down on the bed to the time when you found yourself awake again?" + +"I think I can tell you," she replied. "It was the dinner-time of the +house (as I said just now) when I went upstairs. Not long after I had +come to myself I heard a church clock strike the hour. Reckoning from +one time to the other, it must have been quite three hours from the time +when I first lay down to the time when I got up again." + +Was the clew to the mysterious disappearance of the writing to be found +here? + +Looking back by the light of later discoveries, I am inclined to think +that it was. In three hours the lines traced by the apparition of her +had vanished. In three hours she had come to herself, and had felt +ashamed of the familiar manner in which she had communicated with me in +her sleeping state. While she had trusted me in the trance--trusted me +because her spirit was then free to recognize my spirit--the writing had +remained on the page. When her waking will counteracted the influence of +her sleeping will, the writing disappeared. Is this the explanation? If +it is not, where is the explanation to be found? + +We walked on until we reached that part of the Canongate street in which +she lodged. We stopped at the door. + +CHAPTER XI. THE LETTER OF INTRODUCTION. + +I LOOKED at the house. It was an inn, of no great size, but of +respectable appearance. If I was to be of any use to her that night, the +time had come to speak of other subjects than the subject of dreams. + +"After all that you have told me," I said, "I will not ask you to admit +me any further into your confidence until we meet again. Only let me +hear how I can relieve your most pressing anxieties. What are your +plans? Can I do anything to help them before you go to rest to-night?" + +She thanked me warmly, and hesitated, looking up the street and down the +street in evident embarrassment what to say next. + +"Do you propose staying in Edinburgh?" I asked. + +"Oh no! I don't wish to remain in Scotland. I want to go much further +away. I think I should do better in London; at some respectable +milliner's, if I could be properly recommended. I am quick at my needle, +and I understand cutting out. Or I could keep accounts, if--if anybody +would trust me." + +She stopped, and looked at me doubtingly, as if she felt far from sure, +poor soul, of winning my confidence to begin with. I acted on that hint, +with the headlong impetuosity of a man who was in love. + +"I can give you exactly the recommendation you want," I said, "whenever +you like. Now, if you would prefer it." + +Her charming features brightened with pleasure. "Oh, you are indeed a +friend to me!" she said, impulsively. Her face clouded again--she saw +my proposal in a new light. "Have I any right," she asked, sadly, "to +accept what you offer me?" + +"Let me give you the letter," I answered, "and you can decide for +yourself whether you will use it or not." + +I put her arm again in mine, and entered the inn. + +She shrunk back in alarm. What would the landlady think if she saw her +lodger enter the house at night in company with a stranger, and that +stranger a gentleman? The landlady appeared as she made the objection. +Reckless what I said or what I did, I introduced myself as her relative, +and asked to be shown into a quiet room in which I could write a letter. +After one sharp glance at me, the landlady appeared to be satisfied that +she was dealing with a gentleman. She led the way into a sort of parlor +behind the "bar," placed writing materials on the table, looked at +my companion as only one woman can look at another under certain +circumstances, and left us by ourselves. + +It was the first time I had ever been in a room with her alone. +The embarrassing sense of her position had heightened her color and +brightened her eyes. She stood, leaning one hand on the table, confused +and irresolute, her firm and supple figure falling into an attitude +of unsought grace which it was literally a luxury to look at. I said +nothing; my eyes confessed my admiration; the writing materials lay +untouched before me on the table. How long the silence might have +lasted I cannot say. She abruptly broke it. Her instinct warned her that +silence might have its dangers, in our position. She turned to me with +an effort; she said, uneasily, "I don't think you ought to write your +letter to-night, sir." + +"Why not?" + +"You know nothing of me. Surely you ought not to recommend a person who +is a stranger to you? And I am worse than a stranger. I am a miserable +wretch who has tried to commit a great sin--I have tried to destroy +myself. Perhaps the misery I was in might be some excuse for me, if you +knew it. You ought to know it. But it's so late to-night, and I am so +sadly tired--and there are some things, sir, which it is not easy for a +woman to speak of in the presence of a man." + +Her head sunk on her bosom; her delicate lips trembled a little; she +said no more. The way to reassure and console her lay plainly enough +before me, if I chose to take it. Without stopping to think, I took it. + +Reminding her that she had herself proposed writing to me when we met +that evening, I suggested that she should wait to tell the sad story of +her troubles until it was convenient to her to send me the narrative +in the form of a letter. "In the mean time," I added, "I have the most +perfect confidence in you; and I beg as a favor that you will let me put +it to the proof. I can introduce you to a dressmaker in London who is at +the head of a large establishment, and I will do it before I leave you +to-night." + +I dipped my pen in the ink as I said the words. Let me confess frankly +the lengths to which my infatuation led me. The dressmaker to whom I +had alluded had been my mother's maid in former years, and had been +established in business with money lent by my late step-father, Mr. +Germaine. I used both their names without scruple; and I wrote my +recommendation in terms which the best of living women and the ablest of +existing dressmakers could never have hoped to merit. Will anybody find +excuses for me? Those rare persons who have been in love, and who have +not completely forgotten it yet, may perhaps find excuses for me. It +matters little; I don't deserve them. + +I handed her the open letter to read. + +She blushed delightfully; she cast one tenderly grateful look at me, +which I remembered but too well for many and many an after-day. The next +moment, to my astonishment, this changeable creature changed again. Some +forgotten consideration seemed to have occurred to her. She turned pale; +the soft lines of pleasure in her face hardened, little by little; she +regarded me with the saddest look of confusion and distress. Putting the +letter down before me on the table, she said, timidly: + +"Would you mind adding a postscript, sir?" + +I suppressed all appearance of surprise as well as I could, and took up +the pen again. + +"Would you please say," she went on, "that I am only to be taken on +trial, at first? I am not to be engaged for more"--her voice sunk lower +and lower, so that I could barely hear the next words--"for more than +three months, certain." + +It was not in human nature--perhaps I ought to say it was not in the +nature of a man who was in my situation--to refrain from showing some +curiosity, on being asked to supplement a letter of recommendation by +such a postscript as this. + +"Have you some other employment in prospect?" I asked. + +"None," she answered, with her head down, and her eyes avoiding mine. + +An unworthy doubt of her--the mean offspring of jealousy--found its way +into my mind. + +"Have you some absent friend," I went on, "who is likely to prove a +better friend than I am, if you only give him time?" + +She lifted her noble head. Her grand, guileless gray eyes rested on me +with a look of patient reproach. + +"I have not got a friend in the world," she said. "For God's sake, ask +me no more questions to-night!" + +I rose and gave her the letter once more--with the postscript added, in +her own words. + +We stood together by the table; we looked at each other in a momentary +silence. + +"How can I thank you?" she murmured, softly. "Oh, sir, I will indeed be +worthy of the confidence that you have shown in me!" Her eyes moistened; +her variable color came and went; her dress heaved softly over the +lovely outline of her bosom. I don't believe the man lives who could +have resisted her at that moment. I lost all power of restraint; +I caught her in my arms; I whispered, "I love you!" I kissed her +passionately. For a moment she lay helpless and trembling on my breast; +for a moment her fragrant lips softly returned the kiss. In an instant +more it was over. She tore herself away with a shudder that shook +her from head to foot, and threw the letter that I had given to her +indignantly at my feet. + +"How dare you take advantage of me! How dare you touch me!" she said. +"Take your letter back, sir; I refuse to receive it; I will never speak +to you again. You don't know what you have done. You don't know how +deeply you have wounded me. Oh!" she cried, throwing herself in despair +on a sofa that stood near her, "shall I ever recover my self-respect? +shall I ever forgive myself for what I have done to-night?" + +I implored her pardon; I assured her of my repentance and regret in +words which did really come from my heart. The violence of her agitation +more than distressed me--I was really alarmed by it. + +She composed herself after a while. She rose to her feet with modest +dignity, and silently held out her hand in token that my repentance was +accepted. + +"You will give me time for atonement?" I pleaded. "You will not lose all +confidence in me? Let me see you again, if it is only to show that I am +not quite unworthy of your pardon--at your own time; in the presence of +another person, if you like." + +"I will write to you," she said. + +"To-morrow?" + +"To-morrow." + +I took up the letter of recommendation from the floor. + +"Make your goodness to me complete," I said. "Don't mortify me by +refusing to take my letter." + +"I will take your letter," she answered, quietly. "Thank you for writing +it. Leave me now, please. Good-night." + +I left her, pale and sad, with my letter in her hand. I left her, with +my mind in a tumult of contending emotions, which gradually resolved +themselves into two master-feelings as I walked on: Love, that adored +her more fervently than ever; and Hope, that set the prospect before me +of seeing her again on the next day. + +CHAPTER XII. THE DISASTERS OF MRS. VAN BRANDT. + +A MAN who passes his evening as I had passed mine, may go to bed +afterward if he has nothing better to do. But he must not rank among +the number of his reasonable anticipations the expectation of getting +a night's rest. The morning was well advanced, and the hotel was astir, +before I at last closed my eyes in slumber. When I awoke, my watch +informed me that it was close on noon. + +I rang the bell. My servant appeared with a letter in his hand. It had +been left for me, three hours since, by a lady who had driven to the +hotel door in a carriage, and had then driven away again. The man had +found me sleeping when he entered my bed-chamber, and, having received +no orders to wake me overnight, had left the letter on the sitting-room +table until he heard my bell. + +Easily guessing who my correspondent was, I opened the letter. An +inclosure fell out of it--to which, for the moment, I paid no attention. +I turned eagerly to the first lines. They announced that the writer +had escaped me for the second time: early that morning she had left +Edinburgh. The paper inclosed proved to be my letter of introduction to +the dressmaker returned to me. + +I was more than angry with her--I felt her second flight from me as a +downright outrage. In five minutes I had hurried on my clothes and was +on my way to the inn in the Canongate as fast as a horse could draw me. + +The servants could give me no information. Her escape had been effected +without their knowledge. + +The landlady, to whom I next addressed myself, deliberately declined to +assist me in any way whatever. + +"I have given the lady my promise," said this obstinate person, "to +answer not one word to any question that you may ask me about her. In +my belief, she is acting as becomes an honest woman in removing herself +from any further communication with you. I saw you through the keyhole +last night, sir. I wish you good-morning." + +Returning to my hotel, I left no attempt to discover her untried. I +traced the coachman who had driven her. He had set her down at a shop, +and had then been dismissed. I questioned the shop-keeper. He remembered +that he had sold some articles of linen to a lady with her veil down and +a traveling-bag in her hand, and he remembered no more. I circulated a +description of her in the different coach offices. Three "elegant young +ladies, with their veils down, and with traveling-bags in their hands," +answered to the description; and which of the three was the fugitive +of whom I was in search, it was impossible to discover. In the days of +railways and electric telegraphs I might have succeeded in tracing +her. In the days of which I am now writing, she set investigation at +defiance. + +I read and reread her letter, on the chance that some slip of the pen +might furnish the clew which I had failed to find in any other way. Here +is the narrative that she addressed to me, copied from the original, +word for word: + + +"DEAR SIR--Forgive me for leaving you again as I left you in Perthshire. +After what took place last night, I have no other choice (knowing my own +weakness, and the influence that you seem to have over me) than to +thank you gratefully for your kindness, and to bid you farewell. My sad +position must be my excuse for separating myself from you in this rude +manner, and for venturing to send you back your letter of introduction. +If I use the letter, I only offer you a means of communicating with me. +For your sake, as well as for mine, this mu st not be. I must never give +you a second opportunity of saying that you love me; I must go away, +leaving no trace behind by which you can possibly discover me. + +"But I cannot forget that I owe my poor life to your compassion and your +courage. You, who saved me, have a right to know what the provocation +was that drove me to drowning myself, and what my situation is, now that +I am (thanks to you) still a living woman. You shall hear my sad story, +sir; and I will try to tell it as briefly as possible. + +"I was married, not very long since, to a Dutch gentleman, whose name +is Van Brandt. Please excuse my entering into family particulars. I have +endeavored to write and tell you about my dear lost father and my old +home. But the tears come into my eyes when I think of my happy past +life. I really cannot see the lines as I try to write them. + +"Let me, then, only say that Mr. Van Brandt was well recommended to +my good father before I married. I have only now discovered that he +obtained these recommendations from his friends under a false pretense, +which it is needless to trouble you by mentioning in detail. Ignorant of +what he had done, I lived with him happily. I cannot truly declare that +he was the object of my first love, but he was the one person in the +world whom I had to look up to after my father's death. I esteemed him +and respected him, and, if I may say so without vanity, I did indeed +make him a good wife. + +"So the time went on, sir, prosperously enough, until the evening came +when you and I met on the bridge. + +"I was out alone in our garden, trimming the shrubs, when the +maid-servant came and told me there was a foreign lady in a carriage at +the door who desired to say a word to Mrs. Van Brandt. I sent the maid +on before to show her into the sitting-room, and I followed to receive +my visitor as soon as I had made myself tidy. She was a dreadful woman, +with a flushed, fiery face and impudent, bright eyes. 'Are you Mrs. Van +Brandt?' she said. I answered, 'Yes.' 'Are you really married to him?' +she asked me. That question (naturally enough, I think) upset my temper. +I said, 'How dare you doubt it?' She laughed in my face. 'Send for Van +Brandt,' she said. I went out into the passage and called him down from +the room upstairs in which he was writing. 'Ernest,' I said, 'here is +a person who has insulted me. Come down directly.' He left his room the +moment he heard me. The woman followed me out into the passage to meet +him. She made him a low courtesy. He turned deadly pale the moment he +set eyes on her. That frightened me. I said to him, 'For God's sake, +what does this mean?' He took me by the arm, and he answered: 'You shall +know soon. Go back to your gardening, and don't return to the house till +I send for you.' His looks were so shocking, he was so unlike himself, +that I declare he daunted me. I let him take me as far as the garden +door. He squeezed my hand. 'For my sake, darling,' he whispered, 'do +what I ask of you.' I went into the garden and sat me down on the +nearest bench, and waited impatiently for what was to come. + +"How long a time passed I don't know. My anxiety got to such a pitch at +last that I could bear it no longer. I ventured back to the house. + +"I listened in the passage, and heard nothing. I went close to the +parlor door, and still there was silence. I took courage, and opened the +door. + +"The room was empty. There was a letter on the table. It was in my +husband's handwriting, and it was addressed to me. I opened it and read +it. The letter told me that I was deserted, disgraced, ruined. The woman +with the fiery face and the impudent eyes was Van Brandt's lawful wife. +She had given him his choice of going away with her at once or of being +prosecuted for bigamy. He had gone away with her--gone, and left me. + +"Remember, sir, that I had lost both father and mother. I had no +friends. I was alone in the world, without a creature near to comfort or +advise me. And please to bear in mind that I have a temper which feels +even the smallest slights and injuries very keenly. Do you wonder at +what I had it in my thoughts to do that evening on the bridge? + +"Mind this: I believe I should never have attempted to destroy myself if +I could only have burst out crying. No tears came to me. A dull, stunned +feeling took hold like a vise on my head and on my heart. I walked +straight to the river. I said to myself, quite calmly, as I went along, +'_There_ is the end of it, and the sooner the better.' + +"What happened after that, you know as well as I do. I may get on to the +next morning--the morning when I so ungratefully left you at the inn by +the river-side. + +"I had but one reason, sir, for going away by the first conveyance that +I could find to take me, and this was the fear that Van Brandt might +discover me if I remained in Perthshire. The letter that he had left on +the table was full of expressions of love and remorse, to say nothing +of excuses for his infamous behavior to me. He declared that he had been +entrapped into a private marriage with a profligate woman when he was +little more than a lad. They had long since separated by common consent. +When he first courted me, he had every reason to believe that she was +dead. How he had been deceived in this particular, and how she had +discovered that he had married me, he had yet to find out. Knowing +her furious temper, he had gone away with her, as the one means +of preventing an application to the justices and a scandal in the +neighborhood. In a day or two he would purchase his release from her by +an addition to the allowance which she had already received from him: +he would return to me and take me abroad, out of the way of further +annoyance. I was his wife in the sight of Heaven; I was the only woman +he had ever loved; and so on, and so on. + +"Do you now see, sir, the risk that I ran of his discovering me if I +remained in your neighborhood? The bare thought of it made my flesh +creep. I was determined never again to see the man who had so cruelly +deceived me. I am in the same mind still--with this difference, that I +might consent to see him, if I could be positively assured first of the +death of his wife. That is not likely to happen. Let me get on with my +letter, and tell you what I did on my arrival in Edinburgh. + +"The coachman recommended me to the house in the Canongate where you +found me lodging. I wrote the same day to relatives of my father, living +in Glasgow, to tell them where I was, and in what a forlorn position I +found myself. + +"I was answered by return of post. The head of the family and his wife +requested me to refrain from visiting them in Glasgow. They had business +then in hand which would take them to Edinburgh, and I might expect to +see them both with the least possible delay. + +"They arrived, as they had promised, and they expressed themselves +civilly enough. Moreover, they did certainly lend me a small sum of +money when they found how poorly my purse was furnished. But I don't +think either husband or wife felt much for me. They recommended me, at +parting, to apply to my father's other relatives, living in England. I +may be doing them an injustice, but I fancy they were eager to get me +(as the common phrase is) off their hands. + +"The day when the departure of my relatives left me friendless was +also the day, sir, when I had that dream or vision of you which I have +already related. I lingered on at the house in the Canongate, partly +because the landlady was kind to me, partly because I was so depressed +by my position that I really did not know what to do next. + +"In this wretched condition you discovered me on that favorite walk +of mine from Holyrood to Saint Anthony's Well. Believe me, your kind +interest in my fortunes has not been thrown away on an ungrateful woman. +I could ask Providence for no greater blessing than to find a brother +and a friend in you. You have yourself destroyed that hope by what you +said and did when we were together in the parlor. I don't blame you: I +am afraid my manner (without my knowing it) might have seemed to give +you some encouragement. I am only sorry--very, very sorry--to have no +honorable choice left but never to see you again. + +"After much thin king, I have made up my mind to speak to those other +relatives of my father to whom I have not yet applied. The chance that +they may help me to earn an honest living is the one chance that I have +left. God bless you, Mr. Germaine! I wish you prosperity and happiness +from the bottom of my heart; and remain, your grateful servant, + + "M. VAN BRANDT. + +"P.S.--I sign my own name (or the name which I once thought was mine) as +a proof that I have honestly written the truth about myself, from first +to last. For the future I must, for safety's sake, live under some other +name. I should like to go back to my name when I was a happy girl at +home. But Van Brandt knows it; and, besides, I have (no matter how +innocently) disgraced it. Good-by again, sir; and thank you again." + + +So the letter concluded. + +I read it in the temper of a thoroughly disappointed and thoroughly +unreasonable man. Whatever poor Mrs. Van Brandt had done, she had done +wrong. It was wrong of her, in the first place, to have married at all. +It was wrong of her to contemplate receiving Mr. Van Brandt again, even +if his lawful wife had died in the interval. It was wrong of her to +return my letter of introduction, after I had given myself the trouble +of altering it to suit her capricious fancy. It was wrong of her to take +an absurdly prudish view of a stolen kiss and a tender declaration, +and to fly from me as if I were as great a scoundrel as Mr. Van Brandt +himself. And last, and more than all, it was wrong of her to sign her +Christian name in initial only. Here I was, passionately in love with a +woman, and not knowing by what fond name to identify her in my thoughts! +"M. Van Brandt!" I might call her Maria, Margaret, Martha, Mabel, +Magdalen, Mary--no, not Mary. The old boyish love was dead and gone, but +I owed some respect to the memory of it. If the "Mary" of my early days +were still living, and if I had met her, would she have treated me as +this woman had treated me? Never! It was an injury to "Mary" to think +even of that heartless creature by her name. Why think of her at all? +Why degrade myself by trying to puzzle out a means of tracing her in her +letter? It was sheer folly to attempt to trace a woman who had gone I +knew not whither, and who herself informed me that she meant to pass +under an assumed name. Had I lost all pride, all self-respect? In the +flower of my age, with a handsome fortune, with the world before me, +full of interesting female faces and charming female figures, what +course did it become me to take? To go back to my country-house, and +mope over the loss of a woman who had deliberately deserted me? or to +send for a courier and a traveling carriage, and forget her gayly among +foreign people and foreign scenes? In the state of my temper at that +moment, the idea of a pleasure tour in Europe fired my imagination. +I first astonished the people at the hotel by ordering all further +inquiries after the missing Mrs. Van Brandt to be stopped; and then I +opened my writing desk and wrote to tell my mother frankly and fully of +my new plans. + +The answer arrived by return of post. + +To my surprise and delight, my good mother was not satisfied with only +formally approving of my new resolution. With an energy which I had +not ventured to expect from her, she had made all her arrangements for +leaving home, and had started for Edinburgh to join me as my traveling +companion. "You shall not go away alone, George," she wrote, "while I +have strength and spirits to keep you company." + +In three days from the time when I read those words our preparations +were completed, and we were on our way to the Continent. + +CHAPTER XIII. NOT CURED YET. + +WE visited France, Germany, and Italy; and we were absent from England +nearly two years. + +Had time and change justified my confidence in them? Was the image of +Mrs. Van Brandt an image long since dismissed from my mind? + +No! Do what I might, I was still (in the prophetic language of Dame +Dermody) taking the way to reunion with my kindred spirit in the time to +come. For the first two or three months of our travels I was haunted +by dreams of the woman who had so resolutely left me. Seeing her in my +sleep, always graceful, always charming, always modestly tender toward +me, I waited in the ardent hope of again beholding the apparition of her +in my waking hours--of again being summoned to meet her at a given place +and time. My anticipations were not fulfilled; no apparition showed +itself. The dreams themselves grew less frequent and less vivid and then +ceased altogether. Was this a sign that the days of her adversity +were at an end? Having no further need of help, had she no further +remembrance of the man who had tried to help her? Were we never to meet +again? + +I said to myself: "I am unworthy of the name of man if I don't forget +her now!" She still kept her place in my memory, say what I might. + +I saw all the wonders of Nature and Art which foreign countries could +show me. I lived in the dazzling light of the best society that Paris, +Rome, Vienna could assemble. I passed hours on hours in the company +of the most accomplished and most beautiful women whom Europe could +produce--and still that solitary figure at Saint Anthony's Well, those +grand gray eyes that had rested on me so sadly at parting, held their +place in my memory, stamped their image on my heart. + +Whether I resisted my infatuation, or whether I submitted to it, I still +longed for her. I did all I could to conceal the state of my mind from +my mother. But her loving eyes discovered the secret: she saw that I +suffered, and suffered with me. More than once she said: "George, the +good end is not to be gained by traveling; let us go home." More than +once I answered, with the bitter and obstinate resolution of despair: +"No. Let us try more new people and more new scenes." It was only when +I found her health and strength beginning to fail under the stress of +continual traveling that I consented to abandon the hopeless search +after oblivion, and to turn homeward at last. + +I prevailed on my mother to wait and rest at my house in London before +she returned to her favorite abode at the country-seat in Perthshire. +It is needless to say that I remained in town with her. My mother now +represented the one interest that held me nobly and endearingly to life. +Politics, literature, agriculture--the customary pursuits of a man in my +position--had none of them the slightest attraction for me. + +We had arrived in London at what is called "the height of the season." +Among the operatic attractions of that year--I am writing of the days +when the ballet was still a popular form of public entertainment--there +was a certain dancer whose grace and beauty were the objects of +universal admiration. I was asked if I had seen her, wherever I went, +until my social position, as the one man who was indifferent to the +reigning goddess of the stage, became quite unendurable. On the next +occasion when I was invited to take a seat in a friend's box, I accepted +the proposal; and (far from willingly) I went the way of the world--in +other words, I went to the opera. + +The first part of the performance had concluded when we got to the +theater, and the ballet had not yet begun. My friends amused themselves +with looking for familiar faces in the boxes and stalls. I took a chair +in a corner and waited, with my mind far away from the theater, from the +dancing that was to come. The lady who sat nearest to me (like ladies +in general) disliked the neighborhood of a silent man. She determined to +make me talk to her. + +"Do tell me, Mr. Germaine," she said. "Did you ever see a theater +anywhere so full as this theater is to-night?" + +She handed me her opera-glass as she spoke. I moved to the front of the +box to look at the audience. + +It was certainty a wonderful sight. Every available atom of space (as +I gradually raised the glass from the floor to the ceiling of the +building) appeared to be occupied. Looking upward and upward, my range +of view gradually reached the gallery. Even at that distance, the +excellent glass which had been put into my hands brought the faces of +the audience close to me. I looked first at the persons who occupied +the front row of seats in the gallery stalls. + +Moving the opera-glass slowly along the semicircle formed by the seats, +I suddenly stopped when I reached the middle. + +My heart gave a great leap as if it would bound out of my body. There +was no mistaking _that_ face among the commonplace faces near it. I had +discovered Mrs. Van Brandt! + +She sat in front--but not alone. There was a man in the stall +immediately behind her, who bent over her and spoke to her from time to +time. She listened to him, so far as I could see, with something of a +sad and weary look. Who was the man? I might, or might not, find that +out. Under any circumstances, I determined to speak to Mrs. Van Brandt. + +The curtain rose for the ballet. I made the best excuse I could to my +friends, and instantly left the box. + +It was useless to attempt to purchase my admission to the gallery. My +money was refused. There was not even standing room left in that part of +the theater. + +But one alternative remained. I returned to the street, to wait for Mrs. +Van Brandt at the gallery door until the performance was over. + +Who was the man in attendance on her--the man whom I had seen sitting +behind her, and talking familiarly over her shoulder? While I paced +backward and forward before the door, that one question held possession +of my mind, until the oppression of it grew beyond endurance. I went +back to my friends in the box, simply and solely to look at the man +again. + +What excuses I made to account for my strange conduct I cannot now +remember. Armed once more with the lady's opera-glass (I borrowed it and +kept it without scruple), I alone, of all that vast audience, turned my +back on the stage, and riveted my attention on the gallery stalls. + +There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearance spell-bound +by the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. Van Brandt, on +the contrary, seemed to find but little attraction in the spectacle +presented by the stage. She looked at the dancing (so far as I could +see) in an absent, weary manner. When the applause broke out in a +perfect frenzy of cries and clapping of hands, she sat perfectly +unmoved by the enthusiasm which pervaded the theater. The man behind her +(annoyed, as I supposed, by the marked indifference which she showed +to the performance) tapped her impatiently on the shoulder, as if he +thought that she was quite capable of falling asleep in her stall. The +familiarity of the action--confirming the suspicion in my mind which had +already identified him with Van Brandt--so enraged me that I said or did +something which obliged one of the gentlemen in the box to interfere. +"If you can't control yourself," he whispered, "you had better leave +us." He spoke with the authority of an old friend. I had sense enough +left to take his advice, and return to my post at the gallery door. + +A little before midnight the performance ended. The audience began to +pour out of the theater. + +I drew back into a corner behind the door, facing the gallery stairs, +and watched for her. After an interval which seemed to be endless, she +and her companion appeared, slowly descending the stairs. She wore a +long dark cloak; her head was protected by a quaintly shaped hood, which +looked (on _her_) the most becoming head-dress that a woman could wear. +As the two passed me, I heard the man speak to her in a tone of sulky +annoyance. + +"It's wasting money," he said, "to go to the expense of taking _you_ to +the opera." + +"I am not well," she answered with her head down and her eyes on the +ground. "I am out of spirits to-night." + +"Will you ride home or walk?" + +"I will walk, if you please." + +I followed them unperceived, waiting to present myself to her until +the crowd about them had dispersed. In a few minutes they turned into a +quiet by-street. I quickened my pace until I was close at her side, and +then I took off my hat and spoke to her. + +She recognized me with a cry of astonishment. For an instant her face +brightened radiantly with the loveliest expression of delight that I +ever saw on any human countenance. The moment after, all was changed. +The charming features saddened and hardened. She stood before me like a +woman overwhelmed by shame--without uttering a word, without taking my +offered hand. + +Her companion broke the silence. + +"Who is this gentleman?" he asked, speaking in a foreign accent, with an +under-bred insolence of tone and manner. + +She controlled herself the moment he addressed her. "This is Mr. +Germaine," she answered: "a gentleman who was very kind to me in +Scotland." She raised her eyes for a moment to mine, and took refuge, +poor soul, in a conventionally polite inquiry after my health. "I hope +you are quite well, Mr. Germaine," said the soft, sweet voice, trembling +piteously. + +I made the customary reply, and explained that I had seen her at the +opera. "Are you staying in London?" I asked. "May I have the honor of +calling on you?" + +Her companion answered for her before she could speak. + +"My wife thanks you, sir, for the compliment you pay her. She doesn't +receive visitors. We both wish you good-night." + +Saying those words, he took off his hat with a sardonic assumption of +respect; and, holding her arm in his, forced her to walk on abruptly +with him. Feeling certainly assured by this time that the man was no +other than Van Brandt, I was on the point of answering him sharply, when +Mrs. Van Brandt checked the rash words as they rose to my lips. + +"For my sake!" she whispered, over her shoulder, with an imploring look +that instantly silenced me. After all, she was free (if she liked) to go +back to the man who had so vilely deceived and deserted her. I bowed and +left them, feeling with no common bitterness the humiliation of entering +into rivalry with Mr. Van Brandt. + +I crossed to the other side of the street. Before I had taken three +steps away from her, the old infatuation fastened its hold on me again. +I submitted, without a struggle against myself, to the degradation +of turning spy and following them home. Keeping well behind, on the +opposite side of the way, I tracked them to their own door, and entered +in my pocket-book the name of the street and the number of the house. + +The hardest critic who reads these lines cannot feel more contemptuously +toward me than I felt toward myself. Could I still love a woman after +she had deliberately preferred to me a scoundrel who had married her +while he was the husband of another wife? Yes! Knowing what I now knew, +I felt that I loved her just as dearly as ever. It was incredible, it +was shocking; but it was true. For the first time in my life, I tried to +take refuge from my sense of my own degradation in drink. I went to my +club, and joined a convivial party at a supper table, and poured glass +after glass of champagne down my throat, without feeling the slightest +sense of exhilaration, without losing for an instant the consciousness +of my own contemptible conduct. I went to my bed in despair; and through +the wakeful night I weakly cursed the fatal evening at the river-side +when I had met her for the first time. But revile her as I might, +despise myself as I might, I loved her--I loved her still! + +Among the letters laid on my table the next morning there were two which +must find their place in this narrative. + +The first letter was in a handwriting which I had seen once before, at +the hotel in Edinburgh. The writer was Mrs. Van Brandt. + +"For your own sake" (the letter ran) "make no attempt to see me, and +take no notice of an invitation which I fear you will receive with this +note. I am living a degraded life. I have sunk beneath your notice. You +owe it to yourself, sir, to forget the miserable woman who now writes to +you for the last time, and bids you gratefully a last farewell." + +Those sad lines were signed in initials only. It is needless to say +that they merely strengthened my resolution to see her at all hazards. I +kissed the paper on which her hand had rested, and then I turned to the +second letter. It contained the "invitation" to which my correspondent +had alluded, and it was expressed in these terms: + +"Mr. Van Brandt presents his compliments to Mr. Germaine, and begs +to apologize for the somewhat abrupt manner in which he received Mr. +Germaine's polite advances. Mr. Van Brandt suffers habitually from +nervous irritability, and he felt particularly ill last night. He trusts +Mr. Germaine will receive this candid explanation in the spirit in which +it is offered; and he begs to add that Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted +to receive Mr. Germaine whenever he may find it convenient to favor her +with a visit." + +That Mr. Van Brandt had some sordid interest of his own to serve in +writing this grotesquely impudent composition, and that the unhappy +woman who bore his name was heartily ashamed of the proceeding on which +he had ventured, were conclusions easily drawn after reading the two +letters. The suspicion of the man and of his motives which I naturally +felt produced no hesitation in my mind as to the course which I had +determined to pursue. On the contrary, I rejoiced that my way to +an interview with Mrs. Van Brandt was smoothed, no matter with what +motives, by Mr. Van Brandt himself. + +I waited at home until noon, and then I could wait no longer. Leaving a +message of excuse for my mother (I had just sense of shame enough left +to shrink from facing her), I hastened away to profit by my invitation +on the very day when I received it. + +CHAPTER XIV. MRS. VAN BRANDT AT HOME. + +As I lifted my hand to ring the house bell, the door was opened from +within, and no less a person than Mr. Van Brandt himself stood before +me. He had his hat on. We had evidently met just as he was going out. + +"My dear sir, how good this is of you! You present the best of all +replies to my letter in presenting yourself. Mrs. Van Brandt is at home. +Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted. Pray walk in." + +He threw open the door of a room on the ground-floor. His politeness was +(if possible) even more offensive than his insolence. "Be seated, Mr. +Germaine, I beg of you." He turned to the open door, and called up the +stairs, in a loud and confident voice: + +"Mary! come down directly." + +"Mary"! I knew her Christian name at last, and knew it through Van +Brandt. No words can tell how the name jarred on me, spoken by his lips. +For the first time for years past my mind went back to Mary Dermody +and Greenwater Broad. The next moment I heard the rustling of Mrs. Van +Brandt's dress on the stairs. As the sound caught my ear, the old times +and the old faces vanished again from my thoughts as completely as if +they had never existed. What had _she_ in common with the frail, +shy little child, her namesake, of other days? What similarity was +perceivable in the sooty London lodging-house to remind me of the +bailiff's flower-scented cottage by the shores of the lake? + +Van Brandt took off his hat, and bowed to me with sickening servility. + +"I have a business appointment," he said, "which it is impossible to put +off. Pray excuse me. Mrs. Van Brandt will do the honors. Good morning." + +The house door opened and closed again. The rustling of the dress came +slowly nearer and nearer. She stood before me. + +"Mr. Germaine!" she exclaimed, starting back, as if the bare sight of me +repelled her. "Is this honorable? Is this worthy of you? You allow me to +be entrapped into receiving you, and you accept as your accomplice Mr. +Van Brandt! Oh, sir, I have accustomed myself to look up to you as a +high-minded man. How bitterly you have disappointed me!" + +Her reproaches passed by me unheeded. They only heightened her color; +they only added a new rapture to the luxury of looking at her. + +"If you loved me as faithfully as I love you," I said, "you would +understand why I am here. No sacrifice is too great if it brings me into +your presence again after two years of absence." + +She suddenly approached me, and fixed her eyes in eager scrutiny on my +face. + +"There must be some mistake," she said. "You cannot possibly have +received my letter, or you have not read it?" + +"I have received it, and I have read it." + +"And Van Brandt's letter--you have read that too?" + +"Yes." + +She sat down by the table, and, leaning her arms on it, covered her face +with her hands. My answers seemed not only to have distressed, but to +have perplexed her. "Are men all alike?" I heard her say. "I thought I +might trust in _his_ sense of what was due to himself and of what was +compassionate toward me." + +I closed the door and seated myself by her side. She removed her hands +from her face when she felt me near her. She looked at me with a cold +and steady surprise. + +"What are you going to do?" she asked. + +"I am going to try if I can recover my place in your estimation," I +said. "I am going to ask your pity for a man whose whole heart is yours, +whose whole life is bound up in you." + +She started to her feet, and looked round her incredulously, as if +doubting whether she had rightly heard and rightly interpreted my last +words. Before I could speak again, she suddenly faced me, and struck her +open hand on the table with a passionate resolution which I now saw in +her for the first time. + +"Stop!" she cried. "There must be an end to this. And an end there shall +be. Do you know who that man is who has just left the house? Answer me, +Mr. Germaine! I am speaking in earnest." + +There was no choice but to answer her. She was indeed in +earnest--vehemently in earnest. + +"His letter tells me," I said, "that he is Mr. Van Brandt." + +She sat down again, and turned her face away from me. + +"Do you know how he came to write to you?" she asked. "Do you know what +made him invite you to this house?" + +I thought of the suspicion that had crossed my mind when I read Van +Brandt's letter. I made no reply. + +"You force me to tell you the truth," she went on. "He asked me who you +were, last night on our way home. I knew that you were rich, and that +_he_ wanted money. I told him I knew nothing of your position in the +world. He was too cunning to believe me; he went out to the public-house +and looked at a directory. He came back and said, 'Mr. Germaine has a +house in Berkeley Square and a country-seat in the Highlands. He is not +a man for a poor devil like me to offend; I mean to make a friend of +him, and I expect you to make a friend of him too.' He sat down and +wrote to you. I am living under that man's protection, Mr. Germaine. His +wife is not dead, as you may suppose; she is living, and I know her to +be living. I wrote to you that I was beneath your notice, and you have +obliged me to tell you why. Am I sufficiently degraded to bring you to +your senses?" + +I drew closer to her. She tried to get up and leave me. I knew my +power over her, and used it (as any man in my place would have used it) +without scruple. I took her hand. + +"I don't believe you have voluntarily degraded yourself," I said. "You +have been forced into your present position: there are circumstances +which excuse you, and which you are purposely keeping back from me. +Nothing will convince me that you are a base woman. Should I love you as +I love you, if you were really unworthy of me?" + +She struggled to free her hand; I still held it. She tried to change the +subject. "There is one thing you haven't told me yet," she said, with a +faint, forced smile. "Have you seen the apparition of me again since I +left you?" + +"No. Have _you_ ever seen _me_ again, as you saw me in your dream at the +inn in Edinburgh?" + +"Never. Our visions of each other have left us. Can you tell why?" + +If we had continued to speak on this subject, we must surely have +recognized each other. But the subject dropped. Instead of answering her +question, I drew her nearer to me--I returned to the forbidden subject +of my love. + +"Look at me," I pleaded, "and tell me the truth. Can you see me, can you +hear me, and do you feel no answering sympathy in your own heart? Do you +really care nothing for me? Have you never once thought of me in all the +time that has passed since we last met?" + +I spoke as I felt--fervently, passionately. She made a last effort to +repel me, and yielded even as she made it. Her hand closed on mine, +a low sigh fluttered on her lips. She answered with a sudden +self-abandonment; she recklessly cast herself loose from the restraints +which had held her up to this time. + +"I think of you perpetually," she said. "I was thinking of you at the +opera last night. My heart leaped in me when I heard your voice in the +street." + +"You love me!" I whispered. + +"Love you!" she repeated. "My whole heart goes out to you in spite of +myself. Degraded as I am, unworthy as I am--knowing as I do that nothing +can ever come of it--I love you! I love you!" + +She threw her arms round my neck, and held me to her with all her +strength. The moment after, she dropped on her knees. "Oh, don't tempt +me!" she murmured. "Be merciful--and leave me." + +I was beside myself. I spoke as recklessly to her as she had spoken to +me. + +"Prove that you love me," I said. "Let me rescue you from the +degradation of living with that man. Leave him at once and forever. +Leave him, and come with me to a future that is worthy of you--your +future as my wife." + +"Never!" she answered, crouching low at my feet. + +"Why not? What obstacle is there?" + +"I can't tell you--I daren't tell you." + +"Will you write it?" + +"No, I can't even write it--to _you_. Go, I implore you, before Van +Brandt comes back. Go, if you love me and pity me." + +She had roused my jealousy. I positively refused to leave her. + +"I insist on knowing what binds you to that man," I said. "Let him come +back! If _you_ won't answer my question, I will put it to _him_." + +She looked at me wildly, with a cry of terror. She saw my resolution in +my face. + +"Don't frighten me," she said. "Let me think." + +She reflected for a moment. Her eyes brightened, as if some new way out +of the difficulty had occurred to her. + +"Have you a mother living?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"Do you think she would come and see me?" + +"I am sure she would if I asked her." + +She considered with herself once more. "I will tell your mother what the +obstacle is," she said, thoughtfully. + +"When?" + +"To-morrow, at this time." + +She raised herself on her knees; the tears suddenly filled her eyes. She +drew me to her gently. "Kiss me," she whispered. "You will never come +here again. Kiss me for the last time." + +My lips had barely touched hers, when she started to her feet and +snatched up my hat from the chair on which I had placed it. + +"Take your hat," she said. "He has come back." + +My duller sense of hearing had discovered nothing. I rose and took +my hat to quiet her. At the same moment the door of the room opened +suddenly and softly. Mr. Van Brandt came in. I saw in his face that he +had some vile motive of his own for trying to take us by surprise, and +that the result of the experiment had disappointed him. + +"You are not going yet?" he said, speaking to me with his eye on Mrs. +Van Brandt. "I have hurried over my business in the hope of prevailing +on you to stay and take lunch with us. Put down your hat, Mr. Germaine. +No ceremony!" + +"You are very good," I answered. "My time is limited to-day. I must beg +you and Mrs. Van Brandt to excuse me." + +I took leave of her as I spoke. She turned deadly pale when she shook +hands with me at parting. Had she any open brutality to dread from Van +Brandt as soon as my back was turned? The bare suspicion of it made my +blood boil. But I thought of _her_. In her interests, the wise thing and +the merciful thing to do was to conciliate the fellow before I left the +house. + +"I am sorry not to be able to accept your invitation," I said, as we +walked together to the door. "Perhaps you will give me another chance?" + +His eyes twinkled cunningly. "What do you say to a quiet little dinner +here?" he asked. "A slice of mutton, you know, and a bottle of good +wine. Only our three selves, and one old friend of mine to make up +four. We will have a rubber of whist in the evening. Mary and you +partners--eh? When shall it be? Shall we say the day after to-morrow?" + +She had followed us to the door, keeping behind Van Brandt while he was +speaking to me. When he mentioned the "old friend" and the "rubber of +whist," her face expressed the strongest emotions of shame and disgust. +The next moment (when she had heard him fix the date of the dinner for +"the day after to-morrow") her features became composed again, as if +a sudden sense of relief had come to her. What did the change mean? +"To-morrow" was the day she had appointed for seeing my mother. Did she +really believe, when I had heard what passed at the interview, that I +should never enter the house again, and never attempt to see her more? +And was this the secret of her composure when she heard the date of the +dinner appointed for "the day after to-morrow"? + +Asking myself these questions, I accepted my invitation, and left the +house with a heavy heart. That farewell kiss, that sudden composure when +the day of the dinner was fixed, weighed on my spirits. I would have +given twelve years of my life to have annihilated the next twelve hours. + +In this frame of mind I reached home, and presented myself in my +mother's sitting-room. + +"You have gone out earlier than usual to-day," she said. "Did the fine +weather tempt you, my dear?" She paused, and looked at me more closely. +"George!" she exclaimed, "what has happened to you? Where have you +been?" + +I told her the truth as honestly as I have told it here. + +The color deepened in my mother's face. She looked at me, and spoke to +me with a severity which was rare indeed in my experience of her. + +"Must I remind you, for the first time in your life, of what is due to +your mother?" she asked. "Is it possible that you expect me to visit a +woman, who, by her own confession--" + +"I expect you to visit a woman who has only to say the word and to be +your daughter-in-law," I interposed. "Surely I am not asking what is +unworthy of you, if I ask that?" + +My mother looked at me in blank dismay. + +"Do you mean, George, that you have offered her marriage?" + +"Yes." + +"And she has said No?" + +"She has said No, because there is some obstacle in her way. I have +tried vainly to make her explain herself. She has promised to confide +everything to _you_." + +The serious nature of the emergency had its effect. My mother yielded. +She handed me the little ivory tablets on which she was accustomed to +record her engagements. "Write down the name and address," she said +resignedly. + +"I will go with you," I answered, "and wait in the carriage at the +door. I want to hear what has passed between you and Mrs. Van Brandt the +instant you have left her." + +"Is it as serious as that, George?" + +"Yes, mother, it is as serious as that." + +CHAPTER XV. THE OBSTACLE BEATS ME. + +HOW long was I left alone in the carriage at the door of Mrs. Van +Brandt's lodgings? Judging by my sensations, I waited half a life-time. +Judging by my watch, I waited half an hour. + +When my mother returned to me, the hope which I had entertained of +a happy result from her interview with Mrs. Van Brandt was a hope +abandoned before she had opened her lips. I saw, in her face, that an +obstacle which was beyond my power of removal did indeed stand between +me and the dearest wish of my life. + +"Tell me the worst," I said, as we drove away from the house, "and tell +it at once." + +"I must tell it to you, George," my mother answered, sadly, "as she told +it to me. She begged me herself to do that. 'We must disappoint him,' +she said, 'but pray let it be done as gently as possible.' Beginning +in those words, she confided to me the painful story which you know +already--the story of her marriage. From that she passed to her meeting +with you at Edinburgh, and to the circumstances which have led her +to live as she is living now. This latter part of her narrative she +especially requested me to repeat to you. Do you feel composed enough to +hear it now? Or would you rather wait?" + +"Let me hear it now, mother; and tell it, as nearly as you can, in her +own words." + +"I will repeat what she said to me, my dear, as faithfully as I can. +After speaking of her father's death, she told me that she had only two +relatives living. 'I have a married aunt in Glasgow, and a married +aunt in London,' she said. 'When I left Edinburgh, I went to my aunt +in London. She and my father had not been on good terms together; she +considered that my father had neglected her. But his death had softened +her toward him and toward me. She received me kindly, and she got me a +situation in a shop. I kept my situation for three months, and then I +was obliged to leave it.'" + +My mother paused. I thought directly of the strange postscript which +Mrs. Van Brandt had made me add to the letter that I wrote for her at +the Edinburgh inn. In that case also she had only contemplated remaining +in her employment for three months' time. + +"Why was she obliged to leave her situation?" I asked. + +"I put that question to her myself," replied my mother. "She made no +direct reply--she changed color, and looked confused. 'I will tell you +afterward, madam,' she said. 'Please let me go on now. My aunt was angry +with me for leaving my employment--and she was more angry still, when +I told her the reason. She said I had failed in duty toward her in not +speaking frankly at first. We parted coolly. I had saved a little money +from my wages; and I did well enough while my savings lasted. When they +came to an end, I tried to get employment again, and I failed. My aunt +said, and said truly, that her husband's income was barely enough to +support his family: she could do nothing for me, and I could do nothing +for myself. I wrote to my aunt at Glasgow, and received no answer. +Starvation stared me in the face, when I saw in a newspaper an +advertisement addressed to me by Mr. Van Brandt. He implored me to write +to him; he declared that his life without me was too desolate to be +endured; he solemnly promised that there should be no interruption to my +tranquillity if I would return to him. If I had only had myself to think +of, I would have begged my bread in the streets rather than return to +him--'" + +I interrupted the narrative at that point. + +"What other person could she have had to think of?" I said. + +"Is it possible, George," my mother rejoined, "that you have no +suspicion of what she was alluding to when she said those words?" + +The question passed by me unheeded: my thoughts were dwelling bitterly +on Van Brandt and his advertisement. "She answered the advertisement, of +course?" I said. + +"And she saw Mr. Van Brandt," my mother went on. "She gave me no +detailed account of the interview between them. 'He reminded me,' she +said, 'of what I knew to be true--that the woman who had entrapped him +into marrying her was an incurable drunkard, and that his ever living +with her again was out of the question. Still she was alive, and she had +a right to the name at least of his wife. I won't attempt to excuse my +returning to him, knowing the circumstances as I did. I will only say +that I could see no other choice before me, in my position at the time. +It is needless to trouble you with what I have suffered since, or to +speak of what I may suffer still. I am a lost woman. Be under no alarm, +madam, about your son. I shall remember proudly to the end of my life +that he once offered me the honor and the happiness of becoming his +wife; but I know what is due to him and to you. I have seen him for the +last time. The one thing that remains to be done is to satisfy him that +our marriage is impossible. You are a mother; you will understand why +I reveal the obstacle which stands between us--not to him, but to you.' +She rose saying those words, and opened the folding-doors which led from +the parlor into a back room. After an absence of a few moments only, she +returned." + +At that crowning point in the narrative, my mother stopped. Was she +afraid to go on? or did she think it needless to say more? + +"Well?" I said. + +"Must I really tell it to you in words, George? Can't you guess how it +ended, even yet?" + +There were two difficulties in the way of my understanding her. I had +a man's bluntness of perception, and I was half maddened by suspense. +Incredible as it may appear, I was too dull to guess the truth even now. + +"When she returned to me," my mother resumed, "she was not alone. She +had with her a lovely little girl, just old enough to walk with the help +of her mother's hand. She tenderly kissed the child, and then she put it +on my lap. 'There is my only comfort,' she said, simply; 'and there is +the obstacle to my ever becoming Mr. Germaine's wife.'" + +Van Brandt's child! Van Brandt's child! + +The postscript which she had made me add to my letter; the +incomprehensible withdrawal from the employment in which she was +prospering; the disheartening difficulties which had brought her to the +brink of starvation; the degrading return to the man who had cruelly +deceived her--all was explained, all was excused now! With an infant at +the breast, how could she obtain a new employment? With famine staring +her in the face, what else could the friendless woman do but return to +the father of her child? What claim had I on her, by comparison with +_him_? What did it matter, now that the poor creature secretly returned +the love that I felt for her? There was the child, an obstacle between +us--there was _his_ hold on her, now that he had got her back! What was +_my_ hold worth? All social proprieties and all social laws answered the +question: Nothing! + +My head sunk on my breast; I received the blow in silence. + +My good mother took my hand. "You understand it now, George?" she said, +sorrowfully. + +"Yes, mother; I understand it." + +"There was one thing she wished me to say to you, my dear, which I have +not mentioned yet. She entreats you not to suppose that she had the +faintest idea of her situation when she attempted to destroy herself. +Her first suspicion that it was possible she might become a mother was +conveyed to her at Edinburgh, in a conversation with her aunt. It is +impossible, George, not to feel compassionately toward this poor woman. +Regrettable as her position is, I cannot see that she is to blame for +it. She was the innocent victim of a vile fraud when that man married +her; she has suffered undeservedly since; and she has behaved nobly to +you and to me. I only do her justice in saying that she is a woman in a +thousand--a woman worthy, under happier circumstances, to be my daughter +and your wife. I feel _for_ you, and feel _with_ you, my dear--I do, +with my whole heart." + +So this scene in my life was, to all appearance, a scene closed forever. +As it had been with my love, in the days of my boyhood, so it was again +now with the love of my riper age! + +Later in the day, when I had in some degree recovered my +self-possession, I wrote to Mr. Van Brandt--as _she_ had foreseen I +should write!--to apologize for breaking my engagement to dine with him. + +Could I trust to a letter also, to say the farewell words for me to the +woman whom I had loved and lost? No! It was better for her, and better +for me, that I should not write. And yet the idea of leaving her in +silence was more than my fortitude could endure. Her last words at +parting (as they were repeated to me by my mother) had expressed the +hope that I should not think hardly of her in the future. How could I +assure her that I should think of her tenderly to the end of my life? +My mother's delicate tact and true sympathy showed me the way. "Send a +little present, George," she said, "to the child. You bear no malice to +the poor little child?" God knows I was not hard on the child! I went +out myself and bought her a toy. I brought it home, and before I sent it +away, I pinned a slip of paper to it, bearing this inscription: "To your +little daughter, from George Germaine." There is nothing very pathetic, +I suppose, in those words. And yet I burst out crying when I had written +them. + +The next morning my mother and I set forth for my country-house in +Perthshire. London was now unendurable to me. Traveling abroad I had +tried already. Nothing was left but to go back to the Highlands, and to +try what I could make of my life, with my mother still left to live for. + +CHAPTER XVI. MY MOTHER'S DIARY. + +THERE is something repellent to me, even at this distance of time, in +looking back at the dreary days, of seclusion which followed each +other monotonously in my Highland home. The actions of my life, however +trifling they may have been, I can find some interest in recalling: they +associate me with my fellow-creatures; they connect me, in some degree, +with the vigorous movement of the world. But I have no sympathy with the +purely selfish pleasure which some men appear to derive from dwelling on +the minute anatomy of their own feelings, under the pressure of adverse +fortune. Let the domestic record of our stagnant life in Perthshire (so +far as I am concerned in it) be presented in my mother's words, not in +mine. A few lines of extract from the daily journal which it was her +habit to keep will tell all that need be told before this narrative +advances to later dates and to newer scenes. + + +"20th August.--We have been two months at our home in Scotland, and I +see no change in George for the better. He is as far as ever, I fear, +from being reconciled to his separation from that unhappy woman. Nothing +will induce him to confess it himself. He declares that his quiet life +here with me is all that he desires. But I know better! I have been into +his bedroom late at night. I have heard him talking of her in his sleep, +and I have seen the tears on his eyelids. My poor boy! What thousands +of charming women there are who would ask nothing better than to be his +wife! And the one woman whom he can never marry is the only woman whom +he loves! + +"25th.--A long conversation about George with Mr. MacGlue. I have never +liked this Scotch doctor since he encouraged my son to keep the fatal +appointment at Saint Anthony's Well. But he seems to be a clever man in +his profession--and I think, in his way, he means kindly toward George. +His advice was given as coarsely as usual, and very positively at the +same time. 'Nothing will cure your son, madam, of his amatory passion +for that half-drowned lady of his but change--and another lady. Send +him away by himself this time; and let him feel the want of some kind +creature to look after him. And when he meets with that kind creature +(they are as plenty as fish in the sea), never trouble your head about +it if there's a flaw in her character. I have got a cracked tea-cup +which has served me for twenty years. Marry him, ma'am, to the new one +with the utmost speed and impetuosity which the law will permit.' I hate +Mr. MacGlue's opinions--so coarse and so hard-hearted!--but I sadly fear +that I must part with my son for a little while, for his own sake. + +"26th.--Where is George to go? I have been thinking of it all through +the night, and I cannot arrive at a conclusion. It is so difficult to +reconcile myself to letting him go away alone. + +"29th.--I have always believed in special providences; and I am now +confirmed in my belief. This morning has brought with it a note from +our good friend and neighbor at Belhelvie. Sir James is one of the +commissioners for the Northern Lights. He is going in a Government +vessel to inspect the lighthouses on the North of Scotland, and on the +Orkney and Shetland Islands--and, having noticed how worn and ill my +poor boy looks, he most kindly invites George to be his guest on the +voyage. They will not be absent for more than two months; and the +sea (as Sir James reminds me) did wonders for George's health when he +returned from India. I could wish for no better opportunity than this of +trying what change of air and scene will do for him. However painfully I +may feel the separation myself, I shall put a cheerful face on it; and I +shall urge George to accept the invitation. + +"30th.--I have said all I could; but he still refuses to leave me. I am +a miserable, selfish creature. I felt so glad when he said No. + +"31st.--Another wakeful night. George must positively send his answer to +Sir James to-day. I am determined to do my duty toward my son--he looks +so dreadfully pale and ill this morning! Besides, if something is not +done to rouse him, how do I know that he may not end in going back to +Mrs. Van Brandt after all? From every point of view, I feel bound to +insist on his accepting Sir James's invitation. I have only to be firm, +and the thing is done. He has never yet disobeyed me, poor fellow. He +will not disobey me now. + +"2d September.--He has gone! Entirely to please me--entirely against his +own wishes. Oh, how is it that such a good son cannot get a good wife! +He would make any woman happy. I wonder whether I have done right in +sending him away? The wind is moaning in the fir plantation at the back +of the house. Is there a storm at sea? I forgot to ask Sir James how big +the vessel was. The 'Guide to Scotland' says the coast is rugged; and +there is a wild sea between the north shore and the Orkney Islands. I +almost regret having insisted so strongly--how foolish I am! We are all +in the hands of God. May God bless and prosper my good son! + +"10th.--Very uneasy. No letter from George. Ah, how full of trouble this +life is! and how strange that we should cling to it as we do! + +"15th.--A letter from George! They have done with the north coast and +they have crossed the wild sea to the Orkneys. Wonderful weather has +favored them so far; and George is in better health and spirits. Ah! how +much happiness there is in life if we only have the patience to wait for +it. + +"2d October.--Another letter. They are safe in the harbor of Lerwick, +the chief port in the Shetland Islands. The weather has not latterly +been at all favorable. But the amendment in George's health remains. He +writes most gratefully of Sir James's unremitting kindness to him. I am +so happy, I declare I could kiss Sir James--though he _is_ a great man, +and a Commissioner for Northern Lights! In three weeks more (wind and +weather permitting) they hope to get back. Never mind my lonely life +here, if I can only see George happy and well again! He tells me they +have passed a great deal of their time on shore; but not a word does +he say about meeting any ladies. Perhaps they are scarce in those wild +regions? I have heard of Shetland shawls and Shetland ponies. Are there +any Shetland ladies, I wonder?" + +CHAPTER XVII. SHETLAND HOSPITALITY. + +"GUIDE! Where are we?" + +"I can't say for certain." + +"Have you lost your way?" + +The guide looks slowly all round him, and then looks at me. That is his +answer to my question. And that is enough. + +The lost persons are three in number. My traveling companion, myself, +and the guide. We are seated on three Shetland ponies--so small in +stature, that we two strangers were at first literally ashamed to get on +their backs. We are surrounded by dripping white mist so dense that we +become invisible to one another at a distance of half a dozen yards. We +know that we are somewhere on the mainland of the Shetland Isles. We see +under the feet of our ponies a mixture of moorland and bog--here, the +strip of firm ground that we are standing on, and there, a few feet off, +the strip of watery peat-bog, which is deep enough to suffocate us if +we step into it. Thus far, and no further, our knowledge extends. This +question of the moment is, What are we to do next? + +The guide lights his pipe, and reminds me that he warned us against the +weather before we started for our ride. My traveling companion looks +at me resignedly, with an expression of mild reproach. I deserve it. My +rashness is to blame for the disastrous position in which we now find +ourselves. + +In writing to my mother, I have been careful to report favorably of my +health and spirits. But I have not confessed that I still remember the +day when I parted with the one hope and renounced the one love which +made life precious to me. My torpid condition of mind, at home, +has simply given place to a perpetual restlessness, produced by the +excitement of my new life. I must now always be doing something--no +matter what, so long as it diverts me from my own thoughts. Inaction is +unendurable; solitude has become horrible to me. While the other members +of the party which has accompanied Sir James on his voyage of inspection +among the lighthouses are content to wait in the harbor of Lerwick for +a favorable change in the weather, I am obstinately bent on leaving +the comfortable shelter of the vessel to explore some inland ruin of +prehistoric times, of which I never heard, and for which I care nothing. +The movement is all I want; the ride will fill the hateful void of +time. I go, in defiance of sound advice offered to me on all sides. The +youngest member of our party catches the infection of my recklessness +(in virtue of his youth) and goes with me. And what has come of it? +We are blinded by mist; we are lost on a moor; and the treacherous +peat-bogs are round us in every direction! + +What is to be done? + +"Just leave it to the pownies," the guide says. + +"Do you mean leave the ponies to find the way?" + +"That's it," says the guide. "Drop the bridle, and leave it to the +pownies. See for yourselves. I'm away on _my_ powny." + +He drops his bridle on the pommel of his saddle, whistles to his pony, +and disappears in the mist; riding with his hands in his pockets, and +his pipe in his mouth, as composedly as if he were sitting by his own +fireside at home. + +We have no choice but to follow his example, or to be left alone on +the moor. The intelligent little animals, relieved from our stupid +supervision, trot off with their noses to the ground, like hounds on the +scent. Where the intersecting tract of bog is wide, they skirt round it. +Where it is narrow enough to be leaped over, they cross it by a jump. +Trot! trot!--away the hardy little creatures go; never stopping, never +hesitating. Our "superior intelligence," perfectly useless in the +emergency, wonders how it will end. Our guide, in front of us, answers +that it will end in the ponies finding their way certainly to the +nearest village or the nearest house. "Let the bridles be," is his one +warning to us. "Come what may of it, let the bridles be!" + +It is easy for the guide to let his bridle be--he is accustomed to place +himself in that helpless position under stress of circumstances, and he +knows exactly what his pony can do. + +To us, however, the situation is a new one; and it looks dangerous in +the extreme. More than once I check myself, not without an effort, in +the act of resuming the command of my pony on passing the more dangerous +points in the journey. The time goes on; and no sign of an inhabited +dwelling looms through the mist. I begin to get fidgety and irritable; I +find myself secretly doubting the trustworthiness of the guide. While +I am in this unsettled frame of mind, my pony approaches a dim, black, +winding line, where the bog must be crossed for the hundredth time at +least. The breadth of it (deceptively enlarged in appearance by the +mist) looks to my eyes beyond the reach of a leap by any pony that ever +was foaled. I lose my presence of mind. At the critical moment before +the jump is taken, I am foolish enough to seize the bridle, and suddenly +check the pony. He starts, throws up his head, and falls instantly as if +he had been shot. My right hand, as we drop on the ground together, gets +twisted under me, and I feel that I have sprained my wrist. + +If I escape with no worse injury than this, I may consider myself well +off. But no such good fortune is reserved for me. In his struggles to +rise, before I have completely extricated myself from him, the pony +kicks me; and, as my ill-luck will have it, his hoof strikes just where +the poisoned spear struck me in the past days of my service in India. +The old wound opens again--and there I lie bleeding on the barren +Shetland moor! + +This time my strength has not been exhausted in attempting to breast +the current of a swift-flowing river with a drowning woman to support. +I preserve my senses; and I am able to give the necessary directions +for bandaging the wound with the best materials which we have at our +disposal. To mount my pony again is simply out of the question. I must +remain where I am, with my traveling companion to look after me; and the +guide must trust his pony to discover the nearest place of shelter to +which I can be removed. + +Before he abandons us on the moor, the man (at my suggestion) takes our +"bearings," as correctly as he can by the help of my pocket-compass. +This done, he disappears in the mist, with the bridle hanging loose, +and the pony's nose to the ground, as before. I am left, under my young +friend's care, with a cloak to lie on, and a saddle for a pillow. Our +ponies composedly help themselves to such grass as they can find on the +moor; keeping always near us as companionably as if they were a couple +of dogs. In this position we wait events, while the dripping mist hangs +thicker than ever all round us. + +The slow minutes follow each other wearily in the majestic silence of +the moor. We neither of us acknowledge it in words, but we both feel +that hours may pass before the guide discovers us again. The penetrating +damp slowly strengthens its clammy hold on me. My companion's +pocket-flask of sherry has about a teaspoonful of wine left in the +bottom of it. We look at one another--having nothing else to look at in +the present state of the weather--and we try to make the best of it. So +the slow minutes follow each other, until our watches tell us that forty +minutes have elapsed since the guide and his pony vanished from our +view. + +My friend suggests that we may as well try what our voices can do toward +proclaiming our situation to any living creature who may, by the barest +possibility, be within hearing of us. I leave him to try the experiment, +having no strength to spare for vocal efforts of any sort. My companion +shouts at the highest pitch of his voice. Silence follows his first +attempt. He tries again; and, this time, an answering hail reaches us +faintly through the white fog. A fellow-creature of some sort, guide or +stranger, is near us--help is coming at last! + +An interval passes; and voices reach our ears--the voices of two men. +Then the shadowy appearance of the two becomes visible in the mist. Then +the guide advances near enough to be identified. He is followed by a +sturdy fellow in a composite dress, which presents him under the double +aspect of a groom and a gardener. The guide speaks a few words of rough +sympathy. The composite man stands by impenetrably silent; the sight of +a disabled stranger fails entirely either to surprise or to interest the +gardener-groom. + +After a little private consultation, the two men decide to cross their +hands, and thus make a seat for me between them. My arms rest on their +shoulders; and so they carry me off. My friend trudges behind them, with +the saddle and the cloak. The ponies caper and kick, in unrestrained +enjoyment of their freedom; and sometimes follow, sometimes precede +us, as the humor of the moment inclines them. I am, fortunately for my +bearers, a light weight. After twice resting, they stop altogether, and +set me down on the driest place they can find. I look eagerly through +the mist for some signs of a dwelling-house--and I see nothing but a +little shelving beach, and a sheet of dark water beyond. Where are we? + +The gardener-groom vanishes, and appears again on the water, looming +large in a boat. I am laid down in the bottom of the boat, with my +saddle-pillow; and we shove off, leaving the ponies to the desolate +freedom of the moor. They will pick up plenty to eat (the guide says); +and when night comes on they will find their own way to shelter in a +village hard by. The last I see of the hardy little creatures they are +taking a drink of water, side by side, and biting each other sportively +in higher spirits than ever! + +Slowly we float over the dark water--not a river, as I had at first +supposed, but a lake--until we reach the shores of a little island; a +flat, lonely, barren patch of ground. I am carried along a rough pathway +made of great flat stones, until we reach the firmer earth, and discover +a human dwelling-place at last. It is a long, low house of one story +high; forming (as well as I can see) three sides of a square. The door +stands hospitably open. The hall within is bare and cold and dreary. The +men open an inner door, and we enter a long corridor, comfortably warmed +by a peat fire. On one wall I notice the closed oaken doors of rooms; +on the other, rows on rows of well-filled book-shelves meet my eye. +Advancing to the end of the first passage, we turn at right angles into +a second. Here a door is opened at last: I find myself in a spacious +room, completely and tastefully furnished, having two beds in it, and +a large fire burning in the grate. The change to this warm and cheerful +place of shelter from the chilly and misty solitude of the moor is +so luxuriously delightful that I am quite content, for the first +few minutes, to stretch myself on a bed, in lazy enjoyment of my new +position; without caring to inquire into whose house we have intruded; +without even wondering at the strange absence of master, mistress, or +member of the family to welcome our arrival under their hospitable roof. + +After a while, the first sense of relief passes away. My dormant +curiosity revives. I begin to look about me. + +The gardener-groom has disappeared. I discover my traveling companion +at the further end of the room, evidently occupied in questioning the +guide. A word from me brings him to my bedside. What discoveries has he +made? whose is the house in which we are sheltered; and how is it that +no member of the family appears to welcome us? + +My friend relates his discoveries. The guide listens as attentively to +the second-hand narrative as if it were quite new to him. + +The house that shelters us belongs to a gentleman of ancient Northern +lineage, whose name is Dunross. He has lived in unbroken retirement on +the barren island for twenty years past, with no other companion than a +daughter, who is his only child. He is generally believed to be one of +the most learned men living. The inhabitants of Shetland know him far +and wide, under a name in their dialect which means, being interpreted, +"The Master of Books." The one occasion on which he and his daughter +have been known to leave their island retreat was at a past time when +a terrible epidemic disease broke out among the villages in the +neighborhood. Father and daughter labored day and night among their poor +and afflicted neighbors, with a courage which no danger could shake, +with a tender care which no fatigue could exhaust. The father had +escaped infection, and the violence of the epidemic was beginning to +wear itself out, when the daughter caught the disease. Her life had been +preserved, but she never completely recovered her health. She is now an +incurable sufferer from some mysterious nervous disorder which +nobody understands, and which has kept her a prisoner on the island, +self-withdrawn from all human observation, for years past. Among the +poor inhabitants of the district, the father and daughter are worshiped +as semi-divine beings. Their names come after the Sacred Name in the +prayers which the parents teach to their children. + +Such is the household (so far as the guide's story goes) on whose +privacy we have intruded ourselves! The narrative has a certain interest +of its own, no doubt, but it has one defect--it fails entirely to +explain the continued absence of Mr. Dunross. Is it possible that he is +not aware of our presence in the house? We apply the guide, and make a +few further inquiries of him. + +"Are we here," I ask, "by permission of Mr. Dunross?" + +The guide stares. If I had spoken to him in Greek or Hebrew, I could +hardly have puzzled him more effectually. My friend tries him with a +simpler form of words. + +"Did you ask leave to bring us here when you found your way to the +house?" + +The guide stares harder than ever, with every appearance of feeling +perfectly scandalized by the question. + +"Do you think," he asks, sternly, "'that I am fool enough to disturb the +Master over his books for such a little matter as bringing you and your +friend into this house?" + +"Do you mean that you have brought us here without first asking leave?" +I exclaim in amazement. + +The guide's face brightens; he has beaten the true state of the case +into our stupid heads at last! "That's just what I mean!" he says, with +an air of infinite relief. + +The door opens before we have recovered the shock inflicted on us by +this extraordinary discovery. A little, lean, old gentleman, shrouded +in a long black dressing-gown, quietly enters the room. The guide steps +forward, and respectfully closes the door for him. We are evidently in +the presence of The Master of Books! + +CHAPTER XVIII. THE DARKENED ROOM. + +THE little gentleman advances to my bedside. His silky white hair flows +over his shoulders; he looks at us with faded blue eyes; he bows with a +sad and subdued courtesy, and says, in the simplest manner, "I bid you +welcome, gentlemen, to my house." + +We are not content with merely thanking him; we naturally attempt to +apologize for our intrusion. Our host defeats the attempt at the outset +by making an apology on his own behalf. + +"I happened to send for my servant a minute since," he proceeds, "and +I only then heard that you were here. It is a custom of the house +that nobody interrupts me over my books. Be pleased, sir, to accept +my excuses," he adds, addressing himself to me, "for not having sooner +placed myself and my household at your disposal. You have met, as I am +sorry to hear, with an accident. Will you permit me to send for medical +help? I ask the question a little abruptly, fearing that time may be of +importance, and knowing that our nearest doctor lives at some distance +from this house." + +He speaks with a certain quaintly precise choice of words--more like a +man dictating a letter than holding a conversation. The subdued sadness +of his manner is reflected in the subdued sadness of his face. He and +sorrow have apparently been old acquaintances, and have become used to +each other for years past. The shadow of some past grief rests quietly +and impenetrably over the whole man; I see it in his faded blue eyes, on +his broad forehead, on his delicate lips, on his pale shriveled cheeks. +My uneasy sense of committing an intrusion on him steadily increases, +in spite of his courteous welcome. I explain to him that I am capable of +treating my own case, having been myself in practice as a medical man; +and this said, I revert to my interrupted excuses. I assure him that it +is only within the last few moments that my traveling companion and +I have become aware of the liberty which our guide has taken in +introducing us, on his own sole responsibility, to the house. Mr. +Dunross looks at me, as if he, like the guide, failed entirely to +understand what my scruples and excuses mean. After a while the truth +dawns on him. A faint smile flickers over his face; he lays his hand in +a gentle, fatherly way on my shoulder. + +"We are so used here to our Shetland hospitality," he says, "that we +are slow to understand the hesitation which a stranger feels in taking +advantage of it. Your guide is in no respect to blame, gentlemen. Every +house in these islands which is large enough to contain a spare room has +its Guests' Chamber, always kept ready for occupation. When you travel +my way, you come here as a matter of course; you stay here as long as +you like; and, when you go away, I only do my duty as a good Shetlander +in accompanying you on the first stage of your journey to bid you +godspeed. The customs of centuries past elsewhere are modern customs +here. I beg of you to give my servant all the directions which are +necessary to your comfort, just as freely as you could give them in your +own house." + +He turns aside to ring a hand-bell on the table as he speaks; and +notices in the guide's face plain signs that the man has taken offense +at my disparaging allusion to him. + +"Strangers cannot be expected to understand our ways, Andrew," says +The Master of Books. "But you and I understand one another--and that is +enough." + +The guide's rough face reddens with pleasure. If a crowned king on a +throne had spoken condescendingly to him, he could hardly have looked +more proud of the honor conferred than he looks now. He makes a clumsy +attempt to take the Master's hand and kiss it. Mr. Dunross gently repels +the attempt, and gives him a little pat on the head. The guide looks at +me and my friend as if he had been honored with the highest distinction +that an earthly being can receive. The Master's hand had touched him +kindly! + +In a moment more, the gardener-groom appears at the door to answer the +bell. + +"You will move the medicine-chest into this room, Peter," says Mr. +Dunross. "And you will wait on this gentleman, who is confined to his +bed by an accident, exactly as you would wait on me if I were ill. If +we both happen to ring for you together, you will answer his bell before +you answer mine. The usual changes of linen are, of course, ready in the +wardrobe there? Very good. Go now, and tell the cook to prepare a little +dinner; and get a bottle of the old Madeira out of the cellar. You will +least, in this room. These two gentlemen will be best pleased to dine +together. Return here in five minutes' time, in case you are wanted; and +show my guest, Peter, that I am right in believing you to be a good +nurse as well as a good servant." + +The silent and surly Peter brightens under the expression of the +Master's confidence in him, as the guide brightened under the influence +of the Master's caressing touch. The two men leave the room together. + +We take advantage of the momentary silence that follows to introduce +ourselves by name to our host, and to inform him of the circumstances +under which we happen to be visiting Shetland. He listens in his +subdued, courteous way; but he makes no inquiries about our relatives; +he shows no interest in the arrival of the Government yacht and the +Commissioner for Northern Lights. All sympathy with the doings of +the outer world, all curiosity about persons of social position and +notoriety, is evidently at an end in Mr. Dunross. For twenty years the +little round of his duties and his occupations has been enough for him. +Life has lost its priceless value to this man; and when Death comes to +him he will receive the king of terrors as he might receive the last of +his guests. + +"Is there anything else I can do," he says, speaking more to himself +than to us, "before I go back to my books?" + +Something else occurs to him, even as he puts the question. He addresses +my companion, with his faint, sad smile. "This will be a dull life, I am +afraid, sir, for you. If you happen to be fond of angling, I can offer +you some little amusement in that way. The lake is well stocked with +fish; and I have a boy employed in the garden, who will be glad to +attend on you in the boat." + +My friend happens to be fond of fishing, and gladly accepts the +invitation. The Master says his parting words to me before he goes back +to his books. + +"You may safely trust my man Peter to wait on you, Mr. Germaine, while +you are so unfortunate as to be confined to this room. He has the +advantage (in cases of illness) of being a very silent, undemonstrative +person. At the same time he is careful and considerate, in his own +reserved way. As to what I may term the lighter duties at your bedside +such as reading to you, writing your letters for you while your right +hand is still disabled, regulating the temperature in the room, and +so on--though I cannot speak positively, I think it likely that these +little services may be rendered to you by another person whom I have not +mentioned yet. We shall see what happens in a few hours' time. In the +meanwhile, sir, I ask permission to leave you to your rest." + +With those words, he walks out of the room as quietly as he walked +into it, and leaves his two guests to meditate gratefully on Shetland +hospitality. We both wonder what those last mysterious words of our host +mean; and we exchange more or less ingenious guesses on the subject of +that nameless "other person" who may possibly attend on me--until the +arrival of dinner turns our thoughts into a new course. + +The dishes are few in number, but cooked to perfection and admirably +served. I am too weary to eat much: a glass of the fine old Madeira +revives me. We arrange our future plans while we are engaged over the +meal. Our return to the yacht in Lerwick harbor is expected on the next +day at the latest. As things are, I can only leave my companion to go +back to the vessel, and relieve the minds of our friends of any needless +alarm about me. On the day after, I engage to send on board a written +report of the state of my health, by a messenger who can bring my +portmanteau back with him. + +These arrangements decided on, my friend goes away (at my own request) +to try his skill as an angler in the lake. Assisted by the silent Peter +and the well-stocked medicine-chest, I apply the necessary dressings to +my wound, wrap myself in the comfortable morning-gown which is always +kept ready in the Guests' Chamber, and lie down again on the bed to try +the restorative virtues of sleep. + +Before he leaves the room, silent Peter goes to the window, and asks +in fewest possible words if he shall draw the curtains. In fewer words +still--for I am feeling drowsy already--I answer No. I dislike shutting +out the cheering light of day. To my morbid fancy, at that moment, +it looks like resigning myself deliberately to the horrors of a long +illness. The hand-bell is on my bedside table; and I can always ring for +Peter if the light keeps me from sleeping. On this understanding, Peter +mutely nods his head, and goes out. + +For some minutes I lie in lazy contemplation of the companionable fire. +Meanwhile the dressings on my wound and the embrocation on my sprained +wrist steadily subdue the pains which I have felt so far. Little by +little, the bright fire seems to be fading. Little by little, sleep +steals on me, and all my troubles are forgotten. + +I wake, after what seems to have been a long repose--I wake, feeling the +bewilderment which we all experience on opening our eyes for the first +time in a bed and a room that are new to us. Gradually collecting my +thoughts, I find my perplexity considerably increased by a trifling but +curious circumstance. The curtains which I had forbidden Peter to touch +are drawn--closely drawn, so as to plunge the whole room in obscurity. +And, more surprising still, a high screen with folding sides stands +before the fire, and confines the light which it might otherwise give +exclusively to the ceiling. I am literally enveloped in shadows. Has +night come? + +In lazy wonder, I turn my head on the pillow, and look on the other side +of my bed. + +Dark as it is, I discover instantly that I am not alone. + +A shadowy figure stands by my bedside. The dim outline of the dress +tells me that it is the figure of a woman. Straining my eyes, I fancy +I can discern a wavy black object covering her head and shoulders +which looks like a large veil. Her face is turned toward me, but no +distinguishing feature in it is visible. She stands like a statue, with +her hands crossed in front of her, faintly relieved against the dark +substance of her dress. This I can see--and this is all. + +There is a moment of silence. The shadowy being finds its voice, and +speaks first. + +"I hope you feel better, sir, after your rest?" + +The voice is low, with a certain faint sweetness or tone which falls +soothingly on my ear. The accent is unmistakably the accent of a refined +and cultivated person. After making my acknowledgments to the unknown +and half-seen lady, I venture to ask the inevitable question, "To whom +have I the honor of speaking?" + +The lady answers, "I am Miss Dunross; and I hope, if you have no +objection to it, to help Peter in nursing you." + +This, then, is the "other person" dimly alluded to by our host! I +think directly of the heroic conduct of Miss Dunross among her poor and +afflicted neighbors; and I do not forget the melancholy result of her +devotion to others which has left her an incurable invalid. My anxiety +to see this lady more plainly increases a hundred-fold. I beg her to add +to my grateful sense of her kindness by telling me why the room is so +dark "Surely," I say, "it cannot be night already?" + +"You have not been asleep," she answers, "for more than two hours. The +mist has disappeared, and the sun is shining." + +I take up the bell, standing on the table at my side. + +"May I ring for Peter, Miss Dunross?" + +"To open the curtains, Mr. Germaine?" + +"Yes--with your permission. I own I should like to see the sunlight." + +"I will send Peter to you immediately." + +The shadowy figure of my new nurse glides away. In another moment, +unless I say something to stop her, the woman whom I am so eager to see +will have left the room. + +"Pray don't go!" I say. "I cannot think of troubling you to take a +trifling message for me. The servant will come in, if I only ring the +bell." + +She pauses--more shadowy than ever--halfway between the bed and the +door, and answers a little sadly: + +"Peter will not let in the daylight while I am in the room. He closed +the curtains by my order." + +The reply puzzles me. Why should Peter keep the room dark while Miss +Dunross is in it? Are her eyes weak? No; if her eyes were weak, they +would be protected by a shade. Dark as it is, I can see that she does +not wear a shade. Why has the room been darkened--if not for me? I +cannot venture on asking the question--I can only make my excuses in due +form. + +"Invalids only think of themselves," I say. "I supposed that you had +kindly darkened the room on my account." + +She glides back to my bedside before she speaks again. When she does +answer, it is in these startling words: + +"You were mistaken, Mr. Germaine. Your room has been darkened--not on +your account, but on _mine_." + +CHAPTER XIX. THE CATS. + +MISS DUNROSS had so completely perplexed me, that I was at a loss what +to say next. + +To ask her plainly why it was necessary to keep the room in darkness +while she remained in it, might prove (for all I knew to the contrary) +to be an act of positive rudeness. To venture on any general expression +of sympathy with her, knowing absolutely nothing of the circumstances, +might place us both in an embarrassing position at the outset of our +acquaintance. The one thing I could do was to beg that the present +arrangement of the room might not be disturbed, and to leave her to +decide as to whether she should admit me to her confidence or exclude me +from it, at her own sole discretion. + +She perfectly understood what was going on in my mind. Taking a chair at +the foot of the bed, she told me simply and unreservedly the sad secret +of the darkened room. + +"If you wish to see much of me, Mr. Germaine," she began, "you must +accustom yourself to the world of shadows in which it is my lot to live. +Some time since, a dreadful illness raged among the people in our part +of this island; and I was so unfortunate as to catch the infection. When +I recovered--no! 'Recovery' is not the right word to use--let me say, +when I escaped death, I found myself afflicted by a nervous malady which +has defied medical help from that time to this. I am suffering (as the +doctors explain it to me) from a morbidly sensitive condition of the +nerves near the surface to the action of light. If I were to draw the +curtains, and look out of that window, I should feel the acutest pain +all over my face. If I covered my face, and drew the curtains with my +bare hands, I should feel the same pain in my hands. You can just see, +perhaps, that I have a very large and very thick veil on my head. I let +it fall over my face and neck and hands, when I have occasion to +pass along the corridors or to enter my father's study--and I find it +protection enough. Don't be too ready to deplore my sad condition, +sir! I have got so used to living in the dark that I can see quite well +enough for all the purposes of _my_ poor existence. I can read and write +in these shadows--I can see you, and be of use to you in many little +ways, if you will let me. There is really nothing to be distressed +about. My life will not be a long one--I know and feel that. But I hope +to be spared long enough to be my father's companion through the closing +years of his life. Beyond that, I have no prospect. In the meanwhile, +I have my pleasures; and I mean to add to my scanty little stack the +pleasure of attending on you. You are quite an event in my life. I +look forward to reading to you and writing for you, as some girls look +forward to a new dress, or a first ball. Do you think it very strange of +me to tell you so openly just what I have in my mind? I can't help it! I +say what I think to my father and to our poor neighbors hereabouts--and +I can't alter my ways at a moment's notice. I own it when I like people; +and I own it when I don't. I have been looking at you while you were +asleep; and I have read your face as I might read a book. There are +signs of sorrow on your forehead and your lips which it is strange to +see in so young a face as yours. I am afraid I shall trouble you with +many questions about yourself when we become better acquainted with each +other. Let me begin with a question, in my capacity as nurse. Are your +pillows comfortable? I can see they want shaking up. Shall I send for +Peter to raise you? I am unhappily not strong enough to be able to help +you in that way. No? You are able to raise yourself? Wait a little. +There! Now lie back--and tell me if I know how to establish the right +sort of sympathy between a tumbled pillow and a weary head." + +She had so indescribably touched and interested me, stranger as I was, +that the sudden cessation of her faint, sweet tones affected me almost +with a sense of pain. In trying (clumsily enough) to help her with the +pillows, I accidentally touched her hand. It felt so cold and so thin, +that even the momentary contact with it startled me. I tried vainly to +see her face, now that it was more within reach of my range of view. +The merciless darkness kept it as complete a mystery as ever. Had my +curiosity escaped her notice? Nothing escaped her notice. Her next words +told me plainly that I had been discovered. + +"You have been trying to see me," she said. "Has my hand warned you not +to try again? I felt that it startled you when you touched it just now." + +Such quickness of perception as this was not to be deceived; such +fearless candor demanded as a right a similar frankness on my side. I +owned the truth, and left it to her indulgence to forgive me. + +She returned slowly to her chair at the foot of the bed. + +"If we are to be friends," she said, "we must begin by understanding +one another. Don't associate any romantic ideas of invisible beauty +with _me_, Mr. Germaine. I had but one beauty to boast of before I fell +ill--my complexion--and that has gone forever. There is nothing to see +in me now but the poor reflection of my former self; the ruin of +what was once a woman. I don't say this to distress you--I say it to +reconcile you to the darkness as a perpetual obstacle, so far as your +eyes are concerned, between you and me. Make the best instead of the +worst of your strange position here. It offers you a new sensation +to amuse you while you are ill. You have a nurse who is an impersonal +creature--a shadow among shadows; a voice to speak to you, and a hand to +help you, and nothing more. Enough of myself!" she exclaimed, rising +and changing her tone. "What can I do to amuse you?" She considered +a little. "I have some odd tastes," she resumed; "and I think I may +entertain you if I make you acquainted with one of them. Are you like +most other men, Mr. Germaine? Do you hate cats?" + +The question startled me. However, I could honestly answer that, in this +respect at least, I was not like other men. + +"To my thinking," I added, "the cat is a cruelly misunderstood +creature--especially in England. Women, no doubt, generally do justice +to the affectionate nature of cats. But the men treat them as if they +were the natural enemies of the human race. The men drive a cat out of +their presence if it ventures upstairs, and set their dogs at it if it +shows itself in the street--and then they turn round and accuse the poor +creature (whose genial nature must attach itself to something) of being +only fond of the kitchen!" + +The expression of these unpopular sentiments appeared to raise me +greatly in the estimation of Miss Dunross. + +"We have one sympathy in common, at any rate," she said. "Now I can +amuse you! Prepare for a surprise." + +She drew her veil over her face as she spoke, and, partially opening the +door, rang my handbell. Peter appeared, and received his instructions. + +"Move the screen," said Miss Dunross. Peter obeyed; the ruddy firelight +streamed over the floor. Miss Dunross proceeded with her directions. +"Open the door of the cats' room, Peter; and bring me my harp. Don't +suppose that you are going to listen to a great player, Mr. Germaine," +she went on, when Peter had departed on his singular errand, "or that +you are likely to see the sort of harp to which you are accustomed, as +a man of the modern time. I can only play some old Scotch airs; and my +harp is an ancient instrument (with new strings)--an heirloom in our +family, some centuries old. When you see my harp, you will think of +pictures of St. Cecilia--and you will be treating my performance kindly +if you will remember, at the same time, that I am no saint!" + +She drew her chair into the firelight, and sounded a whistle which +she took from the pocket of her dress. In another moment the lithe +and shadowy figures of the cats appeared noiselessly in the red light, +answering their mistress's call. I could just count six of them, as the +creatures seated themselves demurely in a circle round the chair. Peter +followed with the harp, and closed the door after him as he went out. +The streak of daylight being now excluded from the room, Miss Dunross +threw back her veil, and took the harp on her knee; seating herself, I +observed, with her face turned away from the fire. + +"You will have light enough to see the cats by," she said, "without +having too much light for _me_. Firelight does not give me the acute +pain which I suffer when daylight falls on my face--I feel a certain +inconvenience from it, and nothing more." + +She touched the strings of her instrument--the ancient harp, as she had +said, of the pictured St. Cecilia; or, rather, as I thought, the ancient +harp of the Welsh bards. The sound was at first unpleasantly high in +pitch, to my untutored ear. At the opening notes of the melody--a slow, +wailing, dirgelike air--the cats rose, and circled round their mistress, +marching to the tune. Now they followed each other singly; now, at a +change in the melody, they walked two and two; and, now again, they +separated into divisions of three each, and circled round the chair in +opposite directions. The music quickened, and the cats quickened their +pace with it. Faster and faster the notes rang out, and faster and +faster in the ruddy firelight, the cats, like living shadows, whirled +round the still black figure in the chair, with the ancient harp on its +knee. Anything so weird, wild, and ghostlike I never imagined before +even in a dream! The music changed, and the whirling cats began to leap. +One perched itself at a bound on the pedestal of the harp. Four sprung +up together, and assumed their places, two on each of her shoulders. +The last and smallest of the cats took the last leap, and lighted on +her head! There the six creatures kept their positions, motionless as +statues! Nothing moved but the wan, white hands over the harp-strings; +no sound but the sound of the music stirred in the room. Once more the +melody changed. In an instant the six cats were on the floor again, +seated round the chair as I had seen them on their first entrance; the +harp was laid aside; and the faint, sweet voice said quietly, "I am soon +tired--I must leave my cats to conclude their performances tomorrow." + +She rose, and approached the bedside. + +"I leave you to see the sunset through your window," she said. "From +the coming of the darkness to the coming of breakfast-time, you must +not count on my services--I am taking my rest. I have no choice but to +remain in bed (sleeping when I can) for twelve hours or more. The long +repose seems to keep my life in me. Have I and my cats surprised you +very much? Am I a witch; and are they my familiar spirits? Remember how +few amusements I have, and you will not wonder why I devote myself to +teaching these pretty creatures their tricks, and attaching them to me +like dogs! They were slow at first, and they taught me excellent lessons +of patience. Now they understand what I want of them, and they learn +wonderfully well. How you will amuse your friend, when he comes back +from fishing, with the story of the young lady who lives in the dark, +and keeps a company of performing cats! I shall expect _you_ to amuse +_me_ to-morrow--I want you to tell me all about yourself, and how you +came to visit these wild islands of ours. Perhaps, as the days go on, +and we get better acquainted, you will take me a little more into your +confidence, and tell me the true meaning of that story of sorrow which I +read on your face while you were asleep? I have just enough of the woman +left in me to be the victim of curiosity, when I meet with a person who +interests me. Good-by till to-morrow! I wish you a tranquil night, and a +pleasant waking.--Come, my familiar spirits! Come, my cat children! it's +time we went back to our own side of the house." + +She dropped the veil over her face--and, followed by her train of cats, +glided out of the room. + +Immediately on her departure, Peter appeared and drew back the curtains. +The light of the setting sun streamed in at the window. At the same +moment my traveling companion returned in high spirits, eager to tell me +about his fishing in the lake. The contrast between what I saw and heard +now, and what I had seen and heard only a few minutes since, was so +extraordinary and so startling that I almost doubted whether the veiled +figure with the harp, and the dance of cats, were not the fantastic +creations of a dream. I actually asked my friend whether he had found me +awake or asleep when he came into the room! + +Evening merged into night. The Master of Books made his appearance, to +receive the latest news of my health. He spoke and listened absently +as if his mind were still pre-occupied by his studies--except when I +referred gratefully to his daughter's kindness to me. At her name his +faded blue eyes brightened; his drooping head became erect; his sad, +subdued voice strengthened in tone. + +"Do not hesitate to let her attend on you," he said. "Whatever interests +or amuses her, lengthens her life. In _her_ life is the breath of mine. +She is more than my daughter; she is the guardian-angel of the house. Go +where she may, she carries the air of heaven with her. When you say your +prayers, sir, pray God to leave my daughter here a little longer." + +He sighed heavily; his head dropped again on his breast--he left me. + +The hour advanced; the evening meal was set by my bedside. Silent Peter, +taking his leave for the night, developed into speech. "I sleep next +door," he said. "Ring when you want me." My traveling companion, taking +the second bed in the room, reposed in the happy sleep of youth. In +the house there was dead silence. Out of the house, the low song of the +night-wind, rising and falling over the lake and the moor, was the one +sound to be heard. So the first day ended in the hospitable Shetland +house. + +CHAPTER XX. THE GREEN FLAG. + +"I CONGRATULATE you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of painting in words. +Your description gives me a vivid idea of Mrs. Van Brandt." + +"Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross?" + +"May I speak as plainly as usual?" + +"Certainly!" + +"Well, then, plainly, I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt." + +Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had made her way into my +confidence already! + +By what means had she induced me to trust her with those secret and +sacred sorrows of my life which I had hitherto kept for my mother's +ear alone? I can easily recall the rapid and subtle manner in which her +sympathies twined themselves round mine; but I fail entirely to trace +the infinite gradations of approach by which she surprised and conquered +my habitual reserve. The strongest influence of all, the influence of +the eye, was not hers. When the light was admitted into the room she was +shrouded in her veil. At all other times the curtains were drawn, the +screen was before the fire--I could see dimly the outline of her face, +and I could see no more. The secret of her influence was perhaps partly +attributable to the simple and sisterly manner in which she spoke to me, +and partly to the indescribable interest which associated itself with +her mere presence in the room. Her father had told me that she "carried +the air of heaven with her." In my experience, I can only say that she +carried something with her which softly and inscrutably possessed itself +of my will, and made me as unconsciously obedient to her wishes as if I +had been her dog. The love-story of my boyhood, in all its particulars, +down even to the gift of the green flag; the mystic predictions of Dame +Dermody; the loss of every trace of my little Mary of former days; the +rescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from the river; the apparition of her in the +summer-house; the after-meetings with her in Edinburgh and in London; +the final parting which had left its mark of sorrow on my face--all +these events, all these sufferings, I confided to her as unreservedly +as I have confided them to these pages. And the result, as she sat by me +in the darkened room, was summed up, with a woman's headlong impetuosity +of judgment, in the words that I have just written--"I don't like your +Mrs. Van Brandt!" + +"Why not?" I asked. + +She answered instantly, "Because you ought to love nobody but Mary." + +"But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen." + +"Be patient, and you will find her again. Mary is patient--Mary is +waiting for you. When you meet her, you will be ashamed to remember that +you ever loved Mrs. Van Brandt--you will look on your separation from +that woman as the happiest event of your life. I may not live to hear of +it--but _you_ will live to own that I was right." + +Her perfectly baseless conviction that time would yet bring about my +meeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused me. + +"You seem to agree with Dame Dermody," I said. "You believe that our two +destinies are one. No matter what time may elapse, or what may happen in +the time, you believe my marriage with Mary is still a marriage delayed, +and nothing more?" + +"I firmly believe it." + +"Without knowing why--except that you dislike the idea of my marrying +Mrs. Van Brandt?" + +She knew that this view of her motive was not far from being the right +one--and, womanlike, she shifted the discussion to new ground. + +"Why do you call her Mrs. Van Brandt?" she asked. "Mrs. Van Brandt is +the namesake of your first love. If you are so fond of her, why don't +you call her Mary?" + +I was ashamed to give the true reason--it seemed so utterly unworthy of +a man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hesitation, she insisted on my +answering her; she forced me to make my humiliating confession. + +"The man who has parted us," I said, "called her Mary. I hate him with +such a jealous hatred that he has even disgusted me with the name! It +lost all its charm for me when it passed _his_ lips." + +I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No! She suddenly raised +her head as if she were looking at me intently in the dark. + +"How fond you must be of that woman!" she said. "Do you dream of her +now?" + +"I never dream of her now." + +"Do you expect to see the apparition of her again?" + +"It may be so--if a time comes when she is in sore need of help, and +when she has no friend to look to but me." + +"Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary?" + +"Never!" + +"But you used once to see her--as Dame Dermody predicted--in dreams?" + +"Yes--when I was a lad." + +"And, in the after-time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van Brandt who came +to you in dreams--who appeared to you in the spirit, when she was far +away from you in the body? Poor old Dame Dermody. She little thought, +in her life-time, that her prediction would be fullfilled by the wrong +woman!" + +To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her! If she had +only pressed them a little further--if she had not unconsciously led +me astray again by the very next question that fell from her lips--she +_must_ have communicated to _my_ mind the idea obscurely germinating in +hers--the idea of a possible identity between the Mary of my first love +and Mrs. Van Brandt! + +"Tell me," she went on. "If you met with your little Mary now, what +would she be like? What sort of woman would you expect to see?" + +I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoined, "at this +distance of time?" + +"Try!" she said. + +Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, I +searched my memory for the image of the frail and delicate child of my +remembrance: and I drew the picture of a frail and delicate woman--the +most absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt! + +The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunross dropped +out of it instantly, expelled by the substantial conclusion which the +contrast implied. Alike ignorant of the aftergrowth of health, strength, +and beauty which time and circumstances had developed in the Mary of +my youthful days, we had alike completely and unconsciously misled one +another. Once more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missed +it by a hair-breadth! + +"I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dunross, "to +your portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea of what a really +attractive woman ought to be. How you can have felt any sorrow for +the loss of that other person (I detest buxom women!) passes my +understanding. I can't tell you how interested I am in Mary! I want to +know more about her. Where is that pretty present of needle-work which +the poor little thing embroidered for you so industriously? Do let me +see the green flag!" + +She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! I felt a +little confused as I answered her. + +"I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in my house +in Perthshire." + +"You have not got it with you?" she exclaimed. "You leave her keepsake +lying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeed forgotten Mary! +A woman, in your place, would have parted with her life rather than part +with the one memorial left of the time when she first loved!" + +She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness--with such agitation, I +might almost say--that she quite startled me. + +"Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not lost." + +"I should hope not!" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose the green +flag, you lose the last relic of Mary--and more than that, if _my_ +belief is right." + +"What do you believe?" + +"You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading of +your face was wrong--I am afraid you are a hard man." + +"Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me as frankly as +usual. What do I lose in losing the last relic of Mary?" + +"You lose the one hope I have for you," she answered, gravely--"the hope +of your meeting and your marriage with Mary in the time to come. I was +sleepless last night, and I was thinking of your pretty love story by +the banks of the bright English lake. The longer I thought, the more +firmly I felt the conviction that the poor child's green flag is +destined to have its innocent influence in forming your future life. +Your happiness is waiting for you in that artless little keepsake! +I can't explain or justify this belief of mine. It is one of my +eccentricities, I suppose--like training my cats to perform to the music +of my harp. But, if I were your old friend, instead of being only +your friend of a few days, I would leave you no peace--I would beg and +entreat and persist, as only a woman _can_ persist--until I had made +Mary's gift as close a companion of yours, as your mother's portrait in +the locket there at your watch-chain. While the flag is with you, Mary's +influence is with you; Mary's love is still binding you by the dear old +tie; and Mary and you, after years of separation, will meet again!" + +The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestness which had +given expression to it would have had its influence over a man of a far +harder nature than mine. I confess she had made me ashamed, if she had +done nothing more, of my neglect of the green flag. + +"I will look for it the moment I am at home again," I said; "and I will +take care that it is carefully preserved for the future." + +"I want more than that," she rejoined. "If you can't wear the flag about +you, I want it always to be _with_ you--to go wherever you go. When +they brought your luggage here from the vessel at Lerwick, you +were particularly anxious about the safety of your traveling +writing-desk--the desk there on the table. Is there anything very +valuable in it?" + +"It contains my money, and other things that I prize far more highly--my +mother's letters, and some family relics which I should be very sorry +to lose. Besides, the desk itself has its own familiar interest as my +constant traveling companion of many years past." + +Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I was sitting. + +"Let Mary's flag be your constant traveling companion," she said. "You +have spoken far too gratefully of my services here as your nurse. +Reward me beyond my deserts. Make allowances, Mr. Germaine, for the +superstitious fancies of a lonely, dreamy woman. Promise me that the +green flag shall take its place among the other little treasures in your +desk!" + +It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave the +promise--gave it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For the first +time since I had known her, she put her poor, wasted hand in mine, +and pressed it for a moment. Acting heedlessly under my first grateful +impulse, I lifted her hand to my lips before I released it. She +started--trembled--and suddenly and silently passed out of the room. + +CHAPTER XXI. SHE COMES BETWEEN US. + +WHAT emotion had I thoughtlessly aroused in Miss Dunross? Had I offended +or distressed her? Or had I, without meaning it, forced on her inner +knowledge some deeply seated feeling which she had thus far resolutely +ignored? + +I looked back through the days of my sojourn in the house; I questioned +my own feelings and impressions, on the chance that they might serve me +as a means of solving the mystery of her sudden flight from the room. + +What effect had she produced on me? + +In plain truth, she had simply taken her place in my mind, to the +exclusion of every other person and every other subject. In ten days she +had taken a hold on my sympathies of which other women would have failed +to possess themselves in so many years. I remembered, to my shame, that +my mother had but seldom occupied my thoughts. Even the image of Mrs. +Van Brandt--except when the conversation had turned on her--had become +a faint image in my mind! As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir James +downward, they had all kindly come to see me--and I had secretly and +ungratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene free for the +return of my nurse. In two days more the Government vessel was to sail +on the return voyage. My wrist was still painful when I tried to use it; +but the far more serious injury presented by the re-opened wound was +no longer a subject of anxiety to myself or to any one about me. I was +sufficiently restored to be capable of making the journey to Lerwick, +if I rested for one night at a farm half-way between the town and Mr. +Dunross's house. Knowing this, I had nevertheless left the question of +rejoining the vessel undecided to the very latest moment. The motive +which I pleaded to my friends was--uncertainty as to the sufficient +recovery of my strength. The motive which I now confessed to myself was +reluctance to leave Miss Dunross. + +What was the secret of her power over me? What emotion, what passion, +had she awakened in me? Was it love? + +No: not love. The place which Mary had once held in my heart, the place +which Mrs. Van Brandt had taken in the after-time, was not the place +occupied by Miss Dunross. How could I (in the ordinary sense of the +word) be in love with a woman whose face I had never seen? whose beauty +had faded, never to bloom again? whose wasted life hung by a thread +which the accident of a moment might snap? The senses have their share +in all love between the sexes which is worthy of the name. They had no +share in the feeling with which I regarded Miss Dunross. What _was_ the +feeling, then? I can only answer the question in one way. The feeling +lay too deep in me for my sounding. + +What impression had I produced on her? What sensitive chord had I +ignorantly touched, when my lips touched her hand? + +I confess I recoiled from pursuing the inquiry which I had deliberately +set myself to make. I thought of her shattered health; of her melancholy +existence in shadow and solitude; of the rich treasures of such a heart +and such a mind as hers, wasted with her wasting life; and I said to +myself, Let her secret be sacred! let me never again, by word or deed, +bring the trouble which tells of it to the surface! let her heart be +veiled from me in the darkness which veils her face! + +In this frame of mind toward her, I waited her return. + +I had no doubt of seeing her again, sooner or later, on that day. The +post to the south went out on the next day; and the early hour of the +morning at which the messenger called for our letters made it a matter +of ordinary convenience to write overnight. In the disabled state of my +hand, Miss Dunross had been accustomed to write home for me, under my +dictation: she knew that I owed a letter to my mother, and that I relied +as usual on her help. Her return to me, under these circumstances, was +simply a question of time: any duty which she had once undertaken was an +imperative duty in her estimation, no matter how trifling it might be. + +The hours wore on; the day drew to its end--and still she never +appeared. + +I left my room to enjoy the last sunny gleam of the daylight in the +garden attached to the house; first telling Peter where I might be +found, if Miss Dunross wanted me. The garden was a wild place, to my +southern notions; but it extended for some distance along the shore +of the island, and it offered some pleasant views of the lake and the +moorland country beyond. Slowly pursuing my walk, I proposed to myself +to occupy my mind to some useful purpose by arranging beforehand the +composition of the letter which Miss Dunross was to write. + +To my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix my mind on +the subject. Try as I might, my thoughts persisted in wandering from +the letter to my mother, and concentrated themselves instead--on Miss +Dunross? No. On the question of my returning, or not returning, to +Perthshire by the Government vessel? No. By some capricious revulsion of +feeling which it seemed impossible to account for, my whole mind was now +absorbed on the one subject which had been hitherto so strangely absent +from it--the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt! + +My memory went back, in defiance of all exercise of my own will, to my +last interview with her. I saw her again; I heard her again. I tasted +once more the momentary rapture of our last kiss; I felt once more the +pang of sorrow that wrung me when I had parted with her and found myself +alone in the street. Tears--of which I was ashamed, though nobody was +near to see them--filled my eyes when I thought of the months that had +passed since we had last looked on one another, and of all that she +might have suffered, must have suffered, in that time. Hundreds on +hundreds of miles were between us--and yet she was now as near me as if +she were walking in the garden by my side! + +This strange condition of my mind was matched by an equally strange +condition of my body. A mysterious trembling shuddered over me faintly +from head to foot. I walked without feeling the ground as I trod on it; +I looked about me with no distinct consciousness of what the objects +were on which my eyes rested. My hands were cold--and yet I hardly felt +it. My head throbbed hotly--and yet I was not sensible of any pain. It +seemed as if I were surrounded and enwrapped in some electric atmosphere +which altered all the ordinary conditions of sensation. I looked up +at the clear, calm sky, and wondered if a thunderstorm was coming. I +stopped, and buttoned my coat round me, and questioned myself if I had +caught a cold, or if I was going to have a fever. The sun sank below the +moorland horizon; the gray twilight trembled over the dark waters of the +lake. I went back to the house; and the vivid memory of Mrs. Van Brandt, +still in close companionship, went back with me. + +The fire in my room had burned low in my absence. One of the closed +curtains had been drawn back a few inches, so as to admit through the +window a ray of the dying light. On the boundary limit where the light +was crossed by the obscurity which filled the rest of the room, I saw +Miss Dunross seated, with her veil drawn and her writing-case on her +knee, waiting my return. + +I hastened to make my excuses. I assured her that I had been careful to +tell the servant where to find me. She gently checked me before I could +say more. + +"It's not Peter's fault," she said. "I told him not to hurry your return +to the house. Have you enjoyed your walk?" + +She spoke very quietly. The faint, sad voice was fainter and sadder than +ever. She kept her head bent over her writing-case, instead of turning +it toward me as usual while we were talking. I still felt the mysterious +trembling which had oppressed me in the garden. Drawing a chair near +the fire, I stirred the embers together, and tried to warm myself. Our +positions in the room left some little distance between us. I could only +see her sidewise, as she sat by the window in the sheltering darkness of +the curtain which still remained drawn. + +"I think I have been too long in the garden," I said. "I feel chilled by +the cold evening air." + +"Will you have some more wood put on the fire?" she asked. "Can I get +you anything?" + +"No, thank you. I shall do very well here. I see you are kindly ready to +write for me." + +"Yes," she said, "at your own convenience. When you are ready, my pen is +ready." + +The unacknowledged reserve that had come between us since we had last +spoken together, was, I believe, as painfully felt by her as by me. We +were no doubt longing to break through it on either side--if we had only +known how. The writing of the letter would occupy us, at any rate. I +made another effort to give my mind to the subject--and once more it was +an effort made in vain. Knowing what I wanted to say to my mother, my +faculties seemed to be paralyzed when I tried to say it. I sat cowering +by the fire--and she sat waiting, with her writing-case on her lap. + +CHAPTER XXII. SHE CLAIMS ME AGAIN. + +THE moments passed; the silence between us continued. Miss Dunross made +an attempt to rouse me. + +"Have you decided to go back to Scotland with your friends at Lerwick?" +she asked. + +"It is no easy matter," I replied, "to decide on leaving my friends in +this house." + +Her head drooped lower on her bosom; her voice sunk as she answered me. + +"Think of your mother," she said. "The first duty you owe is your +duty to her. Your long absence is a heavy trial to her--your mother is +suffering." + +"Suffering?" I repeated. "Her letters say nothing--" + +"You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters," Miss Dunross +interposed. "I see the unwritten and unconscious confession of anxiety +in every line that she writes to you. You know, as well as I do, that +there is cause for her anxiety. Make her happy by telling her that you +sail for home with your friends. Make her happier still by telling her +that you grieve no more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. May I write +it, in your name and in those words?" + +I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in those terms, +or in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The unhappy love-story of my +manhood had never been a forbidden subject between us on former +occasions. Why did I feel as if it had become a forbidden subject now? +Why did I evade giving her a direct reply? + +"We have plenty of time before us," I said. "I want to speak to you +about yourself." + +She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, as if +to protest against the topic to which I had returned. I persisted, +nevertheless, in returning to it. + +"If I must go back," I went on, "I may venture to say to you at parting +what I have not said yet. I cannot, and will not, believe that you are +an incurable invalid. My education, as I have told you, has been the +education of a medical man. I am well acquainted with some of the +greatest living physicians, in Edinburgh as well as in London. Will you +allow me to describe your malady (as I understand it) to men who are +accustomed to treat cases of intricate nervous disorder? And will you +let me write and tell you the result?" + +I waited for her reply. Neither by word nor sign did she encourage the +idea of any future communication with her. I ventured to suggest another +motive which might induce her to receive a letter from me. + +"In any case, I may find it necessary to write to you," I went on. "You +firmly believe that I and my little Mary are destined to meet again. If +your anticipations are realized, you will expect me to tell you of it, +surely?" + +Once more I waited. She spoke--but it was not to reply: it was only to +change the subject. + +"The time is passing," was all she said. "We have not begun your letter +to your mother yet." + +It would have been cruel to contend with her any longer. Her voice +warned me that she was suffering. The faint gleam of light through +the parted curtains was fading fast. It was time, indeed, to write the +letter. I could find other opportunities of speaking to her before I +left the house. + +"I am ready," I answered. "Let us begin." + +The first sentence was easily dictated to my patient secretary. I +informed my mother that my sprained wrist was nearly restored to use, +and that nothing prevented my leaving Shetland when the lighthouse +commissioner was ready to return. This was all that it was necessary +to say on the subject of my health; the disaster of my re-opened wound +having been, for obvious reasons, concealed from my mother's knowledge. +Miss Dunross silently wrote the opening lines of the letter, and waited +for the words that were to follow. + +In my next sentence, I announced the date at which the vessel was to +sail on the return voyage; and I mentioned the period at which my mother +might expect to see me, weather permitting. Those words, also, Miss +Dunross wrote--and waited again. I set myself to consider what I should +say next. To my surprise and alarm, I found it impossible to fix my mind +on the subject. My thoughts wandered away, in the strangest manner, from +my letter to Mrs. Van Brandt. I was ashamed of myself; I was angry +with myself--I resolved, no matter what I said, that I would positively +finish the letter. No! try as I might, the utmost effort of my will +availed me nothing. Mrs. Van Brandt's words at our last interview were +murmuring in my ears--not a word of my own would come to me! + +Miss Dunross laid down her pen, and slowly turned her head to look at +me. + +"Surely you have something more to add to your letter?" she said. + +"Certainly," I answered. "I don't know what is the matter with me. The +effort of dictating seems to be beyond my power this evening." + +"Can I help you?" she asked. + +I gladly accepted the suggestion. "There are many things," I said, +"which my mother would be glad to hear, if I were not too stupid to +think of them. I am sure I may trust your sympathy to think of them for +me." + +That rash answer offered Miss Dunross the opportunity of returning +to the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt. She seized the opportunity with +a woman's persistent resolution when she has her end in view, and is +determined to reach it at all hazards. + +"You have not told your mother yet," she said, "that your infatuation +for Mrs. Van Brandt is at an end. Will you put it in your own words? Or +shall I write it for you, imitating your language as well as I can?" + +In the state of my mind at that moment, her perseverance conquered me. I +thought to myself indolently, "If I say No, she will only return to the +subject again, and she will end (after all I owe to her kindness) +in making me say Yes." Before I could answer her she had realized my +anticipations. She returned to the subject; and she made me say Yes. + +"What does your silence mean?" she said. "Do you ask me to help you, and +do you refuse to accept the first suggestion I offer?" + +"Take up your pen," I rejoined. "It shall be as you wish." + +"Will you dictate the words?" + +"I will try." + +I tried; and this time I succeeded. With the image of Mrs. Van Brandt +vividly present to my mind, I arranged the first words of the sentence +which was to tell my mother that my "infatuation" was at an end! + +"You will be glad to hear," I began, "that time and change are doing +their good work." + +Miss Dunross wrote the words, and paused in anticipation of the next +sentence. The light faded and faded; the room grew darker and darker. I +went on. + +"I hope I shall cause you no more anxiety, my dear mother, on the +subject of Mrs. Van Brandt." + +In the deep silence I could hear the pen of my secretary traveling +steadily over the paper while it wrote those words. + +"Have you written?" I asked, as the sound of the pen ceased. + +"I have written," she answered, in her customary quiet tones. + +I went on again with my letter. + +"The days pass now, and I seldom or never think of her; I hope I am +resigned at last to the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt." + +As I reached the end of the sentence, I heard a faint cry from Miss +Dunross. Looking instantly toward her, I could just see, in the +deepening darkness, t hat her head had fallen on the back of the chair. +My first impulse was, of course, to rise and go to her. I had barely got +to my feet, when some indescribable dread paralyzed me on the instant. +Supporting myself against the chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapable +of advancing a step. The effort to speak was the one effort that I could +make. + +"Are you ill?" I asked. + +She was hardly able to answer me; speaking in a whisper, without raising +her head. + +"I am frightened," she said. + +"What has frightened you?" + +I heard her shudder in the darkness. Instead of answering me, she +whispered to herself: "What am I to say to him?" + +"Tell me what has frightened you?" I repeated. "You know you may trust +me with the truth." + +She rallied her sinking strength. She answered in these strange words: + +"Something has come between me and the letter that I am writing for +you." + +"What is it?" + +"I can't tell you." + +"Can you see it?" + +"No." + +"Can you feel it?" + +"Yes!" + +"What is it like?" + +"Like a breath of cold air between me and the letter." + +"Has the window come open?" + +"The window is close shut." + +"And the door?" + +"The door is shut also--as well as I can see. Make sure of it for +yourself. Where are you? What are you doing?" + +I was looking toward the window. As she spoke her last words, I was +conscious of a change in that part of the room. + +In the gap between the parted curtains there was a new light shining; +not the dim gray twilight of Nature, but a pure and starry radiance, a +pale, unearthly light. While I watched it, the starry radiance quivered +as if some breath of air had stirred it. When it was still again, there +dawned on me through the unearthly luster the figure of a woman. By fine +and slow gradations, it became more and more distinct. I knew the noble +figure; I knew the sad and tender smile. For the second time I stood in +the presence of the apparition of Mrs. Van Brandt. + +She was robed, not as I had last seen her, but in the dress which she +had worn on the memorable evening when we met on the bridge--in the +dress in which she had first appeared to me, by the waterfall in +Scotland. The starry light shone round her like a halo. She looked at +me with sorrowful and pleading eyes, as she had looked when I saw +the apparition of her in the summer-house. She lifted her hand--not +beckoning me to approach her, as before, but gently signing to me to +remain where I stood. + +I waited--feeling awe, but no fear. My heart was all hers as I looked at +her. + +She moved; gliding from the window to the chair in which Miss Dunross +sat; winding her way slowly round it, until she stood at the back. By +the light of the pale halo that encircled the ghostly Presence, and +moved with it, I could see the dark figure of the living woman seated +immovable in the chair. The writing-case was on her lap, with the letter +and the pen lying on it. Her arms hung helpless at her sides; her veiled +head was now bent forward. She looked as if she had been struck to stone +in the act of trying to rise from her seat. + +A moment passed--and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop over the +living woman. It lifted the writing-case from her lap. It rested the +writing-case on her shoulder. Its white fingers took the pen and wrote +on the unfinished letter. It put the writing-case back on the lap of the +living woman. Still standing behind the chair, it turned toward me. It +looked at me once more. And now it beckoned--beckoned to me to approach. + +Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved when I first +saw her in the summer-house--drawn nearer and nearer by an irresistible +power--I approached and stopped within a few paces of her. She advanced +and laid her hand on my bosom. Again I felt those strangely mingled +sensations of rapture and awe, which had once before filled me when I +was conscious, spiritually, of her touch. Again she spoke, in the low, +melodious tones which I recalled so well. Again she said the words: +"Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale +light in which she stood quivered, sunk, vanished. I saw the twilight +glimmering between the curtains--and I saw no more. She had spoken. She +had gone. + +I was near Miss Dunross--near enough, when I put out my hand, to touch +her. + +She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awakened from a +dreadful dream. + +"Speak to me!" she whispered. "Let me know that it is _you_ who touched +me." + +I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her. + +"Have you seen anything in the room?" + +She answered. "I have been filled with a deadly fear. I have seen +nothing but the writing-case lifted from my lap." + +"Did you see the hand that lifted it?" + +"No." + +"Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in it?" + +"No." + +"Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from your lap?" + +"I saw it resting on my shoulder." + +"Did you see writing on the letter, which was not _your_ writing?" + +"I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in which I am +sitting." + +"Did it move?" + +"It moved across the paper." + +"As a pen moves in writing?" + +"Yes. As a pen moves in writing." + +"May I take the letter?" + +She handed it to me. + +"May I light a candle?" + +She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed in silence. + +I lighted the candle on the mantel-piece, and looked for the writing. + +There, on the blank space in the letter, as I had seen it before on the +blank space in the sketch-book--there were the written words which the +ghostly Presence had left behind it; arranged once more in two lines, as +I copy them here: + +At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's. + +CHAPTER XXIII. THE KISS. + +SHE had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I felt all the old +love, all the old devotion owning her power once more. Whatever had +mortified or angered me at our last interview was forgiven and forgotten +now. My whole being still thrilled with the mingled awe and rapture of +beholding the Vision of her that had come to me for the second time. The +minutes passed--and I stood by the fire like a man entranced; thinking +only of her spoken words, "Remember me. Come to me;" looking only at her +mystic writing, "At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's." + +The month's end was still far off; the apparition of her had shown +itself to me, under some subtle prevision of trouble that was still in +the future. Ample time was before me for the pilgrimage to which I was +self-dedicated already--my pilgrimage to the shadow of Saint Paul's. +Other men, in my position, might have hesitated as to the right +understanding of the place to which they were bidden. Other men might +have wearied their memories by recalling the churches, the institutions, +the streets, the towns in foreign countries, all consecrated to +Christian reverence by the great apostle's name, and might have +fruitlessly asked themselves in which direction they were first to turn +their steps. No such difficulty troubled me. My first conclusion was the +one conclusion that was acceptable to my mind. "Saint Paul's" meant the +famous Cathedral of London. Where the shadow of the great church fell, +there, at the month's end, I should find her, or the trace of her. In +London once more, and nowhere else, I was destined to see the woman I +loved, in the living body, as certainly as I had just seen her in the +ghostly presence. + +Who could interpret the mysterious sympathies that still united us, in +defiance of distance, in defiance of time? Who could predict to what end +our lives were tending in the years that were to come? + +Those questions were still present to my thoughts; my eyes were still +fixed on the mysterious writing--when I became instinctively aware of +the strange silence in the room. Instantly the lost remembrance of +Miss Dunross came back to me. Stung by my own sense of self-reproach, I +turned with a start, and looked toward her chair by the window. + +The chair was empty. I was alone in the room. + +Why had she left me secretly, without a word of farewell? Because she +was suffering, in mind or body? Or because she resented, naturally +resented, my neglect of her? + +The bare suspicion that I had given her pain was intolerable to me. I +rang my bell, to make inquiries. + +The bell was answered, not, as usual, by the silent servant Peter, but +by a woman of middle age, very quietly and neatly dressed, whom I had +once or twice met on the way to and from my room, and of whose exact +position in the house I was still ignorant. + +"Do you wish to see Peter?" she asked. + +"No. I wish to know where Miss Dunross is." + +"Miss Dunross is in her room. She has sent me with this letter." + +I took the letter, feeling some surprise and uneasiness. It was the +first time Miss Dunross had communicated with me in that formal way. I +tried to gain further information by questioning her messenger. + +"Are you Miss Dunross's maid?" I asked. + +"I have served Miss Dunross for many years," was the answer, spoken very +ungraciously. + +"Do you think she would receive me if I sent you with a message to her?" + +"I can't say, sir. The letter may tell you. You will do well to read the +letter." + +We looked at each other. The woman's preconceived impression of me +was evidently an unfavorable one. Had I indeed pained or offended Miss +Dunross? And had the servant--perhaps the faithful servant who loved +her--discovered and resented it? The woman frowned as she looked at me. +It would be a mere waste of words to persist in questioning her. I let +her go. + +Left by myself again, I read the letter. It began, without any form of +address, in these lines: + + +"I write, instead of speaking to you, because my self-control has +already been severely tried, and I am not strong enough to bear more. +For my father's sake--not for my own--I must take all the care I can of +the little health that I have left. + +"Putting together what you have told me of the visionary creature whom +you saw in the summer-house in Scotland, and what you said when you +questioned me in your room a little while since, I cannot fail to infer +that the same vision has shown itself to you, for the second time. The +fear that I felt, the strange things that I saw (or thought I saw), may +have been imperfect reflections in my mind of what was passing in yours. +I do not stop to inquire whether we are both the victims of a delusion, +or whether we are the chosen recipients of a supernatural communication. +The result, in either case, is enough for me. You are once more under +the influence of Mrs. Van Brandt. I will not trust myself to tell you +of the anxieties and forebodings by which I am oppressed: I will only +acknowledge that my one hope for you is in your speedy reunion with the +worthier object of your constancy and devotion. I still believe, and I +am consoled in believing, that you and your first love will meet again. + +"Having written so far, I leave the subject--not to return to it, except +in my own thoughts. + +"The necessary preparations for your departure to-morrow are all made. +Nothing remains but to wish you a safe and pleasant journey home. Do +not, I entreat you, think me insensible of what I owe to you, if I say +my farewell words here. + +"The little services which you have allowed me to render you have +brightened the closing days of my life. You have left me a treasury +of happy memories which I shall hoard, when you are gone, with miserly +care. Are you willing to add new claims to my grateful remembrance? I +ask it of you, as a last favor--do not attempt to see me again! Do not +expect me to take a personal leave of you! The saddest of all words +is 'Good-by': I have fortitude enough to write it, and no more. God +preserve and prosper you--farewell! + +"One more request. I beg that you will not forget what you promised me, +when I told you my foolish fancy about the green flag. Wherever you go, +let Mary's keepsake go with you. No written answer is necessary--I would +rather not receive it. Look up, when you leave the house to-morrow, at +the center window over the doorway--that will be answer enough." + + +To say that these melancholy lines brought the tears into my eyes is +only to acknowledge that I had sympathies which could be touched. When I +had in some degree recovered my composure, the impulse which urged me to +write to Miss Dunross was too strong to be resisted. I did not trouble +her with a long letter; I only entreated her to reconsider her decision +with all the art of persuasion which I could summon to help me. The +answer was brought back by the servant who waited on Miss Dunross, in +four resolute words: "It can not be." This time the woman spoke out +before she left me. "If you have any regard for my mistress," she said +sternly, "don't make her write to you again." She looked at me with a +last lowering frown, and left the room. + +It is needless to say that the faithful servant's words only increased +my anxiety to see Miss Dunross once more before we parted--perhaps +forever. My one last hope of success in attaining this object lay in +approaching her indirectly through the intercession of her father. + +I sent Peter to inquire if I might be permitted to pay my respects to +his master that evening. My messenger returned with an answer that was a +new disappointment to me. Mr. Dunross begged that I would excuse him, +if he deferred the proposed interview until the next morning. The next +morning was the morning of my departure. Did the message mean that he +had no wish to see me again until the time had come to take leave of +him? I inquired of Peter whether his master was particularly occupied +that evening. He was unable to tell me. "The Master of Books" was not in +his study, as usual. When he sent his message to me, he was sitting by +the sofa in his daughter's room. + +Having answered in those terms, the man left me by myself until the next +morning. I do not wish my bitterest enemy a sadder time in his life +than the time I passed during the last night of my residence under Mr. +Dunross's roof. + +After walking to and fro in the room until I was weary, I thought of +trying to divert my mind from the sad thoughts that oppressed it by +reading. The one candle which I had lighted failed to sufficiently +illuminate the room. Advancing to the mantel-piece to light the second +candle which stood there, I noticed the unfinished letter to my mother +lying where I had placed it, when Miss Dunross's servant first presented +herself before me. Having lighted the second candle, I took up the +letter to put it away among my other papers. Doing this (while my +thoughts were still dwelling on Miss Dunross), I mechanically looked at +the letter again--and instantly discovered a change in it. + +The written characters traced by the hand of the apparition had +vanished! Below the last lines written by Miss Dunross nothing met my +eyes now but the blank white paper! + +My first impulse was to look at my watch. + +When the ghostly presence had written in my sketch-book, the characters +had disappeared after an interval of three hours. On this occasion, as +nearly as I could calculate, the writing had vanished in one hour only. + +Reverting to the conversation which I had held with Mrs. Van Brandt when +we met at Saint Anthony's Well, and to the discoveries which followed at +a later period of my life, I can only repeat that she had again been the +subject of a trance or dream, when the apparition of her showed itself +to me for the second time. As before, she had freely trusted me and +freely appealed to me to help her, in the dreaming state, when her +spirit was free to recognize my spirit. When she had come to herself, +after an interval of an hour, she had again felt ashamed of the familiar +manner in which she had communicated with me in the trance--had again +unconsciously counteracted by her waking-will the influence of her +sleeping-will; and had thus caused the writing once more to disappear, +in an hour from the moment when the pen had traced (or seemed to trace) +it. + +This is still the one explanation that I can offer. At the time when the +incident happened, I was far from being fully admitted to the confidence +of Mrs. Van Brandt; and I was necessarily incapable of arriving at +any solution of the mystery, right or wrong. I could only put away the +letter, doubting vaguely whether my own senses had not deceived me. +After the distressing thoughts which Miss Dunross's letter had roused in +my mind, I was in no humor to employ my ingenuity in finding a clew to +the mystery of the vanished writing. My nerves were irritated; I felt a +sense of angry discontent with myself and with others. "Go where I may" +(I thought impatiently), "the disturbing influence of women seems to be +the only influence that I am fated to feel." As I still paced backward +and forward in my room--it was useless to think now of fixing my +attention on a book--I fancied I understood the motives which made men +as young as I was retire to end their lives in a monastery. I drew aside +the window curtains, and looked out. The only prospect that met my view +was the black gulf of darkness in which the lake lay hidden. I could +see nothing; I could do nothing; I could think of nothing. The one +alternative before me was that of trying to sleep. My medical knowledge +told me plainly that natural sleep was, in my nervous condition, one +of the unattainable luxuries of life for that night. The medicine-chest +which Mr. Dunross had placed at my disposal remained in the room. I +mixed for myself a strong sleeping draught, and sullenly took refuge +from my troubles in bed. + +It is a peculiarity of most of the soporific drugs that they not only +act in a totally different manner on different constitutions, but that +they are not even to be depended on to act always in the same manner on +the same person. I had taken care to extinguish the candles before I got +into my bed. Under ordinary circumstances, after I had lain quietly in +the darkness for half an hour, the draught that I had taken would +have sent me to sleep. In the present state of my nerves the draught +stupefied me, and did no more. + +Hour after hour I lay perfectly still, with my eyes closed, in the +semi-sleeping, semi-wakeful state which is so curiously characteristic +of the ordinary repose of a dog. As the night wore on, such a sense of +heaviness oppressed my eyelids that it was literally impossible for me +to open them--such a masterful languor possessed all my muscles that I +could no more move on my pillow than if I had been a corpse. And yet, +in this somnolent condition, my mind was able to pursue lazy trains of +pleasant thought. My sense of hearing was so acute that it caught the +faintest sounds made by the passage of the night-breeze through the +rushes of the lake. Inside my bed-chamber, I was even more keenly +sensible of those weird night-noises in the heavy furniture of a room, +of those sudden settlements of extinct coals in the grate, so familiar +to bad sleepers, so startling to overwrought nerves! It is not a +scientifically correct statement, but it exactly describes my condition, +that night, to say that one half of me was asleep and the other half +awake. + +How many hours of the night had passed, when my irritable sense of +hearing became aware of a new sound in the room, I cannot tell. I can +only relate that I found myself on a sudden listening intently, with +fast-closed eyes. The sound that disturbed me was the faintest sound +imaginable, as of something soft and light traveling slowly over the +surface of the carpet, and brushing it just loud enough to be heard. + +Little by little, the sound came nearer and nearer to my bed--and then +suddenly stopped just as I fancied it was close by me. + +I still lay immovable, with closed eyes; drowsily waiting for the next +sound that might reach my ears; drowsily content with the silence, if +the silence continued. My thoughts (if thoughts they could be called) +were drifting back again into their former course, when I became +suddenly conscious of soft breathing just above me. The next moment I +felt a touch on my forehead--light, soft, tremulous, like the touch of +lips that had kissed me. There was a momentary pause. Then a low sigh +trembled through the silence. Then I heard again the still, small sound +of something brushing its way over the carpet; traveling this time +_from_ my bed, and moving so rapidly that in a moment more it was lost +in the silence of the night. + +Still stupefied by the drug that I had taken, I could lazily wonder what +had happened, and I could do no more. Had living lips really touched me? +Was the sound that I had heard really the sound of a sigh? Or was it all +delusion, beginning and ending in a dream? The time passed without my +deciding, or caring to decide, those questions. Minute by minute, the +composing influence of the draught began at last to strengthen its +hold on my brain. A cloud seemed to pass softly over my last waking +impressions. One after another, the ties broke gently that held me to +conscious life. I drifted peacefully into perfect sleep. + + +Shortly after sunrise, I awoke. When I regained the use of my memory, +my first clear recollection was the recollection of the soft breathing +which I had felt above me--then of the touch on my forehead, and of +the sigh which I had heard after it. Was it possible that some one had +entered my room in the night? It was quite possible. I had not locked +the door--I had never been in the habit of locking the door during my +residence under Mr. Dunross's roof. + +After thinking it over a little, I rose to examine my room. + +Nothing in the shape of a discovery rewarded me, until I reached the +door. Though I had not locked it overnight, I had certainly satisfied +myself that it was closed before I went to bed. It was now ajar. Had +it opened again, through being imperfectly shut? or had a person, after +entering and leaving my room, forgotten to close it? + +Accidentally looking downward while I was weighing these probabilities, +I noticed a small black object on the carpet, lying just under the key, +on the inner side of the door. I picked the thing up, and found that it +was a torn morsel of black lace. + +The instant I saw the fragment, I was reminded of the long black veil, +hanging below her waist, which it was the habit of Miss Dunross to wear. +Was it _her_ dress, then, that I had heard softly traveling over the +carpet; _her_ kiss that had touched my forehead; _her_ sigh that had +trembled through the silence? Had the ill-fated and noble creature taken +her last leave of me in the dead of night, trusting the preservation of +her secret to the deceitful appearances which persuaded her that I was +asleep? I looked again at the fragment of black lace. Her long veil +might easily have been caught, and torn, by the projecting key, as she +passed rapidly through the door on her way out of my room. Sadly and +reverently I laid the morsel of lace among the treasured memorials which +I had brought with me from home. To the end of her life, I vowed it, she +should be left undisturbed in the belief that her secret was safe in her +own breast! Ardently as I still longed to take her hand at parting, I +now resolved to make no further effort to see her. I might not be master +of my own emotions; something in my face or in my manner might betray me +to her quick and delicate perception. Knowing what I now knew, the last +sacrifice I could make to her would be to obey her wishes. I made the +sacrifice. + +In an hour more Peter informed me that the ponies were at the door, and +that the Master was waiting for me in the outer hall. + +I noticed that Mr. Dunross gave me his hand, without looking at me. His +faded blue eyes, during the few minutes while we were together, were not +once raised from the ground. + +"God speed you on your journey, sir, and guide you safely home," he +said. "I beg you to forgive me if I fail to accompany you on the first +few miles of your journey. There are reasons which oblige me to remain +with my daughter in the house." + +He was scrupulously, almost painfully, courteous; but there was +something in his manner which, for the first time in my experience, +seemed designedly to keep me at a distance from him. Knowing the +intimate sympathy, the perfect confidence, which existed between the +father and daughter, a doubt crossed my mind whether the secret of the +past night was entirely a secret to Mr. Dunross. His next words set that +doubt at rest, and showed me the truth. + +In thanking him for his good wishes, I attempted also to express to him +(and through him to Miss Dunross) my sincere sense of gratitude for the +kindness which I had received under his roof. He stopped me, politely +and resolutely, speaking with that quaintly precise choice of language +which I h ad remarked as characteristic of him at our first interview. + +"It is in your power, sir," he said, "to return any obligation which you +may think you have incurred on leaving my house. If you will be pleased +to consider your residence here as an unimportant episode in your life, +which ends--_absolutely_ ends--with your departure, you will more than +repay any kindness that you may have received as my guest. In saying +this, I speak under a sense of duty which does entire justice to you as +a gentleman and a man of honor. In return, I can only trust to you +not to misjudge my motives, if I abstain from explaining myself any +further." + +A faint color flushed his pale cheeks. He waited, with a certain proud +resignation, for my reply. I respected her secret, respected it more +resolutely than ever, before her father. + +"After all that I owe to you, sir," I answered, "your wishes are my +commands." Saying that, and saying no more, I bowed to him with marked +respect, and left the house. + +Mounting my pony at the door, I looked up at the center window, as she +had bidden me. It was open; but dark curtains, jealously closed, kept +out the light from the room within. At the sound of the pony's hoofs on +the rough island road, as the animal moved, the curtains were parted +for a few inches only. Through the gap in the dark draperies a wan white +hand appeared; waved tremulously a last farewell; and vanished from +my view. The curtains closed again on her dark and solitary life. The +dreary wind sounded its long, low dirge over the rippling waters of the +lake. The ponies took their places in the ferryboat which was kept +for the passage of animals to and from the island. With slow, regular +strokes the men rowed us to the mainland and took their leave. I looked +back at the distant house. I thought of her in the dark room, waiting +patiently for death. Burning tears blinded me. The guide took my bridle +in his hand: "You're not well, sir," he said; "I will lead the pony." + +When I looked again at the landscape round me, we had descended in the +interval from the higher ground to the lower. The house and the lake had +disappeared, to be seen no more. + +CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE SHADOW OF ST. PAUL'S. + +In ten days I was at home again--and my mother's arms were round me. + +I had left her for my sea-voyage very unwillingly--seeing that she was +in delicate health. On my return, I was grieved to observe a change for +the worse, for which her letters had not prepared me. Consulting our +medical friend, Mr. MacGlue, I found that he, too, had noticed my +mother's failing health, but that he attributed it to an easily +removable cause--to the climate of Scotland. My mother's childhood and +early life had been passed on the southern shores of England. The change +to the raw, keen air of the North had been a trying change to a person +at her age. In Mr. MacGlue's opinion, the wise course to take would be +to return to the South before the autumn was further advanced, and +to make our arrangements for passing the coming winter at Penzance or +Torquay. + +Resolved as I was to keep the mysterious appointment which summoned +me to London at the month's end, Mr. MacGlue's suggestion met with no +opposition on my part. It had, to my mind, the great merit of obviating +the necessity of a second separation from my mother--assuming that she +approved of the doctor's advice. I put the question to her the same day. +To my infinite relief, she was not only ready, but eager to take the +journey to the South. The season had been unusually wet, even for +Scotland; and my mother reluctantly confessed that she "did feel a +certain longing" for the mild air and genial sunshine of the Devonshire +coast. + +We arranged to travel in our own comfortable carriage by post--resting, +of course, at inns on the road at night. In the days before railways +it was no easy matter for an invalid to travel from Perthshire to +London--even with a light carriage and four horses. Calculating our rate +of progress from the date of our departure, I found that we had just +time, and no more, to reach London on the last day of the month. + +I shall say nothing of the secret anxieties which weighed on my mind, +under these circumstances. Happily for me, on every account, my mother's +strength held out. The easy and (as we then thought) the rapid rate of +traveling had its invigorating effect on her nerves. She slept better +when we rested for the night than she had slept at home. After twice +being delayed on the road, we arrived in London at three o'clock on the +afternoon of the last day of the month. Had I reached my destination in +time? + +As I interpreted the writing of the apparition, I had still some hours +at my disposal. The phrase, "at the month's end," meant, as I understood +it, at the last hour of the last day in the month. If I took up my +position "under the shadow of Saint Paul's," say, at ten that night, I +should arrive at the place of meeting with two hours to spare, before +the last stroke of the clock marked the beginning of the new month. + +At half-past nine, I left my mother to rest after her long journey, and +privately quit the house. Before ten, I was at my post. The night was +fine and clear; and the huge shadow of the cathedral marked distinctly +the limits within which I had been bid to wait, on the watch for events. + +The great clock of Saint Paul's struck ten--and nothing happened. + +The next hour passed very slowly. I walked up and down; at one time +absorbed in my own thoughts; at another, engaged in watching the gradual +diminution in the number of foot passengers who passed me as the night +advanced. The City (as it is called) is the most populous part of +London in the daytime; but at night, when it ceases to be the center of +commerce, its busy population melts away, and the empty streets assume +the appearance of a remote and deserted quarter of the metropolis. As +the half hour after ten struck--then the quarter to eleven--then the +hour--the pavement steadily became more and more deserted. I could count +the foot passengers now by twos and threes; and I could see the places +of public refreshment within my view beginning already to close for the +night. + +I looked at the clock; it pointed to ten minutes past eleven. At that +hour, could I hope to meet Mrs. Van Brandt alone in the public street? + +The more I thought of it, the less likely such an event seemed to be. +The more reasonable probability was that I might meet her once more, +accompanied by some friend--perhaps under the escort of Van Brandt +himself. I wondered whether I should preserve my self-control, in the +presence of that man, for the second time. + +While my thoughts were still pursuing this direction, my attention was +recalled to passing events by a sad little voice, putting a strange +little question, close at my side. + +"If you please, sir, do you know where I can find a chemist's shop open +at this time of night?" + +I looked round, and discovered a poorly clad little boy, with a basket +over his arm, and a morsel of paper in his hand. + +"The chemists' shops are all shut," I said. "If you want any medicine, +you must ring the night-bell." + +"I dursn't do it, sir," replied the small stranger. "I am such a little +boy, I'm afraid of their beating me if I ring them up out of their beds, +without somebody to speak for me." + +The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with such a +forlorn experience of being beaten for trifling offenses in his face, +that it was impossible to resist the impulse to help him. + +"Is it a serious case of illness?" I asked. + +"I don't know, sir." + +"Have you got a doctor's prescription?" + +He held out his morsel of paper. + +"I have got this," he said. + +I took the paper from him, and looked at it. + +It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I looked first at +the doctor's signature; it was the name of a perfectly obscure person +in the profession. Below it was written the name of the patient for whom +the medicine had been prescribed. I started as I read it. The name was +"Mrs. Brand." + +The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound went, at any +rate) was the English equivalent of Van Brandt. + +"Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?" I asked. + +"Oh yes, sir! She lodges with mother--and she owes for rent. I have +done everything she told me, except getting the physic. I've pawned her +ring, and I've bought the bread and butter and eggs, and I've taken +care of the change. Mother looks to the change for her rent. It isn't my +fault, sir, that I've lost myself. I am but ten years old--and all the +chemists' shops are shut up!" + +Here my little friend's sense of his unmerited misfortunes overpowered +him, and he began to cry. + +"Don't cry, my man!" I said; "I'll help you. Tell me something more +about the lady first. Is she alone?" + +"She's got her little girl with her, sir." + +My heart quickened its beat. The boy's answer reminded me of that other +little girl whom my mother had once seen. + +"Is the lady's husband with her?" I asked next. + +"No, sir--not now. He was with her; but he went away--and he hasn't come +back yet." + +I put a last conclusive question. + +"Is her husband an Englishman?" I inquired. + +"Mother says he's a foreigner," the boy answered. + +I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might have noticed +it! + +Passing under the name of "Mrs. Brand"--poor, so poor that she was +obliged to pawn her ring--left, by a man who was a foreigner, alone with +her little girl--was I on the trace of her at that moment? Was this lost +child destined to be the innocent means of leading me back to the woman +I loved, in her direst need of sympathy and help? The more I thought of +it, the more strongly the idea of returning with the boy to the house +in which his mother's lodger lived fastened itself on my mind. The clock +struck the quarter past eleven. If my anticipations ended in misleading +me, I had still three-quarters of an hour to spare before the month +reached its end. + +"Where do you live?" I asked. + +The boy mentioned a street, the name of which I then heard for the first +time. All he could say, when I asked for further particulars, was that +he lived close by the river--in which direction, he was too confused and +too frightened to be able to tell me. + +While we were still trying to understand each other, a cab passed slowly +at some little distance. I hailed the man, and mentioned the name of +the street to him. He knew it perfectly well. The street was rather +more than a mile away from us, in an easterly direction. He undertook +to drive me there and to bring me back again to Saint Paul's (if +necessary), in less than twenty minutes. I opened the door of the cab, +and told my little friend to get in. The boy hesitated. + +"Are we going to the chemist's, if you please, sir?" he asked. + +"No. You are going home first, with me." + +The boy began to cry again. + +"Mother will beat me, sir, if I go back without the medicine." + +"I will take care that your mother doesn't beat you. I am a doctor +myself; and I want to see the lady before we get the medicine." + +The announcement of my profession appeared to inspire the boy with a +certain confidence. But he still showed no disposition to accompany me +to his mother's house. + +"Do you mean to charge the lady anything?" he asked. "The money I've +got on the ring isn't much. Mother won't like having it taken out of her +rent." + +"I won't charge the lady a farthing," I answered. + +The boy instantly got into the cab. "All right," he said, "as long as +mother gets her money." + +Alas for the poor! The child's education in the sordid anxieties of life +was completed already at ten years old! + +We drove away. + +CHAPTER XXV. I KEEP MY APPOINTMENT. + +THE poverty-stricken aspect of the street when we entered it, the dirty +and dilapidated condition of the house when we drew up at the door, +would have warned most men, in my position, to prepare themselves for +a distressing discovery when they were admitted to the interior of the +dwelling. The first impression which the place produced on _my_ mind +suggested, on the contrary, that the boy's answers to my questions had +led me astray. It was simply impossible to associate Mrs. Van Brandt (as +_I_ remembered her) with the spectacle of such squalid poverty as I +now beheld. I rang the door-bell, feeling persuaded beforehand that my +inquiries would lead to no useful result. + +As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion's dread of a +beating revived in full force. He hid himself behind me; and when I +asked what he was about, he answered, confidentially: "Please stand +between us, sir, when mother opens the door!" + +A tall and truculent woman answered the bell. No introduction was +necessary. Holding a cane in her hand, she stood self-proclaimed as my +small friend's mother. + +"I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine," she explained, as an +apology for the exhibition of the cane. "He has been gone on an errand +more than two hours. What did you please to want, sir?" + +I interceded for the unfortunate boy before I entered on my own +business. + +"I must beg you to forgive your son this time," I said. "I found him +lost in the streets; and I have brought him home." + +The woman's astonishment when she heard what I had done, and discovered +her son behind me, literally struck her dumb. The language of the +eye, superseding on this occasion the language of the tongue, plainly +revealed the impression that I had produced on her: "You bring my lost +brat home in a cab! Mr. Stranger, you are mad." + +"I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging in the house," I went +on. "I dare say I am mistaken in supposing her to be a lady of the same +name whom I know. But I should like to make sure whether I am right or +wrong. Is it too late to disturb your lodger to-night?" + +The woman recovered the use of her tongue. + +"My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who doesn't know his +way about London yet!" She emphasized those words by shaking her brawny +fist at her son--who instantly returned to his place of refuge behind +the tail of my coat. "Have you got the money?" inquired the terrible +person, shouting at her hidden offspring over my shoulder. "Or have you +lost _that_ as well as your own stupid little self?" + +The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his mother's knotty +hand. She counted it, with eyes which satisfied themselves fiercely that +each coin was of genuine silver--and then became partially pacified. + +"Go along upstairs," she growled, addressing her son; "and don't keep +the lady waiting any longer. They're half starved, she and her child," +the woman proceeded, turning to me. "The food my boy has got for them +in his basket will be the first food the mother has tasted today. She's +pawned everything by this time; and what she's to do unless you help +her is more than I can say. The doctor does what he can; but he told me +today, if she wasn't better nourished, it was no use sending for _him_. +Follow the boy; and see for yourself if it's the lady you know." + +I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had acted under +a delusion in going to her house. How was it possible to associate +the charming object of my heart's worship with the miserable story +of destitution which I had just heard? I stopped the boy on the first +landing, and told him to announce me simply as a doctor, who had been +informed of Mrs. Brand's illness, and who had called to see her. + +We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived now at the +top of the house, the boy knocked at the door that was nearest to us +on the landing. No audible voice replied. He opened the door without +ceremony, and went in. I waited outside to hear what was said. The door +was left ajar. If the voice of "Mrs. Brand" was (as I believed it would +prove to be) the voice of a stranger, I resolved to offer her delicately +such help as lay within my power, and to return forthwith to my post +under "the shadow of Saint Paul's." + +The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a child. + +"I'm so hungry, Jemmy--I'm so hungry!" + +"All right, missy--I've got you something to eat." + +"Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!" + +There was a momentary pause; and then I heard the boy's voice once more. + +"There's a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait for your egg +till I can boil it. Don't you eat too fast, or you'll choke yourself. +What's the matter with your mamma? Are you asleep, ma'am?" + +I could barely hear the answering voice--it was so faint; and it +uttered but one word: "No!" + +The boy spoke again. + +"Cheer up, missus. There's a doctor outside waiting to see you." + +This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself to me at +the door. "Please to come in, sir. _I_ can't make anything of her." + +It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated any longer to +enter the room. I went in. + +There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed-chamber, +lying back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was one more among the +thousands of forlorn creatures, starving that night in the great city. +A white handkerchief was laid over her face as if to screen it from the +flame of the fire hard by. She lifted the handkerchief, startled by the +sound of my footsteps as I entered the room. I looked at her, and saw in +the white, wan, death-like face the face of the woman I loved! + +For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint and giddy. In +another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm was round her--her +head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking, past crying out: she +trembled silently, and that was all. I said nothing. No words passed my +lips, no tears came to my relief. I held her to me; and she let me hold +her. The child, devouring its bread-and-butter at a little round table, +stared at us. The boy, on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, +stared at us. And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly +in a corner was the only sound in the room. + +The instincts of the profession to which I had been trained, rather than +any active sense of the horror of the situation in which I was placed, +roused me at last. She was starving! I saw it in the deadly color of her +skin; I felt it in the faint, quick flutter of her pulse. I called +the boy to me, and sent him to the nearest public-house for wine and +biscuits. "Be quick about it," I said; "and you shall have more money +for yourself than ever you had in your life!" The boy looked at me, spit +on the coins in his hand, said, "That's for luck!" and ran out of the +room as never boy ran yet. + +I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. The cry of +the child stopped me. + +"I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!" + +I set more food before the famished child and kissed her. She looked up +at me with wondering eyes. + +"Are you a new papa?" the little creature asked. "My other papa never +kisses me." + +I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed; the tears flowed slowly +over her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail hand in mine. "Happier +days are coming," I said; "you are _my_ care now." There was no answer. +She still trembled silently, and that was all. + +In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned his promised +reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting his treasure, the one +happy creature in the room. I soaked some crumbled morsels of biscuit +in the wine, and, little by little, I revived her failing strength by +nourishment administered at intervals in that cautious form. After a +while she raised her head, and looked at me with wondering eyes that +were pitiably like the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate flush began +to show itself in her face. She spoke to me, for the first time, in +whispering tones that I could just hear as I sat close at her side. + +"How did you find me? Who showed you the way to this place?" + +She paused; painfully recalling the memory of something that was slow +to come back. Her color deepened; she found the lost remembrance, and +looked at me with a timid curiosity. "What brought you here?" she asked. +"Was it my dream?" + +"Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you all." + +I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The child +followed us, and climbing to the bedstead with my help, nestled at her +mother's side. I sent the boy away to tell the mistress of the house +that I should remain with my patient, watching her progress toward +recovery, through the night. He went out, jingling his money joyfully in +his pocket. We three were left together. + +As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals into a +broken sleep; waking with a start, and looking at me wildly as if I had +been a stranger at her bedside. Toward morning the nourishment which I +still carefully administered wrought its healthful change in her pulse, +and composed her to quieter slumbers. When the sun rose she was sleeping +as peacefully as the child at her side. I was able to leave her, until +my return later in the day, under the care of the woman of the house. +The magic of money transformed this termagant and terrible person into +a docile and attentive nurse--so eager to follow my instructions exactly +that she begged me to commit them to writing before I went away. For a +moment I still lingered alone at the bedside of the sleeping woman, and +satisfied myself for the hundredth time that her life was safe, before +I left her. It was the sweetest of all rewards to feel sure of this--to +touch her cool forehead lightly with my lips--to look, and look again, +at the poor worn face, always dear, always beautiful, to _my_ eyes. +change as it might. I closed the door softly and went out in the bright +morning, a happy man again. So close together rise the springs of joy +and sorrow in human life! So near in our heart, as in our heaven, is the +brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud! + +CHAPTER XXVI. CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER. + +I REACHED my own house in time to snatch two or three hours of repose, +before I paid my customary morning visit to my mother in her own room. I +observed, in her reception of me on this occasion, certain peculiarities +of look and manner which were far from being familiar in my experience +of her. + +When our eyes first met, she regarded me with a wistful, questioning +look, as if she were troubled by some doubt which she shrunk from +expressing in words. And when I inquired after her health, as usual, she +surprised me by answering as impatiently as if she resented my having +mentioned the subject. For a moment, I was inclined to think these +changes signified that she had discovered my absence from home during +the night, and that she had some suspicion of the true cause of it. But +she never alluded, even in the most distant manner, to Mrs. Van +Brandt; and not a word dropped from her lips which implied, directly or +indirectly, that I had pained or disappointed her. I could only conclude +that she had something important to say in relation to herself or to +me--and that for reasons of her own she unwillingly abstained from +giving expression to it at that time. + +Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touched on the +subject (always interesting to my mother) of my visit to Shetland. +Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also of Miss Dunross. Here, again, +when I least expected it, there was another surprise in store for me. + +"You were talking the other day," said my mother, "of the green flag +which poor Dermody's daughter worked for you, when you were both +children. Have you really kept it all this time?" + +"Yes." + +"Where have you left it? In Scotland?" + +"I have brought it with me to London." + +"Why?" + +"I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, wherever I +might go." + +My mother smiled. + +"Is it possible, George, that you think about this as the young lady in +Shetland thinks? After all the years that have passed, you believe in +the green flag being the means of bringing Mary Dermody and yourself +together again?" + +"Certainly not! I am only humoring one of the fancies of poor Miss +Dunross. Could I refuse to grant her trifling request, after all I owed +to her kindness?" + +The smile left my mother's face. She looked at me attentively. + +"Miss Dunross seems to have produced a very favorable impression on +you," she said. + +"I own it. I feel deeply interested in her." + +"If she had not been an incurable invalid, George, I too might have +become interested in Miss Dunross--perhaps in the character of my +daughter-in-law?" + +"It is useless, mother, to speculate on what _might_ have happened. The +sad reality is enough." + +My mother paused a little before she put her next question to me. + +"Did Miss Dunross always keep her veil drawn in your presence, when +there happened to be light in the room?" + +"Always." + +"She never even let you catch a momentary glance at her face?" + +"Never." + +"And the only reason she gave you was that the light caused her a +painful sensation if it fell on her uncovered skin?" + +"You say that, mother, as if you doubt whether Miss Dunross told me the +truth." + +"No, George. I only doubt whether she told you _all_ the truth." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Don't be offended, my dear. I believe Miss Dunross has some more +serious reason for keeping her face hidden than the reason that she gave +_you_." + +I was silent. The suspicion which those words implied had never occurred +to my mind. I had read in medical books of cases of morbid nervous +sensitiveness exactly similar to the case of Miss Dunross, as described +by herself--and that had been enough for me. Now that my mother's idea +had found its way from her mind to mine, the impression produced on +me was painful in the last degree. Horrible imaginings of deformity +possessed my brain, and profaned all that was purest and dearest in my +recollections of Miss Dunross. It was useless to change the subject--the +evil influence that was on me was too potent to be charmed away by talk. +Making the best excuse that I could think of for leaving my mother's +room, I hurried away to seek a refuge from myself, where alone I could +hope to find it, in the presence of Mrs. Van Brandt. + +CHAPTER XXVII. CONVERSATION WITH MRS. VAN BRANDT. + +THE landlady was taking the air at her own door when I reached +the house. Her reply to my inquiries justified my most hopeful +anticipations. The poor lodger looked already "like another woman"; +and the child was at that moment posted on the stairs, watching for the +return of her "new papa." + +"There's one thing I should wish to say to you, sir, before you go +upstairs," the woman went on. "Don't trust the lady with more money at +a time than the money that is wanted for the day's housekeeping. If +she has any to spare, it's as likely as not to be wasted on her +good-for-nothing husband." + +Absorbed in the higher and dearer interests that filled my mind, I had +thus far forgotten the very existence of Mr. Van Brandt. + +"Where is he?" I asked. + +"Where he ought to be," was the answer. "In prison for debt." + +In those days a man imprisoned for debt was not infrequently a man +imprisoned for life. There was little fear of my visit being shortened +by the appearance on the scene of Mr. Van Brandt. + +Ascending the stairs, I found the child waiting for me on the upper +landing, with a ragged doll in her arms. I had bought a cake for her on +my way to the house. She forthwith turned over the doll to my care, and, +trotting before me into the room with her cake in her arms, announced my +arrival in these words: + +"Mamma, I like this papa better than the other. You like him better, +too." + +The mother's wasted face reddened for a moment, then turned pale again, +as she held out her hand to me. I looked at her anxiously, and discerned +the welcome signs of recovery, clearly revealed. Her grand gray eyes +rested on me again with a glimmer of their old light. The hand that had +lain so cold in mine on the past night had life and warmth in it now. + +"Should I have died before the morning if you had not come here?" she +asked, softly. "Have you saved my life for the second time? I can well +believe it." + +Before I was aware of her, she bent her head over my hand, and +touched it tenderly with her lips. "I am not an ungrateful woman," she +murmured--"and yet I don't know how to thank you." + +The child looked up quickly from her cake. "Why don't you kiss him?" the +quaint little creature asked, with a broad stare of astonishment. + +Her head sunk on her breast. She sighed bitterly. + +"No more of Me!" she said, suddenly recovering her composure, and +suddenly forcing herself to look at me again. "Tell me what happy chance +brought you here last night?" + +"The same chance," I answered, "which took me to Saint Anthony's Well." + +She raised herself eagerly in the chair. + +"You have seen me again--as you saw me in the summer-house by the +waterfall!" she exclaimed. "Was it in Scotland once more?" + +"No. Further away than Scotland--as far away as Shetland." + +"Tell me about it! Pray, pray tell me about it!" + +I related what had happened as exactly as I could, consistently with +maintaining the strictest reserve on one point. Concealing from her the +very existence of Miss Dunross, I left her to suppose that the master +of the house was the one person whom I had found to receive me during my +sojourn under Mr. Dunross's roof. + +"That is strange!" she exclaimed, after she had heard me attentively to +the end. + +"What is strange?" I asked. + +She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large grave eyes. + +"I hardly like speaking of it," she said. "And yet I ought to have no +concealments in such a matter from you. I understand everything that you +have told me--with one exception. It seems strange to me that you should +only have had one old man for your companion while you were at the house +in Shetland." + +"What other companion did you expect to hear of?" I inquired. + +"I expected," she answered, "to hear of a lady in the house." + +I cannot positively say that the reply took me by surprise: it forced me +to reflect before I spoke again. I knew, by my past experience, that +she must have seen me, in my absence from her, while I was spiritually +present to her mind in a trance or dream. Had she also seen the daily +companion of my life in Shetland--Miss Dunross? + +I put the question in a form which left me free to decide whether I +should take her unreservedly into my confidence or not. + +"Am I right," I began, "in supposing that you dreamed of me in Shetland, +as you once before dreamed of me while I was at my house in Perthshire?" + +"Yes," she answered. "It was at the close of evening, this time. I fell +asleep, or became insensible--I cannot say which. And I saw you again, +in a vision or a dream." + +"Where did you see me?" + +"I first saw you on the bridge over the Scotch river--just as I met you +on the evening when you saved my life. After a while the stream and +the landscape about it faded, and you faded with them, into darkness. +I waited a little, and the darkness melted away slowly. I stood, as it +seemed to me, in a circle of starry lights; fronting a window, with a +lake behind me, and before me a darkened room. And I looked into the +room, and the starry light showed you to me again." + +"When did this happen? Do you remember the date?" + +"I remember that it was at the beginning of the month. The misfortunes +which have since brought me so low had not then fallen on me; and yet, +as I stood looking at you, I had the strangest prevision of calamity +that was to come. I felt the same absolute reliance on your power to +help me that I felt when I first dreamed of you in Scotland. And I did +the same familiar things. I laid my hand on your bosom. I said to you: +'Remember me. Come to me.' I even wrote--" + +She stopped, shuddering as if a sudden fear had laid its hold on +her. Seeing this, and dreading the effect of any violent agitation, I +hastened to suggest that we should say no more, for that day, on the +subject of her dream. + +"No," she answered, firmly. "There is nothing to be gained by giving me +time. My dream has left one horrible remembrance on my mind. As long as +I live, I believe I shall tremble when I think of what I saw near you in +that darkened room." + +She stopped again. Was she approaching the subject of the shrouded +figure, with the black veil over its head? Was she about to describe her +first discovery, in the dream, of Miss Dunross? + +"Tell me one thing first," she resumed. "Have I been right in what I +have said to you, so far? Is it true that you were in a darkened room +when you saw me?" + +"Quite true." + +"Was the date the beginning of the month? and was the hour the close of +evening?" + +"Yes." + +"Were you alone in the room? Answer me truly!" + +"I was not alone." + +"Was the master of the house with you? or had you some other companion?" + +It would have been worse than useless (after what I had now heard) to +attempt to deceive her. + +"I had another companion," I answered. "The person in the room with me +was a woman." + +Her face showed, as I spoke, that she was again shaken by the terrifying +recollection to which she had just alluded. I had, by this time, some +difficulty myself in preserving my composure. Still, I was determined +not to let a word escape me which could operate as a suggestion on the +mind of my companion. + +"Have you any other question to ask me?" was all I said. + +"One more," she answered. "Was there anything unusual in the dress of +your companion?" + +"Yes. She wore a long black veil, which hung over her head and face, and +dropped to below her waist." + +Mrs. Van Brandt leaned back in her chair, and covered her eyes with her +hands. + +"I understand your motive for concealing from me the presence of that +miserable woman in the house," she said. "It is good and kind, like +all your motives; but it is useless. While I lay in the trance I saw +everything exactly as it was in the reality; and I, too, saw that +frightful face!" + +Those words literally electrified me. + +My conversation of that morning with my mother instantly recurred to my +memory. I started to my feet. + +"Good God!" I exclaimed, "what do you mean?" + +"Don't you understand yet?" she asked in amazement on her side. "Must I +speak more plainly still? When you saw the apparition of me, did you see +me write?" + +"Yes. On a letter that the lady was writing for me. I saw the words +afterward; the words that brought me to you last night: 'At the month's +end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's.'" + +"How did I appear to write on the unfinished letter?" + +"You lifted the writing-case, on which the letter and the pen lay, +off the lady's lap; and, while you wrote, you rested the case on her +shoulder." + +"Did you notice if the lifting of the case produced any effect on her?" + +"I saw no effect produced," I answered. "She remained immovable in her +chair." + +"I saw it differently in my dream. She raised her hand--not the +hand that was nearest to you, but nearest to me. As _I_ lifted the +writing-case, _she_ lifted her hand, and parted the folds of the veil +from off her face--I suppose to see more clearly. It was only for a +moment; and in that moment I saw what the veil hid. Don't let us speak +of it! You must have shuddered at that frightful sight in the reality, +as I shuddered at it in the dream. You must have asked yourself, as +I did: 'Is there nobody to poison the terrible creature, and hide her +mercifully in the grave?'" + +At those words, she abruptly checked herself. I could say nothing--my +face spoke for me. She saw it, and guessed the truth. + +"Good heavens!" she cried, "you have not seen her! She must have kept +her face hidden from you behind the veil! Oh, why, why did you cheat +me into talking of it! I will never speak of it again. See, we are +frightening the child! Come here, darling; there is nothing to be afraid +of. Come, and bring your cake with you. You shall be a great lady, +giving a grand dinner; and we will be two friends whom you have invited +to dine with you; and the doll shall be the little girl who comes in +after dinner, and has fruit at dessert!" So she ran on, trying vainly +to forget the shock that she had inflicted on me in talking nursery +nonsense to the child. + +Recovering my composure in some degree, I did my best to second the +effort that she had made. My quieter thoughts suggested that she might +well be self-deceived in believing the horrible spectacle presented to +her in the vision to be an actual reflection of the truth. In common +justice toward Miss Dunross I ought surely not to accept the conviction +of her deformity on no better evidence than the evidence of a dream? +Reasonable as it undoubtedly was, this view left certain doubts still +lingering in my mind. The child's instinct soon discovered that her +mother and I were playfellows who felt no genuine enjoyment of the game. +She dismissed her make-believe guests without ceremony, and went back +with her doll to the favorite play-ground on which I had met her--the +landing outside the door. No persuasion on her mother's part or on mine +succeeded in luring her back to us. We were left together, to face +each other as best we might--with the forbidden subject of Miss Dunross +between us. + +CHAPTER XXVIII. LOVE AND MONEY. + +FEELING the embarrassment of the moment most painfully on her side, Mrs. +Van Brandt spoke first. + +"You have said nothing to me about yourself," she began. "Is your life a +happier one than it was when we last met?" + +"I cannot honestly say that it is," I answered. + +"Is there any prospect of your being married?" + +"My prospect of being married still rests with you." + +"Don't say that!" she exclaimed, with an entreating look at me. "Don't +spoil my pleasure in seeing you again by speaking of what can never be! +Have you still to be told how it is that you find me here alone with my +child?" + +I forced myself to mention Van Brandt's name, rather than hear it pass +_her_ lips. + +"I have been told that Mr. Van Brandt is in prison for debt," I said. +"And I saw for myself last night that he had left you helpless." + +"He left me the little money he had with him when he was arrested," she +rejoined, sadly. "His cruel creditors are more to blame than he is for +the poverty that has fallen on us." + +Even this negative defense of Van Brandt stung me to the quick. + +"I ought to have spoken more guardedly of him," I said, bitterly. "I +ought to have remembered that a woman can forgive almost any wrong that +a man can inflict on her--when he is the man whom she loves." + +She put her hand on my mouth, and stopped me before I could say any +more. + +"How can you speak so cruelly to me?" she asked. "You know--to my shame +I confessed it to you the last time we met--you know that my heart, in +secret, is all yours. What 'wrong' are you talking of? Is it the wrong I +suffered when Van Brandt married me, with a wife living at the time (and +living still)? Do you think I can ever forget the great misfortune of my +life--the misfortune that has made me unworthy of you? It is no fault of +mine, God knows; but it is not the less true that I am not married, and +that the little darling who is playing out there with her doll is my +child. And you talk of my being your wife--knowing that!" + +"The child accepts me as her second father," I said. "It would be better +and happier for us both if you had as little pride as the child." + +"Pride?" she repeated. "In such a position as mine? A helpless woman, +with a mock-husband in prison for debt! Say that I have not fallen +quite so low yet as to forget what is due to you, and you will pay me +a compliment that will be nearer to the truth. Am I to marry you for my +food and shelter? Am I to marry you, because there is no lawful tie that +binds me to the father of my child? Cruelly as he has behaved, he has +still _that_ claim upon me. Bad as he is, he has not forsaken me; he +has been forced away. My only friend, is it possible that you think +me ungrateful enough to consent to be your wife? The woman (in my +situation) must be heartless indeed who could destroy your place in the +estimation of the world and the regard of your friends! The wretchedest +creature that walks the streets would shrink from treating you in that +way. Oh, what are men made of? How _can_ you--how _can_ you speak of +it!" + +I yielded---and spoke of it no more. Every word she uttered only +increased my admiration of the noble creature whom I had loved, and +lost. What refuge was now left to me? But one refuge; I could still +offer to her the sacrifice of myself. Bitterly as I hated the man who +had parted us, I loved her dearly enough to be even capable of helping +him for her sake. Hopeless infatuation! I don't deny it; I don't excuse +it--hopeless infatuation! + +"You have forgiven me," I said. "Let me deserve to be forgiven. It is +something to be your only friend. You must have plans for the future; +tell me unreservedly how I can help you." + +"Complete the good work that you have begun," she answered, gratefully. +"Help me back to health. Make me strong enough to submit to a doctor's +estimate of my chances of living for some years yet." + +"A doctor's estimate of your chances of living?" I repeated. "What do +you mean?" + +"I hardly know how to tell you," she said, "without speaking again of +Mr. Van Brandt." + +"Does speaking of him again mean speaking of his debts?" I asked. "Why +need you hesitate? You know that there is nothing I will not do to +relieve _your_ anxieties." + +She looked at me for a moment, in silent distress. + +"Oh! do you think I would let you give your money to Van Brandt?" +she asked, as soon as she could speak. "I, who owe everything to your +devotion to me? Never! Let me tell you the plain truth. There is +a serious necessity for his getting out of prison. He must pay his +creditors; and he has found out a way of doing it--with my help." + +"Your help?" I exclaimed. + +"Yes. This is his position, in two words: A little while since, he +obtained an excellent offer of employment abroad, from a rich relative +of his, and he had made all his arrangements to accept it. Unhappily, +he returned to tell me of his good fortune, and the same day he was +arrested for debt. His relative has offered to keep the situation open +for a certain time, and the time has not yet expired. If he can pay +a dividend to his creditors, they will give him his freedom; and he +believes he can raise the money if I consent to insure my life." + +To insure her life! The snare that had been set for her was plainly +revealed in those four words. + +In the eye of the law she was, of course, a single woman: she was of +age; she was, to all intents and purposes, her own mistress. What was +there to prevent her from insuring her life, if she pleased, and from +so disposing of the insurance as to give Van Brandt a direct interest +in her death? Knowing what I knew of him--believing him, as I did, to be +capable of any atrocity--I trembled at the bare idea of what might have +happened if I had failed to find my way back to her until a later date. +Thanks to the happy accident of my position, the one certain way of +protecting her lay easily within my reach. I could offer to lend the +scoundrel the money that he wanted at an hour's notice, and he was the +man to accept my proposal quite as easily as I could make it. + +"You don't seem to approve of our idea," she said, noticing, in +evident perplexity, the effect which she had produced on me. "I am very +unfortunate; I seem to have innocently disturbed and annoyed you for the +second time." + +"You are quite mistaken," I replied. "I am only doubting whether your +plan for relieving Mr. Van Brandt of his embarrassments is quite so +simple as you suppose. Are you aware of the delays that are likely to +take place before it will be possible to borrow money on your policy of +insurance?" + +"I know nothing about it," she said, sadly. + +"Will you let me ask the advice of my lawyers? They are trustworthy and +experienced men, and I am sure they can be of use to you." + +Cautiously as I had expressed myself, her delicacy took the alarm. + +"Promise that you won't ask me to borrow money of you for Mr. Van +Brandt," she rejoined, "and I will accept your help gratefully." + +I could honestly promise that. My one chance of saving her lay in +keeping from her knowledge the course that I had now determined to +pursue. I rose to go, while my resolution still sustained me. The sooner +I made my inquiries (I reminded her) the more speedily our present +doubts and difficulties would be resolved. + +She rose, as I rose--with the tears in her eyes, and the blush on her +cheeks. + +"Kiss me," she whispered, "before you go! And don't mind my crying. I am +quite happy now. It is only your goodness that overpowers me." + +I pressed her to my heart, with the unacknowledged tenderness of a +parting embrace. It was impossible to disguise the position in which I +had now placed myself. I had, so to speak, pronounced my own sentence of +banishment. When my interference had restored my unworthy rival to his +freedom, could I submit to the degrading necessity of seeing her in his +presence, of speaking to her under his eyes? _That_ sacrifice of myself +was beyond me--and I knew it. "For the last time!" I thought, as I held +her to me for a moment longer--"for the last time!" + +The child ran to meet me with open arms when I stepped out on the +landing. My manhood had sustained me through the parting with the +mother. It was only when the child's round, innocent little face laid +itself lovingly against mine that my fortitude gave way. I was past +speaking; I put her down gently in silence, and waited on the lower +flight of stairs until I was fit to face the world outside. + +CHAPTER XXIX. OUR DESTINIES PART US. + +DESCENDING to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to request a +moment's interview with the landlady. I had yet to learn in which of the +London prisons Van Brandt was confined; and she was the only person to +whom I could venture to address the question. + +Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own sordid construction +on my motive for visiting the prisoner. + +"Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy pockets already?" +she asked. "If I was as rich as you are, I should let it go. In your +place, I wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs!" + +The woman's coarse warning actually proved useful to me; it started +a new idea in my mind! Before she spoke, I had been too dull or too +preoccupied to see that it was quite needless to degrade myself by +personally communicating with Van Brandt in his prison. It only now +occurred to me that my legal advisers were, as a matter of course, +the proper persons to represent me in the matter--with this additional +advantage, that they could keep my share in the transaction a secret +even from Van Brandt himself. + +I drove at once to the office of my lawyers. The senior partner--the +tried friend and adviser of our family--received me. + +My instructions, naturally enough, astonished him. He was immediately +to satisfy the prisoner's creditors, on my behalf, without mentioning +my name to any one. And he was gravely to accept as security for +repayment--Mr. Van Brandt's note of hand! + +"I thought I was well acquainted with the various methods by which a +gentleman can throw away his money," the senior partner remarked. "I +congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, on having discovered an entirely new +way of effectually emptying your purse. Founding a newspaper, taking a +theater, keeping race-horses, gambling at Monaco, are highly efficient +as modes of losing money. But they all yield, sir, to paying the debts +of Mr. Van Brandt!" + +I left him, and went home. + +The servant who opened the door had a message for me from my mother. She +wished to see me as soon as I was at leisure to speak to her. + +I presented myself at once in my mother's sitting-room. + +"Well, George?" she said, without a word to prepare me for what was +coming. "How have you left Mrs. Van Brandt?" + +I was completely thrown off my guard. + +"Who has told you that I have seen Mrs. Van Brandt?" I asked. + +"My dear, your face has told me. Don't I know by this time how you look +and how you speak when Mrs. Van Brandt is in your mind. Sit down by me. +I have something to say to you which I wanted to say this morning; but, +I hardly know why, my heart failed me. I am bolder now, and I can say +it. My son, you still love Mrs. Van Brandt. You have my permission to +marry her." + +Those were the words! Hardly an hour had elapsed since Mrs. Van Brandt's +own lips had told me that our union was impossible. Not even half an +hour had passed since I had given the directions which would restore to +liberty the man who was the one obstacle to my marriage. And this was +the time that my mother had innocently chosen for consenting to receive +as her daughter-in-law Mrs. Van Brandt! + +"I see that I surprise you," she resumed. "Let me explain my motive as +plainly as I can. I should not be speaking the truth, George, if I told +you that I have ceased to feel the serious objections that there are to +your marrying this lady. The only difference in my way of thinking is, +that I am now willing to set my objections aside, out of regard for your +happiness. I am an old woman, my dear. In the course of nature, I cannot +hope to be with you much longer. When I am gone, who will be left to +care for you and love you, in the place of your mother? No one will +be left, unless you marry Mrs. Van Brandt. Your happiness is my first +consideration, and the woman you love (sadly as she has been led astray) +is a woman worthy of a better fate. Marry her." + +I could not trust myself to speak. I could only kneel at my mother's +feet, and hide my face on her knees, as if I had been a boy again. + +"Think of it, George," she said. "And come back to me when you are +composed enough to speak as quietly of the future as I do." + +She lifted my head and kissed me. As I rose to leave her, I saw +something in the dear old eyes that met mine so tenderly, which struck a +sudden fear through me, keen and cutting, like a stroke from a knife. + +The moment I had closed the door, I went downstairs to the porter in the +hall. + +"Has my mother left the house," I asked, "while I have been away?" + +"No, sir." + +"Have any visitors called?" + +"One visitor has called, sir." + +"Do you know who it was?" + +The porter mentioned the name of a celebrated physician--a man at the +head of his profession in those days. I instantly took my hat and went +to his house. + +He had just returned from his round of visits. My card was taken to him, +and was followed at once by my admission to his consulting-room. + +"You have seen my mother," I said. "Is she seriously ill? and have you +not concealed it from her? For God's sake, tell me the truth; I can bear +it." + +The great man took me kindly by the hand. + +"Your mother stands in no need of any warning; she is herself aware of +the critical state of her health," he said. "She sent for me to confirm +her own conviction. I could not conceal from her--I must not conceal +from you--that the vital energies are sinking. She may live for some +months longer in a milder air than the air of London. That is all I can +say. At her age, her days are numbered." + +He gave me time to steady myself under the blow; and then he placed his +vast experience, his matured and consummate knowledge, at my disposal. +From his dictation, I committed to writing the necessary instructions +for watching over the frail tenure of my mother's life. + +"Let me give you one word of warning," he said, as we parted. "Your +mother is especially desirous that you should know nothing of the +precarious condition of her health. Her one anxiety is to see you +happy. If she discovers your visit to me, I will not answer for the +consequences. Make the best excuse you can think of for at once taking +her away from London, and, whatever you may feel in secret, keep up an +appearance of good spirits in her presence." + +That evening I made my excuse. It was easily found. I had only to tell +my poor mother of Mrs. Van Brandt's refusal to marry me, and there was +an intelligible motive assigned for my proposing to leave London. The +same night I wrote to inform Mrs. Van Brandt of the sad event which was +the cause of my sudden departure, and to warn her that there no longer +existed the slightest necessity for insuring her life. "My lawyers" (I +wrote) "have undertaken to arrange Mr. Van Brandt's affairs immediately. +In a few hours he will be at liberty to accept the situation that has +been offered to him." The last lines of the letter assured her of my +unalterable love, and entreated her to write to me before she left +England. + +This done, all was done. I was conscious, strange to say, of no acutely +painful suffering at this saddest time of my life. There is a limit, +morally as well as physically, to our capacity for endurance. I can only +describe my sensations under the calamities that had now fallen on me in +one way: I felt like a man whose mind had been stunned. + +The next day my mother and I set forth on the first stage of our journey +to the south coast of Devonshire. + +CHAPTER XXX. THE PROSPECT DARKENS. + +THREE days after my mother and I had established ourselves at Torquay, +I received Mrs. Van Brandt's answer to my letter. After the opening +sentences (informing me that Van Brandt had been set at liberty, under +circumstances painfully suggestive to the writer of some unacknowledged +sacrifice on my part), the letter proceeded in these terms: + +"The new employment which Mr. Van Brandt is to undertake secures to us +the comforts, if not the luxuries, of life. For the first time since my +troubles began, I have the prospect before me of a peaceful existence, +among a foreign people from whom all that is false in my position may be +concealed--not for my sake, but for the sake of my child. To more than +this, to the happiness which some women enjoy, I must not, I dare not, +aspire. + +"We leave England for the Continent early tomorrow morning. Shall I tell +you in what part of Europe my new residence is to be? + +"No! You might write to me again; and I might write back. The one poor +return I can make to the good angel of my life is to help him to forget +me. What right have I to cling to my usurped place in your regard? The +time will come when you will give your heart to a woman who is worthier +of it than I am. Let me drop out of your life--except as an occasional +remembrance, when you sometimes think of the days that have gone +forever. + +"I shall not be without some consolation on my side, when I too look +back at the past. I have been a better woman since I met with you. Live +as long as I may, I shall always remember that. + +"Yes! The influence that you have had over me has been from first to +last an influence for good. Allowing that I have done wrong (in my +position) to love you, and, worse even than that, to own it, still the +love has been innocent, and the effort to control it has been an honest +effort at least. But, apart from this, my heart tells me that I am the +better for the sympathy which has united us. I may confess to you what +I have never yet acknowledged--now that we are so widely parted, and +so little likely to meet again--whenever I have given myself up +unrestrainedly to my own better impulses, they have always seemed to +lead me to you. Whenever my mind has been most truly at peace, and I +have been able to pray with a pure and a penitent heart, I have felt +as if there was some unseen tie that was drawing us nearer and nearer +together. And, strange to say, this has always happened (just as my +dreams of you have always come to me) when I have been separated from +Van Brandt. At such times, thinking or dreaming, it has always appeared +to me that I knew you far more familiarly than I know you when we meet +face to face. Is there really such a thing, I wonder, as a former state +of existence? And were we once constant companions in some other sphere, +thousands of years since? These are idle guesses. Let it be enough for +me to remember that I have been the better for knowing you--without +inquiring how or why. + +"Farewell, my beloved benefactor, my only friend! The child sends you a +kiss; and the mother signs herself your grateful and affectionate + +"M. VAN BRANDT." + + +When I first read those lines, they once more recalled to my +memory--very strangely, as I then thought--the predictions of Dame +Dermody in the days of my boyhood. Here were the foretold sympathies +which were spiritually to unite me to Mary, realized by a stranger whom +I had met by chance in the later years of my life! + +Thinking in this direction, did I advance no further? Not a step +further! Not a suspicion of the truth presented itself to my mind even +yet. + +Was my own dullness of apprehension to blame for this? Would another man +in my position have discovered what I had failed to see? + +I look back along the chain of events which runs through my narrative, +and I ask myself, Where are the possibilities to be found (in my case, +or in the case of any other man) of identifying the child who was Mary +Dermody with the woman who was Mrs. Van Brandt? Was there anything left +in our faces, when we met again by the Scotch river, to remind us of our +younger selves? We had developed, in the interval, from boy and girl to +man and woman: no outward traces were discernible in us of the George +and Mary of other days. Disguised from each other by our faces, we were +also disguised by our names. Her mock-marriage had changed her surname. +My step-father's will had changed mine. Her Christian name was the +commonest of all names of women; and mine was almost as far from being +remarkable among the names of men. Turning next to the various occasions +on which we had met, had we seen enough of each other to drift into +recognition on either side, in the ordinary course of talk? We had met +but four times in all; once on the bridge, once again in Edinburgh, +twice more in London. On each of these occasions, the absorbing +anxieties and interests of the passing moment had filled her mind and +mine, had inspired her words and mine. When had the events which had +brought us together left us with leisure enough and tranquillity +enough to look back idly through our lives, and calmly to compare the +recollections of our youth? Never! From first to last, the course of +events had borne us further and further away from any results that could +have led even to a suspicion of the truth. She could only believe when +she wrote to me on leaving England--and I could only believe when I read +her letter--that we had first met at the river, and that our divergent +destinies had ended in parting us forever. + +Reading her farewell letter in later days by the light of my matured +experience, I note how remarkably Dame Dermody's faith in the purity of +the tie that united us as kindred spirits was justified by the result. + +It was only when my unknown Mary was parted from Van Brandt--in +other words, it was only when she was a pure spirit--that she felt my +influence over her as a refining influence on her life, and that the +apparition of her communicated with me in the visible and perfect +likeness of herself. On my side, when was it that I dreamed of her +(as in Scotland), or felt the mysterious warning of her presence in my +waking moments (as in Shetland)? Always at the time when my heart opened +most tenderly toward her and toward others--when my mind was most free +from the bitter doubts, the self-seeking aspirations, which degrade the +divinity within us. Then, and then only, my sympathy with her was the +perfect sympathy which holds its fidelity unassailable by the chances +and changes, the delusions and temptations, of mortal life. + + +I am writing prematurely of the time when the light came to me. My +narrative must return to the time when I was still walking in darkness. + +Absorbed in watching over the closing days of my mother's life, I found +in the performance of this sacred duty my only consolation under the +overthrow of my last hope of marriage with Mrs. Van Brandt. By slow +degrees my mother felt the reviving influences of a quiet life and a +soft, pure air. The improvement in her health could, as I but too well +knew, be only an improvement for a time. Still, it was a relief to see +her free from pain, and innocently happy in the presence of her son. +Excepting those hours of the day and night which were dedicated to +repose, I was never away from her. To this day I remember, with a +tenderness which attaches to no other memories of mine, the books that I +read to her, the sunny corner on the seashore where I sat with her, the +games of cards that we played together, the little trivial gossip that +amused her when she was strong enough for nothing else. These are my +imperishable relics; these are the deeds of my life that I shall love +best to look back on, when the all-infolding shadows of death are +closing round me. + +In the hours when I was alone, my thoughts--occupying themselves mostly +among the persons and events of the past--wandered back, many and many a +time, to Shetland and Miss Dunross. + +My haunting doubt as to what the black veil had really hidden from me +was no longer accompanied by a feeling of horror when it now recurred +to my mind. The more vividly my later remembrances of Miss Dunross were +associated with the idea of an unutterable bodily affliction, the higher +the noble nature of the woman seemed to rise in my esteem. For the +first time since I had left Shetland, the temptation now came to me to +disregard the injunction which her father had laid on me at parting. +When I thought again of the stolen kiss in the dead of night; when I +recalled the appearance of the frail white hand, waving to me through +the dark curtains its last farewell; and when there mingled with these +memories the later remembrance of what my mother had suspected, and of +what Mrs. Van Brandt had seen in her dream--the longing in me to find a +means of assuring Miss Dunross that she still held her place apart in my +memory and my heart was more than mortal fortitude could resist. I was +pledged in honor not to return to Shetland, and not to write. How to +communicate with her secretly, in some other way, was the constant +question in my mind as the days went on. A hint to enlighten me was all +that I wanted; and, as the irony of circumstances ordered it, my mother +was the person who gave me the hint. + +We still spoke, at intervals, of Mrs. Van Brandt. Watching me on those +occasions when we were in the company of friends and acquaintances at +Torquay, my mother plainly discerned that no other woman, whatever her +attractions might be, could take the place in my heart of the woman whom +I had lost. Seeing but one prospect of happiness for me, she steadily +refused to abandon the idea of my marriage. When a woman has owned that +she loves a man (so my mother used to express her opinion), it is that +man's fault, no matter what the obstacles may be, if he fails to make +her his wife. Reverting to this view in various ways, she pressed it on +my consideration one day in these words: + +"There is one drawback, George, to my happiness in being here with you. +I am an obstacle in the way of your communicating with Mrs. Van Brandt." + +"You forget," I said, "that she has left England without telling me +where to find her." + +"If you were free from the incumbrance of your mother, my dear, you +would easily find her. Even as things are, you might surely write +to her. Don't mistake my motives, George. If I had any hope of your +forgetting her--if I saw you only moderately attracted by one or other +of the charming women whom we know here--I should say, let us never +speak again or think again of Mrs. Van Brandt. But, my dear, your heart +is closed to every woman but one. Be happy in your own way, and let +me see it before I die. The wretch to whom that poor creature is +sacrificing her life will, sooner or later, ill-treat her or desert her +and then she must turn to you. Don't let her think that you are +resigned to the loss of her. The more resolutely you set her scruples at +defiance, the more she will love you and admire you in secret. Women are +like that. Send her a letter, and follow it with a little present. You +talked of taking me to the studio of the young artist here who left +his card the other day. I am told that he paints admirable portraits in +miniatures. Why not send your portrait to Mrs. Van Brandt?" + +Here was the idea of which I had been vainly in search! Quite +superfluous as a method of pleading my cause with Mrs. Van Brandt, +the portrait offered the best of all means of communicating with Miss +Dunross, without absolutely violating the engagement to which her +father had pledged me. In this way, without writing a word, without even +sending a message, I might tell her how gratefully she was remembered; I +might remind her of me tenderly in the bitterest moments of her sad and +solitary life. + +The same day I went to the artist privately. The sittings were afterward +continued during the hours while my mother was resting in her room, +until the portrait was completed. I caused it to be inclosed in a plain +gold locket, with a chain attached; and I forwarded my gift, in the +first instance, to the one person whom I could trust to assist me in +arranging for the conveyance of it to its destination. This was the old +friend (alluded to in these pages as "Sir James") who had taken me with +him to Shetland in the Government yacht. + +I had no reason, in writing the necessary explanations, to express +myself to Sir James with any reserve. On the voyage back we had more +than once spoken together confidentially of Miss Dunross. Sir James had +heard her sad story from the resident medical man at Lerwick, who had +been an old companion of his in their college days. Requesting him to +confide my gift to this gentleman, I did not hesitate to acknowledge the +doubt that oppressed me in relation to the mystery of the black veil. It +was, of course, impossible to decide whether the doctor would be able +to relieve that doubt. I could only venture to suggest that the question +might be guardedly put, in making the customary inquiries after the +health of Miss Dunross. + +In those days of slow communication, I had to wait, not for days, but +for weeks, before I could expect to receive Sir James's answer. His +letter only reached me after an unusually long delay. For this, or +for some other reason that I cannot divine, I felt so strongly the +foreboding of bad news that I abstained from breaking the seal in my +mother's presence. I waited until I could retire to my own room, and +then I opened the letter. My presentiment had not deceived me. + +Sir James's reply contained these words only: "The letter inclosed tells +its own sad story, without help from me. I cannot grieve for her; but I +can feel sorry for you." + +The letter thus described was addressed to Sir James by the doctor at +Lerwick. I copy it (without comment) in these words: + +"The late stormy weather has delayed the vessel by means of which we +communicate with the mainland. I have only received your letter to-day. +With it, there has arrived a little box, containing a gold locket and +chain; being the present which you ask me to convey privately to Miss +Dunross, from a friend of yours whose name you are not at liberty to +mention. + +"In transmitting these instructions, you have innocently placed me in a +position of extreme difficulty. + +"The poor lady for whom the gift is intended is near the end of her +life--a life of such complicated and terrible suffering that death +comes, in her case, literally as a mercy and a deliverance. Under these +melancholy circumstances, I am, I think, not to blame if I hesitate to +give her the locket in secret; not knowing with what associations this +keepsake may be connected, or of what serious agitation it may not +possibly be the cause. + +"In this state of doubt I have ventured on opening the locket, and +my hesitation is naturally increased. I am quite ignorant of the +remembrances which my unhappy patient may connect with the portrait. I +don't know whether it will give her pleasure or pain to receive it, in +her last moments on earth. I can only decide to take it with me, when +I see her to-morrow, and to let circumstances determine whether I shall +risk letting her see it or not. Our post to the South only leaves this +place in three days' time. I can keep my letter open, and let you know +the result. + +"I have seen her; and I have just returned to my own house. My distress +of mind is great. But I will do my best to write intelligibly and fully +of what has happened. + +"Her sinking energies, when I first saw her this morning, had rallied +for the moment. The nurse informed me that she had slept during the +early hours of the new day. Previously to this, there were symptoms of +fever, accompanied by some slight delirium. The words that escaped her +in this condition appear to have related mainly to an absent person whom +she spoke of by the name of 'George.' Her one anxiety, I am told, was to +see 'George' again before she died. + +"Hearing this, it struck me as barely possible that the portrait in the +locket might be the portrait of the absent person. I sent her nurse +out of the room, and took her hand in mine. Trusting partly to her own +admirable courage and strength of mind, and partly to the confidence +which I knew she placed in me as an old friend and adviser, I adverted +to the words which had fallen from her in the feverish state. And then I +said, 'You know that any secret of yours is safe in my keeping. Tell me, +do you expect to receive any little keepsake or memorial from 'George'? + +"It was a risk to run. The black veil which she always wears was over +her face. I had nothing to tell me of the effect which I was producing +on her, except the changing temperature, or the partial movement, of her +hand, as it lay in mine, just under the silk coverlet of the bed. + +"She said nothing at first. Her hand turned suddenly from cold to +hot, and closed with a quick pressure on mine. Her breathing became +oppressed. When she spoke, it was with difficulty. She told me nothing; +she only put a question: + +"'Is he here?' she asked. + +"I said, 'Nobody is here but myself.' + +"'Is there a letter?' + +"I said 'No.' + +"She was silent for a while. Her hand turned cold; the grasp of her +fingers loosened. She spoke again: 'Be quick, doctor! Whatever it is, +give it to me, before I die.' + +"I risked the experiment; I opened the locket, and put it into her hand. + +"So far as I could discover, she refrained from looking at it at first. +She said, 'Turn me in the bed, with my face to the wall.' I obeyed +her. With her back turned toward me she lifted her veil; and then (as I +suppose) she looked at the portrait. A long, low cry--not of sorrow or +pain: a cry of rapture and delight--burst from her. I heard her kiss +the portrait. Accustomed as I am in my profession to piteous sights and +sounds, I never remember so completely losing my self-control as I lost +it at that moment. I was obliged to turn away to the window. + +"Hardly a minute can have passed before I was back again at the bedside. +In that brief interval she had changed. Her voice had sunk again; it +was so weak that I could only hear what she said by leaning over her and +placing my ear close to her lips. + +"'Put it round my neck,' she whispered. + +"I clasped the chain of the locket round her neck. She tried to lift her +hand to it, but her strength failed her. + +"'Help me to hide it,' she said. + +"I guided her hand. She hid the locket in her bosom, under the white +dressing-gown which she wore that day. The oppression in her breathing +increased. I raised her on the pillow. The pillow was not high enough. +I rested her head on my shoulder, and partially opened her veil. She was +able to speak once more, feeling a momentary relief. + +"'Promise,' she said, 'that no stranger's hand shall touch me. Promise +to bury me as I am now.' + +"I gave her my promise. + +"Her failing breath quickened. She was just able to articulate the next +words: + +"'Cover my face again.' + +"I drew the veil over her face. She rested a while in silence. Suddenly +the sound of her laboring respiration ceased. She started, and raised +her head from my shoulder. + +"'Are you in pain?' I asked. + +"'I am in heaven!' she answered. + +"Her head dropped back on my breast as she spoke. In that last outburst +of joy her last breath had passed. The moment of her supreme happiness +and the moment of her death were one. The mercy of God had found her at +last. + +"I return to my letter before the post goes out. + +"I have taken the necessary measures for the performance of my promise. +She will be buried with the portrait hidden in her bosom, and with the +black veil over her face. No nobler creature ever breathed the breath of +life. Tell the stranger who sent her his portrait that her last moments +were joyful moments, through his remembrance of her as expressed by his +gift. + +"I observe a passage in your letter to which I have not yet replied. You +ask me if there was any more serious reason for the persistent hiding of +her face under the veil than the reason which she was accustomed to give +to the persons about her. It is true that she suffered under a morbid +sensitiveness to the action of light. It is also true that this was not +the only result, or the worst result, of the malady that afflicted her. +She had another reason for keeping her face hidden--a reason known +to two persons only: to the doctor who lives in the village near her +father's house, and to myself. We are both pledged never to divulge +to any living creature what our eyes alone have seen. We have kept our +terrible secret even from her father; and we shall carry it with us +to our graves. I have no more to say on this melancholy subject to the +person in whose interest you write. When he thinks of her now, let him +think of the beauty which no bodily affliction can profane--the beauty +of the freed spirit, eternally happy in its union with the angels of +God. + +"I may add, before I close my letter, that the poor old father will +not be left in cheerless solitude at the lake house. He will pass the +remainder of his days under my roof, with my good wife to take care of +him, and my children to remind him of the brighter side of life." + + +So the letter ended. I put it away, and went out. The solitude of my +room forewarned me unendurably of the coming solitude in my own life. +My interests in this busy world were now narrowed to one object--to the +care of my mother's failing health. Of the two women whose hearts had +once beaten in loving sympathy with mine, one lay in her grave and the +other was lost to me in a foreign land. On the drive by the sea I met my +mother, in her little pony-chaise, moving slowly under the mild wintry +sunshine. I dismissed the man who was in attendance on her, and walked +by the side of the chaise, with the reins in my hand. We chatted quietly +on trivial subjects. I closed my eyes to the dreary future that was +before me, and tried, in the intervals of the heart-ache, to live +resignedly in the passing hour. + +CHAPTER XXXI. THE PHYSICIAN'S OPINION. + +SIX months have elapsed. Summer-time has come again. + +The last parting is over. Prolonged by my care, the days of my mother's +life have come to their end. She has died in my arms: her last words +have been spoken to me, her last look on earth has been mine. I am now, +in the saddest and plainest meaning of the words, alone in the world. + +The affliction which has befallen me has left certain duties to be +performed that require my presence in London. My house is let; I am +staying at a hotel. My friend, Sir James (also in London on business), +has rooms near mine. We breakfast and dine together in my sitting-room. +For the moment solitude is dreadful to me, and yet I cannot go into +society; I shrink from persons who are mere acquaintances. At Sir +James's suggestion, however, one visitor at the hotel has been asked to +dine with us, who claims distinction as no ordinary guest. The physician +who first warned me of the critical state of my mother's health is +anxious to hear what I can tell him of her last moments. His time is too +precious to be wasted in the earlier hours of the day, and he joins +us at the dinner-table when his patients leave him free to visit his +friends. + +The dinner is nearly at an end. I have made the effort to preserve my +self-control; and in few words have told the simple story of my mother's +last peaceful days on earth. The conversation turns next on topics of +little interest to me: my mind rests after the effort that it has made; +my observation is left free to exert itself as usual. + +Little by little, while the talk goes on, I observe something in the +conduct of the celebrated physician which first puzzles me, and then +arouses my suspicion of some motive for his presence which has not been +acknowledged, and in which I am concerned. + +Over and over again I discover that his eyes are resting on me with a +furtive interest and attention which he seems anxious to conceal. Over +and over again I notice that he contrives to divert the conversation +from general topics, and to lure me into talking of myself; and, +stranger still (unless I am quite mistaken), Sir James understands and +encourages him. Under various pretenses I am questioned about what I +have suffered in the past, and what plans of life I have formed for the +future. Among other subjects of personal interest to me, the subject +of supernatural appearances is introduced. I am asked if I believe +in occult spiritual sympathies, and in ghostly apparitions of dead or +distant persons. I am dexterously led into hinting that my views on +this difficult and debatable question are in some degree influenced by +experiences of my own. Hints, however, are not enough to satisfy the +doctor's innocent curiosity; he tries to induce me to relate in detail +what I have myself seen and felt. But by this time I am on my guard; +I make excuses; I steadily abstain from taking my friend into my +confidence. It is more and more plain to me that I am being made the +subject of an experiment, in which Sir James and the physician are +equally interested. Outwardly assuming to be guiltless of any suspicion +of what is going on, I inwardly determine to discover the true motive +for the doctor's presence that evening, and for the part that Sir James +has taken in inviting him to be my guest. + +Events favor my purpose soon after the dessert has been placed on the +table. + +The waiter enters the room with a letter for me, and announces that the +bearer waits to know if there is any answer. I open the envelope, and +find inside a few lines from my lawyers, announcing the completion of +some formal matter of business. I at once seize the opportunity that is +offered to me. Instead of sending a verbal message downstairs, I make my +apologies, and use the letter as a pretext for leaving the room. + +Dismissing the messenger who waits below, I return to the corridor in +which my rooms are situated, and softly open the door of my bed-chamber. +A second door communicates with the sitting-room, and has a ventilator +in the upper part of it. I have only to stand under the ventilator, +and every word of the conversation between Sir James and the physician +reaches my ears. + +"Then you think I am right?" are the first words I hear, in Sir James's +voice. + +"Quite right," the doctor answers. + +"I have done my best to make him change his dull way of life," Sir James +proceeds. "I have asked him to pay a visit to my house in Scotland; I +have proposed traveling with him on the Continent; I have offered +to take him with me on my next voyage in the yacht. He has but one +answer--he simply says No to everything that I can suggest. You have +heard from his own lips that he has no definite plans for the future. +What is to become of him? What had we better do?" + +"It is not easy to say," I hear the physician reply. "To speak plainly, +the man's nervous system is seriously deranged. I noticed something +strange in him when he first came to consult me about his mother's +health. The mischief has not been caused entirely by the affliction of +her death. In my belief, his mind has been--what shall I say?--unhinged, +for some time past. He is a very reserved person. I suspect he has been +oppressed by anxieties which he has kept secret from every one. At his +age, the unacknowledged troubles of life are generally troubles caused +by women. It is in his temperament to take the romantic view of love; +and some matter-of-fact woman of the present day may have bitterly +disappointed him. Whatever may be the cause, the effect is plain--his +nerves have broken down, and his brain is necessarily affected by +whatever affects his nerves. I have known men in his condition who have +ended badly. He may drift into insane delusions, if his present course +of life is not altered. Did you hear what he said when we talked about +ghosts?" + +"Sheer nonsense!" Sir James remarks. + +"Sheer delusion would be the more correct form of expression," the +doctor rejoins. "And other delusions may grow out of it at any moment." + +"What is to be done?" persists Sir James. "I may really say for myself, +doctor, that I feel a fatherly interest in the poor fellow. His mother +was one of my oldest and dearest friends, and he has inherited many of +her engaging and endearing qualities. I hope you don't think the case is +bad enough to be a case for restraint?" + +"Certainly not--as yet," answers the doctor. "So far there is no +positive brain disease; and there is accordingly no sort of reason +for placing him under restraint. It is essentially a difficult and a +doubtful case. Have him privately looked after by a competent person, +and thwart him in nothing, if you can possibly help it. The merest +trifle may excite his suspicions; and if that happens, we lose all +control over him." + +"You don't think he suspects us already, do you, doctor?" + +"I hope not. I saw him once or twice look at me very strangely; and he +has certainly been a long time out of the room." + +Hearing this, I wait to hear no more. I return to the sitting-room (by +way of the corridor) and resume my place at the table. + +The indignation that I feel--naturally enough, I think, under the +circumstances--makes a good actor of me for once in my life. I invent +the necessary excuse for my long absence, and take my part in the +conversation, keeping the strictest guard on every word that escapes me, +without betraying any appearance of restraint in my manner. Early in the +evening the doctor leaves us to go to a scientific meeting. For half an +hour or more Sir James remains with me. By way (as I suppose) of farther +testing the state of my mind, he renews the invitation to his house in +Scotland. I pretend to feel flattered by his anxiety to secure me as +his guest. I undertake to reconsider my first refusal, and to give him a +definite answer when we meet the next morning at breakfast. Sir James is +delighted. We shake hands cordially, and wish each other good-night. At +last I am left alone. + +My resolution as to my next course of proceeding is formed without a +moment's hesitation. I determine to leave the hotel privately the next +morning before Sir James is out of his bedroom. + +To what destination I am to betake myself is naturally the next question +that arises, and this also I easily decide. During the last days of my +mother's life we spoke together frequently of the happy past days when +we were living together on the banks of the Greenwater lake. The longing +thus inspired to look once more at the old scenes, to live for a while +again among the old associations, has grown on me since my mother's +death. I have, happily for myself, not spoken of this feeling to Sir +James or to any other person. When I am missed at the hotel, there will +be no suspicion of the direction in which I have turned my steps. To the +old home in Suffolk I resolve to go the next morning. Wandering among +the scenes of my boyhood, I can consider with myself how I may best bear +the burden of the life that lies before me. + +After what I have heard that evening, I confide in nobody. For all I +know to the contrary, my own servant may be employed to-morrow as the +spy who watches my actions. When the man makes his appearance to take +his orders for the night, I tell him to wake me at six the next morning, +and release him from further attendance. + +I next employ myself in writing two letters. They will be left on the +table, to speak for themselves after my departure. + +In the first letter I briefly inform Sir James that I have discovered +his true reason for inviting the doctor to dinner. While I thank him for +the interest he takes in my welfare, I decline to be made the object of +any further medical inquiries as to the state of my mind. In due +course of time, when my plans are settled, he will hear from me again. +Meanwhile, he need feel no anxiety about my safety. It is one among my +other delusions to believe that I am still perfectly capable of taking +care of myself. My second letter is addressed to the landlord of the +hotel, and simply provides for the disposal of my luggage and the +payment of my bill. + +I enter my bedroom next, and pack a traveling-bag with the few things +that I can carry with me. My money is in my dressing-case. Opening it, I +discover my pretty keepsake--the green flag! Can I return to "Greenwater +Broad," can I look again at the bailiff's cottage, without the one +memorial of little Mary that I possess? Besides, have I not promised +Miss Dunross that Mary's gift shall always go with me wherever I go? and +is the promise not doubly sacred now that she is dead? For a while I sit +idly looking at the device on the flag--the white dove embroidered on +the green ground, with the golden olive-branch in its beak. The innocent +love-story of my early life returns to my memory, and shows me in +horrible contrast the life that I am leading now. I fold up the flag and +place it carefully in my traveling-bag. This done, all is done. I may +rest till the morning comes. + +No! I lie down on my bed, and I discover that there is no rest for me +that night. + +Now that I have no occupation to keep my energies employed, now that +my first sense of triumph in the discomfiture of the friends who have +plotted against me has had time to subside, my mind reverts to the +conversation that I have overheard, and considers it from a new point +of view. For the first time, the terrible question confronts me: The +doctor's opinion on my case has been given very positively. How do I +know that the doctor is not right? + +This famous physician has risen to the head of his profession entirely +by his own abilities. He is one of the medical men who succeed by +means of an ingratiating manner and the dexterous handling of good +opportunities. Even his enemies admit that he stands unrivaled in the +art of separating the true conditions from the false in the discovery of +disease, and in tracing effects accurately to their distant and hidden +cause. Is such a man as this likely to be mistaken about me? Is it not +far more probable that I am mistaken in my judgment of myself? + +When I look back over the past years, am I quite sure that the strange +events which I recall may not, in certain cases, be the visionary +product of my own disordered brain--realities to me, and to no one else? +What are the dreams of Mrs. Van Brandt? What are the ghostly apparitions +of her which I believe myself to have seen? Delusions which have been +the stealthy growth of years? delusions which are leading me, by slow +degrees, nearer and nearer to madness in the end? Is it insane suspicion +which has made me so angry with the good friends who have been trying to +save my reason? Is it insane terror which sets me on escaping from the +hotel like a criminal escaping from prison? + +These are the questions which torment me when I am alone in the dead of +night. My bed becomes a place of unendurable torture. I rise and dress +myself, and wait for the daylight, looking through my open window into +the street. + +The summer night is short. The gray light of dawn comes to me like a +deliverance; the glow of the glorious sunrise cheers my soul once more. +Why should I wait in the room that is still haunted by my horrible +doubts of the night? I take up my traveling-bag; I leave my letters on +the sitting-room table; and I descend the stairs to the house door. The +night-porter at the hotel is slumbering in his chair. He wakes as I pass +him; and (God help me!) he too looks as if he thought I was mad. + +"Going to leave us already, sir?" he says, looking at the bag in my +hand. + +Mad or sane, I am ready with my reply. I tell him I am going out for a +day in the country, and to make it a long day, I must start early. + +The man still stares at me. He asks if he shall find some one to carry +my bag. I decline to let anybody be disturbed. He inquires if I have any +messages to leave for my friend. I inform him that I have left written +messages upstairs for Sir James and the landlord. Upon this he draws the +bolts and opens the door. To the last he looks at me as if he thought I +was mad. + +Was he right or wrong? Who can answer for himself? How can I tell? + +CHAPTER XXXII. A LAST LOOK AT GREENWATER BROAD. + +MY spirits rose as I walked through the bright empty streets, and +breathed the fresh morning air. + +Taking my way eastward through the great city, I stopped at the first +office that I passed, and secured my place by the early coach to +Ipswich. Thence I traveled with post-horses to the market-town which was +nearest to Greenwater Broad. A walk of a few miles in the cool evening +brought me, through well-remembered by-roads, to our old house. By the +last rays of the setting sun I looked at the familiar row of windows in +front, and saw that the shutters were all closed. Not a living creature +was visible anywhere. Not even a dog barked as I rang the great bell at +the door. The place was deserted; the house was shut up. + +After a long delay, I heard heavy footsteps in the hall. An old man +opened the door. + +Changed as he was, I remembered him as one of our tenants in the by-gone +time. To his astonishment, I greeted him by his name. On his side, he +tried hard to recognize me, and tried in vain. No doubt I was the more +sadly changed of the two: I was obliged to introduce myself. The poor +fellow's withered face brightened slowly and timidly, as if he were half +incapable, half afraid, of indulging in the unaccustomed luxury of a +smile. In his confusion he bid me welcome home again, as if the house +had been mine. + +Taking me into the little back-room which he inhabited, the old man +gave me all he had to offer--a supper of bacon and eggs and a glass +of home-brewed beer. He was evidently puzzled to understand me when I +informed him that the only object of my visit was to look once more +at the familiar scenes round my old home. But he willingly placed his +services at my disposal; and he engaged to do his best, if I wished it, +to make me up a bed for the night. + +The house had been closed and the establishment of servants had been +dismissed for more than a year past. A passion for horse-racing, +developed late in life, had ruined the rich retired tradesman who had +purchased the estate at the time of our family troubles. He had gone +abroad with his wife to live on the little income that had been saved +from the wreck of his fortune; and he had left the house and lands in +such a state of neglect that no new purchaser had thus far been found to +take them. My old friend, "now past his work," had been put in charge of +the place. As for Dermody's cottage, it was empty, like the house. I was +at perfect liberty to look over it if I liked. There was the key of the +door on the bunch with the others; and here was the old man, with his +old hat on his head, ready to accompany me wherever I pleased to go. +I declined to trouble him to accompany me or to make up a bed in the +lonely house. The night was fine, the moon was rising. I had supped; I +had rested. When I had seen what I wanted to see, I could easily walk +back to the market-town and sleep at the inn. Taking the key in my hand, +I set forth alone on the way through the grounds which led to Dermody's +cottage. + +Again I followed the woodland paths along which I had once idled so +happily with my little Mary. At every step I saw something that reminded +me of her. Here was the rustic bench on which we had sat together under +the shadow of the old cedar-tree, and vowed to be constant to each other +to the end of our lives. There was the bright little water spring, from +which we drank when we were weary and thirsty in sultry summer days, +still bubbling its way downward to the lake as cheerily as ever. As I +listened to the companionable murmur of the stream, I almost expected to +see her again, in her simple white frock and straw hat, singing to the +music of the rivulet, and freshening her nosegay of wild flowers by +dipping it in the cool water. A few steps further on and I reached a +clearing in the wood and stood on a little promontory of rising ground +which commanded the prettiest view of Greenwater lake. A platform +of wood was built out from the bank, to be used for bathing by good +swimmers who were not afraid of a plunge into deep water. I stood on the +platform and looked round me. The trees that fringed the shore on either +hand murmured their sweet sylvan music in the night air; the moonlight +trembled softly on the rippling water. Away on my right hand I could +just see the old wooden shed that once sheltered my boat in the days +when Mary went sailing with me and worked the green flag. On my left +was the wooden paling that followed the curves of the winding creek, and +beyond it rose the brown arches of the decoy for wild fowl, now falling +to ruin for want of use. Guided by the radiant moonlight, I could see +the very spot on which Mary and I had stood to watch the snaring of the +ducks. Through the hole in the paling before which the decoy-dog had +shown himself, at Dermody's signal, a water-rat now passed, like a +little black shadow on the bright ground, and was lost in the waters +of the lake. Look where I might, the happy by-gone time looked back +in mockery, and the voices of the past came to me with their burden of +reproach: See what your life was once! Is your life worth living now? + +I picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. I watched the circling +ripples round the place at which it had sunk. I wondered if a practiced +swimmer like myself had ever tried to commit suicide by drowning, and +had been so resolute to die that he had resisted the temptation to let +his own skill keep him from sinking. Something in the lake itself, or +something in connection with the thought that it had put into my mind, +revolted me. I turned my back suddenly on the lonely view, and took the +path through the wood which led to the bailiff's cottage. + +Opening the door with my key, I groped my way into the well-remembered +parlor; and, unbarring the window-shutters, I let in the light of the +moon. + +With a heavy heart I looked round me. The old furniture--renewed, +perhaps, in one or two places--asserted its mute claim to my recognition +in every part of the room. The tender moonlight streamed slanting +into the corner in which Mary and I used to nestle together while Dame +Dermody was at the window reading her mystic books. Overshadowed by the +obscurity in the opposite corner, I discovered the high-backed arm-chair +of carved wood in which the Sibyl of the cottage sat on the memorable +day when she warned us of our coming separation, and gave us her +blessing for the last time. Looking next round the walls of the room, +I recognized old friends wherever my eyes happened to rest--the gaudily +colored prints; the framed pictures in fine needle-work, which we +thought wonderful efforts of art; the old circular mirror to which +I used to lift Mary when she wanted "to see her face in the glass." +Whenever the moonlight penetrated there, it showed me some familiar +object that recalled my happiest days. Again the by-gone time looked +back in mockery. Again the voices of the past came to me with their +burden of reproach: See what your life was once! Is your life worth +living now? + +I sat down at the window, where I could just discover, here and there +between the trees, the glimmer of the waters of the lake. I thought +to myself: "Thus far my mortal journey has brought me. Why not end it +here?" + +Who would grieve for me if my death were reported to-morrow? Of all +living men, I had perhaps the smallest number of friends, the fewest +duties to perform toward others, the least reason to hesitate at leaving +a world which had no place in it for my ambition, no creature in it for +my love. + +Besides, what necessity was there for letting it be known that my death +was a death of my own seeking? It could easily be left to represent +itself as a death by accident. + +On that fine summer night, and after a long day of traveling, might I +not naturally take a bath in the cool water before I went to bed? +And, practiced as I was in the exercise of swimming, might it not +nevertheless be my misfortune to be attacked by cramp? On the lonely +shores of Greenwater Broad the cry of a drowning man would bring no help +at night. The fatal accident would explain itself. There was literally +but one difficulty in the way--the difficulty which had already +occurred to my mind. Could I sufficiently master the animal instinct of +self-preservation to deliberately let myself sink at the first plunge? + +The atmosphere in the room felt close and heavy. I went out, and walked +to and fro--now in the shadow, and now in the moonlight--under the trees +before the cottage door. + +Of the moral objections to suicide, not one had any influence over me +now. I, who had once found it impossible to excuse, impossible even +to understand, the despair which had driven Mrs. Van Brandt to attempt +self-destruction--I now contemplated with composure the very act which +had horrified me when I saw it committed by another person. Well may we +hesitate to condemn the frailties of our fellow-creatures, for the +one unanswerable reason that we can never feel sure how soon similar +temptations may not lead us to be guilty of the same frailties +ourselves. Looking back at the events of the night, I can recall but one +consideration that stayed my feet on the fatal path which led back +to the lake. I still doubted whether it would be possible for such a +swimmer as I was to drown himself. This was all that troubled my mind. +For the rest, my will was made, and I had few other affairs which +remained unsettled. No lingering hope was left in me of a reunion in the +future with Mrs. Van Brandt. She had never written to me again; I had +(forgiven) her for having forgotten me. My thoughts of her and of others +were the forbearing thoughts of a man whose mind was withdrawn already +from the world, whose views were narrowing fast to the one idea of his +own death. + +I grew weary of walking up and down. The loneliness of the place began +to oppress me. The sense of my own indecision irritated my nerves. +After a long look at the lake through the trees, I came to a positive +conclusion at last. I determined to try if a good swimmer could drown +himself. + +CHAPTER XXXIII. A VISION OF THE NIGHT. + +RETURNING to the cottage parlor, I took a chair by the window and opened +my pocket-book at a blank page. I had certain directions to give to my +representatives, which might spare them some trouble and uncertainty +in the event of my death. Disguising my last instructions under the +commonplace heading of "Memoranda on my return to London," I began to +write. + +I had filled one page of the pocket-book, and had just turned to the +next, when I became conscious of a difficulty in fixing my attention on +the subject that was before it. I was at once reminded of the similar +difficulty which I felt in Shetland, when I had tried vainly to arrange +the composition of the letter to my mother which Miss Dunross was to +write. By way of completing the parallel, my thoughts wandered now, as +they had wandered then, to my latest remembrance of Mrs. Van Brandt. +In a minute or two I began to feel once more the strange physical +sensations which I had first experienced in the garden at Mr. Dunross's +house. The same mysterious trembling shuddered through me from head to +foot. I looked about me again, with no distinct consciousness of what +the objects were on which my eyes rested. My nerves trembled, on that +lovely summer night, as if there had been an electric disturbance in the +atmosphere and a storm coming. I laid my pocket-book and pencil on +the table, and rose to go out again under the trees. Even the trifling +effort to cross the room was an effort made in vain. I stood rooted to +the spot, with my face turned toward the moonlight streaming in at the +open door. + +An interval passed, and as I still looked out through the door, I became +aware of something moving far down among the trees that fringed the +shore of the lake. The first impression produced on me was of two gray +shadows winding their way slowly toward me between the trunks of the +trees. By fine degrees the shadows assumed a more and more marked +outline, until they presented themselves in the likeness of two robed +figures, one taller than the other. While they glided nearer and nearer, +their gray obscurity of hue melted away. They brightened softly with an +inner light of their own as they slowly approached the open space before +the door. For the third time I stood in the ghostly presence of Mrs. +Van Brandt; and with her, holding her hand, I beheld a second apparition +never before revealed to me, the apparition of her child. + +Hand-in-hand, shining in their unearthly brightness through the bright +moonlight itself, the two stood before me. The mother's face looked at +me once more with the sorrowful and pleading eyes which I remembered so +well. But the face of the child was innocently radiant with an angelic +smile. I waited in unutterable expectation for the word that was to be +spoken, for the movement that was to come. The movement came first. +The child released its hold on the mother's hand, and floating slowly +upward, remained poised in midair--a softly glowing presence shining out +of the dark background of the trees. The mother glided into the room, +and stopped at the table on which I had laid my pocket-book and pencil +when I could no longer write. As before, she took the pencil and wrote +on the blank page. As before, she beckoned to me to step nearer to her. +I approached her outstretched hand, and felt once more the mysterious +rapture of her touch on my bosom, and heard once more her low, melodious +tones repeating the words: "Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped +from my bosom. The pale light which revealed her to me quivered, sunk, +vanished. She had spoken. She had gone. + +I drew to me the open pocket-book. And this time I saw, in the writing +of the ghostly hand, these words only: + + _"Follow the Child."_ + +I looked out again at the lonely night landscape. + +There, in mid-air, shining softly out of the dark background of the +trees, still hovered the starry apparition of the child. + +Advancing without conscious will of my own, I crossed the threshold of +the door. The softly glowing vision of the child moved away before me +among the trees. I followed, like a man spellbound. The apparition, +floating slowly onward, led me out of the wood, and past my old home, +back to the lonely by-road along which I had walked from the market-town +to the house. From time to time, as we two went on our way, the bright +figure of the child paused, hovering low in the cloudless sky. Its +radiant face looked down smiling on me; it beckoned with its little +hand, and floated on again, leading me as the Star led the Eastern sages +in the olden time. + +I reached the town. The airy figure of the child paused, hovering over +the house at which I had left my traveling-carriage in the evening. +I ordered the horses to be harnessed again for another journey. The +postilion waited for his further directions. I looked up. The child's +hand was pointing southward, along the road that led to London. I gave +the man his instructions to return to the place at which I had hired +the carriage. At intervals, as we proceeded, I looked out through +the window. The bright figure of the child still floated on before me +gliding low in the cloudless sky. Changing the horses stage by stage, I +went on till the night ended--went on till the sun rose in the eastern +heaven. And still, whether it was dark or whether it was light, the +figure of the child floated on before me in its changeless and mystic +light. Mile after mile, it still led the way southward, till we left the +country behind us, and passing through the din and turmoil of the great +city, stopped under the shadow of the ancient Tower, within view of the +river that runs by it. + +The postilion came to the carriage door to ask if I had further need of +his services. I had called to him to stop, when I saw the figure of the +child pause on its airy course. I looked upward again. The child's hand +pointed toward the river. I paid the postilion and left the carriage. +Floating on before me, the child led the way to a wharf crowded with +travelers and their luggage. A vessel lay along-side of the wharf ready +to sail. The child led me on board the vessel and paused again, hovering +over me in the smoky air. + +I looked up. The child looked back at me with its radiant smile, and +pointed eastward down the river toward the distant sea. While my eyes +were still fixed on the softly glowing figure, I saw it fade away upward +and upward into the higher light, as the lark vanishes upward and +upward in the morning sky. I was alone again with my earthly +fellow-beings--left with no clew to guide me but the remembrance of the +child's hand pointing eastward to the distant sea. + +A sailor was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on the deck. I +asked him to what port the vessel was bound. The man looked at me in +surly amazement, and answered: + +"To Rotterdam." + +CHAPTER XXXIV. BY LAND AND SEA. + +IT mattered little to me to what port the vessel was bound. Go where I +might, I knew that I was on my way to Mrs. Van Brandt. She had need +of me again; she had claimed me again. Where the visionary hand of the +child had pointed, thither I was destined to go. Abroad or at home, +it mattered nothing: when I next set my foot on the land, I should be +further directed on the journey which lay before me. I believed this as +firmly as I believed that I had been guided, thus far, by the vision of +the child. + +For two nights I had not slept--my weariness overpowered me. I descended +to the cabin, and found an unoccupied corner in which I could lie down +to rest. When I awoke, it was night already, and the vessel was at sea. + +I went on deck to breathe the fresh air. Before long the sensation of +drowsiness returned; I slept again for hours together. My friend, the +physician, would no doubt have attributed this prolonged need of repose +to the exhausted condition of my brain, previously excited by delusions +which had lasted uninterruptedly for many hours together. Let the cause +be what it might, during the greater part of the voyage I was awake at +intervals only. The rest of the time I lay like a weary animal, lost in +sleep. + +When I stepped on shore at Rotterdam, my first proceeding was to ask my +way to the English Consulate. I had but a small sum of money with me; +and, for all I knew to the contrary, it might be well, before I did +anything else, to take the necessary measures for replenishing my purse. + +I had my traveling-bag with me. On the journey to Greenwater Broad I had +left it at the inn in the market-town, and the waiter had placed it in +the carriage when I started on my return to London. The bag contained my +checkbook, and certain letters which assisted me in proving my identity +to the consul. He kindly gave me the necessary introduction to the +correspondents at Rotterdam of my bankers in London. + +Having obtained my money, and having purchased certain necessaries of +which I stood in need, I walked slowly along the street, knowing nothing +of what my next proceeding was to be, and waiting confidently for the +event which was to guide me. I had not walked a hundred yards before +I noticed the name of "Van Brandt" inscribed on the window-blinds of a +house which appeared to be devoted to mercantile purposes. + +The street door stood open. A second door, on one side of the passage, +led into the office. I entered the room and inquired for Mr. Van Brandt. +A clerk who spoke English was sent for to communicate with me. He told +me there were three partners of that name in the business, and inquired +which of them I wished to see. I remembered Van Brandt's Christian name, +and mentioned it. No such person as "Mr. Ernest Van Brandt" was known at +the office. + +"We are only the branch house of the firm of Van Brandt here," the clerk +explained. "The head office is at Amsterdam. They may know where Mr. +Ernest Van Brandt is to be found, if you inquire there." + +It mattered nothing to me where I went, so long as I was on my way to +Mrs. Van Brandt. It was too late to travel that day; I slept at a hotel. +The night passed quietly and uneventfully. The next morning I set forth +by the public conveyance for Amsterdam. + +Repeating my inquiries at the head office on my arrival, I was referred +to one of the partners in the firm. He spoke English perfectly; and +he received me with an appearance of interest which I was at a loss to +account for at first. + +"Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is well known to me," he said. "May I ask if you +are a relative or friend of the English lady who has been introduced +here as his wife?" + +I answered in the affirmative; adding, "I am here to give any assistance +to the lady of which she may stand in need." + +The merchant's next words explained the appearance of interest with +which he had received me. + +"You are most welcome," he said. "You relieve my partners and myself +of a great anxiety. I can only explain what I mean by referring for +a moment to the business affairs of my firm. We have a fishing +establishment in the ancient city of Enkhuizen, on the shores of the +Zuyder Zee. Mr. Ernest Van Brandt had a share in it at one time, which +he afterward sold. Of late years our profits from this source have been +diminishing; and we think of giving up the fishery, unless our prospects +in that quarter improve after a further trial. In the meantime, having +a vacant situation in the counting-house at Enkhuizen, we thought of +Mr. Ernest Van Brandt, and offered him the opportunity of renewing his +connection with us, in the capacity of a clerk. He is related to one of +my partners; but I am bound in truth to tell you that he is a very bad +man. He has awarded us for our kindness to him by embezzling our +money; and he has taken to flight--in what direction we have not +yet discovered. The English lady and her child are left deserted at +Enkhuizen; and until you came here to-day we were quite at a loss to +know what to do with them. I don't know whether you are already aware +of it, sir; but the lady's position is made doubly distressing by doubts +which we entertain of her being really Mr. Ernest Van Brandt's wife. To +our certain knowledge, he was privately married to another woman some +years since; and we have no evidence whatever that the first wife +is dead. If we can help you in any way to assist your unfortunate +country-woman, pray believe that our services are at your disposal." + +With what breathless interest I listened to these words it is needless +to say. Van Brandt had deserted her! Surely (as my poor mother had once +said) "she must turn to me now." The hopes that had abandoned me filled +my heart once more; the future which I had so long feared to contemplate +showed itself again bright with the promise of coming happiness to my +view. I thanked the good merchant with a fervor that surprised him. +"Only help me to find my way to Enkhuizen," I said, "and I will answer +for the rest." + +"The journey will put you to some expense," the merchant replied. +"Pardon me if I ask the question bluntly. Have you money?" + +"Plenty of money." + +"Very good. The rest will be easy enough. I will place you under the +care of a countryman of yours, who has been employed in our office for +many years. The easiest way for you, as a stranger, will be to go by +sea; and the Englishman will show you where to hire a boat." + +In a few minutes more the clerk and I were on our way to the harbor. + +Difficulties which I had not anticipated occurred in finding the boat +and in engaging a crew. This done, it was next necessary to purchase +provisions for the voyage. Thanks to the experience of my companion, and +to the hearty good-will with which he exerted it, my preparations were +completed before night-fall. I was able to set sail for my destination +on the next day. + +The boat had the double advantage, in navigating the Zuyder Zee, of +being large, and of drawing very little water; the captain's cabin was +at the stern; and the two or three men who formed his crew were berthed +forward, in the bows. The whole middle of the boat, partitioned off +on the one side and on the other from the captain and the crew, was +assigned to me for my cabin. Under these circumstances, I had no reason +to complain of want of space; the vessel measuring between fifty and +sixty tons. I had a comfortable bed, a table, and chairs. The kitchen +was well away from me, in the forward part of the boat. At my own +request, I set forth on the voyage without servant or interpreter. I +preferred being alone. The Dutch captain had been employed, at a former +period of his life, in the mercantile navy of France; and we could +communicate, whenever it was necessary or desirable, in the French +language. + +We left the spires of Amsterdam behind us, and sailed over the smooth +waters of the lake on our way to the Zuyder Zee. + +The history of this remarkable sea is a romance in itself. In the days +when Rome was mistress of the world, it had no existence. Where the +waves now roll, vast tracts of forest surrounded a great inland lake, +with but one river to serve it as an outlet to the sea. Swelled by a +succession of tempests, the lake overflowed its boundaries: its furious +waters, destroying every obstacle in their course, rested only when they +reached the furthest limits of the land. + +The Northern Ocean beyond burst its way in through the gaps of ruin; +and from that time the Zuyder Zee existed as we know it now. The years +advanced, the generations of man succeeded each other; and on the shores +of the new ocean there rose great and populous cities, rich in commerce, +renowned in history. For centuries their prosperity lasted, before +the next in this mighty series of changes ripened and revealed itself. +Isolated from the rest of the world, vain of themselves and their good +fortune, careless of the march of progress in the nations round them, +the inhabitants of the Zuyder Zee cities sunk into the fatal torpor of +a secluded people. The few members of the population who still preserved +the relics of their old energy emigrated, while the mass left behind +resignedly witnessed the diminution of their commerce and the decay of +their institutions. As the years advanced to the nineteenth century, the +population was reckoned by hundreds where it had once been numbered by +thousands. Trade disappeared; whole streets were left desolate. Harbors, +once filled with shipping, were destroyed by the unresisted accumulation +of sand. In our own times the decay of these once flourishing cities is +so completely beyond remedy, that the next great change in contemplation +is the draining of the now dangerous and useless tract of water, and +the profitable cultivation of the reclaimed land by generations that are +still to come. Such, briefly told, is the strange story of the Zuyder +Zee. + +As we advanced on our voyage, and left the river, I noticed the tawny +hue of the sea, caused by sand-banks which color the shallow water, and +which make the navigation dangerous to inexperienced seamen. We found +our moorings for the night at the fishing island of Marken--a low, +lost, desolate-looking place, as I saw it under the last gleams of the +twilight. Here and there, the gabled cottages, perched on hillocks, rose +black against the dim gray sky. Here and there, a human figure appeared +at the waterside, standing, fixed in contemplation of the strange boat. +And that was all I saw of the island of Marken. + +Lying awake in the still night, alone on a strange sea, there were +moments when I found myself beginning to doubt the reality of my own +position. + +Was it all a dream? My thoughts of suicide; my vision of the mother and +daughter; my journey back to the metropolis, led by the apparition +of the child; my voyage to Holland; my night anchorage in the unknown +sea--were these, so to speak, all pieces of the same morbid mental +puzzle, all delusions from which I might wake at any moment, and find +myself restored to my senses again in the hotel at London? Bewildered by +doubts which led me further and further from any definite conclusion, +I left my bed and went on deck to change the scene. It was a still and +cloudy night. In the black void around me, the island was a blacker +shadow yet, and nothing more. The one sound that reached my ears was the +heavy breathing of the captain and his crew sleeping on either side of +me. I waited, looking round and round the circle of darkness in which I +stood. No new vision showed itself. When I returned again to the cabin, +and slumbered at last, no dreams came to me. All that was mysterious, +all that was marvelous, in the later events of my life seemed to have +been left behind me in England. Once in Holland, my course had been +influenced by circumstances which were perfectly natural, by commonplace +discoveries which might have revealed themselves to any man in my +position. What did this mean? Had my gifts as a seer of visions departed +from me in the new land and among the strange people? Or had my destiny +led me to the place at which the troubles of my mortal pilgrimage were +to find their end? Who could say? + +Early the next morning we set sail once more. + +Our course was nearly northward. On one side of me was the tawny sea, +changing under certain conditions of the weather to a dull pearl-gray. +On the other side was the flat, winding coast, composed alternately of +yellow sand and bright-green meadow-lands; diversified at intervals by +towns and villages, whose red-tiled roofs and quaint church-steeples +rose gayly against the clear blue sky. The captain suggested to me +to visit the famous towns of Edam and Hoorn; but I declined to go on +shore. My one desire was to reach the ancient city in which Mrs. Van +Brandt had been left deserted. As we altered our course, to make for the +promontory on which Enkhuizen is situated, the wind fell, then shifted +to another quarter, and blew with a force which greatly increased the +difficulties of navigation. I still insisted, as long as it was possible +to do so, on holding on our course. After sunset, the strength of the +wind abated. The night came without a cloud, and the starry firmament +gave us its pale and glittering light. In an hour more the capricious +wind shifted back again in our favor. Toward ten o'clock we sailed into +the desolate harbor of Enkhuizen. + +The captain and crew, fatigued by their exertions, ate their frugal +suppers and went to their beds. In a few minutes more, I was the only +person left awake in the boat. + +I ascended to the deck, and looked about me. + +Our boat was moored to a deserted quay. Excepting a few fishing vessels +visible near us, the harbor of this once prosperous place was a vast +solitude of water, varied here and there by dreary banks of sand. +Looking inland, I saw the lonely buildings of the Dead City--black, +grim, and dreadful under the mysterious starlight. Not a human creature, +not even a stray animal, was to be seen anywhere. The place might have +been desolated by a pestilence, so empty and so lifeless did it +now appear. Little more than a hundred years ago, the record of its +population reached sixty thousand. The inhabitants had dwindled to a +tenth of that number when I looked at Enkhuizen now! + +I considered with myself what my next course of proceeding was to be. + +The chances were certainly against my discovering Mrs. Van Brandt if I +ventured alone and unguided into the city at night. On the other hand, +now that I had reached the place in which she and her child were living, +friendless and deserted, could I patiently wait through the weary +interval that must elapse before the morning came and the town was +astir? I knew my own self-tormenting disposition too well to accept this +latter alternative. Whatever came of it, I determined to walk through +Enkhuizen on the bare chance of meeting some one who might inform me of +Mrs. Van Brandt's address. + +First taking the precaution of locking my cabin door, I stepped from the +bulwark of the vessel to the lonely quay, and set forth upon my night +wanderings through the Dead City. + +CHAPTER XXXV. UNDER THE WINDOW. + +I SET the position of the harbor by my pocket-compass, and then followed +the course of the first street that lay before me. + +On either side, as I advanced, the desolate old houses frowned on me. +There were no lights in the windows, no lamps in the streets. For a +quarter of an hour at least I penetrated deeper and deeper into the +city, without encountering a living creature on my way--with only the +starlight to guide me. Turning by chance into a street broader than +the rest, I at last saw a moving figure, just visible ahead, under the +shadows of the houses. I quickened my pace, and found myself following +a man in the dress of a peasant. Hearing my footsteps behind him, he +turned and looked at me. Discovering that I was a stranger, he lifted +a thick cudgel that he carried with him, shook it threateningly, and +called to me in his own language (as I gathered by his actions) to +stand back. A stranger in Eukhuizen at that time of night was evidently +reckoned as a robber in the estimation of this citizen! I had learned on +the voyage, from the captain of the boat, how to ask my way in Dutch, +if I happened to be by myself in a strange town; and I now repeated +my lesson, asking my way to the fishing office of Messrs. Van Brandt. +Either my foreign accent made me unintelligible, or the man's suspicions +disinclined him to trust me. Again he shook his cudgel, and again he +signed to me to stand back. It was useless to persist. I crossed to the +opposite side of the way, and soon afterward lost sight of him under the +portico of a house. + +Still following the windings of the deserted streets, I reached what I +at first supposed to be the end of the town. + +Before me, for half a mile or more (as well as I could guess), rose a +tract of meadow-land, with sheep dotted over it at intervals reposing +for the night. I advanced over the grass, and observed here and there, +where the ground rose a little, some moldering fragments of brickwork. +Looking onward as I reached the middle of the meadow, I perceived on +its further side, towering gaunt and black in the night, a lofty arch or +gateway, without walls at its sides, without a neighboring building +of any sort, far or near. This (as I afterward learned) was one of +the ancient gates of the city. The walls, crumbling to ruin, had been +destroyed as useless obstacles that cumbered the ground. On the waste +meadow-land round me had once stood the shops of the richest merchants, +the palaces of the proudest nobles of North Holland. I was actually +standing on what had been formerly the wealthy quarter of Enkhuizen! And +what was left of it now? A few mounds of broken bricks, a pasture-land +of sweet-smelling grass, and a little flock of sheep sleeping. + +The mere desolation of the view (apart altogether from its history) +struck me with a feeling of horror. My mind seemed to lose its balance +in the dreadful stillness that was round me. I felt unutterable +forebodings of calamities to come. For the first time, I repented having +left England. My thoughts turned regretfully to the woody shores of +Greenwater Broad. If I had only held to my resolution, I might have been +at rest now in the deep waters of the lake. For what had I lived and +planned and traveled since I left Dermody's cottage? Perhaps only to +find that I had lost the woman whom I loved--now that I was in the same +town with her! + +Regaining the outer rows of houses still left standing, I looked about +me, intending to return by the street which was known to me already. +Just as I thought I had discovered it, I noticed another living creature +in the solitary city. A man was standing at the door of one of the +outermost houses on my right hand, looking at me. + +At the risk of meeting with another rough reception, I determined to +make a last effort to discover Mrs. Van Brandt before I returned to the +boat. + +Seeing that I was approaching him, the stranger met me midway. His dress +and manner showed plainly that I had not encountered this time a person +in the lower ranks of life. He answered my question civilly in his own +language. Seeing that I was at a loss to understand what he said, he +invited me by signs to follow him. After walking for a few minutes in +a direction which was quite new to me, we stopped in a gloomy little +square, with a plot of neglected garden-ground in the middle of it. +Pointing to a lower window in one of the houses, in which a light dimly +appeared, my guide said in Dutch: "Office of Van Brandt, sir," bowed, +and left me. + +I advanced to the window. It was open, and it was just high enough to be +above my head. The light in the room found its way outward through the +interstices of closed wooden shutters. Still haunted by misgivings of +trouble to come, I hesitated to announce my arrival precipitately by +ringing the house-bell. How did I know what new calamity might not +confront me when the door was opened? I waited under the window and +listened. + +Hardly a minute passed before I heard a woman's voice in the room. There +was no mistaking the charm of those tones. It was the voice of Mrs. Van +Brandt. + +"Come, darling," she said. "It is very late--you ought to have been in +bed two hours ago." + +The child's voice answered, "I am not sleepy, mamma." + +"But, my dear, remember you have been ill. You may be ill again if you +keep out of bed so late as this. Only lie down, and you will soon fall +asleep when I put the candle out." + +"You must _not_ put the candle out!" the child returned, with strong +emphasis. "My new papa is coming. How is he to find his way to us, if +you put out the light?" + +The mother answered sharply, as if the child's strange words had +irritated her. + +"You are talking nonsense," she said; "and you must go to bed. Mr. +Germaine knows nothing about us. Mr. Germaine is in England." + +I could restrain myself no longer. I called out under the window: + +"Mr. Germaine is here!" + +CHAPTER XXXVI. LOVE AND PRIDE. + +A CRY of terror from the room told me that I had been heard. For a +moment more nothing happened. Then the child's voice reached me, wild +and shrill: "Open the shutters, mamma! I said he was coming--I want to +see him!" + +There was still an interval of hesitation before the mother opened the +shutters. She did it at last. I saw her darkly at the window, with the +light behind her, and the child's head just visible above the lower part +of the window-frame. The quaint little face moved rapidly up and down, +as if my self-appointed daughter were dancing for joy! + +"Can I trust my own senses?" said Mrs. Van Brandt. "Is it really Mr. +Germaine?" + +"How do you do, new papa?" cried the child. "Push open the big door and +come in. I want to kiss you." + +There was a world of difference between the coldly doubtful tone of the +mother and the joyous greeting of the child. Had I forced myself too +suddenly on Mrs. Van Brandt? Like all sensitively organized persons, she +possessed that inbred sense of self-respect which is pride under another +name. Was her pride wounded at the bare idea of my seeing her, deserted +as well as deceived--abandoned contemptuously, a helpless burden on +strangers--by the man for whom she had sacrificed and suffered so much? +And that man a thief, flying from the employers whom he had cheated! I +pushed open the heavy oaken street-door, fearing that this might be the +true explanation of the change which I had already remarked in her. My +apprehensions were confirmed when she unlocked the inner door, leading +from the courtyard to the sitting-room, and let me in. + +As I took her by both hands and kissed her, she turned her head, so that +my lips touched her cheek only. She flushed deeply; her eyes looked away +from me as she spoke her few formal words of welcome. When the child +flew into my arms, she cried out, irritably, "Don't trouble Mr. +Germaine!" I took a chair, with the little one on my knee. Mrs. Van +Brandt seated herself at a distance from me. "It is needless, I suppose, +to ask you if you know what has happened," she said, turning pale +again as suddenly as she had turned red, and keeping her eyes fixed +obstinately on the floor. + +Before I could answer, the child burst out with the news of her father's +disappearance in these words: + +"My other papa has run away! My other papa has stolen money! It's time I +had a new one, isn't it?" She put her arms round my neck. "And now I've +got him!" she cried, at the shrillest pitch of her voice. + +The mother looked at us. For a while, the proud, sensitive woman +struggled successfully with herself; but the pang that wrung her was not +to be endured in silence. With a low cry of pain, she hid her face in +her hands. Overwhelmed by the sense of her own degradation, she was even +ashamed to let the man who loved her see that she was in tears. + +I took the child off my knee. There was a second door in the +sitting-room, which happened to be left open. It showed me a bed-chamber +within, and a candle burning on the toilet-table. + +"Go in there and play," I said. "I want to talk to your mamma." + +The child pouted: my proposal did not appear to tempt her. "Give me +something to play with," she said. "I'm tired of my toys. Let me see +what you have got in your pockets." + +Her busy little hands began to search in my coat-pockets. I let her take +what she pleased, and so bribed her to run away into the inner room. As +soon as she was out of sight, I approached the poor mother and seated +myself by her side. + +"Think of it as I do," I said. "Now that he has forsaken you, he has +left you free to be mine." + +She lifted her head instantly; her eyes flashed through her tears. + +"Now that he has forsaken me," she answered, "I am more unworthy of you +than ever!" + +"Why?" I asked. + +"Why!" she repeated, passionately. "Has a woman not reached the lowest +depths of degradation when she has lived to be deserted by a thief?" + +It was hopeless to attempt to reason with her in her present frame of +mind. I tried to attract her attention to a less painful subject by +referring to the strange succession of events which had brought me to +her for the third time. She stopped me impatiently at the outset. + +"It seems useless to say once more what we have said on other +occasions," she answered. "I understand what has brought you here. I +have appeared to you again in a vision, just as I appeared to you twice +before." + +"No," I said. "Not as you appeared to me twice before. This time I saw +you with the child by your side." + +That reply roused her. She started, and looked nervously toward the +bed-chamber door. + +"Don't speak loud!" she said. "Don't let the child hear us! My dream +of you this time has left a painful impression on my mind. The child is +mixed up in it--and I don't like that. Then the place in which I saw +you is associated--" She paused, leaving the sentence unfinished. "I am +nervous and wretched to-night," she resumed; "and I don't want to speak +of it. And yet, I should like to know whether my dream has misled me, or +whether you really were in that cottage, of all places in the world?" + +I was at a loss to understand the embarrassment which she appeared to +feel in putting her question. There was nothing very wonderful, to my +mind, in the discovery that she had been in Suffolk, and that she was +acquainted with Greenwater Broad. The lake was known all over the county +as a favorite resort of picnic parties; and Dermody's pretty cottage +used to be one of the popular attractions of the scene. What really +surprised me was to see, as I now plainly saw, that she had some painful +association with my old home. I decided on answering her question in +such terms as might encourage her to take me into her confidence. In a +moment more I should have told her that my boyhood had been passed +at Greenwater Broad--in a moment more, we should have recognized each +other--when a trivial interruption suspended the words on my lips. The +child ran out of the bed-chamber, with a quaintly shaped key in her +hand. It was one of the things she had taken out of my pockets and it +belonged to the cabin door on board the boat. A sudden fit of curiosity +(the insatiable curiosity of a child) had seized her on the subject of +this key. She insisted on knowing what door it locked; and, when I had +satisfied her on that point, she implored me to take her immediately to +see the boat. This entreaty led naturally to a renewal of the disputed +question of going, or not going, to bed. By the time the little creature +had left us again, with permission to play for a few minutes longer, +the conversation between Mrs. Van Brandt and myself had taken a new +direction. Speaking now of the child's health, we were led naturally to +the kindred subject of the child's connection with her mother's dream. + +"She had been ill with fever," Mrs. Van Brandt began; "and she was +just getting better again on the day when I was left deserted in this +miserable place. Toward evening, she had another attack that frightened +me dreadfully. She became perfectly insensible--her little limbs were +stiff and cold. There is one doctor here who has not yet abandoned the +town. Of course I sent for him. He thought her insensibility was caused +by a sort of cataleptic seizure. At the same time, he comforted me by +saying that she was in no immediate danger of death; and he left me +certain remedies to be given, if certain symptoms appeared. I took her +to bed, and held her to me, with the idea of keeping her warm. +Without believing in mesmerism, it has since struck me that we might +unconsciously have had some influence over each other, which may explain +what followed. Do you think it likely?" + +"Quite likely. At the same time, the mesmeric theory (if you could +believe in it) would carry the explanation further still. Mesmerism +would assert, not only that you and the child influenced each other, but +that--in spite of the distance--you both influenced _me_. And in that +way, mesmerism would account for my vision as the necessary result of a +highly developed sympathy between us. Tell me, did you fall asleep with +the child in your arms?" + +"Yes. I was completely worn out; and I fell asleep, in spite of my +resolution to watch through the night. In my forlorn situation, forsaken +in a strange place, I dreamed of you again, and I appealed to you again +as my one protector and friend. The only new thing in the dream was, +that I thought I had the child with me when I approached you, and that +the child put the words into my mind when I wrote in your book. You saw +the words, I suppose? and they vanished, as before, no doubt, when I +awoke? I found the child still lying, like a dead creature, in my arms. +All through the night there was no change in her. She only recovered +her senses at noon the next day. Why do you start? What have I said that +surprises you?" + +There was good reason for my feeling startled, and showing it. On the +day and at the hour when the child had come to herself, I had stood on +the deck of the vessel, and had seen the apparition of her disappear +from my view. + +"Did she say anything," I asked, "when she recovered her senses?" + +"Yes. She too had been dreaming--dreaming that she was in company with +you. She said: 'He is coming to see us, mamma; and I have been showing +him the way.' I asked her where she had seen you. She spoke confusedly +of more places than one. She talked of trees, and a cottage, and a lake; +then of fields and hedges, and lonely lanes; then of a carriage and +horses, and a long white road; then of crowded streets and houses, and +a river and a ship. As to these last objects, there is nothing very +wonderful in what she said. The houses, the river, and the ship which +she saw in her dream, she saw in the reality when we took her from +London to Rotterdam, on our way here. But as to the other places, +especially the cottage and the lake (as she described them) I can only +suppose that her dream was the reflection of mine. _I_ had been dreaming +of the cottage and the lake, as I once knew them in years long gone by; +and--Heaven only knows why--I had associated you with the scene. Never +mind going into that now! I don't know what infatuation it is that makes +me trifle in this way with old recollections, which affect me painfully +in my present position. We were talking of the child's health; let us go +back to that." + +It was not easy to return to the topic of her child's health. She had +revived my curiosity on the subject of her association with Greenwater +Broad. The child was still quietly at play in the bedchamber. My second +opportunity was before me. I took it. + +"I won't distress you," I began. "I will only ask leave, before we +change the subject, to put one question to you about the cottage and the +lake." + +As the fatality that pursued us willed it, it was _her_ turn now to be +innocently an obstacle in the way of our discovering each other. + +"I can tell you nothing more to-night," she interposed, rising +impatiently. "It is time I put the child to bed--and, besides, I can't +talk of things that distress me. You must wait for the time--if it ever +comes!--when I am calmer and happier than I am now." + +She turned to enter the bed-chamber. Acting headlong on the impulse of +the moment, I took her by the hand and stopped her. + +"You have only to choose," I said, "and the calmer and happier time is +yours from this moment." + +"Mine?" she repeated. "What do you mean?" + +"Say the word," I replied, "and you and your child have a home and a +future before you." + +She looked at me half bewildered, half angry. + +"Do you offer me your protection?" she asked. + +"I offer you a husband's protection," I answered. "I ask you to be my +wife." + +She advanced a step nearer to me, with her eyes riveted on my face. + +"You are evidently ignorant of what has really happened," she said. "And +yet, God knows, the child spoke plainly enough!" + +"The child only told me," I rejoined, "what I had heard already, on my +way here." + +"All of it?" + +"All of it." + +"And you still ask me to be your wife?" + +"I can imagine no greater happiness than to make you my wife." + +"Knowing what you know now?" + +"Knowing what I know now, I ask you confidently to give me your hand. +Whatever claim that man may once have had, as the father of your child, +he has now forfeited it by his infamous desertion of you. In every sense +of the word, my darling, you are a free woman. We have had sorrow enough +in our lives. Happiness is at last within our reach. Come to me, and say +Yes." + +I tried to take her in my arms. She drew back as if I had frightened +her. + +"Never!" she said, firmly. + +I whispered my next words, so that the child in the inner room might not +hear us. + +"You once said you loved me!" + +"I do love you!" + +"As dearly as ever?" + +"_More_ dearly than ever!" + +"Kiss me!" + +She yielded mechanically; she kissed me--with cold lips, with big tears +in her eyes. + +"You don't love me!" I burst out, angrily. "You kiss me as if it were a +duty. Your lips are cold--your heart is cold. You don't love me!" + +She looked at me sadly, with a patient smile. + +"One of us must remember the difference between your position and mine," +she said. "You are a man of stainless honor, who holds an undisputed +rank in the world. And what am I? I am the deserted mistress of a thief. +One of us must remember that. You have generously forgotten it. I must +bear it in mind. I dare say I am cold. Suffering has that effect on me; +and, I own it, I am suffering now." + +I was too passionately in love with her to feel the sympathy on which +she evidently counted in saying those words. A man can respect a woman's +scruples when they appeal to him mutely in her looks or in her tears; +but the formal expression of them in words only irritates or annoys him. + +"Whose fault is it that you suffer?" I retorted, coldly. "I ask you to +make my life a happy one, and your life a happy one. You are a cruelly +wronged woman, but you are not a degraded woman. You are worthy to be +my wife, and I am ready to declare it publicly. Come back with me to +England. My boat is waiting for you; we can set sail in two hours." + +She dropped into a chair; her hands fell helplessly into her lap. + +"How cruel!" she murmured, "how cruel to tempt me!" She waited a little, +and recovered her fatal firmness. "No!" she said. "If I die in doing it, +I can still refuse to disgrace you. Leave me, Mr. Germaine. You can show +me that one kindness more. For God's sake, leave me!" + +I made a last appeal to her tenderness. + +"Do you know what my life is if I live without you?" I asked. "My mother +is dead. There is not a living creature left in the world whom I love +but you. And you ask me to leave you! Where am I to go to? what am I +to do? You talk of cruelty! Is there no cruelty in sacrificing +the happiness of my life to a miserable scruple of delicacy, to an +unreasoning fear of the opinion of the world? I love you and you love +me. There is no other consideration worth a straw. Come back with me to +England! come back and be my wife!" + +She dropped on her knees, and taking my hand put it silently to her +lips. I tried to raise her. It was useless: she steadily resisted me. + +"Does this mean No?" I asked. + +"It means," she said in faint, broken tones, "that I prize your honor +beyond my happiness. If I marry you, your career is destroyed by your +wife; and the day will come when you will tell me so. I can suffer--I +can die; but I can _not_ face such a prospect as that. Forgive me and +forget me. I can say no more!" + +She let go of my hand, and sank on the floor. The utter despair of that +action told me, far more eloquently than the words which she had +just spoken, that her resolution was immovable. She had deliberately +separated herself from me; her own act had parted us forever. + +CHAPTER XXXVII. THE TWO DESTINIES. + +I MADE no movement to leave the room; I let no sign of sorrow escape me. +At last, my heart was hardened against the woman who had so obstinately +rejected me. I stood looking down at her with a merciless anger, the +bare remembrance of which fills me at this day with a horror of myself. +There is but one excuse for me. The shock of that last overthrow of the +one hope that held me to life was more than my reason could endure. On +that dreadful night (whatever I may have been at other times), I myself +believe it, I was a maddened man. + +I was the first to break the silence. + +"Get up," I said coldly. + +She lifted her face from the floor, and looked at me as if she doubted +whether she had heard aright. + +"Put on your hat and cloak," I resumed. "I must ask you to go back with +me as far as the boat." + +She rose slowly. Her eyes rested on my face with a dull, bewildered +look. + +"Why am I to go with you to the boat?" she asked. + +The child heard her. The child ran up to us with her little hat in one +hand, and the key of the cabin in the other. + +"I'm ready," she said. "I will open the cabin door." + +Her mother signed to her to go back to the bed-chamber. She went back +as far as the door which led into the courtyard, and waited there, +listening. I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt with immovable composure, and +answered the question which she had addressed to me. + +"You are left," I said, "without the means of getting away from this +place. In two hours more the tide will be in my favor, and I shall sail +at once on the return voyage. We part, this time, never to meet again. +Before I go I am resolved to leave you properly provided for. My money +is in my traveling-bag in the cabin. For that reason, I am obliged to +ask you to go with me as far as the boat." + +"I thank you gratefully for your kindness," she said. "I don't stand in +such serious need of help as you suppose." + +"It is useless to attempt to deceive me," I proceeded. "I have spoken +with the head partner of the house of Van Brandt at Amsterdam, and I +know exactly what your position is. Your pride must bend low enough to +take from my hands the means of subsistence for yourself and your child. +If I had died in England--" + +I stopped. The unexpressed idea in my mind was to tell her that she +would inherit a legacy under my will, and that she might quite as +becomingly take money from me in my life-time as take it from my +executors after my death. In forming this thought into words, the +associations which it called naturally into being revived in me the +memory of my contemplated suicide in the Greenwater lake. Mingling with +the remembrance thus aroused, there rose in me unbidden, a temptation so +overpoweringly vile, and yet so irresistible in the state of my mind at +the moment, that it shook me to the soul. "You have nothing to live for, +now that she has refused to be yours," the fiend in me whispered. "Take +your leap into the next world, and make the woman whom you love take it +with you!" While I was still looking at her, while my last words to her +faltered on my lips, the horrible facilities for the perpetration of +the double crime revealed themselves enticingly to my view. My boat was +moored in the one part of the decaying harbor in which deep water still +lay at the foot of the quay. I had only to induce her to follow me when +I stepped on the deck, to seize her in my arms, and to jump overboard +with her before she could utter a cry for help. My drowsy sailors, as I +knew by experience, were hard to wake, and slow to move even when they +were roused at last. We should both be drowned before the youngest and +the quickest of them could get up from his bed and make his way to the +deck. Yes! We should both be struck together out of the ranks of the +living at one and the same moment. And why not? She who had again and +again refused to be my wife--did she deserve that I should leave her +free to go back, perhaps, for the second time to Van Brandt? On the +evening when I had saved her from the waters of the Scotch river, I +had made myself master of her fate. She had tried to destroy herself +by drowning; she should drown now, in the arms of the man who had once +thrown himself between her and death! + +Self-abandoned to such atrocious reasoning as this, I stood face to face +with her, and returned deliberately to my unfinished sentence. + +"If I had died in England, you would have been provided for by my will. +What you would have taken from me then, you may take from me now. Come +to the boat." + +A change passed over her face as I spoke; a vague doubt of me began +to show itself in her eyes. She drew back a little, without making any +reply. + +"Come to the boat," I reiterated. + +"It is too late." With that answer, she looked across the room at the +child, still waiting by the door. "Come, Elfie," she said, calling the +little creature by one of her favorite nicknames. "Come to bed." + +I too looked at Elfie. Might she not, I asked myself, be made the +innocent means of forcing her mother to leave the house? Trusting to the +child's fearless character, and her eagerness to see the boat, I +suddenly opened the door. As I had anticipated, she instantly ran out. +The second door, leading into the square, I had not closed when I +entered the courtyard. In another moment Elfie was out in the square, +triumphing in her freedom. The shrill little voice broke the death-like +stillness of the place and hour, calling to me again and again to take +her to the boat. + +I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. The stratagem had succeeded. Elfie's mother +could hardly refuse to follow when Elfie led the way. + +"Will you go with us?" I asked. "Or must I send the money back by the +child?" + +Her eyes rested on me for a moment with a deepening expression of +distrust, then looked away again. She began to turn pale. "You are not +like yourself to-night," she said. Without a word more, she took her +hat and cloak and went out before me into the square. I followed her, +closing the doors behind me. She made an attempt to induce the child to +approach her. "Come, darling," she said, enticingly--"come and take my +hand." + +But Elfie was not to be caught: she took to her heels, and answered from +a safe distance. "No," said the child; "you will take me back and put me +to bed." She retreated a little further, and held up the key: "I shall +go first," she cried, "and open the door." + +She trotted off a few steps in the direction of the harbor, and waited +for what was to happen next. Her mother suddenly turned, and looked +close at me under the light of the stars. + +"Are the sailors on board the boat?" she asked. + +The question startled me. Had she any suspicion of my purpose? Had +my face warned her of lurking danger if she went to the boat? It was +impossible. The more likely motive for her inquiry was to find a new +excuse for not accompanying me to the harbor. If I told her that the men +were on board, she might answer, "Why not employ one of your sailors +to bring the money to me at the house?" I took care to anticipate the +suggestion in making my reply. + +"They may be honest men," I said, watching her carefully; "but I don't +know them well enough to trust them with money." + +To my surprise, she watched me just as carefully on her side, and +deliberately repeated her question: + +"Are the sailors on board the boat?" + +I informed her that the captain and crew slept in the boat, and paused +to see what would follow. My reply seemed to rouse her resolution. After +a moment's consideration, she turned toward the place at which the child +was waiting for us. "Let us go, as you insist on it," she said, quietly. +I made no further remark. Side by side, in silence we followed Elfie on +our way to the boat. + +Not a human creature passed us in the streets; not a light glimmered +on us from the grim black houses. Twice the child stopped, and (still +keeping slyly out of her mother's reach) ran back to me, wondering at +my silence. "Why don't you speak?" she asked. "Have you and mamma +quarreled?" + +I was incapable of answering her--I could think of nothing but my +contemplated crime. Neither fear nor remorse troubled me. Every better +instinct, every nobler feeling that I had once possessed, seemed to +be dead and gone. Not even a thought of the child's future troubled my +mind. I had no power of looking on further than the fatal leap from the +boat: beyond that there was an utter blank. For the time being--I can +only repeat it, my moral sense was obscured, my mental faculties were +thrown completely off their balance. The animal part of me lived and +moved as usual; the viler animal instincts in me plotted and planned, +and that was all. Nobody, looking at me, would have seen anything but a +dull quietude in my face, an immovable composure in my manner. And yet +no madman was fitter for restraint, or less responsible morally for his +own actions, than I was at that moment. + +The night air blew more freshly on our faces. Still led by the child, we +had passed through the last street--we were out on the empty open space +which was the landward boundary of the harbor. In a minute more we +stood on the quay, within a step of the gunwale of the boat. I noticed +a change in the appearance of the harbor since I had seen it last. +Some fishing-boats had come in during my absence. They moored, some +immediately astern and some immediately ahead of my own vessel. I looked +anxiously to see if any of the fishermen were on board and stirring. Not +a living being appeared anywhere. The men were on shore with their wives +and their families. + +Elfie held out her arms to be lifted on board my boat. Mrs. Van Brandt +stepped between us as I stooped to take her up. + +"We will wait here," she said, "while you go into the cabin and get the +money." + +Those words placed it beyond all doubt that she had her suspicions of +me--suspicions, probably, which led her to fear not for her life, but +for her freedom. She might dread being kept a prisoner in the boat, and +being carried away by me against her will. More than this she could not +thus far possibly apprehend. The child saved me the trouble of making +any remonstrance. She was determined to go with me. "I must see the +cabin," she cried, holding up the key. "I must open the door myself." + +She twisted herself out of her mother's hands, and ran round to the +other side of me. I lifted her over the gunwale of the boat in an +instant. Before I could turn round, her mother had followed her, and was +standing on the deck. + +The cabin door, in the position which she now occupied, was on her left +hand. The child was close behind her. I was on her right. Before us +was the open deck, and the low gunwale of the boat overlooking the deep +water. In a moment we might step across; in a moment we might take the +fatal plunge. The bare thought of it brought the mad wickedness in me to +its climax. I became suddenly incapable of restraining myself. I threw +my arm round her waist with a loud laugh. "Come," I said, trying to drag +her across the deck--"come and look at the water." + +She released herself by a sudden effort of strength that astonished me. +With a faint cry of horror, she turned to take the child by the hand and +get back to the quay. I placed myself between her and the sides of the +boat, and cut off her retreat in that way. Still laughing, I asked her +what she was frightened about. She drew back, and snatched the key of +the cabin door out of the child's hand. The cabin was the one place of +refuge now left, to which she could escape from the deck of the boat. +In the terror of the moment, she never hesitated. She unlocked the door, +and hurried down the two or three steps which led into the cabin, taking +the child with her. I followed them, conscious that I had betrayed +myself, yet still obstinately, stupidly, madly bent on carrying out my +purpose. "I have only to behave quietly," I thought to myself, "and I +shall persuade her to go on deck again." + +My lamp was burning as I had left it; my traveling-bag was on the table. +Still holding the child, she stood, pale as death, waiting for me. +Elfie's wondering eyes rested inquiringly on my face as I approached +them. She looked half inclined to cry; the suddenness of the mother's +action had frightened the child. I did my best to compose Elfie before +I spoke to her mother. I pointed out the different objects which were +likely to interest her in the cabin. "Go and look at them," I said, "go +and amuse yourself." + +The child still hesitated. "Are you angry with me?" she asked. + +"No, no!" + +"Are you angry with mamma?" + +"Certainly not." I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. "Tell Elfie if I am angry +with you," I said. + +She was perfectly aware, in her critical position, of the necessity of +humoring me. Between us, we succeeded in composing the child. She turned +away to examine, in high delight, the new and strange objects which +surrounded her. Meanwhile her mother and I stood together, looking at +each other by the light of the lamp, with an assumed composure which hid +our true faces like a mask. In that horrible situation, the grotesque +and the terrible, always together in this strange life of ours, came +together now. On either side of us, the one sound that broke the +sinister and threatening silence was the lumpish snoring of the sleeping +captain and crew. + +She was the first to speak. + +"If you wish to give me the money," she said, trying to propitiate me in +that way, "I am ready to take it now." + +I unlocked my traveling-bag. As I looked into it for the leather case +which held my money, my overpowering desire to get her on deck again, +my mad impatience to commit the fatal act, became too strong to be +controlled. + +"We shall be cooler on deck," I said. "Let us take the bag up there." + +She showed wonderful courage. I could almost see the cry for help rising +to her lips. She repressed it; she had still presence of mind enough to +foresee what might happen before she could rouse the sleeping men. + +"We have a light here to count the money by," she answered. "I don't +feel at all too warm in the cabin. Let us stay here a little longer. See +how Elfie is amusing herself!" + +Her eyes rested on me as she spoke. Something in the expression of them +quieted me for the time. I was able to pause and think. I might take +her on deck by force before the men could interfere. But her cries would +rouse them; they would hear the splash in the water, and they might be +quick enough to rescue us. It would be wiser, perhaps, to wait a little +and trust to my cunning to delude her into leaving the cabin of her own +accord. I put the bag back on the table, and began to search for the +leather money-case. My hands were strangely clumsy and helpless. I could +only find the case after scattering half the contents of the bag on the +table. The child was near me at the time, and noticed what I was doing. + +"Oh, how awkward you are!" she burst out, in her frankly fearless way. +"Let me put your bag tidy. Do, please!" + +I granted the request impatiently. Elfie's restless desire to be always +doing something, instead of amusing me, as usual, irritated me now. The +interest that I had once felt in the charming little creature was all +gone. An innocent love was a feeling that was stifled in the poisoned +atmosphere of my mind that night. + +The money I had with me was mostly composed of notes of the Bank of +England. Carefully keeping up appearances, I set aside the sum that +would probably be required to take a traveler back to London; and I put +all that remained into the hands of Mrs. Van Brandt. Could she suspect +me of a design on her life now? + +"That will do for the present," I said. "I can communicate with you in +the future through Messrs. Van Brandt, of Amsterdam." + +She took the money mechanically. Her hand trembled; her eyes met mine +with a look of piteous entreaty. She tried to revive my old tenderness +for her; she made a last appeal to my forbearance and consideration. + +"We may part friends," she said, in low, trembling tones. "And as +friends we may meet again, when time has taught you to think forgivingly +of what has passed between us, to-night." + +She offered me her hand. I looked at her without taking it. I penetrated +her motive in appealing to my old regard for her. Still suspecting me, +she had tried her last chance of getting safely on shore. + +"The less we say of the past, the better," I answered, with ironical +politeness. "It is getting late. And you will agree with me that Elfie +ought to be in her bed." I looked round at the child. "Be quick, Elfie," +I said; "your mamma is going away." I opened the cabin door, and offered +my arm to Mrs. Van Brandt. "This boat is my house for the time being," +I resumed. "When ladies take leave of me after a visit, I escort them to +the dock. Pray take my arm." + +She started back. For the second time she was on the point of crying for +help, and for the second time she kept that last desperate alternative +in reserve. + +"I haven't seen your cabin yet," she said, her eyes wild with fear, a +forced smile on her lips, as she spoke. "There are several little things +here that interest me. Give me another minute or two to look at them." + +She turned away to get nearer to the child, under pretense of looking +round the cabin. I stood on guard before the open door, watching her. +She made a second pretense: she noisily overthrew a chair as if by +accident, and then waited to discover whether her trick had succeeded in +waking the men. + +The heavy snoring went on; not a sound of a person moving was audible on +either side of us. + +"My men are heavy sleepers," I said, smiling significantly. "Don't be +alarmed; you have not disturbed them. Nothing wakes these Dutch sailors +when they are once safe in port." + +She made no reply. My patience was exhausted. I left the door and +advanced toward her. She retreated in speechless terror, passing behind +the table to the other end of the cabin. I followed her until she had +reached the extremity of the room and could get no further. She met the +look I fixed on her; she shrunk into a corner, and called for help. In +the deadly terror that possessed her, she lost the use of her voice. A +low moaning, hardly louder than a whisper, was all that passed her lips. +Already, in imagination, I stood with her on the gunwale, already I felt +the cold contact of the water--when I was startled by a cry behind me. +I turned round. The cry had come from Elfie. She had apparently just +discovered some new object in the bag, and she was holding it up in +admiration, high above her head. "Mamma! mamma!" the child cried, +excitedly, "look at this pretty thing! Oh, do, do ask him if I may have +it!" + +Her mother ran to her, eager to seize the poorest excuse for getting +away from me. I followed; I stretched out my hands to seize her. She +suddenly turned round on me, a woman transformed. A bright flush was +on her face, an eager wonder sparkled in her eyes. Snatching Elfie's +coveted object out of the child's hand, she held it up before me. I saw +it under the lamp-light. It was my little forgotten keepsake--the Green +Flag! + +"How came you by this?" she asked, in breathless anticipation of my +reply. Not the slightest trace was left in her face of the terror that +had convulsed it barely a minute since! "How came you by this?" she +repeated, seizing me by the arm and shaking me, in the ungovernable +impatience that possessed her. + +My head turned giddy, my heart beat furiously under the conflict of +emotions that she had roused in me. My eyes were riveted on the green +flag. The words that I wanted to speak were words that refused to come +to me. I answered, mechanically: "I have had it since I was a boy." + +She dropped her hold on me, and lifted her hands with a gesture of +ecstatic gratitude. A lovely, angelic brightness flowed like light from +heaven over her face. For one moment she stood enraptured. The next she +clasped me passionately to her bosom, and whispered in my ear: "I am +Mary Dermody! I made it for You!" + +The shock of discovery, following so closely on all that I had suffered +before it, was too much for me. I sank, fainting, in her arms. + +When I came to myself I was lying on my bed in the cabin. Elfie was +playing with the green flag, and Mary was sitting by me with my hand in +hers. One long look of love passed silently from her eyes to mine--from +mine to hers. In that look the kindred spirits were united; The Two +Destinies were fulfilled. + +THE END OF THE STORY. + + + +The Finale. + + + + +THE WIFE WRITES, AND CLOSES THE STORY. + +THERE was a little introductory narrative prefixed to "The Two +Destinies," which you may possibly have forgotten by this time. + +The narrative was written by myself--a citizen of the United States, +visiting England with his wife. It described a dinner-party at which we +were present, given by Mr. and Mrs. Germaine, in celebration of their +marriage; and it mentioned the circumstances under which we were +intrusted with the story which has just come to an end in these pages. +Having read the manuscript, Mr. and Mrs. Germaine left it to us to +decide whether we should continue our friendly intercourse with them or +not. + +At 3 o'clock P.M. we closed the last leaf of the story. Five minutes +later I sealed it up in its cover; my wife put her bonnet on, and there +we were, bound straight for Mr. Germaine's house, when the servant +brought a letter into the room, addressed to my wife. + +She opened it, looked at the signature, and discovered that it was "Mary +Germaine." Seeing this, we sat down side by side to read the letter +before we did anything else. + +On reflection, it strikes me that you may do well to read it, too. Mrs. +Germaine is surely by this time a person in whom you feel some interest. +And she is on that account, as I think, the fittest person to close the +story. Here is her letter: + + +"DEAR MADAM (or may I say--'dear friend'?)--Be prepared, if you please, +for a little surprise. When you read these lines we shall have left +London for the Continent. + +"After you went away last night, my husband decided on taking this +journey. Seeing how keenly he felt the insult offered to me by the +ladies whom we had asked to our table, I willingly prepared for our +sudden departure. When Mr. Germaine is far away from his false friends, +my experience of him tells me that he will recover his tranquillity. +That is enough for me. + +"My little daughter goes with us, of course. Early this morning I drove +to the school in the suburbs at which she is being educated, and took +her away with me. It is needless to say that she was delighted at the +prospect of traveling. She shocked the schoolmistress by waving her hat +over her head and crying 'Hooray,' like a boy. The good lady was very +careful to inform me that my daughter could not possibly have learned to +cry 'Hooray' in _her_ house. + +"You have probably by this time read the narrative which I have +committed to your care. I hardly dare ask how I stand in your estimation +now. Is it possible that I might have seen you and your good husband if +we had not left London so suddenly? As things are, I must now tell you +in writing what I should infinitely have preferred saying to you with +your friendly hand in mine. + +"Your knowledge of the world has no doubt already attributed the absence +of the ladies at our dinner-table to some report affecting my character. +You are quite right. While I was taking Elfie away from her school, my +husband called on one of his friends who dined with us (Mr. Waring), and +insisted on an explanation. Mr. Waring referred him to the woman who +is known to you by this time as Mr. Van Brandt's lawful wife. In her +intervals of sobriety she possesses some musical talent; Mrs. Waring had +met with her at a concert for a charity, and had been interested in +the story of her wrongs, as she called them. My name was, of course, +mentioned. I was described as a 'cast-off mistress' of Van Brandt, who +had persuaded Mr. Germaine into disgracing himself by marrying her, +and becoming the step-father of her child. Mrs. Waring thereupon +communicated what she had heard to other ladies who were her friends. +The result you saw for yourselves when you dined at our house. + +"I inform you of what has happened without making any comment. Mr. +Germaine's narrative has already told you that I foresaw the deplorable +consequences which might follow our marriage, and that I over and over +again (God knows at what cost of misery to myself) refused to be his +wife. It was only when my poor little green flag had revealed us to each +other that I lost all control over myself. The old time on the banks of +the lake came back to me; my heart hungered for its darling of happier +days; and I said Yes, when (as you may think) I ought to have still said +No. Will you take poor old Dame Dermody's view of it, and believe that +the kindred spirits, once reunited, could be parted no more? Or will you +take my view, which is simpler still? I do love him so dearly, and he is +so fond of me! + +"In the meantime, our departure from England seems to be the wisest +course that we can adopt. As long as this woman lives she will say again +of me what she has said already, whenever she can find the opportunity. +My child might hear the reports about her mother, and might be injured +by them when she gets older. We propose to take up our abode, for a time +at least, in the neighborhood of Naples. Here, or further away yet, we +may hope to live without annoyance among a people whose social law +is the law of mercy. Whatever may happen, we have always one last +consolation to sustain us--we have love. + +"You talked of traveling on the Continent when you dined with us. If you +should wander our way, the English consul at Naples is a friend of my +husband's, and he will have our address. I wonder whether we shall ever +meet again? It does seem hard to charge the misfortunes of my life on +me, as if they were my faults. + +"Speaking of my misfortunes, I may say, before I close this letter, that +the man to whom I owe them is never likely to cross my path again. The +Van Brandts of Amsterdam have received certain information that he is +now on his way to New Zealand. They are determined to prosecute him if +he returns. He is little likely to give them the opportunity. + +"The traveling-carriage is at the door: I must say good-by. My husband +sends to you both his kindest regards and best wishes. His manuscript +will be quite safe (when you leave London) if you send it to his +bankers, at the address inclosed. Think of me sometimes--and think of me +kindly. I appeal confidently to _your_ kindness, for I don't forget that +you kissed me at parting. Your grateful friend (if you will let her be +your friend), + + "MARY GERMAINE." + +We are rather impulsive people in the United States, and we decide on +long journeys by sea or land without making the slightest fuss about +it. My wife and I looked at each other when we had read Mrs. Germaine's +letter. + +"London is dull," I remarked, and waited to see what came of it. + +My wife read my remark the right way directly. + +"Suppose we try Naples?" she said. + +That is all. Permit us to wish you good-by. We are off to Naples. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Two Destinies, by Wilkie Collins + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWO DESTINIES *** + +***** This file should be named 1624-0.txt or 1624-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/2/1624/ + +Produced by James Rusk + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Two Destinies + +Author: Wilkie Collins + +Release Date: November 18, 2009 [EBook #1624] +[Last Updated: February 13, 2019] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWO DESTINIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk, and David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE TWO DESTINIES + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Wilkie Collins + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> The Prelude. </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0002"> The Narrative. </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2H_4_0003"> <b>GEORGE GERMAINE WRITES, AND TELLS HIS OWN LOVE + STORY.</b> </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a> GREENWATER + BROAD <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a> TWO + YOUNG HEARTS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a> SWEDENBORG + AND THE SIBYL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a> THE + CURTAIN FALLS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a> MY + STORY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a> HER + STORY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a> THE + WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. + </a> THE KINDRED SPIRITS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> + CHAPTER IX. </a> NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a> SAINT ANTHONY’S WELL + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a> THE + LETTER OF INTRODUCTION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. + </a> THE DISASTERS OF MRS. VAN BRANDT <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a> NOT CURED YET <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a> MRS. VAN BRANDT AT + HOME <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a> THE + OBSTACLE BEATS ME <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a> MY + MOTHER’S DIARY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a> SHETLAND + HOSPITALITY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a> THE + DARKENED ROOM <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a> THE + CATS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a> THE + GREEN FLAG <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a> SHE + COMES BETWEEN US <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a> SHE + CLAIMS ME AGAIN <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII. </a> THE + KISS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a> IN + THE SHADOW OF ST. PAUL’S <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER + XXV. </a> I KEEP MY APPOINTMENT <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI. </a> CONVERSATION WITH MY + MOTHER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII. </a> CONVERSATION + WITH MRS. VAN BRANDT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII. + </a> LOVE AND MONEY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0029"> + CHAPTER XXIX. </a> OUR DESTINIES PART US <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX. </a> THE PROSPECT DARKENS + <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI. </a> THE + PHYSICIAN’S OPINION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII. + </a> A LAST LOOK AT GREENWATER BROAD <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII. </a> A VISION OF THE + NIGHT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV. </a> BY + LAND AND SEA <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV. </a> UNDER + THE WINDOW <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI. </a> LOVE + AND PRIDE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII. </a> THE + TWO DESTINIES <br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0041"> THE WIFE WRITES, + AND CLOSES THE STORY. </a> <br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + The Prelude. + </h2> + <h3> + THE GUEST WRITES AND TELLS THE STORY OF THE DINNER PARTY. + </h3> + <p> + MANY years have passed since my wife and I left the United States to pay + our first visit to England. + </p> + <p> + We were provided with letters of introduction, as a matter of course. + Among them there was a letter which had been written for us by my wife’s + brother. It presented us to an English gentleman who held a high rank on + the list of his old and valued friends. + </p> + <p> + “You will become acquainted with Mr. George Germaine,” my brother-in-law + said, when we took leave of him, “at a very interesting period of his + life. My last news of him tells me that he is just married. I know nothing + of the lady, or of the circumstances under which my friend first met with + her. But of this I am certain: married or single, George Germaine will + give you and your wife a hearty welcome to England, for my sake.” + </p> + <p> + The day after our arrival in London, we left our letter of introduction at + the house of Mr. Germaine. + </p> + <p> + The next morning we went to see a favorite object of American interest, in + the metropolis of England—the Tower of London. The citizens of the + United States find this relic of the good old times of great use in + raising their national estimate of the value of republican institutions. + On getting back to the hotel, the cards of Mr. and Mrs. Germaine told us + that they had already returned our visit. The same evening we received an + invitation to dine with the newly married couple. It was inclosed in a + little note from Mrs. Germaine to my wife, warning us that we were not to + expect to meet a large party. “It is the first dinner we give, on our + return from our wedding tour” (the lady wrote); “and you will only be + introduced to a few of my husband’s old friends.” + </p> + <p> + In America, and (as I hear) on the continent of Europe also, when your + host invites you to dine at a given hour, you pay him the compliment of + arriving punctually at his house. In England alone, the incomprehensible + and discourteous custom prevails of keeping the host and the dinner + waiting for half an hour or more—without any assignable reason and + without any better excuse than the purely formal apology that is implied + in the words, “Sorry to be late.” + </p> + <p> + Arriving at the appointed time at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Germaine, we + had every reason to congratulate ourselves on the ignorant punctuality + which had brought us into the drawing-room half an hour in advance of the + other guests. + </p> + <p> + In the first place, there was so much heartiness, and so little ceremony, + in the welcome accorded to us, that we almost fancied ourselves back in + our own country. In the second place, both husband and wife interested us + the moment we set eyes on them. The lady, especially, although she was + not, strictly speaking, a beautiful woman, quite fascinated us. There was + an artless charm in her face and manner, a simple grace in all her + movements, a low, delicious melody in her voice, which we Americans felt + to be simply irresistible. And then, it was so plain (and so pleasant) to + see that here at least was a happy marriage! Here were two people who had + all their dearest hopes, wishes, and sympathies in common—who + looked, if I may risk the expression, born to be man and wife. By the time + when the fashionable delay of the half hour had expired, we were talking + together as familiarly and as confidentially as if we had been all four of + us old friends. + </p> + <p> + Eight o’clock struck, and the first of the English guests appeared. + </p> + <p> + Having forgotten this gentleman’s name, I must beg leave to distinguish + him by means of a letter of the alphabet. Let me call him Mr. A. When he + entered the room alone, our host and hostess both started, and both looked + surprised. Apparently they expected him to be accompanied by some other + person. Mr. Germaine put a curious question to his friend. + </p> + <p> + “Where is your wife?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + Mr. A answered for the absent lady by a neat little apology, expressed in + these words: + </p> + <p> + “She has got a bad cold. She is very sorry. She begs me to make her + excuses.” + </p> + <p> + He had just time to deliver his message, before another unaccompanied + gentleman appeared. Reverting to the letters of the alphabet, let me call + him Mr. B. Once more, I noticed that our host and hostess started when + they saw him enter the room alone. And, rather to my surprise, I heard Mr. + Germaine put his curious question again to the new guest: + </p> + <p> + “Where is your wife?” + </p> + <p> + The answer—with slight variations—was Mr. A’s neat little + apology, repeated by Mr. B. + </p> + <p> + “I am very sorry. Mrs. B has got a bad headache. She is subject to bad + headaches. She begs me to make her excuses.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. and Mrs. Germaine glanced at one another. The husband’s face plainly + expressed the suspicion which this second apology had roused in his mind. + The wife was steady and calm. An interval passed—a silent interval. + Mr. A and Mr. B retired together guiltily into a corner. My wife and I + looked at the pictures. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Germaine was the first to relieve us from our own intolerable + silence. Two more guests, it appeared, were still wanting to complete the + party. “Shall we have dinner at once, George?” she said to her husband. + “Or shall we wait for Mr. and Mrs. C?” + </p> + <p> + “We will wait five minutes,” he answered, shortly—with his eye on + Mr. A and Mr. B, guiltily secluded in their corner. + </p> + <p> + The drawing-room door opened. We all knew that a third married lady was + expected; we all looked toward the door in unutterable anticipation. Our + unexpressed hopes rested silently on the possible appearance of Mrs. C. + Would that admirable, but unknown, woman, at once charm and relieve us by + her presence? I shudder as I write it. Mr. C walked into the room—and + walked in, <i>alone</i>. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Germaine suddenly varied his formal inquiry in receiving the new + guest. + </p> + <p> + “Is your wife ill?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + Mr. C was an elderly man; Mr. C had lived (judging by appearances) in the + days when the old-fashioned laws of politeness were still in force. He + discovered his two married brethren in their corner, unaccompanied by <i>their</i> + wives; and he delivered his apology for <i>his</i> wife with the air of a + man who felt unaffectedly ashamed of it: + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. C is so sorry. She has got such a bad cold. She does so regret not + being able to accompany me.” + </p> + <p> + At this third apology, Mr. Germaine’s indignation forced its way outward + into expression in words. + </p> + <p> + “Two bad colds and one bad headache,” he said, with ironical politeness. + “I don’t know how your wives agree, gentlemen, when they are well. But + when they are ill, their unanimity is wonderful!” + </p> + <p> + The dinner was announced as that sharp saying passed his lips. + </p> + <p> + I had the honor of taking Mrs. Germaine to the dining-room. Her sense of + the implied insult offered to her by the wives of her husband’s friends + only showed itself in a trembling, a very slight trembling, of the hand + that rested on my arm. My interest in her increased tenfold. Only a woman + who had been accustomed to suffer, who had been broken and disciplined to + self-restraint, could have endured the moral martyrdom inflicted on her as + <i>this</i> woman endured it, from the beginning of the evening to the + end. + </p> + <p> + Am I using the language of exaggeration when I write of my hostess in + these terms? Look at the circumstances as they struck two strangers like + my wife and myself. + </p> + <p> + Here was the first dinner party which Mr. and Mrs. Germaine had given + since their marriage. Three of Mr. Germaine’s friends, all married men, + had been invited with their wives to meet Mr. Germaine’s wife, and had + (evidently) accepted the invitation without reserve. What discoveries had + taken place between the giving of the invitation and the giving of the + dinner it was impossible to say. The one thing plainly discernible was, + that in the interval the three wives had agreed in the resolution to leave + their husbands to represent them at Mrs. Germaine’s table; and, more + amazing still, the husbands had so far approved of the grossly + discourteous conduct of the wives as to consent to make the most + insultingly trivial excuses for their absence. Could any crueler slur than + this have been cast on a woman at the outs et of her married life, before + the face of her husband, and in the presence of two strangers from another + country? Is “martyrdom” too big a word to use in describing what a + sensitive person must have suffered, subjected to such treatment as this? + Well, I think not. + </p> + <p> + We took our places at the dinner-table. Don’t ask me to describe that most + miserable of mortal meetings, that weariest and dreariest of human + festivals! It is quite bad enough to remember that evening—it is + indeed. + </p> + <p> + My wife and I did our best to keep the conversation moving as easily and + as harmlessly as might be. I may say that we really worked hard. + Nevertheless, our success was not very encouraging. Try as we might to + overlook them, there were the three empty places of the three absent + women, speaking in their own dismal language for themselves. Try as we + might to resist it, we all felt the one sad conclusion which those empty + places persisted in forcing on our minds. It was surely too plain that + some terrible report, affecting the character of the unhappy woman at the + head of the table, had unexpectedly come to light, and had at one blow + destroyed her position in the estimation of her husband’s friends. In the + face of the excuses in the drawing-room, in the face of the empty places + at the dinner-table, what could the friendliest guests do, to any good + purpose, to help the husband and wife in their sore and sudden need? They + could say good-night at the earliest possible opportunity, and mercifully + leave the married pair to themselves. + </p> + <p> + Let it at least be recorded to the credit of the three gentlemen, + designated in these pages as A, B, and C, that they were sufficiently + ashamed of themselves and their wives to be the first members of the + dinner party who left the house. In a few minutes more we rose to follow + their example. Mrs. Germaine earnestly requested that we would delay our + departure. + </p> + <p> + “Wait a few minutes,” she whispered, with a glance at her husband. “I have + something to say to you before you go.” + </p> + <p> + She left us, and, taking Mr. Germaine by the arm, led him away to the + opposite side of the room. The two held a little colloquy together in low + voices. The husband closed the consultation by lifting the wife’s hand to + his lips. + </p> + <p> + “Do as you please, my love,” he said to her. “I leave it entirely to you.” + </p> + <p> + He sat down sorrowfully, lost in his thoughts. Mrs. Germaine unlocked a + cabinet at the further end of the room, and returned to us, alone, + carrying a small portfolio in her hand. + </p> + <p> + “No words of mine can tell you how gratefully I feel your kindness,” she + said, with perfect simplicity, and with perfect dignity at the same time. + “Under very trying circumstances, you have treated me with the tenderness + and the sympathy which you might have shown to an old friend. The one + return I can make for all that I owe to you is to admit you to my fullest + confidence, and to leave you to judge for yourselves whether I deserve the + treatment which I have received to-night.” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes filled with tears. She paused to control herself. We both begged + her to say no more. Her husband, joining us, added his entreaties to ours. + She thanked us, but she persisted. Like most sensitively organized + persons, she could be resolute when she believed that the occasion called + for it. + </p> + <p> + “I have a few words more to say,” she resumed, addressing my wife. “You + are the only married woman who has come to our little dinner party. The + marked absence of the other wives explains itself. It is not for me to say + whether they are right or wrong in refusing to sit at our table. My dear + husband—who knows my whole life as well as I know it myself—expressed + the wish that we should invite these ladies. He wrongly supposed that <i>his</i> + estimate of me would be the estimate accepted by his friends; and neither + he nor I anticipated that the misfortunes of my past life would be + revealed by some person acquainted with them, whose treachery we have yet + to discover. The least I can do, by way of acknowledging your kindness, is + to place you in the same position toward me which the other ladies now + occupy. The circumstances under which I have become the wife of Mr. + Germaine are, in some respects, very remarkable. They are related, without + suppression or reserve, in a little narrative which my husband wrote, at + the time of our marriage, for the satisfaction of one of his absent + relatives, whose good opinion he was unwilling to forfeit. The manuscript + is in this portfolio. After what has happened, I ask you both to read it, + as a personal favor to me. It is for you to decide, when you know all, + whether I am a fit person for an honest woman to associate with or not.” + </p> + <p> + She held out her hand, with a sweet, sad smile, and bid us good night. My + wife, in her impulsive way, forgot the formalities proper to the occasion, + and kissed her at parting. At that one little act of sisterly sympathy, + the fortitude which the poor creature had preserved all through the + evening gave way in an instant. She burst into tears. + </p> + <p> + I felt as fond of her and as sorry for her as my wife. But (unfortunately) + I could not take my wife’s privilege of kissing her. On our way + downstairs, I found the opportunity of saying a cheering word to her + husband as he accompanied us to the door. + </p> + <p> + “Before I open this,” I remarked, pointing to the portfolio under my arm, + “my mind is made up, sir, about one thing. If I wasn’t married already, I + tell you this—I should envy you your wife.” + </p> + <p> + He pointed to the portfolio in his turn. + </p> + <p> + “Read what I have written there,” he said; “and you will understand what + those false friends of mine have made me suffer to-night.” + </p> + <p> + The next morning my wife and I opened the portfolio, and read the strange + story of George Germaine’s marriage. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Narrative. + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + GEORGE GERMAINE WRITES, <br />AND TELLS HIS OWN LOVE STORY. + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I. GREENWATER BROAD + </h2> + <p> + LOOK back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the past, through the + mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. Rise again, my boyhood’s days, + by the winding green shores of the little lake. Come to me once more, my + child-love, in the innocent beauty of your first ten years of life. Let us + live again, my angel, as we lived in our first paradise, before sin and + sorrow lifted their flaming swords and drove us out into the world. + </p> + <p> + The month was March. The last wild fowl of the season were floating on the + waters of the lake which, in our Suffolk tongue, we called Greenwater + Broad. + </p> + <p> + Wind where it might, the grassy banks and the overhanging trees tinged the + lake with the soft green reflections from which it took its name. In a + creek at the south end, the boats were kept—my own pretty sailing + boat having a tiny natural harbor all to itself. In a creek at the north + end stood the great trap (called a “decoy”), used for snaring the wild + fowl which flocked every winter, by thousands and thousands, to Greenwater + Broad. + </p> + <p> + My little Mary and I went out together, hand in hand, to see the last + birds of the season lured into the decoy. + </p> + <p> + The outer part of the strange bird-trap rose from the waters of the lake + in a series of circular arches, formed of elastic branches bent to the + needed shape, and covered with folds of fine network, making the roof. + Little by little diminishing in size, the arches and their net-work + followed the secret windings of the creek inland to its end. Built back + round the arches, on their landward side, ran a wooden paling, high enough + to hide a man kneeling behind it from the view of the birds on the lake. + At certain intervals a hole was broken in the paling just large enough to + allow of the passage through it of a dog of the terrier or the spaniel + breed. And there began and ended the simple yet sufficient mechanism of + the decoy. + </p> + <p> + In those days I was thirteen, and Mary was ten years old. Walking on our + way to the lake we had Mary’s father with us for guide and companion. The + good man served as bailiff on my father’s estate. He was, besides, a + skilled master in the art of decoying ducks. The dog that helped him (we + used no tame ducks as decoys in Suffolk) was a little black terrier; a + skilled master also, in his way; a creature who possessed, in equal + proportions, the enviable advantages of perfect good-humor and perfect + common sense. + </p> + <p> + The dog followed the bailiff, and we followed the dog. + </p> + <p> + Arrived at the paling which surrounded the decoy, the dog sat down to wait + until he was wanted. The bailiff and the children crouched behind the + paling, and peeped through the outermost dog-hole, which commanded a full + view of the lake. It was a day without wind; not a ripple stirred the + surface of the water; the soft gray clouds filled all the sky, and hid the + sun from view. + </p> + <p> + We peeped through the hole in the paling. There were the wild ducks—collected + within easy reach of the decoy—placidly dressing their feathers on + the placid surface of the lake. + </p> + <p> + The bailiff looked at the dog, and made a sign. The dog looked at the + bailiff; and, stepping forward quietly, passed through the hole, so as to + show himself on the narrow strip of ground shelving down from the outer + side of the paling to the lake. + </p> + <p> + First one duck, then another, then half a dozen together, discovered the + dog. + </p> + <p> + A new object showing itself on the solitary scene instantly became an + object of all-devouring curiosity to the ducks. The outermost of them + began to swim slowly toward the strange four-footed creature, planted + motionless on the bank. By twos and threes, the main body of the waterfowl + gradually followed the advanced guard. Swimming nearer and nearer to the + dog, the wary ducks suddenly came to a halt, and, poised on the water, + viewed from a safe distance the phenomenon on the land. + </p> + <p> + The bailiff, kneeling behind the paling, whispered, “Trim!” + </p> + <p> + Hearing his name, the terrier turned about, and retiring through the hole, + became lost to the view of the ducks. Motionless on the water, the wild + fowl wondered and waited. In a minute more, the dog had trotted round, and + had shown himself through the next hole in the paling, pierced further + inward where the lake ran up into the outermost of the windings of the + creek. + </p> + <p> + The second appearance of the terrier instantly produced a second fit of + curiosity among the ducks. With one accord, they swam forward again, to + get another and a nearer view of the dog; then, judging their safe + distance once more, they stopped for the second time, under the outermost + arch of the decoy. Again the dog vanished, and the puzzled ducks waited. + An interval passed, and the third appearance of Trim took place, through a + third hole in the paling, pierced further inland up the creek. For the + third time irresistible curiosity urged the ducks to advance further and + further inward, under the fatal arches of the decoy. A fourth and a fifth + time the game went on, until the dog had lured the water-fowl from point + to point into the inner recesses of the decoy. There a last appearance of + Trim took place. A last advance, a last cautious pause, was made by the + ducks. The bailiff touched the strings, the weighed net-work fell + vertically into the water, and closed the decoy. There, by dozens and + dozens, were the ducks, caught by means of their own curiosity—with + nothing but a little dog for a bait! In a few hours afterward they were + all dead ducks on their way to the London market. + </p> + <p> + As the last act in the curious comedy of the decoy came to its end, little + Mary laid her hand on my shoulder, and, raising herself on tiptoe, + whispered in my ear: + </p> + <p> + “George, come home with me. I have got something to show you that is + better worth seeing than the ducks.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s a surprise. I won’t tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you give me a kiss?” + </p> + <p> + The charming little creature put her slim sun-burned arms round my neck, + and answered: + </p> + <p> + “As many kisses as you like, George.” + </p> + <p> + It was innocently said, on her side. It was innocently done, on mine. The + good easy bailiff, looking aside at the moment from his ducks, discovered + us pursuing our boy-and-girl courtship in each other’s arms. He shook his + big forefinger at us, with something of a sad and doubting smile. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, Master George, Master George!” he said. “When your father comes home, + do you think he will approve of his son and heir kissing his bailiff’s + daughter?” + </p> + <p> + “When my father comes home,” I answered, with great dignity, “I shall tell + him the truth. I shall say I am going to marry your daughter.” + </p> + <p> + The bailiff burst out laughing, and looked back again at his ducks. + </p> + <p> + “Well, well!” we heard him say to himself. “They’re only children. There’s + no call, poor things, to part them yet awhile.” + </p> + <p> + Mary and I had a great dislike to be called children. Properly understood, + one of us was a lady aged ten, and the other was a gentleman aged + thirteen. We left the good bailiff indignantly, and went away together, + hand in hand, to the cottage. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II. TWO YOUNG HEARTS. + </h2> + <p> + “HE is growing too fast,” said the doctor to my mother; “and he is getting + a great deal too clever for a boy at his age. Remove him from school, + ma’am, for six months; let him run about in the open air at home; and if + you find him with a book in his hand, take it away directly. There is my + prescription.” + </p> + <p> + Those words decided my fate in life. + </p> + <p> + In obedience to the doctor’s advice, I was left an idle boy—without + brothers, sisters, or companions of my own age—to roam about the + grounds of our lonely country-house. The bailiff’s daughter, like me, was + an only child; and, like me, she had no playfellows. We met in our + wanderings on the solitary shores of the lake. Beginning by being + inseparable companions, we ripened and developed into true lovers. Our + preliminary courtship concluded, we next proposed (before I returned to + school) to burst into complete maturity by becoming man and wife. + </p> + <p> + I am not writing in jest. Absurd as it may appear to “sensible people,” we + two children were lovers, if ever there were lovers yet. + </p> + <p> + We had no pleasures apart from the one all-sufficient pleasure which we + found in each other’s society. We objected to the night, because it parted + us. We entreated our parents, on either side, to let us sleep in the same + room. I was angry with my mother, and Mary was disappointed in her father, + when they laughed at us, and wondered what we should want next. Looking + onward, from those days to the days of my manhood, I can vividly recall + such hours of happiness as have fallen to my share. But I remember no + delights of that later time comparable to the exquisite and enduring + pleasure that filled my young being when I walked with Mary in the woods; + when I sailed with Mary in my boat on the lake; when I met Mary, after the + cruel separation of the night, and flew into her open arms as if we had + been parted for months and months together. + </p> + <p> + What was the attraction that drew us so closely one to the other, at an + age when the sexual sympathies lay dormant in her and in me? + </p> + <p> + We neither knew nor sought to know. We obeyed the impulse to love one + another, as a bird obeys the impulse to fly. + </p> + <p> + Let it not be supposed that we possessed any natural gifts, or advantages + which singled us out as differing in a marked way from other children at + our time of life. We possessed nothing of the sort. I had been called a + clever boy at school; but there were thousands of other boys, at thousands + of other schools, who headed their classes and won their prizes, like me. + Personally speaking, I was in no way remarkable—except for being, in + the ordinary phrase, “tall for my age.” On her side, Mary displayed no + striking attractions. She was a fragile child, with mild gray eyes and a + pale complexion; singularly undemonstrative, singularly shy and silent, + except when she was alone with me. Such beauty as she had, in those early + days, lay in a certain artless purity and tenderness of expression, and in + the charming reddish-brown color of her hair, varying quaintly and + prettily in different lights. To all outward appearance two perfectly + commonplace children, we were mysteriously united by some kindred + association of the spirit in her and the spirit in me, which not only + defied discovery by our young selves, but which lay too deep for + investigation by far older and far wiser heads than ours. + </p> + <p> + You will naturally wonder whether anything was done by our elders to check + our precocious attachment, while it was still an innocent love union + between a boy and a girl. + </p> + <p> + Nothing was done by my father, for the simple reason that he was away from + home. + </p> + <p> + He was a man of a restless and speculative turn of mind. Inheriting his + estate burdened with debt, his grand ambition was to increase his small + available income by his own exertions; to set up an establishment in + London; and to climb to political distinction by the ladder of Parliament. + An old friend, who had emigrated to America, had proposed to him a + speculation in agriculture, in one of the Western States, which was to + make both their fortunes. My father’s eccentric fancy was struck by the + idea. For more than a year past he had been away from us in the United + States; and all we knew of him (instructed by his letters) was, that he + might be shortly expected to return to us in the enviable character of one + of the richest men in England. + </p> + <p> + As for my poor mother—the sweetest and softest-hearted of women—to + see me happy was all that she desired. + </p> + <p> + The quaint little love romance of the two children amused and interested + her. She jested with Mary’s father about the coming union between the two + families, without one serious thought of the future—without even a + foreboding of what might happen when my father returned. “Sufficient for + the day is the evil (or the good) thereof,” had been my mother’s motto all + her life. She agreed with the easy philosophy of the bailiff, already + recorded in these pages: “They’re only children. There’s no call, poor + things, to part them yet a while.” + </p> + <p> + There was one member of the family, however, who took a sensible and + serious view of the matter. + </p> + <p> + My father’s brother paid us a visit in our solitude; discovered what was + going on between Mary and me; and was, at first, naturally enough, + inclined to laugh at us. Closer investigation altered his way of thinking. + He became convinced that my mother was acting like a fool; that the + bailiff (a faithful servant, if ever there was one yet) was cunningly + advancing his own interests by means of his daughter; and that I was a + young idiot, who had developed his native reserves of imbecility at an + unusually early period of life. Speaking to my mother under the influence + of these strong impressions, my uncle offered to take me back with him to + London, and keep me there until I had been brought to my senses by + association with his own children, and by careful superintendence under + his own roof. + </p> + <p> + My mother hesitated about accepting this proposal; she had the advantage + over my uncle of understanding my disposition. While she was still + doubting, while my uncle was still impatiently waiting for her decision, I + settled the question for my elders by running away. + </p> + <p> + I left a letter to represent me in my absence; declaring that no mortal + power should part me from Mary, and promising to return and ask my + mother’s pardon as soon as my uncle had left the house. The strictest + search was made for me without discovering a trace of my place of refuge. + My uncle departed for London, predicting that I should live to be a + disgrace to the family, and announcing that he should transmit his opinion + of me to my father in America by the next mail. + </p> + <p> + The secret of the hiding-place in which I contrived to defy discovery is + soon told. I was hidden (without the bailiff’s knowledge) in the bedroom + of the bailiff’s mother. And did the bailiff’s mother know it? you will + ask. To which I answer: the bailiff’s mother did it. And, what is more, + gloried in doing it—not, observe, as an act of hostility to my + relatives, but simply as a duty that lay on her conscience. + </p> + <p> + What sort of old woman, in the name of all that is wonderful, was this? + Let her appear, and speak for herself—the wild and weird grandmother + of gentle little Mary; the Sibyl of modern times, known, far and wide, in + our part of Suffolk, as Dame Dermody. + </p> + <p> + I see her again, as I write, sitting in her son’s pretty cottage parlor, + hard by the window, so that the light fell over her shoulder while she + knitted or read. A little, lean, wiry old woman was Dame Dermody—with + fierce black eyes, surmounted by bushy white eyebrows, by a high wrinkled + forehead, and by thick white hair gathered neatly under her old-fashioned + “mob-cap.” Report whispered (and whispered truly) that she had been a lady + by birth and breeding, and that she had deliberately closed her prospects + in life by marrying a man greatly her inferior in social rank. Whatever + her family might think of her marriage, she herself never regretted it. In + her estimation her husband’s memory was a sacred memory; his spirit was a + guardian spirit, watching over her, waking or sleeping, morning or night. + </p> + <p> + Holding this faith, she was in no respect influenced by those grossly + material ideas of modern growth which associate the presence of spiritual + beings with clumsy conjuring tricks and monkey antics performed on tables + and chairs. Dame Dermody’s nobler superstition formed an integral part of + her religious convictions—convictions which had long since found + their chosen resting-place in the mystic doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg. + The only books which she read were the works of the Swedish Seer. She + mixed up Swedenborg’s teachings on angels and departed spirits, on love to + one’s neighbor and purity of life, with wild fancies, and kindred beliefs + of her own; and preached the visionary religious doctrines thus derived, + not only in the bailiff’s household, but also on proselytizing expeditions + to the households of her humble neighbors, far and near. + </p> + <p> + Under her son’s roof—after the death of his wife—she reigned a + supreme power; priding herself alike on her close attention to her + domestic duties, and on her privileged communications with angels and + spirits. She would hold long colloquys with the spirit of her dead husband + before anybody who happened to be present—colloquys which struck the + simple spectators mute with terror. To her mystic view, the love union + between Mary and me was something too sacred and too beautiful to be tried + by the mean and matter-of-fact tests set up by society. She wrote for us + little formulas of prayer and praise, which we were to use when we met and + when we parted, day by day. She solemnly warned her son to look upon us as + two young consecrated creatures, walking unconsciously on a heavenly path + of their own, whose beginning was on earth, but whose bright end was among + the angels in a better state of being. Imagine my appearing before such a + woman as this, and telling her with tears of despair that I was determined + to die, rather than let my uncle part me from little Mary, and you will no + longer be astonished at the hospitality which threw open to me the + sanctuary of Dame Dermody’s own room. + </p> + <p> + When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I committed a serious + mistake. In thanking the old woman at parting, I said to her (with a boy’s + sense of honor), “I won’t tell upon you, Dame. My mother shan’t know that + you hid me in your bedroom.” + </p> + <p> + The Sibyl laid her dry, fleshless hand on my shoulder, and forced me + roughly back into the chair from which I had just risen. + </p> + <p> + “Boy!” she said, looking through and through me with her fierce black + eyes. “Do you dare suppose that I ever did anything that I was ashamed of? + Do you think I am ashamed of what I have done now? Wait there. Your mother + may mistake me too. I shall write to your mother.” + </p> + <p> + She put on her great round spectacles with tortoise-shell rims and sat + down to her letter. Whenever her thoughts flagged, whenever she was at a + loss for an expression, she looked over her shoulder, as if some visible + creature were stationed behind her, watching what she wrote; consulted the + spirit of her husband, exactly as she might have consulted a living man; + smiled softly to herself, and went on with her writing. + </p> + <p> + “There!” she said, handing me the completed letter with an imperial + gesture of indulgence. “<i>His</i> mind and <i>my</i> mind are written + there. Go, boy. I pardon you. Give my letter to your mother.” + </p> + <p> + So she always spoke, with the same formal and measured dignity of manner + and language. + </p> + <p> + I gave the letter to my mother. We read it, and marveled over it together. + Thus, counseled by the ever-present spirit of her husband, Dame Dermody + wrote: + </p> + <p> + “MADAM—I have taken what you may be inclined to think a great + liberty. I have assisted your son George in setting his uncle’s authority + at defiance. I have encouraged your son George in his resolution to be + true, in time and in eternity, to my grandchild, Mary Dermody. + </p> + <p> + “It is due to you and to me that I should tell you with what motive I have + acted in doing these things. + </p> + <p> + “I hold the belief that all love that is true is foreordained and + consecrated in heaven. Spirits destined to be united in the better world + are divinely commissioned to discover each other and to begin their union + in this world. The only happy marriages are those in which the two + destined spirits have succeeded in meeting one another in this sphere of + life. + </p> + <p> + “When the kindred spirits have once met, no human power can really part + them. Sooner or later, they must, by divine law, find each other again and + become united spirits once more. Worldly wisdom may force them into widely + different ways of life; worldly wisdom may delude them, or may make them + delude themselves, into contracting an earthly and a fallible union. It + matters nothing. The time will certainly come when that union will + manifest itself as earthly and fallible; and the two disunited spirits, + finding each other again, will become united here for the world beyond + this—united, I tell you, in defiance of all human laws and of all + human notions of right and wrong. + </p> + <p> + “This is my belief. I have proved it by my own life. Maid, wife, and + widow, I have held to it, and I have found it good. + </p> + <p> + “I was born, madam, in the rank of society to which you belong. I received + the mean, material teaching which fulfills the worldly notion of + education. Thanks be to God, my kindred spirit met <i>my</i> spirit while + I was still young. I knew true love and true union before I was twenty + years of age. I married, madam, in the rank from which Christ chose his + apostles—I married a laboring-man. No human language can tell my + happiness while we lived united here. His death has not parted us. He + helps me to write this letter. In my last hours I shall see him standing + among the angels, waiting for me on the banks of the shining river. + </p> + <p> + “You will now understand the view I take of the tie which unites the young + spirits of our children at the bright outset of their lives. + </p> + <p> + “Believe me, the thing which your husband’s brother has proposed to you to + do is a sacrilege and a profanation. I own to you freely that I look on + what I have done toward thwarting your relative in this matter as an act + of virtue. You cannot expect <i>me</i> to think it a serious obstacle to a + union predestined in heaven, that your son is the squire’s heir, and that + my grandchild is only the bailiff’s daughter. Dismiss from your mind, I + implore you, the unworthy and unchristian prejudices of rank. Are we not + all equal before God? Are we not all equal (even in this world) before + disease and death? Not your son’s happiness only, but your own peace of + mind, is concerned in taking heed to my words. I warn you, madam, you + cannot hinder the destined union of these two child-spirits, in + after-years, as man and wife. Part them now—and YOU will be + responsible for the sacrifices, degradations and distresses through which + your George and my Mary may be condemned to pass on their way back to each + other in later life. + </p> + <p> + “Now my mind is unburdened. Now I have said all. + </p> + <p> + “If I have spoken too freely, or have in any other way unwittingly + offended, I ask your pardon, and remain, madam, your faithful servant and + well-wisher, HELEN DERMODY.” + </p> + <p> + So the letter ended. + </p> + <p> + To me it is something more than a mere curiosity of epistolary + composition. I see in it the prophecy—strangely fulfilled in later + years—of events in Mary’s life, and in mine, which future pages are + now to tell. + </p> + <p> + My mother decided on leaving the letter unanswered. Like many of her + poorer neighbors, she was a little afraid of Dame Dermody; and she was, + besides, habitually averse to all discussions which turned on the + mysteries of spiritual life. I was reproved, admonished, and forgiven; and + there was the end of it. + </p> + <p> + For some happy weeks Mary and I returned, without hinderance or + interruption, to our old intimate companionship The end was coming, + however, when we least expected it. My mother was startled, one morning, + by a letter from my father, which informed her that he had been + unexpectedly obliged to sail for England at a moment’s notice; that he had + arrived in London, and that he was detained there by business which would + admit of no delay. We were to wait for him at home, in daily expectation + of seeing him the moment he was free. + </p> + <p> + This news filled my mother’s mind with foreboding doubts of the stability + of her husband’s grand speculation in America. The sudden departure from + the United States, and the mysterious delay in London, were ominous, to + her eyes, of misfortune to come. I am now writing of those dark days in + the past, when the railway and the electric telegraph were still visions + in the minds of inventors. Rapid communication with my father (even if he + would have consented to take us into his confidence) was impossible. We + had no choice but to wait and hope. + </p> + <p> + The weary days passed; and still my father’s brief letters described him + as detained by his business. The morning came when Mary and I went out + with Dermody, the bailiff, to see the last wild fowl of the season lured + into the decoy; and still the welcome home waited for the master, and + waited in vain. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III. SWEDENBORG AND THE SIBYL. + </h2> + <p> + MY narrative may move on again from the point at which it paused in the + first chapter. + </p> + <p> + Mary and I (as you may remember) had left the bailiff alone at the decoy, + and had set forth on our way together to Dermody’s cottage. + </p> + <p> + As we approached the garden gate, I saw a servant from the house waiting + there. He carried a message from my mother—a message for me. + </p> + <p> + “My mistress wishes you to go home, Master George, as soon as you can. A + letter has come by the coach. My master means to take a post-chaise from + London, and sends word that we may expect him in the course of the day.” + </p> + <p> + Mary’s attentive face saddened when she heard those words. + </p> + <p> + “Must you really go away, George,” she whispered, “before you see what I + have got waiting for you at home?” + </p> + <p> + I remembered Mary’s promised “surprise,” the secret of which was only to + be revealed to me when we got to the cottage. How could I disappoint her? + My poor little lady-love looked ready to cry at the bare prospect of it. + </p> + <p> + I dismissed the servant with a message of the temporizing sort. My love to + my mother—and I would be back at the house in half an hour. + </p> + <p> + We entered the cottage. + </p> + <p> + Dame Dermody was sitting in the light of the window, as usual, with one of + the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg open on her lap. She solemnly + lifted her hand on our appearance, signing to us to occupy our customary + corner without speaking to her. It was an act of domestic high treason to + interrupt the Sibyl at her books. We crept quietly into our places. Mary + waited until she saw her grandmother’s gray head bend down, and her + grandmother’s bushy eyebrows contract attentively, over her reading. Then, + and then only, the discreet child rose on tiptoe, disappeared noiselessly + in the direction of her bedchamber, and came back to me carrying something + carefully wrapped up in her best cambric handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + “Is that the surprise?” I whispered. + </p> + <p> + Mary whispered back: “Guess what it is?” + </p> + <p> + “Something for me?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Go on guessing. What is it?” + </p> + <p> + I guessed three times, and each guess was wrong. Mary decided on helping + me by a hint. + </p> + <p> + “Say your letters,” she suggested; “and go on till I stop you.” + </p> + <p> + I began: “A, B, C, D, E, F—” There she stopped me. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the name of a Thing,” she said; “and it begins with F.” + </p> + <p> + I guessed, “Fern,” “Feather,” “Fife.” And here my resources failed me. + </p> + <p> + Mary sighed, and shook her head. “You don’t take pains,” she said. “You + are three whole years older than I am. After all the trouble I have taken + to please you, you may be too big to care for my present when you see it. + Guess again.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t guess.” + </p> + <p> + “You must!” + </p> + <p> + “I give it up.” + </p> + <p> + Mary refused to let me give it up. She helped me by another hint. + </p> + <p> + “What did you once say you wished you had in your boat?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Was it long ago?” I inquired, at a loss for an answer. + </p> + <p> + “Long, long ago! Before the winter. When the autumn leaves were falling, + and you took me out one evening for a sail. Ah, George, <i>you</i> have + forgotten!” + </p> + <p> + Too true, of me and of my brethren, old and young alike! It is always <i>his</i> + love that forgets, and <i>her</i> love that remembers. We were only two + children, and we were types of the man and the woman already. + </p> + <p> + Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the terrible presence of her + grandmother, she jumped up, and snatched the concealed object out of her + handkerchief. + </p> + <p> + “There!” she cried, briskly, “<i>now</i> do you know what it is?” + </p> + <p> + I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my boat, all those + months ago, was a new flag. And here was the flag, made for me in secret + by Mary’s own hand! The ground was green silk, with a dove embroidered on + it in white, carrying in its beak the typical olive-branch, wrought in + gold thread. The work was the tremulous, uncertain work of a child’s + fingers. But how faithfully my little darling had remembered my wish! how + patiently she had plied the needle over the traced lines of the pattern! + how industriously she had labored through the dreary winter days! and all + for my sake! What words could tell my pride, my gratitude, my happiness? + </p> + <p> + I too forgot the presence of the Sibyl bending over her book. I took the + little workwoman in my arms, and kissed her till I was fairly out of + breath and could kiss no longer. + </p> + <p> + “Mary!” I burst out, in the first heat of my enthusiasm, “my father is + coming home to-day. I will speak to him to-night. And I will marry you + to-morrow!” + </p> + <p> + “Boy!” said the awful voice at the other end of the room. “Come here.” + </p> + <p> + Dame Dermody’s mystic book was closed; Dame Dermody’s weird black eyes + were watching us in our corner. I approached her; and Mary followed me + timidly, by a footstep at a time. + </p> + <p> + The Sibyl took me by the hand, with a caressing gentleness which was new + in my experience of her. + </p> + <p> + “Do you prize that toy?” she inquired, looking at the flag. “Hide it!” she + cried, before I could answer. “Hide it—or it may be taken from you!” + </p> + <p> + “Why should I hide it?” I asked. “I want to fly it at the mast of my + boat.” + </p> + <p> + “You will never fly it at the mast of your boat!” With that answer she + took the flag from me and thrust it impatiently into the breast-pocket of + my jacket. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t crumple it, grandmother!” said Mary, piteously. + </p> + <p> + I repeated my question: + </p> + <p> + “Why shall I never fly it at the mast of my boat?” + </p> + <p> + Dame Dermody laid her hand on the closed volume of Swedenborg lying in her + lap. + </p> + <p> + “Three times I have opened this book since the morning,” she said. “Three + times the words of the prophet warn me that there is trouble coming. + Children, it is trouble that is coming to You. I look there,” she went on, + pointing to the place where a ray of sunlight poured slanting into the + room, “and I see my husband in the heavenly light. He bows his head in + grief, and he points his unerring hand at You. George and Mary, you are + consecrated to each other! Be always worthy of your consecration; be + always worthy of yourselves.” She paused. Her voice faltered. She looked + at us with softening eyes, as those look who know sadly that there is a + parting at hand. “Kneel!” she said, in low tones of awe and grief. “It may + be the last time I bless you—it may be the last time I pray over + you, in this house. Kneel!” + </p> + <p> + We knelt close together at her feet. I could feel Mary’s heart throbbing, + as she pressed nearer and nearer to my side. I could feel my own heart + quickening its beat, with a fear that was a mystery to me. + </p> + <p> + “God bless and keep George and Mary, here and hereafter! God prosper, in + future days, the union which God’s wisdom has willed! Amen. So be it. + Amen.” + </p> + <p> + As the last words fell from her lips the cottage door was thrust open. My + father—followed by the bailiff—entered the room. + </p> + <p> + Dame Dermody got slowly on her feet, and looked at him with a stern + scrutiny. + </p> + <p> + “It has come,” she said to herself. “It looks with the eyes—it will + speak with the voice—of that man.” + </p> + <p> + My father broke the silence that followed, addressing himself to the + bailiff. + </p> + <p> + “You see, Dermody,” he said, “here is my son in your cottage—when he + ought to be in my house.” He turned, and looked at me as I stood with my + arm round little Mary, patiently waiting for my opportunity to speak. + “George,” he said, with the hard smile which was peculiar to him, when he + was angry and was trying to hide it, “you are making a fool of yourself + there. Leave that child, and come to me.” + </p> + <p> + Now, or never, was my time to declare myself. Judging by appearances, I + was still a boy. Judging by my own sensations, I had developed into a man + at a moment’s notice. + </p> + <p> + “Papa,” I said, “I am glad to see you home again. This is Mary Dermody. I + am in love with her, and she is in love with me. I wish to marry her as + soon as it is convenient to my mother and you.” + </p> + <p> + My father burst out laughing. Before I could speak again, his humor + changed. He had observed that Dermody, too, presumed to be amused. He + seemed to become mad with anger, all in a moment. + </p> + <p> + “I have been told of this infernal tomfoolery,” he said, “but I didn’t + believe it till now. Who has turned the boy’s weak head? Who has + encouraged him to stand there hugging that girl? If it’s you, Dermody, it + shall be the worst day’s work you ever did in your life.” He turned to me + again, before the bailiff could defend himself. “Do you hear what I say? I + tell you to leave Dermody’s girl, and come home with me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, papa,” I answered. “But I must go back to Mary, if you please, after + I have been with you.” + </p> + <p> + Angry as he was, my father was positively staggered by my audacity. + </p> + <p> + “You young idiot, your insolence exceeds belief!” he burst out. “I tell + you this: you will never darken these doors again! You have been taught to + disobey me here. You have had things put into your head, here, which no + boy of your age ought to know—I’ll say more, which no decent people + would have let you know.” + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon, sir,” Dermody interposed, very respectfully and very + firmly at the same time. “There are many things which a master in a hot + temper is privileged to say to the man who serves him. But you have gone + beyond your privilege. You have shamed me, sir, in the presence of my + mother, in the hearing of my child—” + </p> + <p> + My father checked him there. + </p> + <p> + “You may spare the rest of it,” he said. “We are master and servant no + longer. When my son came hanging about your cottage, and playing at + sweethearts with your girl there, your duty was to close the door on him. + You have failed in your duty. I trust you no longer. Take a month’s + notice, Dermody. You leave my service.” + </p> + <p> + The bailiff steadily met my father on his ground. He was no longer the + easy, sweet-tempered, modest man who was the man of my remembrance. + </p> + <p> + “I beg to decline taking your month’s notice, sir,” he answered. “You + shall have no opportunity of repeating what you have just said to me. I + will send in my accounts to-night. And I will leave your service + to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “We agree for once,” retorted my father. “The sooner you go, the better.” + </p> + <p> + He stepped across the room and put his hand on my shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “Listen to me,” he said, making a last effort to control himself. “I don’t + want to quarrel with you before a discarded servant. There must be an end + to this nonsense. Leave these people to pack up and go, and come back to + the house with me.” + </p> + <p> + His heavy hand, pressing on my shoulder, seemed to press the spirit of + resistance out of me. I so far gave way as to try to melt him by + entreaties. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, papa! papa!” I cried. “Don’t part me from Mary! See how pretty and + good she is! She has made me a flag for my boat. Let me come here and see + her sometimes. I can’t live without her.” + </p> + <p> + I could say no more. My poor little Mary burst out crying. Her tears and + my entreaties were alike wasted on my father. + </p> + <p> + “Take your choice,” he said, “between coming away of your own accord, or + obliging me to take you away by force. I mean to part you and Dermody’s + girl.” + </p> + <p> + “Neither you nor any man can part them,” interposed a voice, speaking + behind us. “Rid your mind of that notion, master, before it is too late.” + </p> + <p> + My father looked round quickly, and discovered Dame Dermody facing him in + the full light of the window. She had stepped back, at the outset of the + dispute, into the corner behind the fireplace. There she had remained, + biding her time to speak, until my father’s last threat brought her out of + her place of retirement. + </p> + <p> + They looked at each other for a moment. My father seemed to think it + beneath his dignity to answer her. He went on with what he had to say to + me. + </p> + <p> + “I shall count three slowly,” he resumed. “Before I get to the last + number, make up your mind to do what I tell you, or submit to the disgrace + of being taken away by force.” + </p> + <p> + “Take him where you may,” said Dame Dermody, “he will still be on his way + to his marriage with my grandchild.” + </p> + <p> + “And where shall I be, if you please?” asked my father, stung into + speaking to her this time. + </p> + <p> + The answer followed instantly in these startling words: + </p> + <p> + “<i>You</i> will be on your way to your ruin and your death.” + </p> + <p> + My father turned his back on the prophetess with a smile of contempt. + </p> + <p> + “One!” he said, beginning to count. + </p> + <p> + I set my teeth, and clasped both arms round Mary as he spoke. I had + inherited some of his temper, and he was now to know it. + </p> + <p> + “Two!” proceeded my father, after waiting a little. + </p> + <p> + Mary put her trembling lips to my ear, and whispered: “Let me go, George! + I can’t bear to see it. Oh, look how he frowns! I know he’ll hurt you.” + </p> + <p> + My father lifted his forefinger as a preliminary warning before he counted + Three. + </p> + <p> + “Stop!” cried Dame Dermody. + </p> + <p> + My father looked round at her again with sardonic astonishment. + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon, ma’am—have you anything particular to say to + me?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Man!” returned the Sibyl, “you speak lightly. Have I spoken lightly to + You? I warn you to bow your wicked will before a Will that is mightier + than yours. The spirits of these children are kindred spirits. For time + and for eternity they are united one to the other. Put land and sea + between them—they will still be together; they will communicate in + visions, they will be revealed to each other in dreams. Bind them by + worldly ties; wed your son, in the time to come, to another woman, and my + grand-daughter to another man. In vain! I tell you, in vain! You may doom + them to misery, you may drive them to sin—the day of their union on + earth is still a day predestined in heaven. It will come! it will come! + Submit, while the time for submission is yours. You are a doomed man. I + see the shadow of disaster, I see the seal of death, on your face. Go; and + leave these consecrated ones to walk the dark ways of the world together, + in the strength of their innocence, in the light of their love. Go—and + God forgive you!” In spite of himself, my father was struck by the + irresistible strength of conviction which inspired those words. The + bailiff’s mother had impressed him as a tragic actress might have + impressed him on the stage. She had checked the mocking answer on his + lips, but she had not shaken his iron will. His face was as hard as ever + when he turned my way once more. + </p> + <p> + “The last chance, George,” he said, and counted the last number: “Three!” + </p> + <p> + I neither moved nor answered him. + </p> + <p> + “You <i>will</i> have it?” he said, as he fastened his hold on my arm. + </p> + <p> + I fastened <i>my</i> hold on Mary; I whispered to her, “I won’t leave + you!” She seemed not to hear me. She trembled from head to foot in my + arms. A faint cry of terror fluttered from her lips. Dermody instantly + stepped forward. Before my father could wrench me away from her, he had + said in my ear, “You can give her to <i>me</i>, Master George,” and had + released his child from my embrace. She stretched her little frail hands + out yearningly to me, as she lay in Dermody’s arms. “Good-by, dear,” she + said, faintly. I saw her head sink on her father’s bosom as I was dragged + to the door. In my helpless rage and misery, I struggled against the cruel + hands that had got me with all the strength I had left. I cried out to + her, “I love you, Mary! I will come back to you, Mary! I will never marry + any one but you!” Step by step, I was forced further and further away. The + last I saw of her, my darling’s head was still resting on Dermody’s + breast. Her grandmother stood near, and shook her withered hands at my + father, and shrieked her terrible prophecy, in the hysteric frenzy that + possessed her when she saw the separation accomplished. “Go!—you go + to your ruin! you go to your death!” While her voice still rang in my + ears, the cottage door was opened and closed again. It was all over. The + modest world of my boyish love and my boyish joy disappeared like the + vision of a dream. The empty outer wilderness, which was my father’s + world, opened before me void of love and void of joy. God forgive me—how + I hated him at that moment! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. THE CURTAIN FALLS. + </h2> + <p> + FOR the rest of the day, and through the night, I was kept a close + prisoner in my room, watched by a man on whose fidelity my father could + depend. + </p> + <p> + The next morning I made an effort to escape, and was discovered before I + had got free of the house. Confined again to my room, I contrived to write + to Mary, and to slip my note into the willing hand of the housemaid who + attended on me. Useless! The vigilance of my guardian was not to be + evaded. The woman was suspected and followed, and the letter was taken + from her. My father tore it up with his own hands. + </p> + <p> + Later in the day, my mother was permitted to see me. + </p> + <p> + She was quite unfit, poor soul, to intercede for me, or to serve my + interests in any way. My father had completely overwhelmed her by + announcing that his wife and his son were to accompany him, when he + returned to America. + </p> + <p> + “Every farthing he has in the world,” said my mother, “is to be thrown + into that hateful speculation. He has raised money in London; he has let + the house to some rich tradesman for seven years; he has sold the plate, + and the jewels that came to me from his mother. The land in America + swallows it all up. We have no home, George, and no choice but to go with + him.” + </p> + <p> + An hour afterward the post-chaise was at the door. + </p> + <p> + My father himself took me to the carriage. I broke away from him, with a + desperation which not even his resolution could resist. I ran, I flew, + along the path that led to Dermody’s cottage. The door stood open; the + parlor was empty. I went into the kitchen; I went into the upper rooms. + Solitude everywhere. The bailiff had left the place; and his mother and + his daughter had gone with him. No friend or neighbor lingered near with a + message; no letter lay waiting for me; no hint was left to tell me in what + direction they had taken their departure. After the insulting words which + his master had spoken to him, Dermody’s pride was concerned in leaving no + trace of his whereabouts; my father might consider it as a trace purposely + left with the object of reuniting Mary and me. I had no keepsake to speak + to me of my lost darling but the flag which she had embroidered with her + own hand. The furniture still remained in the cottage. I sat down in our + customary corner, by Mary’s empty chair, and looked again at the pretty + green flag, and burst out crying. + </p> + <p> + A light touch roused me. My father had so far yielded as to leave to my + mother the responsibility of bringing me back to the traveling carriage. + </p> + <p> + “We shall not find Mary here, George,” she said, gently. “And we <i>may</i> + hear of her in London. Come with me.” + </p> + <p> + I rose and silently gave her my hand. Something low down on the clean + white door-post caught my eye as we passed it. I stooped, and discovered + some writing in pencil. I looked closer—it was writing in Mary’s + hand! The unformed childish characters traced these last words of + farewell: + </p> + <p> + “Good-by, dear. Don’t forget Mary.” + </p> + <p> + I knelt down and kissed the writing. It comforted me—it was like a + farewell touch from Mary’s hand. I followed my mother quietly to the + carriage. + </p> + <p> + Late that night we were in London. + </p> + <p> + My good mother did all that the most compassionate kindness could do (in + her position) to comfort me. She privately wrote to the solicitors + employed by her family, inclosing a description of Dermody and his mother + and daughter and directing inquiries to be made at the various + coach-offices in London. She also referred the lawyers to two of Dermody’s + relatives, who lived in the city, and who might know something of his + movements after he left my father’s service. When she had done this, she + had done all that lay in her power. We neither of us possessed money + enough to advertise in the newspapers. + </p> + <p> + A week afterward we sailed for the United States. Twice in that interval I + communicated with the lawyers; and twice I was informed that the inquiries + had led to nothing. + </p> + <p> + With this the first epoch in my love story comes to an end. + </p> + <p> + For ten long years afterward I never again met with my little Mary; I + never even heard whether she had lived to grow to womanhood or not. I + still kept the green flag, with the dove worked on it. For the rest, the + waters of oblivion had closed over the old golden days at Greenwater + Broad. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V. MY STORY. + </h2> + <p> + WHEN YOU last saw me, I was a boy of thirteen. You now see me a man of + twenty-three. + </p> + <p> + The story of my life, in the interval between these two ages, is a story + that can be soon told. + </p> + <p> + Speaking of my father first, I have to record that the end of his career + did indeed come as Dame Dermody had foretold it. Before we had been a year + in America, the total collapse of his land speculation was followed by his + death. The catastrophe was complete. But for my mother’s little income + (settled on her at her marriage) we should both have been left helpless at + the mercy of the world. + </p> + <p> + We made some kind friends among the hearty and hospitable people of the + United States, whom we were unaffectedly sorry to leave. But there were + reasons which inclined us to return to our own country after my father’s + death; and we did return accordingly. + </p> + <p> + Besides her brother-in-law (already mentioned in the earlier pages of my + narrative), my mother had another relative—a cousin named Germaine—on + whose assistance she mainly relied for starting me, when the time came, in + a professional career. I remember it as a family rumor, that Mr. Germaine + had been an unsuccessful suitor for my mother’s hand in the days when they + were young people together. He was still a bachelor at the later period + when his eldest brother’s death without issue placed him in possession of + a handsome fortune. The accession of wealth made no difference in his + habits of life: he was a lonely old man, estranged from his other + relatives, when my mother and I returned to England. If I could only + succeed in pleasing Mr. Germaine, I might consider my prospects (in some + degree, at least) as being prospects assured. + </p> + <p> + This was one consideration that influenced us in leaving America. There + was another—in which I was especially interested—that drew me + back to the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad. + </p> + <p> + My only hope of recovering a trace of Mary was to make inquiries among the + cottagers in the neighborhood of my old home. The good bailiff had been + heartily liked and respected in his little sphere. It seemed at least + possible that some among his many friends in Suffolk might have discovered + traces of him, in the year that had passed since I had left England. In my + dreams of Mary—and I dreamed of her constantly—the lake and + its woody banks formed a frequent background in the visionary picture of + my lost companion. To the lake shores I looked, with a natural + superstition, as to my way back to the one life that had its promise of + happiness for <i>me</i>—my life with Mary. + </p> + <p> + On our arrival in London, I started for Suffolk alone—at my mother’s + request. At her age she naturally shrank from revisiting the home scenes + now occupied by the strangers to whom our house had been let. + </p> + <p> + Ah, how my heart ached (young as I was) when I saw the familiar green + waters of the lake once more! It was evening. The first object that caught + my eye was the gayly painted boat, once mine, in which Mary and I had so + often sailed together. The people in possession of our house were sailing + now. The sound of their laughter floated toward me merrily over the still + water. <i>Their</i> flag flew at the little mast-head, from which Mary’s + flag had never fluttered in the pleasant breeze. I turned my eyes from the + boat; it hurt me to look at it. A few steps onward brought me to a + promontory on the shore, and revealed the brown archways of the decoy on + the opposite bank. There was the paling behind which we had knelt to watch + the snaring of the ducks; there was the hole through which “Trim,” the + terrier, had shown himself to rouse the stupid curiosity of the + water-fowl; there, seen at intervals through the trees, was the winding + woodland path along which Mary and I had traced our way to Dermody’s + cottage on the day when my father’s cruel hand had torn us from each + other. How wisely my good mother had shrunk from looking again at the dear + old scenes! I turned my back on the lake, to think with calmer thoughts in + the shadowy solitude of the woods. + </p> + <p> + An hour’s walk along the winding banks brought me round to the cottage + which had once been Mary’s home. + </p> + <p> + The door was opened by a woman who was a stranger to me. She civilly asked + me to enter the parlor. I had suffered enough already; I made my + inquiries, standing on the doorstep. They were soon at an end. The woman + was a stranger in our part of Suffolk; neither she nor her husband had + ever heard of Dermody’s name. + </p> + <p> + I pursued my investigations among the peasantry, passing from cottage to + cottage. The twilight came; the moon rose; the lights began to vanish from + the lattice-windows; and still I continued my weary pilgrimage; and still, + go where I might, the answer to my questions was the same. Nobody knew + anything of Dermody. Everybody asked if I had not brought news of him + myself. It pains me even now to recall the cruelly complete defeat of + every effort which I made on that disastrous evening. I passed the night + in one of the cottages; and I returned to London the next day, broken by + disappointment, careless what I did, or where I went next. + </p> + <p> + Still, we were not wholly parted. I saw Mary—as Dame Dermody said I + should see her—in dreams. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes she came to me with the green flag in her hand, and repeated her + farewell words—“Don’t forget Mary!” Sometimes she led me to our + well-remembered corner in the cottage parlor, and opened the paper on + which her grandmother had written our prayers for us. We prayed together + again, and sung hymns together again, as if the old times had come back. + Once she appeared to me, with tears in her eyes, and said, “We must wait, + dear: our time has not come yet.” Twice I saw her looking at me, like one + disturbed by anxious thoughts; and twice I heard her say, “Live patiently, + live innocently, George, for my sake.” + </p> + <p> + We settled in London, where my education was undertaken by a private + tutor. Before we had been long in our new abode, an unexpected change in + our prospects took place. To my mother’s astonishment she received an + offer of marriage (addressed to her in a letter) from Mr. Germaine. + </p> + <p> + “I entreat you not to be startled by my proposal!” (the old gentleman + wrote). “You can hardly have forgotten that I was once fond of you, in the + days when we were both young and both poor. No return to the feelings + associated with that time is possible now. At my age, all I ask of you is + to be the companion of the closing years of my life, and to give me + something of a father’s interest in promoting the future welfare of your + son. Consider this, my dear, and tell me whether you will take the empty + chair at an old man’s lonely fireside.” + </p> + <p> + My mother (looking almost as confused, poor soul! as if she had become a + young girl again) left the whole responsibility of decision on the + shoulders of her son! I was not long in making up my mind. If she said + Yes, she would accept the hand of a man of worth and honor, who had been + throughout his whole life devoted to her; and she would recover the + comfort, the luxury, the social prosperity and position of which my + father’s reckless course of life had deprived her. Add to this, that I + liked Mr. Germaine, and that Mr. Germaine liked me. Under these + circumstances, why should my mother say No? She could produce no + satisfactory answer to that question when I put it. As the necessary + consequence, she became, in due course of time, Mrs. Germaine. + </p> + <p> + I have only to add that, to the end of her life, my good mother + congratulated herself (in this case at least) on having taken her son’s + advice. + </p> + <p> + The years went on, and still Mary and I were parted, except in my dreams. + The years went on, until the perilous time which comes in every man’s life + came in mine. I reached the age when the strongest of all the passions + seizes on the senses, and asserts its mastery over mind and body alike. + </p> + <p> + I had hitherto passively endured the wreck of my earliest and dearest + hopes: I had lived patiently, and lived innocently, for Mary’s sake. Now + my patience left me; my innocence was numbered among the lost things of + the past. My days, it is true, were still devoted to the tasks set me by + my tutor; but my nights were given, in secret, to a reckless profligacy, + which (in my present frame of mind) I look back on with disgust and + dismay. I profaned my remembrances of Mary in the company of women who had + reached the lowest depths of degradation. I impiously said to myself: “I + have hoped for her long enough; I have waited for her long enough. The one + thing now to do is to enjoy my youth and to forget her.” + </p> + <p> + From the moment when I dropped into this degradation, I might sometimes + think regretfully of Mary—at the morning time, when penitent + thoughts mostly come to us; but I ceased absolutely to see her in my + dreams. We were now, in the completest sense of the word, parted. Mary’s + pure spirit could hold no communion with mine; Mary’s pure spirit had left + me. + </p> + <p> + It is needless to say that I failed to keep the secret of my depravity + from the knowledge of my mother. The sight of her grief was the first + influence that sobered me. In some degree at least I restrained myself: I + made the effort to return to purer ways of life. Mr. Germaine, though I + had disappointed him, was too just a man to give me up as lost. He advised + me, as a means of self-reform, to make my choice of a profession, and to + absorb myself in closer studies than any that I had yet pursued. + </p> + <p> + I made my peace with this good friend and second father, not only by + following his advice, but by adopting the profession to which he had been + himself attached before he inherited his fortune—the profession of + medicine. Mr. Germaine had been a surgeon: I resolved on being a surgeon + too. + </p> + <p> + Having entered, at rather an earlier age than usual, on my new way of + life, I may at least say for myself that I worked hard. I won, and kept, + the interest of the professors under whom I studied. On the other hand, it + cannot be denied that my reformation was, morally speaking, far from being + complete. I worked; but what I did was done selfishly, bitterly, with a + hard heart. In religion and morals I adopted the views of a materialist + companion of my studies—a worn-out man of more than double my age. I + believed in nothing but what I could see, or taste, or feel. I lost all + faith in humanity. With the one exception of my mother, I had no respect + for women. My remembrances of Mary deteriorated until they became little + more than a lost link of association with the past. I still preserved the + green flag as a matter of habit; but it was no longer kept about me; it + was left undisturbed in a drawer of my writing-desk. Now and then a + wholesome doubt, whether my life was not utterly unworthy of me, would + rise in my mind. But it held no long possession of my thoughts. Despising + others, it was in the logical order of things that I should follow my + conclusions to their bitter end, and consistently despise myself. + </p> + <p> + The term of my majority arrived. I was twenty-one years old; and of the + illusions of my youth not a vestige remained. + </p> + <p> + Neither my mother nor Mr. Germaine could make any positive complaint of my + conduct. But they were both thoroughly uneasy about me. After anxious + consideration, my step-father arrived at a conclusion. He decided that the + one chance of restoring me to my better and brighter self was to try the + stimulant of a life among new people and new scenes. + </p> + <p> + At the period of which I am now writing, the home government had decided + on sending a special diplomatic mission to one of the native princes + ruling over a remote province of our Indian empire. In the disturbed state + of the province at that time, the mission, on its arrival in India, was to + be accompanied to the prince’s court by an escort, including the military + as well as the civil servants of the crown. The surgeon appointed to sail + with the expedition from England was an old friend of Mr. Germaine’s, and + was in want of an assistant on whose capacity he could rely. Through my + stepfather’s interest, the post was offered to me. I accepted it without + hesitation. My only pride left was the miserable pride of indifference. So + long as I pursued my profession, the place in which I pursued it was a + matter of no importance to my mind. + </p> + <p> + It was long before we could persuade my mother even to contemplate the new + prospect now set before me. When she did at length give way, she yielded + most unwillingly. I confess I left her with the tears in my eyes—the + first I had shed for many a long year past. + </p> + <p> + The history of our expedition is part of the history of British India. It + has no place in this narrative. + </p> + <p> + Speaking personally, I have to record that I was rendered incapable of + performing my professional duties in less than a week from the time when + the mission reached its destination. We were encamped outside the city; + and an attack was made on us, under cover of darkness, by the fanatical + natives. The attempt was defeated with little difficulty, and with only a + trifling loss on our side. I was among the wounded, having been struck by + a javelin, or spear, while I was passing from one tent to another. + </p> + <p> + Inflicted by a European weapon, my injury would have been of no serious + consequence. But the tip of the Indian spear had been poisoned. I escaped + the mortal danger of lockjaw; but, through some peculiarity in the action + of the poison on my constitution (which I am quite unable to explain), the + wound obstinately refused to heal. + </p> + <p> + I was invalided and sent to Calcutta, where the best surgical help was at + my disposal. To all appearance, the wound healed there—then broke + out again. Twice this happened; and the medical men agreed that the best + course to take would be to send me home. They calculated on the + invigorating effect of the sea voyage, and, failing this, on the salutary + influence of my native air. In the Indian climate I was pronounced + incurable. + </p> + <p> + Two days before the ship sailed a letter from my mother brought me + startling news. My life to come—if I <i>had</i> a life to come—had + been turned into a new channel. Mr. Germaine had died suddenly, of + heart-disease. His will, bearing date at the time when I left England, + bequeathed an income for life to my mother, and left the bulk of his + property to me, on the one condition that I adopted his name. I accepted + the condition, of course, and became George Germaine. + </p> + <p> + Three months later, my mother and I were restored to each other. + </p> + <p> + Except that I still had some trouble with my wound, behold me now to all + appearance one of the most enviable of existing mortals; promoted to the + position of a wealthy gentleman; possessor of a house in London and of a + country-seat in Perthshire; and, nevertheless, at twenty-three years of + age, one of the most miserable men living! + </p> + <p> + And Mary? + </p> + <p> + In the ten years that had now passed over, what had become of Mary? + </p> + <p> + You have heard my story. Read the few pages that follow, and you will hear + hers. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI. HER STORY. + </h2> + <p> + WHAT I have now to tell you of Mary is derived from information obtained + at a date in my life later by many years than any date of which I have + written yet. Be pleased to remember this. + </p> + <p> + Dermody, the bailiff, possessed relatives in London, of whom he + occasionally spoke, and relatives in Scotland, whom he never mentioned. My + father had a strong prejudice against the Scotch nation. Dermody knew his + master well enough to be aware that the prejudice might extend to <i>him</i>, + if he spoke of his Scotch kindred. He was a discreet man, and he never + mentioned them. + </p> + <p> + On leaving my father’s service, he had made his way, partly by land and + partly by sea, to Glasgow—in which city his friends resided. With + his character and his experience, Dermody was a man in a thousand to any + master who was lucky enough to discover him. His friends bestirred + themselves. In six weeks’ time he was placed in charge of a gentleman’s + estate on the eastern coast of Scotland, and was comfortably established + with his mother and his daughter in a new home. + </p> + <p> + The insulting language which my father had addressed to him had sunk deep + in Dermody’s mind. He wrote privately to his relatives in London, telling + them that he had found a new situation which suited him, and that he had + his reasons for not at present mentioning his address. In this way he + baffled the inquiries which my mother’s lawyers (failing to discover a + trace of him in other directions) addressed to his London friends. Stung + by his old master’s reproaches, he sacrificed his daughter and he + sacrificed me—partly to his own sense of self-respect, partly to his + conviction that the difference between us in rank made it his duty to + check all further intercourse before it was too late. + </p> + <p> + Buried in their retirement in a remote part of Scotland, the little + household lived, lost to me, and lost to the world. + </p> + <p> + In dreams, I had seen and heard Mary. In dreams, Mary saw and heard me. + The innocent longings and wishes which filled my heart while I was still a + boy were revealed to her in the mystery of sleep. Her grandmother, holding + firmly to her faith in the predestined union between us, sustained the + girl’s courage and cheered her heart. She could hear her father say (as my + father had said) that we were parted to meet no more, and could privately + think of her happy dreams as the sufficient promise of another future than + the future which Dermody contemplated. So she still lived with me in the + spirit—and lived in hope. + </p> + <p> + The first affliction that befell the little household was the death of the + grandmother, by the exhaustion of extreme old age. In her last conscious + moments, she said to Mary, “Never forget that you and George are spirits + consecrated to each other. Wait—in the certain knowledge that no + human power can hinder your union in the time to come.” + </p> + <p> + While those words were still vividly present to Mary’s mind, our visionary + union by dreams was abruptly broken on her side, as it had been abruptly + broken on mine. In the first days of my self-degradation, I had ceased to + see Mary. Exactly at the same period Mary ceased to see me. + </p> + <p> + The girl’s sensitive nature sunk under the shock. She had now no elder + woman to comfort and advise her; she lived alone with her father, who + invariably changed the subject whenever she spoke of the old times. The + secret sorrow that preys on body and mind alike preyed on <i>her</i>. A + cold, caught at the inclement season, turned to fever. For weeks she was + in danger of death. When she recovered, her head had been stripped of its + beautiful hair by the doctor’s order. The sacrifice had been necessary to + save her life. It proved to be, in one respect, a cruel sacrifice—her + hair never grew plentifully again. When it did reappear, it had completely + lost its charming mingled hues of deep red and brown; it was now of one + monotonous light-brown color throughout. At first sight, Mary’s Scotch + friends hardly knew her again. + </p> + <p> + But Nature made amends for what the head had lost by what the face and the + figure gained. + </p> + <p> + In a year from the date of her illness, the frail little child of the old + days at Greenwater Broad had ripened, in the bracing Scotch air and the + healthy mode of life, into a comely young woman. Her features were still, + as in her early years, not regularly beautiful; but the change in her was + not the less marked on that account. The wan face had filled out, and the + pale complexion had found its color. As to her figure, its remarkable + development was perceived even by the rough people about her. Promising + nothing when she was a child, it had now sprung into womanly fullness, + symmetry, and grace. It was a strikingly beautiful figure, in the + strictest sense of the word. + </p> + <p> + Morally as well as physically, there were moments, at this period of their + lives, when even her own father hardly recognized his daughter of former + days. She had lost her childish vivacity—her sweet, equable flow of + good humor. Silent and self-absorbed, she went through the daily routine + of her duties enduringly. The hope of meeting me again had sunk to a dead + hope in her by this time. She made no complaint. The bodily strength that + she had gained in these later days had its sympathetic influence in + steadying her mind. When her father once or twice ventured to ask if she + was still thinking of me, she answered quietly that she had brought + herself to share his opinions. She could not doubt that I had long since + ceased to think of her. Even if I had remained faithful to her, she was + old enough now to know that the difference between us in rank made our + union by marriage an impossibility. It would be best (she thought) not to + refer any more to the past, best to forget me, as I had forgotten her. So + she spoke now. So, tried by the test of appearances, Dame Dermody’s + confident forecast of our destinies had failed to justify itself, and had + taken its place among the predictions that are never fulfilled. + </p> + <p> + The next notable event in the family annals which followed Mary’s illness + happened when she had attained the age of nineteen years. Even at this + distance of time my heart sinks, my courage fails me, at the critical + stage in my narrative which I have now reached. + </p> + <p> + A storm of unusual severity burst over the eastern coast of Scotland. + Among the ships that were lost in the tempest was a vessel bound from + Holland, which was wrecked on the rocky shore near Dermody’s place of + abode. Leading the way in all good actions, the bailiff led the way in + rescuing the passengers and crew of the lost ship. He had brought one man + alive to land, and was on his way back to the vessel, when two heavy seas, + following in close succession, dashed him against the rocks. He was + rescued, at the risk of their own lives, by his neighbors. The medical + examination disclosed a broken bone and severe bruises and lacerations. So + far, Dermody’s sufferings were easy of relief. But, after a lapse of time, + symptoms appeared in the patient which revealed to his medical attendant + the presence of serious internal injury. In the doctor’s opinion, he could + never hope to resume the active habits of his life. He would be an invalid + and a crippled man for the rest of his days. + </p> + <p> + Under these melancholy circumstances, the bailiff’s employer did all that + could be strictly expected of him, He hired an assistant to undertake the + supervision of the farm work, and he permitted Dermody to occupy his + cottage for the next three months. This concession gave the poor man time + to recover such relics of strength as were still left to him, and to + consult his friends in Glasgow on the doubtful question of his life to + come. + </p> + <p> + The prospect was a serious one. Dermody was quite unfit for any sedentary + employment; and the little money that he had saved was not enough to + support his daughter and himself. The Scotch friends were willing and + kind; but they had domestic claims on them, and they had no money to + spare. + </p> + <p> + In this emergency, the passenger in the wrecked vessel (whose life Dermody + had saved) came forward with a proposal which took father and daughter + alike by surprise. He made Mary an offer of marriage; on the express + understanding (if she accepted him) that her home was to be her father’s + home also to the end of his life. + </p> + <p> + The person who thus associated himself with the Dermodys in the time of + their trouble was a Dutch gentleman, named Ernest Van Brandt. He possessed + a share in a fishing establishment on the shores of the Zuyder Zee; and he + was on his way to establish a correspondence with the fisheries in the + North of Scotland when the vessel was wrecked. Mary had produced a strong + impression on him when they first met. He had lingered in the + neighborhood, in the hope of gaining her favorable regard, with time to + help him. Personally he was a handsome man, in the prime of life; and he + was possessed of a sufficient income to marry on. In making his proposal, + he produced references to persons of high social position in Holland, who + could answer for him, so far as the questions of character and position + were concerned. + </p> + <p> + Mary was long in considering which course it would be best for her + helpless father, and best for herself, to adopt. + </p> + <p> + The hope of a marriage with me had been a hope abandoned by her years + since. No woman looks forward willingly to a life of cheerless celibacy. + In thinking of her future, Mary naturally thought of herself in the + character of a wife. Could she fairly expect in the time to come to + receive any more attractive proposal than the proposal now addressed to + her? Mr. Van Brandt had every personal advantage that a woman could + desire; he was devotedly in love with her; and he felt a grateful + affection for her father as the man to whom he owed his life. With no + other hope in her heart—with no other prospect in view—what + could she do better than marry Mr. Van Brandt? + </p> + <p> + Influenced by these considerations, she decided on speaking the fatal + word. She said, “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + At the same time, she spoke plainly to Mr. Van Brandt, unreservedly + acknowledging that she had contemplated another future than the future now + set before her. She did not conceal that there had once been an old love + in her heart, and that a new love was more than she could command. Esteem, + gratitude, and regard she could honestly offer; and, with time, love might + come. For the rest, she had long since disassociated herself from the + past, and had definitely given up all the hopes and wishes once connected + with it. Repose for her father, and tranquil happiness for herself, were + the only favors that she asked of fortune now. These she might find under + the roof of an honorable man who loved and respected her. She could + promise, on her side, to make him a good and faithful wife, if she could + promise no more. It rested with Mr. Van Brandt to say whether he really + believed that he would be consulting his own happiness in marrying her on + these terms. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Van Brandt accepted the terms without a moment’s hesitation. + </p> + <p> + They would have been married immediately but for an alarming change for + the worse in the condition of Dermody’s health. Symptoms showed + themselves, which the doctor confessed that he had not anticipated when he + had given his opinion on the case. He warned Mary that the end might be + near. A physician was summoned from Edinburgh, at Mr. Van Brandt’s + expense. He confirmed the opinion entertained by the country doctor. For + some days longer the good bailiff lingered. On the last morning, he put + his daughter’s hand in Van Brandt’s hand. “Make her happy, sir,” he said, + in his simple way, “and you will be even with me for saving your life.” + The same day he died quietly in his daughter’s arms. + </p> + <p> + Mary’s future was now entirely in her lover’s hands. The relatives in + Glasgow had daughters of their own to provide for. The relatives in London + resented Dermody’s neglect of them. Van Brandt waited, delicately and + considerately, until the first violence of the girl’s grief had worn + itself out, and then he pleaded irresistibly for a husband’s claim to + console her. + </p> + <p> + The time at which they were married in Scotland was also the time at which + I was on my way home from India. Mary had then reached the age of twenty + years. + </p> + <p> + The story of our ten years’ separation is now told; the narrative leaves + us at the outset of our new lives. + </p> + <p> + I am with my mother, beginning my career as a country gentleman on the + estate in Perthshire which I have inherited from Mr. Germaine. Mary is + with her husband, enjoying her new privileges, learning her new duties, as + a wife. She, too, is living in Scotland—living, by a strange + fatality, not very far distant from my country-house. I have no suspicion + that she is so near to me: the name of Mrs. Van Brandt (even if I had + heard it) appeals to no familiar association in my mind. Still the kindred + spirits are parted. Still there is no idea on her side, and no idea on + mine, that we shall ever meet again. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII. THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE. + </h2> + <h3> + MY mother looked in at the library door, and disturbed me over my books. + </h3> + <p> + “I have been hanging a little picture in my room,” she said. “Come + upstairs, my dear, and give me your opinion of it.” + </p> + <p> + I rose and followed her. She pointed to a miniature portrait, hanging + above the mantelpiece. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know whose likeness that is?” she asked, half sadly, half + playfully. “George! Do you really not recognize yourself at thirteen years + old?” + </p> + <p> + How should I recognize myself? Worn by sickness and sorrow; browned by the + sun on my long homeward voyage; my hair already growing thin over my + forehead; my eyes already habituated to their one sad and weary look; what + had I in common with the fair, plump, curly-headed, bright-eyed boy who + confronted me in the miniature? The mere sight of the portrait produced + the most extraordinary effect on my mind. It struck me with an + overwhelming melancholy; it filled me with a despair of myself too + dreadful to be endured. Making the best excuse I could to my mother, I + left the room. In another minute I was out of the house. + </p> + <p> + I crossed the park, and left my own possessions behind me. Following a + by-road, I came to our well-known river; so beautiful in itself, so famous + among trout-fishers throughout Scotland. It was not then the fishing + season. No human being was in sight as I took my seat on the bank. The old + stone bridge which spanned the stream was within a hundred yards of me; + the setting sun still tinged the swift-flowing water under the arches with + its red and dying light. + </p> + <p> + Still the boy’s face in the miniature pursued me. Still the portrait + seemed to reproach me in a merciless language of its own: “Look at what + you were once; think of what you are now!” + </p> + <p> + I hid my face in the soft, fragrant grass. I thought of the wasted years + of my life between thirteen and twenty-three. + </p> + <p> + How was it to end? If I lived to the ordinary life of man, what prospect + had I before me? + </p> + <p> + Love? Marriage? I burst out laughing as the idea crossed my mind. Since + the innocently happy days of my boyhood I had known no more of love than + the insect that now crept over my hand as it lay on the grass. My money, + to be sure, would buy me a wife; but would my money make her dear to me? + dear as Mary had once been, in the golden time when my portrait was first + painted? + </p> + <p> + Mary! Was she still living? Was she married? Should I know her again if I + saw her? Absurd! I had not seen her since she was ten years old: she was + now a woman, as I was a man. Would she know <i>me</i> if we met? The + portrait, still pursuing me, answered the question: “Look at what you were + once; think of what you are now!” + </p> + <p> + I rose and walked backward and forward, and tried to turn the current of + my thoughts in some new direction. + </p> + <p> + It was not to be done. After a banishment of years, Mary had got back + again into my mind. I sat down once more on the river bank. The sun was + sinking fast. Black shadows hovered under the arches of the old stone + bridge. The red light had faded from the swift-flowing water, and had left + it overspread with one monotonous hue of steely gray. The first stars + looked down peacefully from the cloudless sky. The first shiverings of the + night breeze were audible among the trees, and visible here and there in + the shallow places of the stream. And still, the darker it grew, the more + persistently my portrait led me back to the past, the more vividly the + long-lost image of the child Mary showed itself to me in my thoughts. + </p> + <p> + Was this the prelude of her coming back to me in dreams; in her perfected + womanhood, in the young prime of her life? + </p> + <p> + It might be so. + </p> + <p> + I was no longer unworthy of her, as I had once been. The effect produced + on me by the sight of my portrait was in itself due to moral and mental + changes in me for the better, which had been steadily proceeding since the + time when my wound had laid me helpless among strangers in a strange land. + Sickness, which has made itself teacher and friend to many a man, had made + itself teacher and friend to me. I looked back with horror at the vices of + my youth; at the fruitless after-days when I had impiously doubted all + that is most noble, all that is most consoling in human life. Consecrated + by sorrow, purified by repentance, was it vain in me to hope that her + spirit a nd my spirit might yet be united again? Who could tell? + </p> + <p> + I rose once more. It could serve no good purpose to linger until night by + the banks of the river. I had left the house, feeling the impulse which + drives us, in certain excited conditions of the mind, to take refuge in + movement and change. The remedy had failed; my mind was as strangely + disturbed as ever. My wisest course would be to go home, and keep my good + mother company over her favorite game of piquet. + </p> + <p> + I turned to take the road back, and stopped, struck by the tranquil beauty + of the last faint light in the western sky, shining behind the black line + formed by the parapet of the bridge. + </p> + <p> + In the grand gathering of the night shadows, in the deep stillness of the + dying day, I stood alone and watched the sinking light. + </p> + <p> + As I looked, there came a change over the scene. Suddenly and softly a + living figure glided into view on the bridge. It passed behind the black + line of the parapet, in the last long rays of the western light. It + crossed the bridge. It paused, and crossed back again half-way. Then it + stopped. The minutes passed, and there the figure stood, a motionless + black object, behind the black parapet of the bridge. + </p> + <p> + I advanced a little, moving near enough to obtain a closer view of the + dress in which the figure was attired. The dress showed me that the + solitary stranger was a woman. + </p> + <p> + She did not notice me in the shadow which the trees cast on the bank. She + stood with her arms folded in her cloak, looking down at the darkening + river. + </p> + <p> + Why was she waiting there at the close of evening alone? + </p> + <p> + As the question occurred to me, I saw her head move. She looked along the + bridge, first on one side of her, then on the other. Was she waiting for + some person who was to meet her? Or was she suspicious of observation, and + anxious to make sure that she was alone? + </p> + <p> + A sudden doubt of her purpose in seeking that solitary place, a sudden + distrust of the lonely bridge and the swift-flowing river, set my heart + beating quickly and roused me to instant action. I hurried up the rising + ground which led from the river-bank to the bridge, determined on speaking + to her while the opportunity was still mine. + </p> + <p> + She neither saw nor heard me until I was close to her. I approached with + an irrepressible feeling of agitation; not knowing how she might receive + me when I spoke to her. The moment she turned and faced me, my composure + came back. It was as if, expecting to see a stranger, I had unexpectedly + encountered a friend. + </p> + <p> + And yet she <i>was</i> a stranger. I had never before looked on that grave + and noble face, on that grand figure whose exquisite grace and symmetry + even her long cloak could not wholly hide. She was not, perhaps, a + strictly beautiful woman. There were defects in her which were + sufficiently marked to show themselves in the fading light. Her hair, for + example, seen under the large garden hat that she wore, looked almost as + short as the hair of a man; and the color of it was of that dull, + lusterless brown hue which is so commonly seen in English women of the + ordinary type. Still, in spite of these drawbacks, there was a latent + charm in her expression, there was an inbred fascination in her manner, + which instantly found its way to my sympathies and its hold on my + admiration. She won me in the moment when I first looked at her. + </p> + <p> + “May I inquire if you have lost your way?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + Her eyes rested on my face with a strange look of inquiry in them. She did + not appear to be surprised or confused at my venturing to address her. + </p> + <p> + “I know this part of the country well,” I went on. “Can I be of any use to + you?” + </p> + <p> + She still looked at me with steady, inquiring eyes. For a moment, stranger + as I was, my face seemed to trouble her as if it had been a face that she + had seen and forgotten again. If she really had this idea, she at once + dismissed it with a little toss of her head, and looked away at the river + as if she felt no further interest in me. + </p> + <p> + “Thank you. I have not lost my way. I am accustomed to walking alone. + Good-evening.” + </p> + <p> + She spoke coldly, but courteously. Her voice was delicious; her bow, as + she left me, was the perfection of unaffected grace. She left the bridge + on the side by which I had first seen her approach it, and walked slowly + away along the darkening track of the highroad. + </p> + <p> + Still I was not quite satisfied. There was something underlying the + charming expression and the fascinating manner which my instinct felt to + be something wrong. As I walked away toward the opposite end of the + bridge, the doubt began to grow on me whether she had spoken the truth. In + leaving the neighborhood of the river, was she simply trying to get rid of + me? + </p> + <p> + I at once resolved to put this suspicion of her to the test. Leaving the + bridge, I had only to cross the road beyond, and to enter a plantation on + the bank of the river. Here, concealed behind the first tree which was + large enough to hide me, I could command a view of the bridge, and I could + fairly count on detecting her, if she returned to the river, while there + was a ray of light to see her by. It was not easy walking in the obscurity + of the plantation: I had almost to grope my way to the nearest tree that + suited my purpose. + </p> + <p> + I had just steadied my foothold on the uneven ground behind the tree, when + the stillness of the twilight hour was suddenly broken by the distant + sound of a voice. + </p> + <p> + The voice was a woman’s. It was not raised to any high pitch; its accent + was the accent of prayer, and the words it uttered were these: + </p> + <p> + “Christ, have mercy on me!” + </p> + <p> + There was silence again. A nameless fear crept over me, as I looked out on + the bridge. + </p> + <p> + She was standing on the parapet. Before I could move, before I could cry + out, before I could even breathe again freely, she leaped into the river. + </p> + <p> + The current ran my way. I could see her, as she rose to the surface, + floating by in the light on the mid-stream. I ran headlong down the bank. + She sank again, in the moment when I stopped to throw aside my hat and + coat and to kick off my shoes. I was a practiced swimmer. The instant I + was in the water my composure came back to me—I felt like myself + again. + </p> + <p> + The current swept me out into the mid-stream, and greatly increased the + speed at which I swam. I was close behind her when she rose for the second + time—a shadowy thing, just visible a few inches below the surface of + the river. One more stroke, and my left arm was round her; I had her face + out of the water. She was insensible. I could hold her in the right way to + leave me master of all my movements; I could devote myself, without flurry + or fatigue, to the exertion of taking her back to the shore. + </p> + <p> + My first attempt satisfied me that there was no reasonable hope, burdened + as I now was, of breasting the strong current running toward the mid-river + from either bank. I tried it on one side, and I tried it on the other, and + gave it up. The one choice left was to let myself drift with her down the + stream. Some fifty yards lower, the river took a turn round a promontory + of land, on which stood a little inn much frequented by anglers in the + season. As we approached the place, I made another attempt (again an + attempt in vain) to reach the shore. Our last chance now was to be heard + by the people of the inn. I shouted at the full pitch of my voice as we + drifted past. The cry was answered. A man put off in a boat. In five + minutes more I had her safe on the bank again; and the man and I were + carrying her to the inn by the river-side. + </p> + <p> + The landlady and her servant-girl were equally willing to be of service, + and equally ignorant of what they were to do. Fortunately, my medical + education made me competent to direct them. A good fire, warm blankets, + hot water in bottles, were all at my disposal. I showed the women myself + how to ply the work of revival. They persevered, and I persevered; and + still there she lay, in her perfect beauty of form, without a sign of life + perceptible; there she lay, to all outward appearance, dead by drowning. + </p> + <p> + A last hope was left—the hope of restoring her (if I could construct + the apparatus in time) by the process called “artificial respiration.” I + was just endeavoring to tell the landlady what I wanted and was just + conscious o f a strange difficulty in expressing myself, when the good + woman started back, and looked at me with a scream of terror. + </p> + <p> + “Good God, sir, you’re bleeding!” she cried. “What’s the matter? Where are + you hurt?” + </p> + <p> + In the moment when she spoke to me I knew what had happened. The old + Indian wound (irritated, doubtless, by the violent exertion that I had + imposed on myself) had opened again. I struggled against the sudden sense + of faintness that seized on me; I tried to tell the people of the inn what + to do. It was useless. I dropped to my knees; my head sunk on the bosom of + the woman stretched senseless upon the low couch beneath me. The + death-in-life that had got <i>her</i> had got <i>me</i>. Lost to the world + about us, we lay, with my blood flowing on her, united in our deathly + trance. + </p> + <p> + Where were our spirits at that moment? Were they together and conscious of + each other? United by a spiritual bond, undiscovered and unsuspected by us + in the flesh, did we two, who had met as strangers on the fatal bridge, + know each other again in the trance? You who have loved and lost—you + whose one consolation it has been to believe in other worlds than this—can + you turn from my questions in contempt? Can you honestly say that they + have never been <i>your</i> questions too? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII. THE KINDRED SPIRITS + </h2> + <p> + THE morning sunlight shining in at a badly curtained window; a clumsy + wooden bed, with big twisted posts that reached to the ceiling; on one + side of the bed, my mother’s welcome face; on the other side, an elderly + gentleman unremembered by me at that moment—such were the objects + that presented themselves to my view, when I first consciously returned to + the world that we live in. + </p> + <p> + “Look, doctor, look! He has come to his senses at last.” + </p> + <p> + “Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this.” My mother was rejoicing + over me on one side of the bed; and the unknown gentleman, addressed as + “doctor,” was offering me a spoonful of whisky-and-water on the other. He + called it the “elixir of life”; and he bid me remark (speaking in a strong + Scotch accent) that he tasted it himself to show he was in earnest. + </p> + <p> + The stimulant did its good work. My head felt less giddy, my mind became + clearer. I could speak collectedly to my mother; I could vaguely recall + the more marked events of the previous evening. A minute or two more, and + the image of the person in whom those events had all centered became a + living image in my memory. I tried to raise myself in the bed; I asked, + impatiently, “Where is she?” + </p> + <p> + The doctor produced another spoonful of the elixir of life, and gravely + repeated his first address to me. + </p> + <p> + “Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this.” + </p> + <p> + I persisted in repeating my question: + </p> + <p> + “Where is she?” + </p> + <p> + The doctor persisted in repeating his formula: + </p> + <p> + “Take a sup of this.” + </p> + <p> + I was too weak to contest the matter; I obeyed. My medical attendant + nodded across the bed to my mother, and said, “Now, he’ll do.” My mother + had some compassion on me. She relieved my anxiety in these plain words: + </p> + <p> + “The lady has quite recovered, George, thanks to the doctor here.” + </p> + <p> + I looked at my professional colleague with a new interest. He was the + legitimate fountainhead of the information that I was dying to have poured + into my mind. + </p> + <p> + “How did you revive her?” I asked. “Where is she now?” + </p> + <p> + The doctor held up his hand, warning me to stop. + </p> + <p> + “We shall do well, sir, if we proceed systematically,” he began, in a very + positive manner. “You will understand, that every time you open your + mouth, it will be to take a sup of this, and not to speak. I shall tell + you, in due course, and the good lady, your mother, will tell you, all + that you have any need to know. As I happen to have been first on what you + may call the scene of action, it stands in the fit order of things that I + should speak first. You will just permit me to mix a little more of the + elixir of life, and then, as the poet says, my plain unvarnished tale I + shall deliver.” + </p> + <p> + So he spoke, pronouncing in his strong Scotch accent the most carefully + selected English I had ever heard. A hard-headed, square-shouldered, + pertinaciously self-willed man—it was plainly useless to contend + with him. I turned to my mother’s gentle face for encouragement; and I let + my doctor have his own way. + </p> + <p> + “My name,” he proceeded, “is MacGlue. I had the honor of presenting my + respects at your house yonder when you first came to live in this + neighborhood. You don’t remember me at present, which is natural enough in + the unbalanced condition of your mind, consequent, you will understand (as + a professional person yourself) on copious loss of blood.” + </p> + <p> + There my patience gave way. + </p> + <p> + “Never mind me!” I interposed. “Tell me about the lady!” + </p> + <p> + “You have opened your mouth, sir!” cried Mr. MacGlue, severely. “You know + the penalty—take a sup of this. I told you we should proceed + systematically,” he went on, after he had forced me to submit to the + penalty. “Everything in its place, Mr. Germaine—everything in its + place. I was speaking of your bodily condition. Well, sir, and how did I + discover your bodily condition? Providentially for <i>you</i> I was + driving home yesterday evening by the lower road (which is the road by the + river bank), and, drawing near to the inn here (they call it a hotel; it’s + nothing but an inn), I heard the screeching of the landlady half a mile + off. A good woman enough, you will understand, as times go; but a poor + creature in any emergency. Keep still, I’m coming to it now. Well, I went + in to see if the screeching related to anything wanted in the medical way; + and there I found you and the stranger lady in a position which I may + truthfully describe as standing in some need of improvement on the score + of propriety. Tut! tut! I speak jocosely—you were both in a dead + swoon. Having heard what the landlady had to tell me, and having, to the + best of my ability, separated history from hysterics in the course of the + woman’s narrative, I found myself, as it were, placed between two laws. + The law of gallantry, you see, pointed to the lady as the first object of + my professional services, while the law of humanity (seeing that you were + still bleeding) pointed no less imperatively to you. I am no longer a + young man: I left the lady to wait. My word! it was no light matter, Mr. + Germaine, to deal with your case, and get you carried up here out of the + way. That old wound of yours, sir, is not to be trifled with. I bid you + beware how you open it again. The next time you go out for an evening walk + and you see a lady in the water, you will do well for your own health to + leave her there. What’s that I see? Are you opening your mouth again? Do + you want another sup already?” + </p> + <p> + “He wants to hear more about the lady,” said my mother, interpreting my + wishes for me. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, the lady,” resumed Mr. MacGlue, with the air of a man who found no + great attraction in the subject proposed to him. “There’s not much that I + know of to be said about the lady. A fine woman, no doubt. If you could + strip the flesh off her bones, you would find a splendid skeleton + underneath. For, mind this! there’s no such thing as a finely made woman + without a good bony scaffolding to build her on at starting. I don’t think + much of this lady—morally speaking, you will understand. If I may be + permitted to say so in your presence, ma’am, there’s a man in the + background of that dramatic scene of hers on the bridge. However, not + being the man myself, I have nothing to do with that. My business with the + lady was just to set her vital machinery going again. And, Heaven knows, + she proved a heavy handful! It was even a more obstinate case to deal + with, sir, than yours. I never, in all my experience, met with two people + more unwilling to come back to this world and its troubles than you two + were. And when I had done the business at last, when I was wellnigh + swooning myself with the work and the worry of it, guess—I give you + leave to speak for this once—guess what were the first words the + lady said to me when she came to herself again.” + </p> + <p> + I was too much excited to be able to exercise my ingenuity. “I give it + up!” I said, impatiently. + </p> + <p> + “You may well give it up,” remarked Mr. MacGlue. “The first words she + addressed, sir, to the man who had dragged her out of the very jaws of + death were these: ‘How dare you meddle with me? why didn’t you leave me to + die?’ Her exact language—I’ll take my Bible oath of it. I was so + provoked that I gave her the change back (as the saying is) in her own + coin. ‘There’s the river handy, ma’am,’ I said; ‘do it again. I, for one, + won’t stir a hand to save you; I promise you that.’ She looked up sharply. + ‘Are you the man who took me out of the river?’ she said. ‘God forbid!’ + says I. ‘I’m only the doctor who was fool enough to meddle with you + afterward.’ She turned to the landlady. ‘Who took me out of the river?’ + she asked. The landlady told her, and mentioned your name. ‘Germaine?’ she + said to herself; ‘I know nobody named Germaine; I wonder whether it was + the man who spoke to me on the bridge?’ ‘Yes,’ says the landlady; ‘Mr. + Germaine said he met you on the bridge.’ Hearing that, she took a little + time to think; and then she asked if she could see Mr. Germaine. ‘Whoever + he is,’ she says, ‘he has risked his life to save me, and I ought to thank + him for doing that.’ ‘You can’t thank him tonight,’ I said; ‘I’ve got him + upstairs between life and death, and I’ve sent for his mother: wait till + to-morrow.’ She turned on me, looking half frightened, half angry. ‘I + can’t wait,’ she says; ‘you don’t know what you have done among you in + bringing me back to life. I must leave this neighborhood; I must be out of + Perthshire to-morrow: when does the first coach southward pass this way?’ + Having nothing to do with the first coach southward, I referred her to the + people of the inn. My business (now I had done with the lady) was upstairs + in this room, to see how you were getting on. You were getting on as well + as I could wish, and your mother was at your bedside. I went home to see + what sick people might be waiting for me in the regular way. When I came + back this morning, there was the foolish landlady with a new tale to tell + ‘Gone!’ says she. ‘Who’s gone?’ says I. ‘The lady,’ says she, ‘by the + first coach this morning!’” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t mean to tell me that she has left the house?” I exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, but I do!” said the doctor, as positively as ever. “Ask madam your + mother here, and she’ll certify it to your heart’s content. I’ve got other + sick ones to visit, and I’m away on my rounds. You’ll see no more of the + lady; and so much the better, I’m thinking. In two hours’ time I’ll be + back again; and if I don’t find you the worse in the interim, I’ll see + about having you transported from this strange place to the snug bed that + knows you at home. Don’t let him talk, ma’am, don’t let him talk.” + </p> + <p> + With those parting words, Mr. MacGlue left us to ourselves. + </p> + <p> + “Is it really true?” I said to my mother. “Has she left the inn, without + waiting to see me?” + </p> + <p> + “Nobody could stop her, George,” my mother answered. “The lady left the + inn this morning by the coach for Edinburgh.” + </p> + <p> + I was bitterly disappointed. Yes: “bitterly” is the word—though she + <i>was</i> a stranger to me. + </p> + <p> + “Did you see her yourself?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I saw her for a few minutes, my dear, on my way up to your room.” + </p> + <p> + “What did she say?” + </p> + <p> + “She begged me to make her excuses to you. She said, ‘Tell Mr. Germaine + that my situation is dreadful; no human creature can help me. I must go + away. My old life is as much at an end as if your son had left me to drown + in the river. I must find a new life for myself, in a new place. Ask Mr. + Germaine to forgive me for going away without thanking him. I daren’t + wait! I may be followed and found out. There is a person whom I am + determined never to see again—never! never! never! Good-by; and try + to forgive me!’ She hid her face in her hands, and said no more. I tried + to win her confidence; it was not to be done; I was compelled to leave + her. There is some dreadful calamity, George, in that wretched woman’s + life. And such an interesting creature, too! It was impossible not to pity + her, whether she deserved it or not. Everything about her is a mystery, my + dear. She speaks English without the slightest foreign accent, and yet she + has a foreign name.” + </p> + <p> + “Did she give you her name?” + </p> + <p> + “No, and I was afraid to ask her to give it. But the landlady here is not + a very scrupulous person. She told me she looked at the poor creature’s + linen while it was drying by the fire. The name marked on it was, ‘Van + Brandt.’” + </p> + <p> + “Van Brandt?” I repeated. “That sounds like a Dutch name. And yet you say + she spoke like an Englishwoman. Perhaps she was born in England.” + </p> + <p> + “Or perhaps she may be married,” suggested my mother; “and Van Brandt may + be the name of her husband.” + </p> + <p> + The idea of her being a married woman had something in it repellent to me. + I wished my mother had not thought of that last suggestion. I refused to + receive it. I persisted in my own belief that the stranger was a single + woman. In that character, I could indulge myself in the luxury of thinking + of her; I could consider the chances of my being able to trace this + charming fugitive, who had taken so strong a hold on my interest—whose + desperate attempt at suicide had so nearly cost me my own life. + </p> + <p> + If she had gone as far as Edinburgh (which she would surely do, being bent + on avoiding discovery), the prospect of finding her again—in that + great city, and in my present weak state of health—looked doubtful + indeed. Still, there was an underlying hopefulness in me which kept my + spirits from being seriously depressed. I felt a purely imaginary (perhaps + I ought to say, a purely superstitious) conviction that we who had nearly + died together, we who had been brought to life together, were surely + destined to be involved in some future joys or sorrows common to us both. + “I fancy I shall see her again,” was my last thought before my weakness + overpowered me, and I sunk into a peaceful sleep. + </p> + <p> + That night I was removed from the inn to my own room at home; and that + night I saw her again in a dream. + </p> + <p> + The image of her was as vividly impressed on me as the far different image + of the child Mary, when I used to see it in the days of old. The + dream-figure of the woman was robed as I had seen it robed on the bridge. + She wore the same broad-brimmed garden-hat of straw. She looked at me as + she had looked when I approached her in the dim evening light. After a + little her face brightened with a divinely beautiful smile; and she + whispered in my ear, “Friend, do you know me?” + </p> + <p> + I knew her, most assuredly; and yet it was with an incomprehensible + after-feeling of doubt. Recognizing her in my dream as the stranger who + had so warmly interested me, I was, nevertheless, dissatisfied with + myself, as if it had not been the right recognition. I awoke with this + idea; and I slept no more that night. + </p> + <p> + In three days’ time I was strong enough to go out driving with my mother, + in the comfortable, old-fashioned, open carriage which had once belonged + to Mr. Germaine. + </p> + <p> + On the fourth day we arranged to make an excursion to a little waterfall + in our neighborhood. My mother had a great admiration of the place, and + had often expressed a wish to possess some memorial of it. I resolved to + take my sketch-book: with me, on the chance that I might be able to please + her by making a drawing of her favorite scene. + </p> + <p> + Searching for the sketch-book (which I had not used for years), I found it + in an old desk of mine that had remained unopened since my departure for + India. In the course of my investigation, I opened a drawer in the desk, + and discovered a relic of the old times—my poor little Mary’s first + work in embroidery, the green flag! + </p> + <p> + The sight of the forgotten keepsake took my mind back to the bailiff’s + cottage, and reminded me of Dame Dermody, and her confident prediction + about Mary and me. + </p> + <p> + I smiled as I recalled the old woman’s assertion that no human power could + “hinder the union of the kindred spirits of the children in the time to + come.” What had become of the prophesied dreams in which we were to + communicate with each other through the term of our separation? Years had + passed; and, sleeping or waking, I had seen nothing of Mary. Years had + passed; and the first vision of a woman that had come to me had been my + dream a few nights since of the stranger whom I had saved from drowning. I + thought of these chances and changes in my life, but not contemptuously or + bitterly. The new love that was now stealing its way into my heart had + softened and humanized me. I said to myself, “Ah, poor little Mary!” and I + kissed the green flag, in grateful memory of the days that were gone + forever. + </p> + <p> + We drove to the waterfall. + </p> + <p> + It was a beautiful day; the lonely sylvan scene was at its brightest and + best. A wooden summer-house, commanding a prospect of the falling stream, + had been built for the accommodation of pleasure parties by the proprietor + of the place. My mother suggested that I should try to make a sketch of + the view from this point. I did my best to please her, but I was not + satisfied with the result; and I abandoned my drawing before it was half + finished. Leaving my sketch-book and pencil on the table of the + summer-house, I proposed to my mother to cross a little wooden bridge + which spanned the stream, below the fall, and to see how the landscape + looked from a new point of view. + </p> + <p> + The prospect of the waterfall, as seen from the opposite bank, presented + even greater difficulties, to an amateur artist like me, than the prospect + which he had just left. We returned to the summer-house. + </p> + <p> + I was the first to approach the open door. I stopped, checked in my + advance by an unexpected discovery. The summer-house was no longer empty + as we had left it. A lady was seated at the table with my pencil in her + hand, writing in my sketch-book! + </p> + <p> + After waiting a moment, I advanced a few steps nearer to the door, and + stopped again in breathless amazement. The stranger in the summer-house + was now plainly revealed to me as the woman who had attempted to destroy + herself from the bridge! + </p> + <p> + There was no doubt about it. There was the dress; there was the memorable + face which I had seen in the evening light, which I had dreamed of only a + few nights since! The woman herself—I saw her as plainly as I saw + the sun shining on the waterfall—the woman herself, with my pencil + in her hand, writing in my book! + </p> + <p> + My mother was close behind me. She noticed my agitation. “George!” she + exclaimed, “what is the matter with you?” + </p> + <p> + I pointed through the open door of the summer-house. + </p> + <p> + “Well?” said my mother. “What am I to look at?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you see somebody sitting at the table and writing in my + sketch-book?” + </p> + <p> + My mother eyed me quickly. “Is he going to be ill again?” I heard her say + to herself. + </p> + <p> + At the same moment the woman laid down the pencil and rose slowly to her + feet. + </p> + <p> + She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes: she lifted her hand and + beckoned me to approach her. I obeyed. Moving without conscious will of my + own, drawn nearer and nearer to her by an irresistible power, I ascended + the short flight of stairs which led into the summer-house. Within a few + paces of her I stopped. She advanced a step toward me, and laid her hand + gently on my bosom. Her touch filled me with strangely united sensations + of rapture and awe. After a while, she spoke in low melodious tones, which + mingled in my ear with the distant murmur of the falling water, until the + two sounds became one. I heard in the murmur, I heard in the voice, these + words: “Remember me. Come to me.” Her hand dropped from my bosom; a + momentary obscurity passed like a flying shadow over the bright daylight + in the room. I looked for her when the light came back. She was gone. + </p> + <p> + My consciousness of passing events returned. + </p> + <p> + I saw the lengthening shadows outside, which told me that the evening was + at hand. I saw the carriage approaching the summerhouse to take us away. I + felt my mother’s hand on my arm, and heard her voice speaking to me + anxiously. I was able to reply by a sign entreating her not to be uneasy + about me, but I could do no more. I was absorbed, body and soul, in the + one desire to look at the sketch-book. As certainly as I had seen the + woman, so certainly I had seen her, with my pencil in her hand, writing in + my book. + </p> + <p> + I advanced to the table on which the book was lying open. I looked at the + blank space on the lower part of the page, under the foreground lines of + my unfinished drawing. My mother, following me, looked at the page too. + </p> + <p> + There was the writing! The woman had disappeared, but there were her + written words left behind her: visible to my mother as well as to me, + readable by my mother’s eyes as well as by mine! + </p> + <p> + These were the words we saw, arranged in two lines, as I copy them here: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + When the full moon shines + On Saint Anthony’s Well. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX. NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. + </h2> + <p> + I POINTED to the writing in the sketch book, and looked at my mother. I + was not mistaken. She <i>had</i> seen it, as I had seen it. But she + refused to acknowledge that anything had happened to alarm her—plainly + as I could detect it in her face. + </p> + <p> + “Somebody has been playing a trick on you, George,” she said. + </p> + <p> + I made no reply. It was needless to say anything. My poor mother was + evidently as far from being satisfied with her own shallow explanation as + I was. The carriage waited for us at the door. We set forth in silence on + our drive home. + </p> + <p> + The sketch-book lay open on my knee. My eyes were fastened on it; my mind + was absorbed in recalling the moment when the apparition beckoned me into + the summer-house and spoke. Putting the words and the writing together, + the conclusion was too plain to be mistaken. The woman whom I had saved + from drowning had need of me again. + </p> + <p> + And this was the same woman who, in her own proper person, had not + hesitated to seize the first opportunity of leaving the house in which we + had been sheltered together—without stopping to say one grateful + word to the man who had preserved her from death! Four days only had + elapsed since she had left me, never (to all appearance) to see me again. + And now the ghostly apparition of her had returned as to a tried and + trusted friend; had commanded me to remember her and to go to her; and had + provided against all possibility of my memory playing me false, by writing + the words which invited me to meet her “when the full moon shone on Saint + Anthony’s Well.” + </p> + <p> + What had happened in the interval? What did the supernatural manner of her + communication with me mean? What ought my next course of action to be? + </p> + <p> + My mother roused me from my reflections. She stretched out her hand, and + suddenly closed the open book on my knee, as if the sight of the writing + in it were unendurable to her. + </p> + <p> + “Why don’t you speak to me, George?” she said. “Why do you keep your + thoughts to yourself?” + </p> + <p> + “My mind is lost in confusion,” I answered. “I can suggest nothing and + explain nothing. My thoughts are all bent on the one question of what I am + to do next. On that point I believe I may say that my mind is made up.” I + touched the sketch-book as I spoke. “Come what may of it,” I said, “I mean + to keep the appointment.” + </p> + <p> + My mother looked at me as if she doubted the evidence of her own senses. + </p> + <p> + “He talks as if it were a real thing!” she exclaimed. “George, you don’t + really believe that you saw somebody in the summer-house? The place was + empty. I tell you positively, when you pointed into the summer-house, the + place was empty. You have been thinking and thinking of this woman till + you persuade yourself that you have actually seen her.” + </p> + <p> + I opened the sketch-book again. “I thought I saw her writing on this + page,” I answered. “Look at it, and tell me if I was wrong.” + </p> + <p> + My mother refused to look at it. Steadily as she persisted in taking the + rational view, nevertheless the writing frightened her. + </p> + <p> + “It is not a week yet,” she went on, “since I saw you lying between life + and death in your bed at the inn. How can you talk of keeping the + appointment, in your state of health? An appointment with a shadowy + Something in your own imagination, which appears and disappears, and + leaves substantial writing behind it! It’s ridiculous, George; I wonder + you can help laughing at yourself.” + </p> + <p> + She tried to set the example of laughing at me—with the tears in her + eyes, poor soul! as she made the useless effort. I began to regret having + opened my mind so freely to her. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t take the matter too seriously, mother,” I said. “Perhaps I may not + be able to find the place. I never heard of Saint Anthony’s Well; I have + not the least idea where it is. Suppose I make the discovery, and suppose + the journey turns out to be an easy one, would you like to go with me?” + </p> + <p> + “God forbid” cried my mother, fervently. “I will have nothing to do with + it, George. You are in a state of delusion; I shall speak to the doctor.” + </p> + <p> + “By all means, my dear mother. Mr. MacGlue is a sensible person. We pass + his house on our way home, and we will ask him to dinner. In the meantime, + let us say no more on the subject till we see the doctor.” + </p> + <p> + I spoke lightly, but I really meant what I said. My mind was sadly + disturbed; my nerves were so shaken that the slightest noises on the road + startled me. The opinion of a man like Mr. MacGlue, who looked at all + mortal matters from the same immovably practical point of view, might + really have its use, in my case, as a species of moral remedy. + </p> + <p> + We waited until the dessert was on the table, and the servants had left + the dining-room. Then I told my story to the Scotch doctor as I have told + it here; and, that done, I opened the sketch-book to let him see the + writing for himself. + </p> + <p> + Had I turned to the wrong page? + </p> + <p> + I started to my feet, and held the book close to the light of the lamp + that hung over the dining table. No: I had found the right page. There was + my half-finished drawing of the waterfall—but where were the two + lines of writing beneath? + </p> + <p> + Gone! + </p> + <p> + I strained my eyes; I looked and looked. And the blank white paper looked + back at me. + </p> + <p> + I placed the open leaf before my mother. “You saw it as plainly as I did,” + I said. “Are my own eyes deceiving me? Look at the bottom of the page.” + </p> + <p> + My mother sunk back in her chair with a cry of terror. + </p> + <p> + “Gone?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Gone!” + </p> + <p> + I turned to the doctor. He took me completely by surprise. No incredulous + smile appeared on his face; no jesting words passed his lips. He was + listening to us attentively. He was waiting gravely to hear more. + </p> + <p> + “I declare to you, on my word of honor,” I said to him, “that I saw the + apparition writing with my pencil at the bottom of that page. I declare + that I took the book in my hand, and saw these words written in it, ‘When + the full moon shines on Saint Anthony’s Well.’ Not more than three hours + have passed since that time; and, see for yourself, not a vestige of the + writing remains.” + </p> + <p> + “Not a vestige of the writing remains,” Mr. MacGlue repeated, quietly. + </p> + <p> + “If you feel the slightest doubt of what I have told you,” I went on, “ask + my mother; she will bear witness that she saw the writing too.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t doubt that you both saw the writing,” answered Mr. MacGlue, with + a composure that surprised me. + </p> + <p> + “Can you account for it?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said the impenetrable doctor, “if I set my wits at work, I believe + I might account for it to the satisfaction of some people. For example, I + might give you what they call the rational explanation, to begin with. I + might say that you are, to my certain knowledge, in a highly excited + nervous condition; and that, when you saw the apparition (as you call it), + you simply saw nothing but your own strong impression of an absent woman, + who (as I greatly fear) has got on the weak or amatory side of you. I mean + no offense, Mr. Germaine—” + </p> + <p> + “I take no offense, doctor. But excuse me for speaking plainly—the + rational explanation is thrown away on me.” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll readily excuse you,” answered Mr. MacGlue; “the rather that I’m + entirely of your opinion. I don’t believe in the rational explanation + myself.” + </p> + <p> + This was surprising, to say the least of it. “What <i>do</i> you believe + in?” I inquired. + </p> + <p> + Mr. MacGlue declined to let me hurry him. + </p> + <p> + “Wait a little,” he said. “There’s the <i>ir</i>rational explanation to + try next. Maybe it will fit itself to the present state of your mind + better than the other. We will say this time that you have really seen the + ghost (or double) of a living person. Very good. If you can suppose a + disembodied spirit to appear in earthly clothing—of silk or merino, + as the case may be—it’s no great stretch to suppose, next, that this + same spirit is capable of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortal + words in a mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost vanishes (which your + ghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the writing should + follow the example and vanish too. And the reason of the vanishment may be + (if you want a reason), either that the ghost does not like letting a + stranger like me into its secrets, or that vanishing is a settled habit of + ghosts and of everything associated with them, or that this ghost has + changed its mind in the course of three hours (being the ghost of a woman, + I am sure that’s not wonderful), and doesn’t care to see you ‘when the + full moon shines on Saint Anthony’s Well.’ There’s the <i>ir</i>rational + explanation for you. And, speaking for myself, I’m bound to add that I + don’t set a pin’s value on <i>that</i> explanation either.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. MacGlue’s sublime indifference to both sides of the question began to + irritate me. + </p> + <p> + “In plain words, doctor,” I said, “you don’t think the circumstances that + I have mentioned to you worthy of serious investigation?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t think serious investigation capable of dealing with the + circumstances,” answered the doctor. “Put it in that way, and you put it + right. Just look round you. Here we three persons are alive and hearty at + this snug table. If (which God forbid!) good Mistress Germaine or yourself + were to fall down dead in another moment, I, doctor as I am, could no more + explain what first principle of life and movement had been suddenly + extinguished in you than the dog there sleeping on the hearth-rug. If I am + content to sit down ignorant in the face of such an impenetrable mystery + as this—presented to me, day after day, every time I see a living + creature come into the world or go out of it—why may I not sit down + content in the face of your lady in the summer-house, and say she’s + altogether beyond my fathoming, and there is an end of her?” + </p> + <p> + At those words my mother joined in the conversation for the first time. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, sir,” she said, “if you could only persuade my son to take your + sensible view, how happy I should be! Would you believe it?—he + positively means (if he can find the place) to go to Saint Anthony’s + Well!” + </p> + <p> + Even this revelation entirely failed to surprise Mr. MacGlue. + </p> + <p> + “Ay, ay. He means to keep his appointment with the ghost, does he? Well, I + can be of some service to him if he sticks to his resolution. I can tell + him of another man who kept a written appointment with a ghost, and what + came of it.” + </p> + <p> + This was a startling announcement. Did he really mean what he said? + </p> + <p> + “Are you in jest or in earnest?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I never joke, sir,” said Mr. MacGlue. “No sick person really believes in + a doctor who jokes. I defy you to show me a man at the head of our + profession who has ever been discovered in high spirits (in medical hours) + by his nearest and dearest friend. You may have wondered, I dare say, at + seeing me take your strange narrative as coolly as I do. It comes + naturally, sir. Yours is not the first story of a ghost and a pencil that + I have heard.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean to tell me,” I said, “that you know of another man who has + seen what I have seen?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s just what I mean to tell you,” rejoined the doctor. “The man was a + far-away Scots cousin of my late wife, who bore the honorable name of + Bruce, and followed a seafaring life. I’ll take another glass of the + sherry wine, just to wet my whistle, as the vulgar saying is, before I + begin. Well, you must know, Bruce was mate of a bark at the time I’m + speaking of, and he was on a voyage from Liverpool to New Brunswick. At + noon one day, he and the captain, having taken their observation of the + sun, were hard at it below, working out the latitude and longitude on + their slates. Bruce, in his cabin, looked across through the open door of + the captain’s cabin opposite. ‘What do you make it, sir?’ says Brace. The + man in the captain’s cabin looked up. And what did Bruce see? The face of + the captain? Devil a bit of it—the face of a total stranger! Up + jumps Bruce, with his heart going full gallop all in a moment, and + searches for the captain on deck, and finds him much as usual, with his + calculations done, and his latitude and longitude off his mind for the + day. ‘There’s somebody at your desk, sir,’ says Bruce. ‘He’s writing on + your slate; and he’s a total stranger to me.’ ‘A stranger in my cabin?’ + says the captain. ‘Why, Mr. Bruce, the ship has been six weeks out of + port. How did he get on board?’ Bruce doesn’t know how, but he sticks to + his story. Away goes the captain, and bursts like a whirlwind into his + cabin, and finds nobody there. Bruce himself is obliged to acknowledge + that the place is certainly empty. ‘If I didn’t know you were a sober + man,’ says the captain, ‘I should charge you with drinking. As it is, I’ll + hold you accountable for nothing worse than dreaming. Don’t do it again, + Mr. Bruce.’ Bruce sticks to his story; Bruce swears he saw the man writing + on the captain’s slate. The captain takes up the slate and looks at it. + ‘Lord save us and bless us!’ says he; ‘here the writing is, sure enough!’ + Bruce looks at it too, and sees the writing as plainly as can be, in these + words: ‘Steer to the nor’-west.’ That, and no more.—Ah, goodness me, + narrating is dry work, Mr. Germaine. With your leave, I’ll take another + drop of the sherry wine. + </p> + <p> + “Well (it’s fine old wine, that; look at the oily drops running down the + glass)—well, steering to the north-west, you will understand, was + out of the captain’s course. Nevertheless, finding no solution of the + mystery on board the ship, and the weather at the time being fine, the + captain determined, while the daylight lasted, to alter his course, and + see what came of it. Toward three o’clock in the afternoon an iceberg came + of it; with a wrecked ship stove in, and frozen fast to the ice; and the + passengers and crew nigh to death with cold and exhaustion. Wonderful + enough, you will say; but more remains behind. As the mate was helping one + of the rescued passengers up the side of the bark, who should he turn out + to be but the very man whose ghostly appearance Bruce had seen in the + captain’s cabin writing on the captain’s slate! And more than that—if + your capacity for being surprised isn’t clean worn out by this time—the + passenger recognized the bark as the very vessel which he had seen in a + dream at noon that day. He had even spoken of it to one of the officers on + board the wrecked ship when he woke. ‘We shall be rescued to-day,’ he had + said; and he had exactly described the rig of the bark hours and hours + before the vessel herself hove in view. Now you know, Mr. Germaine, how my + wife’s far-away cousin kept an appointment with a ghost, and what came of + it.” * + </p> + <p> + Concluding his story in these words, the doctor helped himself to another + glass of the “sherry wine.” I was not satisfied yet; I wanted to know + more. + </p> + <p> + “The writing on the slate,” I said. “Did it remain there, or did it vanish + like the writing in my book?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. MacGlue’s answer disappointed me. He had never asked, and had never + heard, whether the writing had remained or not. He had told me all that he + knew, and he had but one thing more to say, and that was in the nature of + a remark with a moral attached to it. “There’s a marvelous resemblance, + Mr. Germaine, between your story and Bruce’s story. The main difference, + as I see it, is this. The passenger’s appointment proved to be the + salvation of a whole ship’s company. I very much doubt whether the lady’s + appointment will prove to be the salvation of You.” + </p> + <p> + I silently reconsidered the strange narrative which had just been related + to me. Another man had seen what I had seen—had done what I proposed + to do! My mother noticed with grave displeasure the strong impression + which Mr. MacGlue had produced on my mind. + </p> + <p> + “I wish you had kept your story to yourself, doctor,” she said, sharply. + </p> + <p> + “May I ask why, madam?” + </p> + <p> + “You have confirmed my son, sir, in his resolution to go to Saint + Anthony’s Well.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. MacGlue quietly consulted his pocket almanac before he replied. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the full moon on the ninth of the month,” he said. “That gives Mr. + Germaine some days of rest, ma’am, before he takes the journey. If he + travels in his own comfortable carriage—whatever I may think, + morally speaking, of his enterprise—I can’t say, medically speaking, + that I believe it will do him much harm.” + </p> + <p> + “You know where Saint Anthony’s Well is?” I interposed. + </p> + <p> + “I must be mighty ignorant of Edinburgh not to know that,” replied the + doctor. + </p> + <p> + “Is the Well in Edinburgh, then?” + </p> + <p> + “It’s just outside Edinburgh—looks down on it, as you may say. You + follow the old street called the Canongate to the end. You turn to your + right past the famous Palace of Holyrood; you cross the Park and the + Drive, and take your way upward to the ruins of Anthony’s Chapel, on the + shoulder of the hill—and there you are! There’s a high rock behind + the chapel, and at the foot of it you will find the spring they call + Anthony’s Well. It’s thought a pretty view by moonlight; and they tell me + it’s no longer beset at night by bad characters, as it used to be in the + old time.” + </p> + <p> + My mother, in graver and graver displeasure, rose to retire to the + drawing-room. + </p> + <p> + “I confess you have disappointed me,” she said to Mr. MacGlue. “I should + have thought you would have been the last man to encourage my son in an + act of imprudence.” + </p> + <p> + “Craving your pardon, madam, your son requires no encouragement. I can see + for myself that his mind is made up. Where is the use of a person like me + trying to stop him? Dear madam, if he won’t profit by your advice, what + hope can I have that he will take mine?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. MacGlue pointed this artful compliment by a bow of the deepest + respect, and threw open the door for my mother to pass out. + </p> + <p> + When we were left together over our wine, I asked the doctor how soon I + might safely start on my journey to Edinburgh. + </p> + <p> + “Take two days to do the journey, and you may start, if you’re bent on it, + at the beginning of the week. But mind this,” added the prudent doctor, + “though I own I’m anxious to hear what comes of your expedition—understand + at the same time, so far as the lady is concerned, that I wash my hands of + the consequences.”— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * The doctor’s narrative is not imaginary. It will be found + related in full detail, and authenticated by names and + dates, in Robert Dale Owen’s very interesting work called + “Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World.” The author + gladly takes this opportunity of acknowledging his + obligations to Mr. Owen’s remarkable book. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X. SAINT ANTHONY’S WELL. + </h2> + <p> + I STOOD on the rocky eminence in front of the ruins of Saint Anthony’s + Chapel, and looked on the magnificent view of Edinburgh and of the old + Palace of Holyrood, bathed in the light of the full moon. + </p> + <p> + The Well, as the doctor’s instructions had informed me, was behind the + chapel. I waited for some minutes in front of the ruin, partly to recover + my breath after ascending the hill; partly, I own, to master the nervous + agitation which the sense of my position at that moment had aroused in me. + The woman, or the apparition of the woman—it might be either—was + perhaps within a few yards of the place that I occupied. Not a living + creature appeared in front of the chapel. Not a sound caught my ear from + any part of the solitary hill. I tried to fix my whole attention on the + beauties of the moonlit view. It was not to be done. My mind was far away + from the objects on which my eyes rested. My mind was with the woman whom + I had seen in the summer-house writing in my book. + </p> + <p> + I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps more over the broken + ground brought me within view of the Well, and of the high boulder or rock + from the foot of which the waters gushed brightly in the light of the + moon. + </p> + <p> + She was there. + </p> + <p> + I recognized her figure as she stood leaning against the rock, with her + hands crossed in front of her, lost in thought. I recognized her face as + she looked up quickly, startled by the sound of my footsteps in the deep + stillness of the night. + </p> + <p> + Was it the woman, or the apparition of the woman? I waited, looking at her + in silence. + </p> + <p> + She spoke. The sound of her voice was not the mysterious sound that I had + heard in the summer-house. It was the sound I had heard on the bridge when + we first met in the dim evening light. + </p> + <p> + “Who are you? What do you want?” + </p> + <p> + As those words passed her lips, she recognized me. “<i>You</i> here!” she + went on, advancing a step, in uncontrollable surprise. “What does this + mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I am here,” I answered, “to meet you, by your own appointment.” + </p> + <p> + She stepped back again, leaning against the rock. The moonlight shone full + upon her face. There was terror as well as astonishment in her eyes while + they now looked at me. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t understand you,” she said. “I have not seen you since you spoke + to me on the bridge.” + </p> + <p> + “Pardon me,” I replied. “I have seen you—or the appearance of you—since + that time. I heard you speak. I saw you write.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me with the strangest expression of mingled resentment and + curiosity. “What did I say?” she asked. “What did I write?” + </p> + <p> + “You said, ‘Remember me. Come to me.’ You wrote, ‘When the full moon + shines on Saint Anthony’s Well.’” + </p> + <p> + “Where?” she cried. “Where did I do that?” + </p> + <p> + “In a summer-house which stands by a waterfall,” I answered. “Do you know + the place?” + </p> + <p> + Her head sunk back against the rock. A low cry of terror burst from her. + Her arm, resting on the rock, dropped at her side. I hurriedly approached + her, in the fear that she might fall on the stony ground. + </p> + <p> + She rallied her failing strength. “Don’t touch me!” she exclaimed. “Stand + back, sir. You frighten me.” + </p> + <p> + I tried to soothe her. “Why do I frighten you? You know who I am. Can you + doubt my interest in you, after I have been the means of saving your + life?” + </p> + <p> + Her reserve vanished in an instant. She advanced without hesitation, and + took me by the hand. + </p> + <p> + “I ought to thank you,” she said. “And I do. I am not so ungrateful as I + seem. I am not a wicked woman, sir—I was mad with misery when I + tried to drown myself. Don’t distrust me! Don’t despise me!” She stopped; + I saw the tears on her cheeks. With a sudden contempt for herself, she + dashed them away. Her whole tone and manner altered once more. Her reserve + returned; she looked at me with a strange flash of suspicion and defiance + in her eyes. “Mind this!” she said, loudly and abruptly, “you were + dreaming when you thought you saw me writing. You didn’t see me; you never + heard me speak. How could I say those familiar words to a stranger like + you? It’s all your fancy—and you try to frighten me by talking of it + as if it was a real thing!” She changed again; her eyes softened to the + sad and tender look which made them so irresistibly beautiful. She drew + her cloak round her with a shudder, as if she felt the chill of the night + air. “What is the matter with me?” I heard her say to herself. “Why do I + trust this man in my dreams? And why am I ashamed of it when I wake?” + </p> + <p> + That strange outburst encouraged me. I risked letting her know that I had + overheard her last words. + </p> + <p> + “If you trust me in your dreams, you only do me justice,” I said. “Do me + justice now; give me your confidence. You are alone—you are in + trouble—you want a friend’s help. I am waiting to help you.” + </p> + <p> + She hesitated. I tried to take her hand. The strange creature drew it away + with a cry of alarm: her one great fear seemed to be the fear of letting + me touch her. + </p> + <p> + “Give me time to think of it,” she said. “You don’t know what I have got + to think of. Give me till to-morrow; and let me write. Are you staying in + Edinburgh?” + </p> + <p> + I thought it wise to be satisfied—in appearance at least—with + this concession. Taking out my card, I wrote on it in pencil the address + of the hotel at which I was staying. She read the card by the moonlight + when I put it into her hand. + </p> + <p> + “George!” she repeated to herself, stealing another look at me as the name + passed her lips. “‘George Germaine.’ I never heard of ‘Germaine.’ But + ‘George’ reminds me of old times.” She smiled sadly at some passing fancy + or remembrance in which I was not permitted to share. “There is nothing + very wonderful in your being called ‘George,’” she went on, after a while. + “The name is common enough: one meets with it everywhere as a man’s name + And yet—” Her eyes finished the sentence; her eyes said to me, “I am + not so much afraid of you, now I know that you are called ‘George.’” + </p> + <p> + So she unconsciously led me to the brink of discovery! + </p> + <p> + If I had only asked her what associations she connected with my Christian + name—if I had only persuaded her to speak in the briefest and most + guarded terms of her past life—the barrier between us, which the + change in our names and the lapse of ten years had raised, must have been + broken down; the recognition must have followed. But I never even thought + of it; and for this simple reason—I was in love with her. The purely + selfish idea of winning my way to her favorable regard by taking instant + advantage of the new interest that I had awakened in her was the one idea + which occurred to my mind. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t wait to write to me,” I said. “Don’t put it off till to-morrow. Who + knows what may happen before to-morrow? Surely I deserve some little + return for the sympathy that I feel with you? I don’t ask for much. Make + me happy by making me of some service to you before we part to-night.” + </p> + <p> + I took her hand, this time, before she was aware of me. The whole woman + seemed to yield at my touch. Her hand lay unresistingly in mine; her + charming figure came by soft gradations nearer and nearer to me; her head + almost touched my shoulder. She murmured in faint accents, broken by + sighs, “Don’t take advantage of me. I am so friendless; I am so completely + in your power.” Before I could answer, before I could move, her hand + closed on mine; her head sunk on my shoulder: she burst into tears. + </p> + <p> + Any man, not an inbred and inborn villain, would have respected her at + that moment. I put her hand on my arm and led her away gently past the + ruined chapel, and down the slope of the hill. + </p> + <p> + “This lonely place is frightening you,” I said. “Let us walk a little, and + you will soon be yourself again.” + </p> + <p> + She smiled through her tears like a child. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said, eagerly. “But not that way.” I had accidentally taken the + direction which led away from the city; she begged me to turn toward the + houses and the streets. We walked back toward Edinburgh. She eyed me, as + we went on in the moonlight, with innocent, wondering looks. “What an + unaccountable influence you have over me!” she exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Did you ever see me, did you ever hear my name, before we met that + evening at the river?” + </p> + <p> + “Never.” + </p> + <p> + “And I never heard <i>your</i> name, and never saw <i>you</i> before. + Strange! very strange! Ah! I remember somebody—only an old woman, + sir—who might once have explained it. Where shall I find the like of + her now?” + </p> + <p> + She sighed bitterly. The lost friend or relative had evidently been dear + to her. “A relation of yours?” I inquired—more to keep her talking + than because I felt any interest in any member of her family but herself. + </p> + <p> + We were again on the brink of discovery. And again it was decreed that we + were to advance no further. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t ask me about my relations!” she broke out. “I daren’t think of the + dead and gone, in the trouble that is trying me now. If I speak of the old + times at home, I shall only burst out crying again, and distress you. Talk + of something else, sir—talk of something else.” + </p> + <p> + The mystery of the apparition in the summer-house was not cleared up yet. + I took my opportunity of approaching the subject. + </p> + <p> + “You spoke a little while since of dreaming of me,” I began. “Tell me your + dream.” + </p> + <p> + “I hardly know whether it was a dream or whether it was something else,” + she answered. “I call it a dream for want of a better word.” + </p> + <p> + “Did it happen at night?” + </p> + <p> + “No. In the daytime—in the afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “Late in the afternoon?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—close on the evening.” + </p> + <p> + My memory reverted to the doctor’s story of the shipwrecked passenger, + whose ghostly “double” had appeared in the vessel that was to rescue him, + and who had himself seen that vessel in a dream. + </p> + <p> + “Do you remember the day of the month and the hour?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + She mentioned the day, and she mentioned the hour. It was the day when my + mother and I had visited the waterfall. It was the hour when I had seen + the apparition in the summer-house writing in my book! + </p> + <p> + I stopped in irrepressible astonishment. We had walked by this time nearly + as far on the way back to the city as the old Palace of Holyrood. My + companion, after a glance at me, turned and looked at the rugged old + building, mellowed into quiet beauty by the lovely moonlight. + </p> + <p> + “This is my favorite walk,” she said, simply, “since I have been in + Edinburgh. I don’t mind the loneliness. I like the perfect tranquillity + here at night.” She glanced at me again. “What is the matter?” she asked. + “You say nothing; you only look at me.” + </p> + <p> + “I want to hear more of your dream,” I said. “How did you come to be + sleeping in the daytime?” + </p> + <p> + “It is not easy to say what I was doing,” she replied, as we walked on + again. “I was miserably anxious and ill. I felt my helpless condition + keenly on that day. It was dinner-time, I remember, and I had no appetite. + I went upstairs (at the inn where I am staying), and lay down, quite worn + out, on my bed. I don’t know whether I fainted or whether I slept; I lost + all consciousness of what was going on about me, and I got some other + consciousness in its place. If this was dreaming, I can only say it was + the most vivid dream I ever had in my life.” + </p> + <p> + “Did it begin by your seeing me?” I inquired. + </p> + <p> + “It began by my seeing your drawing-book—lying open on a table in a + summer-house.” + </p> + <p> + “Can you describe the summer-house as you saw it?” + </p> + <p> + She described not only the summer-house, but the view of the waterfall + from the door. She knew the size, she knew the binding, of my sketch-book—locked + up in my desk, at that moment, at home in Perthshire! + </p> + <p> + “And you wrote in the book,” I went on. “Do you remember what you wrote?” + </p> + <p> + She looked away from me confusedly, as if she were ashamed to recall this + part of her dream. + </p> + <p> + “You have mentioned it already,” she said. “There is no need for me to go + over the words again. Tell me one thing—when <i>you</i> were at the + summer-house, did you wait a little on the path to the door before you + went in?” + </p> + <p> + I <i>had</i> waited, surprised by my first view of the woman writing in my + book. Having answered her to this effect, I asked what she had done or + dreamed of doing at the later moment when I entered the summer-house. + </p> + <p> + “I did the strangest things,” she said, in low, wondering tones. “If you + had been my brother, I could hardly have treated you more familiarly. I + beckoned to you to come to me. I even laid my hand on your bosom. I spoke + to you as I might have spoken to my oldest and dearest friend. I said, + ‘Remember me. Come to me.’ Oh, I was so ashamed of myself when I came to + my senses again, and recollected it. Was there ever such familiarity—even + in a dream—between a woman and a man whom she had only once seen, + and then as a perfect stranger?” + </p> + <p> + “Did you notice how long it was,” I asked, “from the time when you lay + down on the bed to the time when you found yourself awake again?” + </p> + <p> + “I think I can tell you,” she replied. “It was the dinner-time of the + house (as I said just now) when I went upstairs. Not long after I had come + to myself I heard a church clock strike the hour. Reckoning from one time + to the other, it must have been quite three hours from the time when I + first lay down to the time when I got up again.” + </p> + <p> + Was the clew to the mysterious disappearance of the writing to be found + here? + </p> + <p> + Looking back by the light of later discoveries, I am inclined to think + that it was. In three hours the lines traced by the apparition of her had + vanished. In three hours she had come to herself, and had felt ashamed of + the familiar manner in which she had communicated with me in her sleeping + state. While she had trusted me in the trance—trusted me because her + spirit was then free to recognize my spirit—the writing had remained + on the page. When her waking will counteracted the influence of her + sleeping will, the writing disappeared. Is this the explanation? If it is + not, where is the explanation to be found? + </p> + <p> + We walked on until we reached that part of the Canongate street in which + she lodged. We stopped at the door. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI. THE LETTER OF INTRODUCTION. + </h2> + <p> + I LOOKED at the house. It was an inn, of no great size, but of respectable + appearance. If I was to be of any use to her that night, the time had come + to speak of other subjects than the subject of dreams. + </p> + <p> + “After all that you have told me,” I said, “I will not ask you to admit me + any further into your confidence until we meet again. Only let me hear how + I can relieve your most pressing anxieties. What are your plans? Can I do + anything to help them before you go to rest to-night?” + </p> + <p> + She thanked me warmly, and hesitated, looking up the street and down the + street in evident embarrassment what to say next. + </p> + <p> + “Do you propose staying in Edinburgh?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh no! I don’t wish to remain in Scotland. I want to go much further + away. I think I should do better in London; at some respectable + milliner’s, if I could be properly recommended. I am quick at my needle, + and I understand cutting out. Or I could keep accounts, if—if + anybody would trust me.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped, and looked at me doubtingly, as if she felt far from sure, + poor soul, of winning my confidence to begin with. I acted on that hint, + with the headlong impetuosity of a man who was in love. + </p> + <p> + “I can give you exactly the recommendation you want,” I said, “whenever + you like. Now, if you would prefer it.” + </p> + <p> + Her charming features brightened with pleasure. “Oh, you are indeed a + friend to me!” she said, impulsively. Her face clouded again—she saw + my proposal in a new light. “Have I any right,” she asked, sadly, “to + accept what you offer me?” + </p> + <p> + “Let me give you the letter,” I answered, “and you can decide for yourself + whether you will use it or not.” + </p> + <p> + I put her arm again in mine, and entered the inn. + </p> + <p> + She shrunk back in alarm. What would the landlady think if she saw her + lodger enter the house at night in company with a stranger, and that + stranger a gentleman? The landlady appeared as she made the objection. + Reckless what I said or what I did, I introduced myself as her relative, + and asked to be shown into a quiet room in which I could write a letter. + After one sharp glance at me, the landlady appeared to be satisfied that + she was dealing with a gentleman. She led the way into a sort of parlor + behind the “bar,” placed writing materials on the table, looked at my + companion as only one woman can look at another under certain + circumstances, and left us by ourselves. + </p> + <p> + It was the first time I had ever been in a room with her alone. The + embarrassing sense of her position had heightened her color and brightened + her eyes. She stood, leaning one hand on the table, confused and + irresolute, her firm and supple figure falling into an attitude of + unsought grace which it was literally a luxury to look at. I said nothing; + my eyes confessed my admiration; the writing materials lay untouched + before me on the table. How long the silence might have lasted I cannot + say. She abruptly broke it. Her instinct warned her that silence might + have its dangers, in our position. She turned to me with an effort; she + said, uneasily, “I don’t think you ought to write your letter to-night, + sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” + </p> + <p> + “You know nothing of me. Surely you ought not to recommend a person who is + a stranger to you? And I am worse than a stranger. I am a miserable wretch + who has tried to commit a great sin—I have tried to destroy myself. + Perhaps the misery I was in might be some excuse for me, if you knew it. + You ought to know it. But it’s so late to-night, and I am so sadly tired—and + there are some things, sir, which it is not easy for a woman to speak of + in the presence of a man.” + </p> + <p> + Her head sunk on her bosom; her delicate lips trembled a little; she said + no more. The way to reassure and console her lay plainly enough before me, + if I chose to take it. Without stopping to think, I took it. + </p> + <p> + Reminding her that she had herself proposed writing to me when we met that + evening, I suggested that she should wait to tell the sad story of her + troubles until it was convenient to her to send me the narrative in the + form of a letter. “In the mean time,” I added, “I have the most perfect + confidence in you; and I beg as a favor that you will let me put it to the + proof. I can introduce you to a dressmaker in London who is at the head of + a large establishment, and I will do it before I leave you to-night.” + </p> + <p> + I dipped my pen in the ink as I said the words. Let me confess frankly the + lengths to which my infatuation led me. The dressmaker to whom I had + alluded had been my mother’s maid in former years, and had been + established in business with money lent by my late step-father, Mr. + Germaine. I used both their names without scruple; and I wrote my + recommendation in terms which the best of living women and the ablest of + existing dressmakers could never have hoped to merit. Will anybody find + excuses for me? Those rare persons who have been in love, and who have not + completely forgotten it yet, may perhaps find excuses for me. It matters + little; I don’t deserve them. + </p> + <p> + I handed her the open letter to read. + </p> + <p> + She blushed delightfully; she cast one tenderly grateful look at me, which + I remembered but too well for many and many an after-day. The next moment, + to my astonishment, this changeable creature changed again. Some forgotten + consideration seemed to have occurred to her. She turned pale; the soft + lines of pleasure in her face hardened, little by little; she regarded me + with the saddest look of confusion and distress. Putting the letter down + before me on the table, she said, timidly: + </p> + <p> + “Would you mind adding a postscript, sir?” + </p> + <p> + I suppressed all appearance of surprise as well as I could, and took up + the pen again. + </p> + <p> + “Would you please say,” she went on, “that I am only to be taken on trial, + at first? I am not to be engaged for more”—her voice sunk lower and + lower, so that I could barely hear the next words—“for more than + three months, certain.” + </p> + <p> + It was not in human nature—perhaps I ought to say it was not in the + nature of a man who was in my situation—to refrain from showing some + curiosity, on being asked to supplement a letter of recommendation by such + a postscript as this. + </p> + <p> + “Have you some other employment in prospect?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “None,” she answered, with her head down, and her eyes avoiding mine. + </p> + <p> + An unworthy doubt of her—the mean offspring of jealousy—found + its way into my mind. + </p> + <p> + “Have you some absent friend,” I went on, “who is likely to prove a better + friend than I am, if you only give him time?” + </p> + <p> + She lifted her noble head. Her grand, guileless gray eyes rested on me + with a look of patient reproach. + </p> + <p> + “I have not got a friend in the world,” she said. “For God’s sake, ask me + no more questions to-night!” + </p> + <p> + I rose and gave her the letter once more—with the postscript added, + in her own words. + </p> + <p> + We stood together by the table; we looked at each other in a momentary + silence. + </p> + <p> + “How can I thank you?” she murmured, softly. “Oh, sir, I will indeed be + worthy of the confidence that you have shown in me!” Her eyes moistened; + her variable color came and went; her dress heaved softly over the lovely + outline of her bosom. I don’t believe the man lives who could have + resisted her at that moment. I lost all power of restraint; I caught her + in my arms; I whispered, “I love you!” I kissed her passionately. For a + moment she lay helpless and trembling on my breast; for a moment her + fragrant lips softly returned the kiss. In an instant more it was over. + She tore herself away with a shudder that shook her from head to foot, and + threw the letter that I had given to her indignantly at my feet. + </p> + <p> + “How dare you take advantage of me! How dare you touch me!” she said. + “Take your letter back, sir; I refuse to receive it; I will never speak to + you again. You don’t know what you have done. You don’t know how deeply + you have wounded me. Oh!” she cried, throwing herself in despair on a sofa + that stood near her, “shall I ever recover my self-respect? shall I ever + forgive myself for what I have done to-night?” + </p> + <p> + I implored her pardon; I assured her of my repentance and regret in words + which did really come from my heart. The violence of her agitation more + than distressed me—I was really alarmed by it. + </p> + <p> + She composed herself after a while. She rose to her feet with modest + dignity, and silently held out her hand in token that my repentance was + accepted. + </p> + <p> + “You will give me time for atonement?” I pleaded. “You will not lose all + confidence in me? Let me see you again, if it is only to show that I am + not quite unworthy of your pardon—at your own time; in the presence + of another person, if you like.” + </p> + <p> + “I will write to you,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + I took up the letter of recommendation from the floor. + </p> + <p> + “Make your goodness to me complete,” I said. “Don’t mortify me by refusing + to take my letter.” + </p> + <p> + “I will take your letter,” she answered, quietly. “Thank you for writing + it. Leave me now, please. Good-night.” + </p> + <p> + I left her, pale and sad, with my letter in her hand. I left her, with my + mind in a tumult of contending emotions, which gradually resolved + themselves into two master-feelings as I walked on: Love, that adored her + more fervently than ever; and Hope, that set the prospect before me of + seeing her again on the next day. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII. THE DISASTERS OF MRS. VAN BRANDT. + </h2> + <p> + A MAN who passes his evening as I had passed mine, may go to bed afterward + if he has nothing better to do. But he must not rank among the number of + his reasonable anticipations the expectation of getting a night’s rest. + The morning was well advanced, and the hotel was astir, before I at last + closed my eyes in slumber. When I awoke, my watch informed me that it was + close on noon. + </p> + <p> + I rang the bell. My servant appeared with a letter in his hand. It had + been left for me, three hours since, by a lady who had driven to the hotel + door in a carriage, and had then driven away again. The man had found me + sleeping when he entered my bed-chamber, and, having received no orders to + wake me overnight, had left the letter on the sitting-room table until he + heard my bell. + </p> + <p> + Easily guessing who my correspondent was, I opened the letter. An + inclosure fell out of it—to which, for the moment, I paid no + attention. I turned eagerly to the first lines. They announced that the + writer had escaped me for the second time: early that morning she had left + Edinburgh. The paper inclosed proved to be my letter of introduction to + the dressmaker returned to me. + </p> + <p> + I was more than angry with her—I felt her second flight from me as a + downright outrage. In five minutes I had hurried on my clothes and was on + my way to the inn in the Canongate as fast as a horse could draw me. + </p> + <p> + The servants could give me no information. Her escape had been effected + without their knowledge. + </p> + <p> + The landlady, to whom I next addressed myself, deliberately declined to + assist me in any way whatever. + </p> + <p> + “I have given the lady my promise,” said this obstinate person, “to answer + not one word to any question that you may ask me about her. In my belief, + she is acting as becomes an honest woman in removing herself from any + further communication with you. I saw you through the keyhole last night, + sir. I wish you good-morning.” + </p> + <p> + Returning to my hotel, I left no attempt to discover her untried. I traced + the coachman who had driven her. He had set her down at a shop, and had + then been dismissed. I questioned the shop-keeper. He remembered that he + had sold some articles of linen to a lady with her veil down and a + traveling-bag in her hand, and he remembered no more. I circulated a + description of her in the different coach offices. Three “elegant young + ladies, with their veils down, and with traveling-bags in their hands,” + answered to the description; and which of the three was the fugitive of + whom I was in search, it was impossible to discover. In the days of + railways and electric telegraphs I might have succeeded in tracing her. In + the days of which I am now writing, she set investigation at defiance. + </p> + <p> + I read and reread her letter, on the chance that some slip of the pen + might furnish the clew which I had failed to find in any other way. Here + is the narrative that she addressed to me, copied from the original, word + for word: + </p> + <p> + “DEAR SIR—Forgive me for leaving you again as I left you in + Perthshire. After what took place last night, I have no other choice + (knowing my own weakness, and the influence that you seem to have over me) + than to thank you gratefully for your kindness, and to bid you farewell. + My sad position must be my excuse for separating myself from you in this + rude manner, and for venturing to send you back your letter of + introduction. If I use the letter, I only offer you a means of + communicating with me. For your sake, as well as for mine, this mu st not + be. I must never give you a second opportunity of saying that you love me; + I must go away, leaving no trace behind by which you can possibly discover + me. + </p> + <p> + “But I cannot forget that I owe my poor life to your compassion and your + courage. You, who saved me, have a right to know what the provocation was + that drove me to drowning myself, and what my situation is, now that I am + (thanks to you) still a living woman. You shall hear my sad story, sir; + and I will try to tell it as briefly as possible. + </p> + <p> + “I was married, not very long since, to a Dutch gentleman, whose name is + Van Brandt. Please excuse my entering into family particulars. I have + endeavored to write and tell you about my dear lost father and my old + home. But the tears come into my eyes when I think of my happy past life. + I really cannot see the lines as I try to write them. + </p> + <p> + “Let me, then, only say that Mr. Van Brandt was well recommended to my + good father before I married. I have only now discovered that he obtained + these recommendations from his friends under a false pretense, which it is + needless to trouble you by mentioning in detail. Ignorant of what he had + done, I lived with him happily. I cannot truly declare that he was the + object of my first love, but he was the one person in the world whom I had + to look up to after my father’s death. I esteemed him and respected him, + and, if I may say so without vanity, I did indeed make him a good wife. + </p> + <p> + “So the time went on, sir, prosperously enough, until the evening came + when you and I met on the bridge. + </p> + <p> + “I was out alone in our garden, trimming the shrubs, when the maid-servant + came and told me there was a foreign lady in a carriage at the door who + desired to say a word to Mrs. Van Brandt. I sent the maid on before to + show her into the sitting-room, and I followed to receive my visitor as + soon as I had made myself tidy. She was a dreadful woman, with a flushed, + fiery face and impudent, bright eyes. ‘Are you Mrs. Van Brandt?’ she said. + I answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you really married to him?’ she asked me. That + question (naturally enough, I think) upset my temper. I said, ‘How dare + you doubt it?’ She laughed in my face. ‘Send for Van Brandt,’ she said. I + went out into the passage and called him down from the room upstairs in + which he was writing. ‘Ernest,’ I said, ‘here is a person who has insulted + me. Come down directly.’ He left his room the moment he heard me. The + woman followed me out into the passage to meet him. She made him a low + courtesy. He turned deadly pale the moment he set eyes on her. That + frightened me. I said to him, ‘For God’s sake, what does this mean?’ He + took me by the arm, and he answered: ‘You shall know soon. Go back to your + gardening, and don’t return to the house till I send for you.’ His looks + were so shocking, he was so unlike himself, that I declare he daunted me. + I let him take me as far as the garden door. He squeezed my hand. ‘For my + sake, darling,’ he whispered, ‘do what I ask of you.’ I went into the + garden and sat me down on the nearest bench, and waited impatiently for + what was to come. + </p> + <p> + “How long a time passed I don’t know. My anxiety got to such a pitch at + last that I could bear it no longer. I ventured back to the house. + </p> + <p> + “I listened in the passage, and heard nothing. I went close to the parlor + door, and still there was silence. I took courage, and opened the door. + </p> + <p> + “The room was empty. There was a letter on the table. It was in my + husband’s handwriting, and it was addressed to me. I opened it and read + it. The letter told me that I was deserted, disgraced, ruined. The woman + with the fiery face and the impudent eyes was Van Brandt’s lawful wife. + She had given him his choice of going away with her at once or of being + prosecuted for bigamy. He had gone away with her—gone, and left me. + </p> + <p> + “Remember, sir, that I had lost both father and mother. I had no friends. + I was alone in the world, without a creature near to comfort or advise me. + And please to bear in mind that I have a temper which feels even the + smallest slights and injuries very keenly. Do you wonder at what I had it + in my thoughts to do that evening on the bridge? + </p> + <p> + “Mind this: I believe I should never have attempted to destroy myself if I + could only have burst out crying. No tears came to me. A dull, stunned + feeling took hold like a vise on my head and on my heart. I walked + straight to the river. I said to myself, quite calmly, as I went along, ‘<i>There</i> + is the end of it, and the sooner the better.’ + </p> + <p> + “What happened after that, you know as well as I do. I may get on to the + next morning—the morning when I so ungratefully left you at the inn + by the river-side. + </p> + <p> + “I had but one reason, sir, for going away by the first conveyance that I + could find to take me, and this was the fear that Van Brandt might + discover me if I remained in Perthshire. The letter that he had left on + the table was full of expressions of love and remorse, to say nothing of + excuses for his infamous behavior to me. He declared that he had been + entrapped into a private marriage with a profligate woman when he was + little more than a lad. They had long since separated by common consent. + When he first courted me, he had every reason to believe that she was + dead. How he had been deceived in this particular, and how she had + discovered that he had married me, he had yet to find out. Knowing her + furious temper, he had gone away with her, as the one means of preventing + an application to the justices and a scandal in the neighborhood. In a day + or two he would purchase his release from her by an addition to the + allowance which she had already received from him: he would return to me + and take me abroad, out of the way of further annoyance. I was his wife in + the sight of Heaven; I was the only woman he had ever loved; and so on, + and so on. + </p> + <p> + “Do you now see, sir, the risk that I ran of his discovering me if I + remained in your neighborhood? The bare thought of it made my flesh creep. + I was determined never again to see the man who had so cruelly deceived + me. I am in the same mind still—with this difference, that I might + consent to see him, if I could be positively assured first of the death of + his wife. That is not likely to happen. Let me get on with my letter, and + tell you what I did on my arrival in Edinburgh. + </p> + <p> + “The coachman recommended me to the house in the Canongate where you found + me lodging. I wrote the same day to relatives of my father, living in + Glasgow, to tell them where I was, and in what a forlorn position I found + myself. + </p> + <p> + “I was answered by return of post. The head of the family and his wife + requested me to refrain from visiting them in Glasgow. They had business + then in hand which would take them to Edinburgh, and I might expect to see + them both with the least possible delay. + </p> + <p> + “They arrived, as they had promised, and they expressed themselves civilly + enough. Moreover, they did certainly lend me a small sum of money when + they found how poorly my purse was furnished. But I don’t think either + husband or wife felt much for me. They recommended me, at parting, to + apply to my father’s other relatives, living in England. I may be doing + them an injustice, but I fancy they were eager to get me (as the common + phrase is) off their hands. + </p> + <p> + “The day when the departure of my relatives left me friendless was also + the day, sir, when I had that dream or vision of you which I have already + related. I lingered on at the house in the Canongate, partly because the + landlady was kind to me, partly because I was so depressed by my position + that I really did not know what to do next. + </p> + <p> + “In this wretched condition you discovered me on that favorite walk of + mine from Holyrood to Saint Anthony’s Well. Believe me, your kind interest + in my fortunes has not been thrown away on an ungrateful woman. I could + ask Providence for no greater blessing than to find a brother and a friend + in you. You have yourself destroyed that hope by what you said and did + when we were together in the parlor. I don’t blame you: I am afraid my + manner (without my knowing it) might have seemed to give you some + encouragement. I am only sorry—very, very sorry—to have no + honorable choice left but never to see you again. + </p> + <p> + “After much thin king, I have made up my mind to speak to those other + relatives of my father to whom I have not yet applied. The chance that + they may help me to earn an honest living is the one chance that I have + left. God bless you, Mr. Germaine! I wish you prosperity and happiness + from the bottom of my heart; and remain, your grateful servant, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “M. VAN BRANDT. +</pre> + <p> + “P.S.—I sign my own name (or the name which I once thought was mine) + as a proof that I have honestly written the truth about myself, from first + to last. For the future I must, for safety’s sake, live under some other + name. I should like to go back to my name when I was a happy girl at home. + But Van Brandt knows it; and, besides, I have (no matter how innocently) + disgraced it. Good-by again, sir; and thank you again.” + </p> + <p> + So the letter concluded. + </p> + <p> + I read it in the temper of a thoroughly disappointed and thoroughly + unreasonable man. Whatever poor Mrs. Van Brandt had done, she had done + wrong. It was wrong of her, in the first place, to have married at all. It + was wrong of her to contemplate receiving Mr. Van Brandt again, even if + his lawful wife had died in the interval. It was wrong of her to return my + letter of introduction, after I had given myself the trouble of altering + it to suit her capricious fancy. It was wrong of her to take an absurdly + prudish view of a stolen kiss and a tender declaration, and to fly from me + as if I were as great a scoundrel as Mr. Van Brandt himself. And last, and + more than all, it was wrong of her to sign her Christian name in initial + only. Here I was, passionately in love with a woman, and not knowing by + what fond name to identify her in my thoughts! “M. Van Brandt!” I might + call her Maria, Margaret, Martha, Mabel, Magdalen, Mary—no, not + Mary. The old boyish love was dead and gone, but I owed some respect to + the memory of it. If the “Mary” of my early days were still living, and if + I had met her, would she have treated me as this woman had treated me? + Never! It was an injury to “Mary” to think even of that heartless creature + by her name. Why think of her at all? Why degrade myself by trying to + puzzle out a means of tracing her in her letter? It was sheer folly to + attempt to trace a woman who had gone I knew not whither, and who herself + informed me that she meant to pass under an assumed name. Had I lost all + pride, all self-respect? In the flower of my age, with a handsome fortune, + with the world before me, full of interesting female faces and charming + female figures, what course did it become me to take? To go back to my + country-house, and mope over the loss of a woman who had deliberately + deserted me? or to send for a courier and a traveling carriage, and forget + her gayly among foreign people and foreign scenes? In the state of my + temper at that moment, the idea of a pleasure tour in Europe fired my + imagination. I first astonished the people at the hotel by ordering all + further inquiries after the missing Mrs. Van Brandt to be stopped; and + then I opened my writing desk and wrote to tell my mother frankly and + fully of my new plans. + </p> + <p> + The answer arrived by return of post. + </p> + <p> + To my surprise and delight, my good mother was not satisfied with only + formally approving of my new resolution. With an energy which I had not + ventured to expect from her, she had made all her arrangements for leaving + home, and had started for Edinburgh to join me as my traveling companion. + “You shall not go away alone, George,” she wrote, “while I have strength + and spirits to keep you company.” + </p> + <p> + In three days from the time when I read those words our preparations were + completed, and we were on our way to the Continent. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII. NOT CURED YET. + </h2> + <p> + WE visited France, Germany, and Italy; and we were absent from England + nearly two years. + </p> + <p> + Had time and change justified my confidence in them? Was the image of Mrs. + Van Brandt an image long since dismissed from my mind? + </p> + <p> + No! Do what I might, I was still (in the prophetic language of Dame + Dermody) taking the way to reunion with my kindred spirit in the time to + come. For the first two or three months of our travels I was haunted by + dreams of the woman who had so resolutely left me. Seeing her in my sleep, + always graceful, always charming, always modestly tender toward me, I + waited in the ardent hope of again beholding the apparition of her in my + waking hours—of again being summoned to meet her at a given place + and time. My anticipations were not fulfilled; no apparition showed + itself. The dreams themselves grew less frequent and less vivid and then + ceased altogether. Was this a sign that the days of her adversity were at + an end? Having no further need of help, had she no further remembrance of + the man who had tried to help her? Were we never to meet again? + </p> + <p> + I said to myself: “I am unworthy of the name of man if I don’t forget her + now!” She still kept her place in my memory, say what I might. + </p> + <p> + I saw all the wonders of Nature and Art which foreign countries could show + me. I lived in the dazzling light of the best society that Paris, Rome, + Vienna could assemble. I passed hours on hours in the company of the most + accomplished and most beautiful women whom Europe could produce—and + still that solitary figure at Saint Anthony’s Well, those grand gray eyes + that had rested on me so sadly at parting, held their place in my memory, + stamped their image on my heart. + </p> + <p> + Whether I resisted my infatuation, or whether I submitted to it, I still + longed for her. I did all I could to conceal the state of my mind from my + mother. But her loving eyes discovered the secret: she saw that I + suffered, and suffered with me. More than once she said: “George, the good + end is not to be gained by traveling; let us go home.” More than once I + answered, with the bitter and obstinate resolution of despair: “No. Let us + try more new people and more new scenes.” It was only when I found her + health and strength beginning to fail under the stress of continual + traveling that I consented to abandon the hopeless search after oblivion, + and to turn homeward at last. + </p> + <p> + I prevailed on my mother to wait and rest at my house in London before she + returned to her favorite abode at the country-seat in Perthshire. It is + needless to say that I remained in town with her. My mother now + represented the one interest that held me nobly and endearingly to life. + Politics, literature, agriculture—the customary pursuits of a man in + my position—had none of them the slightest attraction for me. + </p> + <p> + We had arrived in London at what is called “the height of the season.” + Among the operatic attractions of that year—I am writing of the days + when the ballet was still a popular form of public entertainment—there + was a certain dancer whose grace and beauty were the objects of universal + admiration. I was asked if I had seen her, wherever I went, until my + social position, as the one man who was indifferent to the reigning + goddess of the stage, became quite unendurable. On the next occasion when + I was invited to take a seat in a friend’s box, I accepted the proposal; + and (far from willingly) I went the way of the world—in other words, + I went to the opera. + </p> + <p> + The first part of the performance had concluded when we got to the + theater, and the ballet had not yet begun. My friends amused themselves + with looking for familiar faces in the boxes and stalls. I took a chair in + a corner and waited, with my mind far away from the theater, from the + dancing that was to come. The lady who sat nearest to me (like ladies in + general) disliked the neighborhood of a silent man. She determined to make + me talk to her. + </p> + <p> + “Do tell me, Mr. Germaine,” she said. “Did you ever see a theater anywhere + so full as this theater is to-night?” + </p> + <p> + She handed me her opera-glass as she spoke. I moved to the front of the + box to look at the audience. + </p> + <p> + It was certainty a wonderful sight. Every available atom of space (as I + gradually raised the glass from the floor to the ceiling of the building) + appeared to be occupied. Looking upward and upward, my range of view + gradually reached the gallery. Even at that distance, the excellent glass + which had been put into my hands brought the faces of the audience close + to me. I looked first at the persons who occupied the front row of seats + in the gallery stalls. + </p> + <p> + Moving the opera-glass slowly along the semicircle formed by the seats, I + suddenly stopped when I reached the middle. + </p> + <p> + My heart gave a great leap as if it would bound out of my body. There was + no mistaking <i>that</i> face among the commonplace faces near it. I had + discovered Mrs. Van Brandt! + </p> + <p> + She sat in front—but not alone. There was a man in the stall + immediately behind her, who bent over her and spoke to her from time to + time. She listened to him, so far as I could see, with something of a sad + and weary look. Who was the man? I might, or might not, find that out. + Under any circumstances, I determined to speak to Mrs. Van Brandt. + </p> + <p> + The curtain rose for the ballet. I made the best excuse I could to my + friends, and instantly left the box. + </p> + <p> + It was useless to attempt to purchase my admission to the gallery. My + money was refused. There was not even standing room left in that part of + the theater. + </p> + <p> + But one alternative remained. I returned to the street, to wait for Mrs. + Van Brandt at the gallery door until the performance was over. + </p> + <p> + Who was the man in attendance on her—the man whom I had seen sitting + behind her, and talking familiarly over her shoulder? While I paced + backward and forward before the door, that one question held possession of + my mind, until the oppression of it grew beyond endurance. I went back to + my friends in the box, simply and solely to look at the man again. + </p> + <p> + What excuses I made to account for my strange conduct I cannot now + remember. Armed once more with the lady’s opera-glass (I borrowed it and + kept it without scruple), I alone, of all that vast audience, turned my + back on the stage, and riveted my attention on the gallery stalls. + </p> + <p> + There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearance spell-bound by + the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. Van Brandt, on the contrary, + seemed to find but little attraction in the spectacle presented by the + stage. She looked at the dancing (so far as I could see) in an absent, + weary manner. When the applause broke out in a perfect frenzy of cries and + clapping of hands, she sat perfectly unmoved by the enthusiasm which + pervaded the theater. The man behind her (annoyed, as I supposed, by the + marked indifference which she showed to the performance) tapped her + impatiently on the shoulder, as if he thought that she was quite capable + of falling asleep in her stall. The familiarity of the action—confirming + the suspicion in my mind which had already identified him with Van Brandt—so + enraged me that I said or did something which obliged one of the gentlemen + in the box to interfere. “If you can’t control yourself,” he whispered, + “you had better leave us.” He spoke with the authority of an old friend. I + had sense enough left to take his advice, and return to my post at the + gallery door. + </p> + <p> + A little before midnight the performance ended. The audience began to pour + out of the theater. + </p> + <p> + I drew back into a corner behind the door, facing the gallery stairs, and + watched for her. After an interval which seemed to be endless, she and her + companion appeared, slowly descending the stairs. She wore a long dark + cloak; her head was protected by a quaintly shaped hood, which looked (on + <i>her</i>) the most becoming head-dress that a woman could wear. As the + two passed me, I heard the man speak to her in a tone of sulky annoyance. + </p> + <p> + “It’s wasting money,” he said, “to go to the expense of taking <i>you</i> + to the opera.” + </p> + <p> + “I am not well,” she answered with her head down and her eyes on the + ground. “I am out of spirits to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you ride home or walk?” + </p> + <p> + “I will walk, if you please.” + </p> + <p> + I followed them unperceived, waiting to present myself to her until the + crowd about them had dispersed. In a few minutes they turned into a quiet + by-street. I quickened my pace until I was close at her side, and then I + took off my hat and spoke to her. + </p> + <p> + She recognized me with a cry of astonishment. For an instant her face + brightened radiantly with the loveliest expression of delight that I ever + saw on any human countenance. The moment after, all was changed. The + charming features saddened and hardened. She stood before me like a woman + overwhelmed by shame—without uttering a word, without taking my + offered hand. + </p> + <p> + Her companion broke the silence. + </p> + <p> + “Who is this gentleman?” he asked, speaking in a foreign accent, with an + under-bred insolence of tone and manner. + </p> + <p> + She controlled herself the moment he addressed her. “This is Mr. + Germaine,” she answered: “a gentleman who was very kind to me in + Scotland.” She raised her eyes for a moment to mine, and took refuge, poor + soul, in a conventionally polite inquiry after my health. “I hope you are + quite well, Mr. Germaine,” said the soft, sweet voice, trembling + piteously. + </p> + <p> + I made the customary reply, and explained that I had seen her at the + opera. “Are you staying in London?” I asked. “May I have the honor of + calling on you?” + </p> + <p> + Her companion answered for her before she could speak. + </p> + <p> + “My wife thanks you, sir, for the compliment you pay her. She doesn’t + receive visitors. We both wish you good-night.” + </p> + <p> + Saying those words, he took off his hat with a sardonic assumption of + respect; and, holding her arm in his, forced her to walk on abruptly with + him. Feeling certainly assured by this time that the man was no other than + Van Brandt, I was on the point of answering him sharply, when Mrs. Van + Brandt checked the rash words as they rose to my lips. + </p> + <p> + “For my sake!” she whispered, over her shoulder, with an imploring look + that instantly silenced me. After all, she was free (if she liked) to go + back to the man who had so vilely deceived and deserted her. I bowed and + left them, feeling with no common bitterness the humiliation of entering + into rivalry with Mr. Van Brandt. + </p> + <p> + I crossed to the other side of the street. Before I had taken three steps + away from her, the old infatuation fastened its hold on me again. I + submitted, without a struggle against myself, to the degradation of + turning spy and following them home. Keeping well behind, on the opposite + side of the way, I tracked them to their own door, and entered in my + pocket-book the name of the street and the number of the house. + </p> + <p> + The hardest critic who reads these lines cannot feel more contemptuously + toward me than I felt toward myself. Could I still love a woman after she + had deliberately preferred to me a scoundrel who had married her while he + was the husband of another wife? Yes! Knowing what I now knew, I felt that + I loved her just as dearly as ever. It was incredible, it was shocking; + but it was true. For the first time in my life, I tried to take refuge + from my sense of my own degradation in drink. I went to my club, and + joined a convivial party at a supper table, and poured glass after glass + of champagne down my throat, without feeling the slightest sense of + exhilaration, without losing for an instant the consciousness of my own + contemptible conduct. I went to my bed in despair; and through the wakeful + night I weakly cursed the fatal evening at the river-side when I had met + her for the first time. But revile her as I might, despise myself as I + might, I loved her—I loved her still! + </p> + <p> + Among the letters laid on my table the next morning there were two which + must find their place in this narrative. + </p> + <p> + The first letter was in a handwriting which I had seen once before, at the + hotel in Edinburgh. The writer was Mrs. Van Brandt. + </p> + <p> + “For your own sake” (the letter ran) “make no attempt to see me, and take + no notice of an invitation which I fear you will receive with this note. I + am living a degraded life. I have sunk beneath your notice. You owe it to + yourself, sir, to forget the miserable woman who now writes to you for the + last time, and bids you gratefully a last farewell.” + </p> + <p> + Those sad lines were signed in initials only. It is needless to say that + they merely strengthened my resolution to see her at all hazards. I kissed + the paper on which her hand had rested, and then I turned to the second + letter. It contained the “invitation” to which my correspondent had + alluded, and it was expressed in these terms: + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Van Brandt presents his compliments to Mr. Germaine, and begs to + apologize for the somewhat abrupt manner in which he received Mr. + Germaine’s polite advances. Mr. Van Brandt suffers habitually from nervous + irritability, and he felt particularly ill last night. He trusts Mr. + Germaine will receive this candid explanation in the spirit in which it is + offered; and he begs to add that Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted to + receive Mr. Germaine whenever he may find it convenient to favor her with + a visit.” + </p> + <p> + That Mr. Van Brandt had some sordid interest of his own to serve in + writing this grotesquely impudent composition, and that the unhappy woman + who bore his name was heartily ashamed of the proceeding on which he had + ventured, were conclusions easily drawn after reading the two letters. The + suspicion of the man and of his motives which I naturally felt produced no + hesitation in my mind as to the course which I had determined to pursue. + On the contrary, I rejoiced that my way to an interview with Mrs. Van + Brandt was smoothed, no matter with what motives, by Mr. Van Brandt + himself. + </p> + <p> + I waited at home until noon, and then I could wait no longer. Leaving a + message of excuse for my mother (I had just sense of shame enough left to + shrink from facing her), I hastened away to profit by my invitation on the + very day when I received it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV. MRS. VAN BRANDT AT HOME. + </h2> + <p> + As I lifted my hand to ring the house bell, the door was opened from + within, and no less a person than Mr. Van Brandt himself stood before me. + He had his hat on. We had evidently met just as he was going out. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir, how good this is of you! You present the best of all replies + to my letter in presenting yourself. Mrs. Van Brandt is at home. Mrs. Van + Brandt will be delighted. Pray walk in.” + </p> + <p> + He threw open the door of a room on the ground-floor. His politeness was + (if possible) even more offensive than his insolence. “Be seated, Mr. + Germaine, I beg of you.” He turned to the open door, and called up the + stairs, in a loud and confident voice: + </p> + <p> + “Mary! come down directly.” + </p> + <p> + “Mary”! I knew her Christian name at last, and knew it through Van Brandt. + No words can tell how the name jarred on me, spoken by his lips. For the + first time for years past my mind went back to Mary Dermody and Greenwater + Broad. The next moment I heard the rustling of Mrs. Van Brandt’s dress on + the stairs. As the sound caught my ear, the old times and the old faces + vanished again from my thoughts as completely as if they had never + existed. What had <i>she</i> in common with the frail, shy little child, + her namesake, of other days? What similarity was perceivable in the sooty + London lodging-house to remind me of the bailiff’s flower-scented cottage + by the shores of the lake? + </p> + <p> + Van Brandt took off his hat, and bowed to me with sickening servility. + </p> + <p> + “I have a business appointment,” he said, “which it is impossible to put + off. Pray excuse me. Mrs. Van Brandt will do the honors. Good morning.” + </p> + <p> + The house door opened and closed again. The rustling of the dress came + slowly nearer and nearer. She stood before me. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Germaine!” she exclaimed, starting back, as if the bare sight of me + repelled her. “Is this honorable? Is this worthy of you? You allow me to + be entrapped into receiving you, and you accept as your accomplice Mr. Van + Brandt! Oh, sir, I have accustomed myself to look up to you as a + high-minded man. How bitterly you have disappointed me!” + </p> + <p> + Her reproaches passed by me unheeded. They only heightened her color; they + only added a new rapture to the luxury of looking at her. + </p> + <p> + “If you loved me as faithfully as I love you,” I said, “you would + understand why I am here. No sacrifice is too great if it brings me into + your presence again after two years of absence.” + </p> + <p> + She suddenly approached me, and fixed her eyes in eager scrutiny on my + face. + </p> + <p> + “There must be some mistake,” she said. “You cannot possibly have received + my letter, or you have not read it?” + </p> + <p> + “I have received it, and I have read it.” + </p> + <p> + “And Van Brandt’s letter—you have read that too?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + She sat down by the table, and, leaning her arms on it, covered her face + with her hands. My answers seemed not only to have distressed, but to have + perplexed her. “Are men all alike?” I heard her say. “I thought I might + trust in <i>his</i> sense of what was due to himself and of what was + compassionate toward me.” + </p> + <p> + I closed the door and seated myself by her side. She removed her hands + from her face when she felt me near her. She looked at me with a cold and + steady surprise. + </p> + <p> + “What are you going to do?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to try if I can recover my place in your estimation,” I said. + “I am going to ask your pity for a man whose whole heart is yours, whose + whole life is bound up in you.” + </p> + <p> + She started to her feet, and looked round her incredulously, as if + doubting whether she had rightly heard and rightly interpreted my last + words. Before I could speak again, she suddenly faced me, and struck her + open hand on the table with a passionate resolution which I now saw in her + for the first time. + </p> + <p> + “Stop!” she cried. “There must be an end to this. And an end there shall + be. Do you know who that man is who has just left the house? Answer me, + Mr. Germaine! I am speaking in earnest.” + </p> + <p> + There was no choice but to answer her. She was indeed in earnest—vehemently + in earnest. + </p> + <p> + “His letter tells me,” I said, “that he is Mr. Van Brandt.” + </p> + <p> + She sat down again, and turned her face away from me. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know how he came to write to you?” she asked. “Do you know what + made him invite you to this house?” + </p> + <p> + I thought of the suspicion that had crossed my mind when I read Van + Brandt’s letter. I made no reply. + </p> + <p> + “You force me to tell you the truth,” she went on. “He asked me who you + were, last night on our way home. I knew that you were rich, and that <i>he</i> + wanted money. I told him I knew nothing of your position in the world. He + was too cunning to believe me; he went out to the public-house and looked + at a directory. He came back and said, ‘Mr. Germaine has a house in + Berkeley Square and a country-seat in the Highlands. He is not a man for a + poor devil like me to offend; I mean to make a friend of him, and I expect + you to make a friend of him too.’ He sat down and wrote to you. I am + living under that man’s protection, Mr. Germaine. His wife is not dead, as + you may suppose; she is living, and I know her to be living. I wrote to + you that I was beneath your notice, and you have obliged me to tell you + why. Am I sufficiently degraded to bring you to your senses?” + </p> + <p> + I drew closer to her. She tried to get up and leave me. I knew my power + over her, and used it (as any man in my place would have used it) without + scruple. I took her hand. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t believe you have voluntarily degraded yourself,” I said. “You + have been forced into your present position: there are circumstances which + excuse you, and which you are purposely keeping back from me. Nothing will + convince me that you are a base woman. Should I love you as I love you, if + you were really unworthy of me?” + </p> + <p> + She struggled to free her hand; I still held it. She tried to change the + subject. “There is one thing you haven’t told me yet,” she said, with a + faint, forced smile. “Have you seen the apparition of me again since I + left you?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Have <i>you</i> ever seen <i>me</i> again, as you saw me in your + dream at the inn in Edinburgh?” + </p> + <p> + “Never. Our visions of each other have left us. Can you tell why?” + </p> + <p> + If we had continued to speak on this subject, we must surely have + recognized each other. But the subject dropped. Instead of answering her + question, I drew her nearer to me—I returned to the forbidden + subject of my love. + </p> + <p> + “Look at me,” I pleaded, “and tell me the truth. Can you see me, can you + hear me, and do you feel no answering sympathy in your own heart? Do you + really care nothing for me? Have you never once thought of me in all the + time that has passed since we last met?” + </p> + <p> + I spoke as I felt—fervently, passionately. She made a last effort to + repel me, and yielded even as she made it. Her hand closed on mine, a low + sigh fluttered on her lips. She answered with a sudden self-abandonment; + she recklessly cast herself loose from the restraints which had held her + up to this time. + </p> + <p> + “I think of you perpetually,” she said. “I was thinking of you at the + opera last night. My heart leaped in me when I heard your voice in the + street.” + </p> + <p> + “You love me!” I whispered. + </p> + <p> + “Love you!” she repeated. “My whole heart goes out to you in spite of + myself. Degraded as I am, unworthy as I am—knowing as I do that + nothing can ever come of it—I love you! I love you!” + </p> + <p> + She threw her arms round my neck, and held me to her with all her + strength. The moment after, she dropped on her knees. “Oh, don’t tempt + me!” she murmured. “Be merciful—and leave me.” + </p> + <p> + I was beside myself. I spoke as recklessly to her as she had spoken to me. + </p> + <p> + “Prove that you love me,” I said. “Let me rescue you from the degradation + of living with that man. Leave him at once and forever. Leave him, and + come with me to a future that is worthy of you—your future as my + wife.” + </p> + <p> + “Never!” she answered, crouching low at my feet. + </p> + <p> + “Why not? What obstacle is there?” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t tell you—I daren’t tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you write it?” + </p> + <p> + “No, I can’t even write it—to <i>you</i>. Go, I implore you, before + Van Brandt comes back. Go, if you love me and pity me.” + </p> + <p> + She had roused my jealousy. I positively refused to leave her. + </p> + <p> + “I insist on knowing what binds you to that man,” I said. “Let him come + back! If <i>you</i> won’t answer my question, I will put it to <i>him</i>.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me wildly, with a cry of terror. She saw my resolution in my + face. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t frighten me,” she said. “Let me think.” + </p> + <p> + She reflected for a moment. Her eyes brightened, as if some new way out of + the difficulty had occurred to her. + </p> + <p> + “Have you a mother living?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you think she would come and see me?” + </p> + <p> + “I am sure she would if I asked her.” + </p> + <p> + She considered with herself once more. “I will tell your mother what the + obstacle is,” she said, thoughtfully. + </p> + <p> + “When?” + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow, at this time.” + </p> + <p> + She raised herself on her knees; the tears suddenly filled her eyes. She + drew me to her gently. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “You will never come here + again. Kiss me for the last time.” + </p> + <p> + My lips had barely touched hers, when she started to her feet and snatched + up my hat from the chair on which I had placed it. + </p> + <p> + “Take your hat,” she said. “He has come back.” + </p> + <p> + My duller sense of hearing had discovered nothing. I rose and took my hat + to quiet her. At the same moment the door of the room opened suddenly and + softly. Mr. Van Brandt came in. I saw in his face that he had some vile + motive of his own for trying to take us by surprise, and that the result + of the experiment had disappointed him. + </p> + <p> + “You are not going yet?” he said, speaking to me with his eye on Mrs. Van + Brandt. “I have hurried over my business in the hope of prevailing on you + to stay and take lunch with us. Put down your hat, Mr. Germaine. No + ceremony!” + </p> + <p> + “You are very good,” I answered. “My time is limited to-day. I must beg + you and Mrs. Van Brandt to excuse me.” + </p> + <p> + I took leave of her as I spoke. She turned deadly pale when she shook + hands with me at parting. Had she any open brutality to dread from Van + Brandt as soon as my back was turned? The bare suspicion of it made my + blood boil. But I thought of <i>her</i>. In her interests, the wise thing + and the merciful thing to do was to conciliate the fellow before I left + the house. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry not to be able to accept your invitation,” I said, as we + walked together to the door. “Perhaps you will give me another chance?” + </p> + <p> + His eyes twinkled cunningly. “What do you say to a quiet little dinner + here?” he asked. “A slice of mutton, you know, and a bottle of good wine. + Only our three selves, and one old friend of mine to make up four. We will + have a rubber of whist in the evening. Mary and you partners—eh? + When shall it be? Shall we say the day after to-morrow?” + </p> + <p> + She had followed us to the door, keeping behind Van Brandt while he was + speaking to me. When he mentioned the “old friend” and the “rubber of + whist,” her face expressed the strongest emotions of shame and disgust. + The next moment (when she had heard him fix the date of the dinner for + “the day after to-morrow”) her features became composed again, as if a + sudden sense of relief had come to her. What did the change mean? + “To-morrow” was the day she had appointed for seeing my mother. Did she + really believe, when I had heard what passed at the interview, that I + should never enter the house again, and never attempt to see her more? And + was this the secret of her composure when she heard the date of the dinner + appointed for “the day after to-morrow”? + </p> + <p> + Asking myself these questions, I accepted my invitation, and left the + house with a heavy heart. That farewell kiss, that sudden composure when + the day of the dinner was fixed, weighed on my spirits. I would have given + twelve years of my life to have annihilated the next twelve hours. + </p> + <p> + In this frame of mind I reached home, and presented myself in my mother’s + sitting-room. + </p> + <p> + “You have gone out earlier than usual to-day,” she said. “Did the fine + weather tempt you, my dear?” She paused, and looked at me more closely. + “George!” she exclaimed, “what has happened to you? Where have you been?” + </p> + <p> + I told her the truth as honestly as I have told it here. + </p> + <p> + The color deepened in my mother’s face. She looked at me, and spoke to me + with a severity which was rare indeed in my experience of her. + </p> + <p> + “Must I remind you, for the first time in your life, of what is due to + your mother?” she asked. “Is it possible that you expect me to visit a + woman, who, by her own confession—” + </p> + <p> + “I expect you to visit a woman who has only to say the word and to be your + daughter-in-law,” I interposed. “Surely I am not asking what is unworthy + of you, if I ask that?” + </p> + <p> + My mother looked at me in blank dismay. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean, George, that you have offered her marriage?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “And she has said No?” + </p> + <p> + “She has said No, because there is some obstacle in her way. I have tried + vainly to make her explain herself. She has promised to confide everything + to <i>you</i>.” + </p> + <p> + The serious nature of the emergency had its effect. My mother yielded. She + handed me the little ivory tablets on which she was accustomed to record + her engagements. “Write down the name and address,” she said resignedly. + </p> + <p> + “I will go with you,” I answered, “and wait in the carriage at the door. I + want to hear what has passed between you and Mrs. Van Brandt the instant + you have left her.” + </p> + <p> + “Is it as serious as that, George?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, mother, it is as serious as that.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV. THE OBSTACLE BEATS ME. + </h2> + <p> + HOW long was I left alone in the carriage at the door of Mrs. Van Brandt’s + lodgings? Judging by my sensations, I waited half a life-time. Judging by + my watch, I waited half an hour. + </p> + <p> + When my mother returned to me, the hope which I had entertained of a happy + result from her interview with Mrs. Van Brandt was a hope abandoned before + she had opened her lips. I saw, in her face, that an obstacle which was + beyond my power of removal did indeed stand between me and the dearest + wish of my life. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me the worst,” I said, as we drove away from the house, “and tell it + at once.” + </p> + <p> + “I must tell it to you, George,” my mother answered, sadly, “as she told + it to me. She begged me herself to do that. ‘We must disappoint him,’ she + said, ‘but pray let it be done as gently as possible.’ Beginning in those + words, she confided to me the painful story which you know already—the + story of her marriage. From that she passed to her meeting with you at + Edinburgh, and to the circumstances which have led her to live as she is + living now. This latter part of her narrative she especially requested me + to repeat to you. Do you feel composed enough to hear it now? Or would you + rather wait?” + </p> + <p> + “Let me hear it now, mother; and tell it, as nearly as you can, in her own + words.” + </p> + <p> + “I will repeat what she said to me, my dear, as faithfully as I can. After + speaking of her father’s death, she told me that she had only two + relatives living. ‘I have a married aunt in Glasgow, and a married aunt in + London,’ she said. ‘When I left Edinburgh, I went to my aunt in London. + She and my father had not been on good terms together; she considered that + my father had neglected her. But his death had softened her toward him and + toward me. She received me kindly, and she got me a situation in a shop. I + kept my situation for three months, and then I was obliged to leave it.’” + </p> + <p> + My mother paused. I thought directly of the strange postscript which Mrs. + Van Brandt had made me add to the letter that I wrote for her at the + Edinburgh inn. In that case also she had only contemplated remaining in + her employment for three months’ time. + </p> + <p> + “Why was she obliged to leave her situation?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I put that question to her myself,” replied my mother. “She made no + direct reply—she changed color, and looked confused. ‘I will tell + you afterward, madam,’ she said. ‘Please let me go on now. My aunt was + angry with me for leaving my employment—and she was more angry + still, when I told her the reason. She said I had failed in duty toward + her in not speaking frankly at first. We parted coolly. I had saved a + little money from my wages; and I did well enough while my savings lasted. + When they came to an end, I tried to get employment again, and I failed. + My aunt said, and said truly, that her husband’s income was barely enough + to support his family: she could do nothing for me, and I could do nothing + for myself. I wrote to my aunt at Glasgow, and received no answer. + Starvation stared me in the face, when I saw in a newspaper an + advertisement addressed to me by Mr. Van Brandt. He implored me to write + to him; he declared that his life without me was too desolate to be + endured; he solemnly promised that there should be no interruption to my + tranquillity if I would return to him. If I had only had myself to think + of, I would have begged my bread in the streets rather than return to him—‘” + </p> + <p> + I interrupted the narrative at that point. + </p> + <p> + “What other person could she have had to think of?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Is it possible, George,” my mother rejoined, “that you have no suspicion + of what she was alluding to when she said those words?” + </p> + <p> + The question passed by me unheeded: my thoughts were dwelling bitterly on + Van Brandt and his advertisement. “She answered the advertisement, of + course?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “And she saw Mr. Van Brandt,” my mother went on. “She gave me no detailed + account of the interview between them. ‘He reminded me,’ she said, ‘of + what I knew to be true—that the woman who had entrapped him into + marrying her was an incurable drunkard, and that his ever living with her + again was out of the question. Still she was alive, and she had a right to + the name at least of his wife. I won’t attempt to excuse my returning to + him, knowing the circumstances as I did. I will only say that I could see + no other choice before me, in my position at the time. It is needless to + trouble you with what I have suffered since, or to speak of what I may + suffer still. I am a lost woman. Be under no alarm, madam, about your son. + I shall remember proudly to the end of my life that he once offered me the + honor and the happiness of becoming his wife; but I know what is due to + him and to you. I have seen him for the last time. The one thing that + remains to be done is to satisfy him that our marriage is impossible. You + are a mother; you will understand why I reveal the obstacle which stands + between us—not to him, but to you.’ She rose saying those words, and + opened the folding-doors which led from the parlor into a back room. After + an absence of a few moments only, she returned.” + </p> + <p> + At that crowning point in the narrative, my mother stopped. Was she afraid + to go on? or did she think it needless to say more? + </p> + <p> + “Well?” I said. + </p> + <p> + “Must I really tell it to you in words, George? Can’t you guess how it + ended, even yet?” + </p> + <p> + There were two difficulties in the way of my understanding her. I had a + man’s bluntness of perception, and I was half maddened by suspense. + Incredible as it may appear, I was too dull to guess the truth even now. + </p> + <p> + “When she returned to me,” my mother resumed, “she was not alone. She had + with her a lovely little girl, just old enough to walk with the help of + her mother’s hand. She tenderly kissed the child, and then she put it on + my lap. ‘There is my only comfort,’ she said, simply; ‘and there is the + obstacle to my ever becoming Mr. Germaine’s wife.’” + </p> + <p> + Van Brandt’s child! Van Brandt’s child! + </p> + <p> + The postscript which she had made me add to my letter; the + incomprehensible withdrawal from the employment in which she was + prospering; the disheartening difficulties which had brought her to the + brink of starvation; the degrading return to the man who had cruelly + deceived her—all was explained, all was excused now! With an infant + at the breast, how could she obtain a new employment? With famine staring + her in the face, what else could the friendless woman do but return to the + father of her child? What claim had I on her, by comparison with <i>him</i>? + What did it matter, now that the poor creature secretly returned the love + that I felt for her? There was the child, an obstacle between us—there + was <i>his</i> hold on her, now that he had got her back! What was <i>my</i> + hold worth? All social proprieties and all social laws answered the + question: Nothing! + </p> + <p> + My head sunk on my breast; I received the blow in silence. + </p> + <p> + My good mother took my hand. “You understand it now, George?” she said, + sorrowfully. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, mother; I understand it.” + </p> + <p> + “There was one thing she wished me to say to you, my dear, which I have + not mentioned yet. She entreats you not to suppose that she had the + faintest idea of her situation when she attempted to destroy herself. Her + first suspicion that it was possible she might become a mother was + conveyed to her at Edinburgh, in a conversation with her aunt. It is + impossible, George, not to feel compassionately toward this poor woman. + Regrettable as her position is, I cannot see that she is to blame for it. + She was the innocent victim of a vile fraud when that man married her; she + has suffered undeservedly since; and she has behaved nobly to you and to + me. I only do her justice in saying that she is a woman in a thousand—a + woman worthy, under happier circumstances, to be my daughter and your + wife. I feel <i>for</i> you, and feel <i>with</i> you, my dear—I do, + with my whole heart.” + </p> + <p> + So this scene in my life was, to all appearance, a scene closed forever. + As it had been with my love, in the days of my boyhood, so it was again + now with the love of my riper age! + </p> + <p> + Later in the day, when I had in some degree recovered my self-possession, + I wrote to Mr. Van Brandt—as <i>she</i> had foreseen I should write!—to + apologize for breaking my engagement to dine with him. + </p> + <p> + Could I trust to a letter also, to say the farewell words for me to the + woman whom I had loved and lost? No! It was better for her, and better for + me, that I should not write. And yet the idea of leaving her in silence + was more than my fortitude could endure. Her last words at parting (as + they were repeated to me by my mother) had expressed the hope that I + should not think hardly of her in the future. How could I assure her that + I should think of her tenderly to the end of my life? My mother’s delicate + tact and true sympathy showed me the way. “Send a little present, George,” + she said, “to the child. You bear no malice to the poor little child?” God + knows I was not hard on the child! I went out myself and bought her a toy. + I brought it home, and before I sent it away, I pinned a slip of paper to + it, bearing this inscription: “To your little daughter, from George + Germaine.” There is nothing very pathetic, I suppose, in those words. And + yet I burst out crying when I had written them. + </p> + <p> + The next morning my mother and I set forth for my country-house in + Perthshire. London was now unendurable to me. Traveling abroad I had tried + already. Nothing was left but to go back to the Highlands, and to try what + I could make of my life, with my mother still left to live for. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI. MY MOTHER’S DIARY. + </h2> + <p> + THERE is something repellent to me, even at this distance of time, in + looking back at the dreary days, of seclusion which followed each other + monotonously in my Highland home. The actions of my life, however trifling + they may have been, I can find some interest in recalling: they associate + me with my fellow-creatures; they connect me, in some degree, with the + vigorous movement of the world. But I have no sympathy with the purely + selfish pleasure which some men appear to derive from dwelling on the + minute anatomy of their own feelings, under the pressure of adverse + fortune. Let the domestic record of our stagnant life in Perthshire (so + far as I am concerned in it) be presented in my mother’s words, not in + mine. A few lines of extract from the daily journal which it was her habit + to keep will tell all that need be told before this narrative advances to + later dates and to newer scenes. + </p> + <p> + “20th August.—We have been two months at our home in Scotland, and I + see no change in George for the better. He is as far as ever, I fear, from + being reconciled to his separation from that unhappy woman. Nothing will + induce him to confess it himself. He declares that his quiet life here + with me is all that he desires. But I know better! I have been into his + bedroom late at night. I have heard him talking of her in his sleep, and I + have seen the tears on his eyelids. My poor boy! What thousands of + charming women there are who would ask nothing better than to be his wife! + And the one woman whom he can never marry is the only woman whom he loves! + </p> + <p> + “25th.—A long conversation about George with Mr. MacGlue. I have + never liked this Scotch doctor since he encouraged my son to keep the + fatal appointment at Saint Anthony’s Well. But he seems to be a clever man + in his profession—and I think, in his way, he means kindly toward + George. His advice was given as coarsely as usual, and very positively at + the same time. ‘Nothing will cure your son, madam, of his amatory passion + for that half-drowned lady of his but change—and another lady. Send + him away by himself this time; and let him feel the want of some kind + creature to look after him. And when he meets with that kind creature + (they are as plenty as fish in the sea), never trouble your head about it + if there’s a flaw in her character. I have got a cracked tea-cup which has + served me for twenty years. Marry him, ma’am, to the new one with the + utmost speed and impetuosity which the law will permit.’ I hate Mr. + MacGlue’s opinions—so coarse and so hard-hearted!—but I sadly + fear that I must part with my son for a little while, for his own sake. + </p> + <p> + “26th.—Where is George to go? I have been thinking of it all through + the night, and I cannot arrive at a conclusion. It is so difficult to + reconcile myself to letting him go away alone. + </p> + <p> + “29th.—I have always believed in special providences; and I am now + confirmed in my belief. This morning has brought with it a note from our + good friend and neighbor at Belhelvie. Sir James is one of the + commissioners for the Northern Lights. He is going in a Government vessel + to inspect the lighthouses on the North of Scotland, and on the Orkney and + Shetland Islands—and, having noticed how worn and ill my poor boy + looks, he most kindly invites George to be his guest on the voyage. They + will not be absent for more than two months; and the sea (as Sir James + reminds me) did wonders for George’s health when he returned from India. I + could wish for no better opportunity than this of trying what change of + air and scene will do for him. However painfully I may feel the separation + myself, I shall put a cheerful face on it; and I shall urge George to + accept the invitation. + </p> + <p> + “30th.—I have said all I could; but he still refuses to leave me. I + am a miserable, selfish creature. I felt so glad when he said No. + </p> + <p> + “31st.—Another wakeful night. George must positively send his answer + to Sir James to-day. I am determined to do my duty toward my son—he + looks so dreadfully pale and ill this morning! Besides, if something is + not done to rouse him, how do I know that he may not end in going back to + Mrs. Van Brandt after all? From every point of view, I feel bound to + insist on his accepting Sir James’s invitation. I have only to be firm, + and the thing is done. He has never yet disobeyed me, poor fellow. He will + not disobey me now. + </p> + <p> + “2d September.—He has gone! Entirely to please me—entirely + against his own wishes. Oh, how is it that such a good son cannot get a + good wife! He would make any woman happy. I wonder whether I have done + right in sending him away? The wind is moaning in the fir plantation at + the back of the house. Is there a storm at sea? I forgot to ask Sir James + how big the vessel was. The ‘Guide to Scotland’ says the coast is rugged; + and there is a wild sea between the north shore and the Orkney Islands. I + almost regret having insisted so strongly—how foolish I am! We are + all in the hands of God. May God bless and prosper my good son! + </p> + <p> + “10th.—Very uneasy. No letter from George. Ah, how full of trouble + this life is! and how strange that we should cling to it as we do! + </p> + <p> + “15th.—A letter from George! They have done with the north coast and + they have crossed the wild sea to the Orkneys. Wonderful weather has + favored them so far; and George is in better health and spirits. Ah! how + much happiness there is in life if we only have the patience to wait for + it. + </p> + <p> + “2d October.—Another letter. They are safe in the harbor of Lerwick, + the chief port in the Shetland Islands. The weather has not latterly been + at all favorable. But the amendment in George’s health remains. He writes + most gratefully of Sir James’s unremitting kindness to him. I am so happy, + I declare I could kiss Sir James—though he <i>is</i> a great man, + and a Commissioner for Northern Lights! In three weeks more (wind and + weather permitting) they hope to get back. Never mind my lonely life here, + if I can only see George happy and well again! He tells me they have + passed a great deal of their time on shore; but not a word does he say + about meeting any ladies. Perhaps they are scarce in those wild regions? I + have heard of Shetland shawls and Shetland ponies. Are there any Shetland + ladies, I wonder?” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII. SHETLAND HOSPITALITY. + </h2> + <h3> + “GUIDE! Where are we?” + </h3> + <p> + “I can’t say for certain.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you lost your way?” + </p> + <p> + The guide looks slowly all round him, and then looks at me. That is his + answer to my question. And that is enough. + </p> + <p> + The lost persons are three in number. My traveling companion, myself, and + the guide. We are seated on three Shetland ponies—so small in + stature, that we two strangers were at first literally ashamed to get on + their backs. We are surrounded by dripping white mist so dense that we + become invisible to one another at a distance of half a dozen yards. We + know that we are somewhere on the mainland of the Shetland Isles. We see + under the feet of our ponies a mixture of moorland and bog—here, the + strip of firm ground that we are standing on, and there, a few feet off, + the strip of watery peat-bog, which is deep enough to suffocate us if we + step into it. Thus far, and no further, our knowledge extends. This + question of the moment is, What are we to do next? + </p> + <p> + The guide lights his pipe, and reminds me that he warned us against the + weather before we started for our ride. My traveling companion looks at me + resignedly, with an expression of mild reproach. I deserve it. My rashness + is to blame for the disastrous position in which we now find ourselves. + </p> + <p> + In writing to my mother, I have been careful to report favorably of my + health and spirits. But I have not confessed that I still remember the day + when I parted with the one hope and renounced the one love which made life + precious to me. My torpid condition of mind, at home, has simply given + place to a perpetual restlessness, produced by the excitement of my new + life. I must now always be doing something—no matter what, so long + as it diverts me from my own thoughts. Inaction is unendurable; solitude + has become horrible to me. While the other members of the party which has + accompanied Sir James on his voyage of inspection among the lighthouses + are content to wait in the harbor of Lerwick for a favorable change in the + weather, I am obstinately bent on leaving the comfortable shelter of the + vessel to explore some inland ruin of prehistoric times, of which I never + heard, and for which I care nothing. The movement is all I want; the ride + will fill the hateful void of time. I go, in defiance of sound advice + offered to me on all sides. The youngest member of our party catches the + infection of my recklessness (in virtue of his youth) and goes with me. + And what has come of it? We are blinded by mist; we are lost on a moor; + and the treacherous peat-bogs are round us in every direction! + </p> + <p> + What is to be done? + </p> + <p> + “Just leave it to the pownies,” the guide says. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean leave the ponies to find the way?” + </p> + <p> + “That’s it,” says the guide. “Drop the bridle, and leave it to the + pownies. See for yourselves. I’m away on <i>my</i> powny.” + </p> + <p> + He drops his bridle on the pommel of his saddle, whistles to his pony, and + disappears in the mist; riding with his hands in his pockets, and his pipe + in his mouth, as composedly as if he were sitting by his own fireside at + home. + </p> + <p> + We have no choice but to follow his example, or to be left alone on the + moor. The intelligent little animals, relieved from our stupid + supervision, trot off with their noses to the ground, like hounds on the + scent. Where the intersecting tract of bog is wide, they skirt round it. + Where it is narrow enough to be leaped over, they cross it by a jump. + Trot! trot!—away the hardy little creatures go; never stopping, + never hesitating. Our “superior intelligence,” perfectly useless in the + emergency, wonders how it will end. Our guide, in front of us, answers + that it will end in the ponies finding their way certainly to the nearest + village or the nearest house. “Let the bridles be,” is his one warning to + us. “Come what may of it, let the bridles be!” + </p> + <p> + It is easy for the guide to let his bridle be—he is accustomed to + place himself in that helpless position under stress of circumstances, and + he knows exactly what his pony can do. + </p> + <p> + To us, however, the situation is a new one; and it looks dangerous in the + extreme. More than once I check myself, not without an effort, in the act + of resuming the command of my pony on passing the more dangerous points in + the journey. The time goes on; and no sign of an inhabited dwelling looms + through the mist. I begin to get fidgety and irritable; I find myself + secretly doubting the trustworthiness of the guide. While I am in this + unsettled frame of mind, my pony approaches a dim, black, winding line, + where the bog must be crossed for the hundredth time at least. The breadth + of it (deceptively enlarged in appearance by the mist) looks to my eyes + beyond the reach of a leap by any pony that ever was foaled. I lose my + presence of mind. At the critical moment before the jump is taken, I am + foolish enough to seize the bridle, and suddenly check the pony. He + starts, throws up his head, and falls instantly as if he had been shot. My + right hand, as we drop on the ground together, gets twisted under me, and + I feel that I have sprained my wrist. + </p> + <p> + If I escape with no worse injury than this, I may consider myself well + off. But no such good fortune is reserved for me. In his struggles to + rise, before I have completely extricated myself from him, the pony kicks + me; and, as my ill-luck will have it, his hoof strikes just where the + poisoned spear struck me in the past days of my service in India. The old + wound opens again—and there I lie bleeding on the barren Shetland + moor! + </p> + <p> + This time my strength has not been exhausted in attempting to breast the + current of a swift-flowing river with a drowning woman to support. I + preserve my senses; and I am able to give the necessary directions for + bandaging the wound with the best materials which we have at our disposal. + To mount my pony again is simply out of the question. I must remain where + I am, with my traveling companion to look after me; and the guide must + trust his pony to discover the nearest place of shelter to which I can be + removed. + </p> + <p> + Before he abandons us on the moor, the man (at my suggestion) takes our + “bearings,” as correctly as he can by the help of my pocket-compass. This + done, he disappears in the mist, with the bridle hanging loose, and the + pony’s nose to the ground, as before. I am left, under my young friend’s + care, with a cloak to lie on, and a saddle for a pillow. Our ponies + composedly help themselves to such grass as they can find on the moor; + keeping always near us as companionably as if they were a couple of dogs. + In this position we wait events, while the dripping mist hangs thicker + than ever all round us. + </p> + <p> + The slow minutes follow each other wearily in the majestic silence of the + moor. We neither of us acknowledge it in words, but we both feel that + hours may pass before the guide discovers us again. The penetrating damp + slowly strengthens its clammy hold on me. My companion’s pocket-flask of + sherry has about a teaspoonful of wine left in the bottom of it. We look + at one another—having nothing else to look at in the present state + of the weather—and we try to make the best of it. So the slow + minutes follow each other, until our watches tell us that forty minutes + have elapsed since the guide and his pony vanished from our view. + </p> + <p> + My friend suggests that we may as well try what our voices can do toward + proclaiming our situation to any living creature who may, by the barest + possibility, be within hearing of us. I leave him to try the experiment, + having no strength to spare for vocal efforts of any sort. My companion + shouts at the highest pitch of his voice. Silence follows his first + attempt. He tries again; and, this time, an answering hail reaches us + faintly through the white fog. A fellow-creature of some sort, guide or + stranger, is near us—help is coming at last! + </p> + <p> + An interval passes; and voices reach our ears—the voices of two men. + Then the shadowy appearance of the two becomes visible in the mist. Then + the guide advances near enough to be identified. He is followed by a + sturdy fellow in a composite dress, which presents him under the double + aspect of a groom and a gardener. The guide speaks a few words of rough + sympathy. The composite man stands by impenetrably silent; the sight of a + disabled stranger fails entirely either to surprise or to interest the + gardener-groom. + </p> + <p> + After a little private consultation, the two men decide to cross their + hands, and thus make a seat for me between them. My arms rest on their + shoulders; and so they carry me off. My friend trudges behind them, with + the saddle and the cloak. The ponies caper and kick, in unrestrained + enjoyment of their freedom; and sometimes follow, sometimes precede us, as + the humor of the moment inclines them. I am, fortunately for my bearers, a + light weight. After twice resting, they stop altogether, and set me down + on the driest place they can find. I look eagerly through the mist for + some signs of a dwelling-house—and I see nothing but a little + shelving beach, and a sheet of dark water beyond. Where are we? + </p> + <p> + The gardener-groom vanishes, and appears again on the water, looming large + in a boat. I am laid down in the bottom of the boat, with my + saddle-pillow; and we shove off, leaving the ponies to the desolate + freedom of the moor. They will pick up plenty to eat (the guide says); and + when night comes on they will find their own way to shelter in a village + hard by. The last I see of the hardy little creatures they are taking a + drink of water, side by side, and biting each other sportively in higher + spirits than ever! + </p> + <p> + Slowly we float over the dark water—not a river, as I had at first + supposed, but a lake—until we reach the shores of a little island; a + flat, lonely, barren patch of ground. I am carried along a rough pathway + made of great flat stones, until we reach the firmer earth, and discover a + human dwelling-place at last. It is a long, low house of one story high; + forming (as well as I can see) three sides of a square. The door stands + hospitably open. The hall within is bare and cold and dreary. The men open + an inner door, and we enter a long corridor, comfortably warmed by a peat + fire. On one wall I notice the closed oaken doors of rooms; on the other, + rows on rows of well-filled book-shelves meet my eye. Advancing to the end + of the first passage, we turn at right angles into a second. Here a door + is opened at last: I find myself in a spacious room, completely and + tastefully furnished, having two beds in it, and a large fire burning in + the grate. The change to this warm and cheerful place of shelter from the + chilly and misty solitude of the moor is so luxuriously delightful that I + am quite content, for the first few minutes, to stretch myself on a bed, + in lazy enjoyment of my new position; without caring to inquire into whose + house we have intruded; without even wondering at the strange absence of + master, mistress, or member of the family to welcome our arrival under + their hospitable roof. + </p> + <p> + After a while, the first sense of relief passes away. My dormant curiosity + revives. I begin to look about me. + </p> + <p> + The gardener-groom has disappeared. I discover my traveling companion at + the further end of the room, evidently occupied in questioning the guide. + A word from me brings him to my bedside. What discoveries has he made? + whose is the house in which we are sheltered; and how is it that no member + of the family appears to welcome us? + </p> + <p> + My friend relates his discoveries. The guide listens as attentively to the + second-hand narrative as if it were quite new to him. + </p> + <p> + The house that shelters us belongs to a gentleman of ancient Northern + lineage, whose name is Dunross. He has lived in unbroken retirement on the + barren island for twenty years past, with no other companion than a + daughter, who is his only child. He is generally believed to be one of the + most learned men living. The inhabitants of Shetland know him far and + wide, under a name in their dialect which means, being interpreted, “The + Master of Books.” The one occasion on which he and his daughter have been + known to leave their island retreat was at a past time when a terrible + epidemic disease broke out among the villages in the neighborhood. Father + and daughter labored day and night among their poor and afflicted + neighbors, with a courage which no danger could shake, with a tender care + which no fatigue could exhaust. The father had escaped infection, and the + violence of the epidemic was beginning to wear itself out, when the + daughter caught the disease. Her life had been preserved, but she never + completely recovered her health. She is now an incurable sufferer from + some mysterious nervous disorder which nobody understands, and which has + kept her a prisoner on the island, self-withdrawn from all human + observation, for years past. Among the poor inhabitants of the district, + the father and daughter are worshiped as semi-divine beings. Their names + come after the Sacred Name in the prayers which the parents teach to their + children. + </p> + <p> + Such is the household (so far as the guide’s story goes) on whose privacy + we have intruded ourselves! The narrative has a certain interest of its + own, no doubt, but it has one defect—it fails entirely to explain + the continued absence of Mr. Dunross. Is it possible that he is not aware + of our presence in the house? We apply the guide, and make a few further + inquiries of him. + </p> + <p> + “Are we here,” I ask, “by permission of Mr. Dunross?” + </p> + <p> + The guide stares. If I had spoken to him in Greek or Hebrew, I could + hardly have puzzled him more effectually. My friend tries him with a + simpler form of words. + </p> + <p> + “Did you ask leave to bring us here when you found your way to the house?” + </p> + <p> + The guide stares harder than ever, with every appearance of feeling + perfectly scandalized by the question. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think,” he asks, sternly, “‘that I am fool enough to disturb the + Master over his books for such a little matter as bringing you and your + friend into this house?” + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean that you have brought us here without first asking leave?” I + exclaim in amazement. + </p> + <p> + The guide’s face brightens; he has beaten the true state of the case into + our stupid heads at last! “That’s just what I mean!” he says, with an air + of infinite relief. + </p> + <p> + The door opens before we have recovered the shock inflicted on us by this + extraordinary discovery. A little, lean, old gentleman, shrouded in a long + black dressing-gown, quietly enters the room. The guide steps forward, and + respectfully closes the door for him. We are evidently in the presence of + The Master of Books! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII. THE DARKENED ROOM. + </h2> + <p> + THE little gentleman advances to my bedside. His silky white hair flows + over his shoulders; he looks at us with faded blue eyes; he bows with a + sad and subdued courtesy, and says, in the simplest manner, “I bid you + welcome, gentlemen, to my house.” + </p> + <p> + We are not content with merely thanking him; we naturally attempt to + apologize for our intrusion. Our host defeats the attempt at the outset by + making an apology on his own behalf. + </p> + <p> + “I happened to send for my servant a minute since,” he proceeds, “and I + only then heard that you were here. It is a custom of the house that + nobody interrupts me over my books. Be pleased, sir, to accept my + excuses,” he adds, addressing himself to me, “for not having sooner placed + myself and my household at your disposal. You have met, as I am sorry to + hear, with an accident. Will you permit me to send for medical help? I ask + the question a little abruptly, fearing that time may be of importance, + and knowing that our nearest doctor lives at some distance from this + house.” + </p> + <p> + He speaks with a certain quaintly precise choice of words—more like + a man dictating a letter than holding a conversation. The subdued sadness + of his manner is reflected in the subdued sadness of his face. He and + sorrow have apparently been old acquaintances, and have become used to + each other for years past. The shadow of some past grief rests quietly and + impenetrably over the whole man; I see it in his faded blue eyes, on his + broad forehead, on his delicate lips, on his pale shriveled cheeks. My + uneasy sense of committing an intrusion on him steadily increases, in + spite of his courteous welcome. I explain to him that I am capable of + treating my own case, having been myself in practice as a medical man; and + this said, I revert to my interrupted excuses. I assure him that it is + only within the last few moments that my traveling companion and I have + become aware of the liberty which our guide has taken in introducing us, + on his own sole responsibility, to the house. Mr. Dunross looks at me, as + if he, like the guide, failed entirely to understand what my scruples and + excuses mean. After a while the truth dawns on him. A faint smile flickers + over his face; he lays his hand in a gentle, fatherly way on my shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “We are so used here to our Shetland hospitality,” he says, “that we are + slow to understand the hesitation which a stranger feels in taking + advantage of it. Your guide is in no respect to blame, gentlemen. Every + house in these islands which is large enough to contain a spare room has + its Guests’ Chamber, always kept ready for occupation. When you travel my + way, you come here as a matter of course; you stay here as long as you + like; and, when you go away, I only do my duty as a good Shetlander in + accompanying you on the first stage of your journey to bid you godspeed. + The customs of centuries past elsewhere are modern customs here. I beg of + you to give my servant all the directions which are necessary to your + comfort, just as freely as you could give them in your own house.” + </p> + <p> + He turns aside to ring a hand-bell on the table as he speaks; and notices + in the guide’s face plain signs that the man has taken offense at my + disparaging allusion to him. + </p> + <p> + “Strangers cannot be expected to understand our ways, Andrew,” says The + Master of Books. “But you and I understand one another—and that is + enough.” + </p> + <p> + The guide’s rough face reddens with pleasure. If a crowned king on a + throne had spoken condescendingly to him, he could hardly have looked more + proud of the honor conferred than he looks now. He makes a clumsy attempt + to take the Master’s hand and kiss it. Mr. Dunross gently repels the + attempt, and gives him a little pat on the head. The guide looks at me and + my friend as if he had been honored with the highest distinction that an + earthly being can receive. The Master’s hand had touched him kindly! + </p> + <p> + In a moment more, the gardener-groom appears at the door to answer the + bell. + </p> + <p> + “You will move the medicine-chest into this room, Peter,” says Mr. + Dunross. “And you will wait on this gentleman, who is confined to his bed + by an accident, exactly as you would wait on me if I were ill. If we both + happen to ring for you together, you will answer his bell before you + answer mine. The usual changes of linen are, of course, ready in the + wardrobe there? Very good. Go now, and tell the cook to prepare a little + dinner; and get a bottle of the old Madeira out of the cellar. You will + least, in this room. These two gentlemen will be best pleased to dine + together. Return here in five minutes’ time, in case you are wanted; and + show my guest, Peter, that I am right in believing you to be a good nurse + as well as a good servant.” + </p> + <p> + The silent and surly Peter brightens under the expression of the Master’s + confidence in him, as the guide brightened under the influence of the + Master’s caressing touch. The two men leave the room together. + </p> + <p> + We take advantage of the momentary silence that follows to introduce + ourselves by name to our host, and to inform him of the circumstances + under which we happen to be visiting Shetland. He listens in his subdued, + courteous way; but he makes no inquiries about our relatives; he shows no + interest in the arrival of the Government yacht and the Commissioner for + Northern Lights. All sympathy with the doings of the outer world, all + curiosity about persons of social position and notoriety, is evidently at + an end in Mr. Dunross. For twenty years the little round of his duties and + his occupations has been enough for him. Life has lost its priceless value + to this man; and when Death comes to him he will receive the king of + terrors as he might receive the last of his guests. + </p> + <p> + “Is there anything else I can do,” he says, speaking more to himself than + to us, “before I go back to my books?” + </p> + <p> + Something else occurs to him, even as he puts the question. He addresses + my companion, with his faint, sad smile. “This will be a dull life, I am + afraid, sir, for you. If you happen to be fond of angling, I can offer you + some little amusement in that way. The lake is well stocked with fish; and + I have a boy employed in the garden, who will be glad to attend on you in + the boat.” + </p> + <p> + My friend happens to be fond of fishing, and gladly accepts the + invitation. The Master says his parting words to me before he goes back to + his books. + </p> + <p> + “You may safely trust my man Peter to wait on you, Mr. Germaine, while you + are so unfortunate as to be confined to this room. He has the advantage + (in cases of illness) of being a very silent, undemonstrative person. At + the same time he is careful and considerate, in his own reserved way. As + to what I may term the lighter duties at your bedside such as reading to + you, writing your letters for you while your right hand is still disabled, + regulating the temperature in the room, and so on—though I cannot + speak positively, I think it likely that these little services may be + rendered to you by another person whom I have not mentioned yet. We shall + see what happens in a few hours’ time. In the meanwhile, sir, I ask + permission to leave you to your rest.” + </p> + <p> + With those words, he walks out of the room as quietly as he walked into + it, and leaves his two guests to meditate gratefully on Shetland + hospitality. We both wonder what those last mysterious words of our host + mean; and we exchange more or less ingenious guesses on the subject of + that nameless “other person” who may possibly attend on me—until the + arrival of dinner turns our thoughts into a new course. + </p> + <p> + The dishes are few in number, but cooked to perfection and admirably + served. I am too weary to eat much: a glass of the fine old Madeira + revives me. We arrange our future plans while we are engaged over the + meal. Our return to the yacht in Lerwick harbor is expected on the next + day at the latest. As things are, I can only leave my companion to go back + to the vessel, and relieve the minds of our friends of any needless alarm + about me. On the day after, I engage to send on board a written report of + the state of my health, by a messenger who can bring my portmanteau back + with him. + </p> + <p> + These arrangements decided on, my friend goes away (at my own request) to + try his skill as an angler in the lake. Assisted by the silent Peter and + the well-stocked medicine-chest, I apply the necessary dressings to my + wound, wrap myself in the comfortable morning-gown which is always kept + ready in the Guests’ Chamber, and lie down again on the bed to try the + restorative virtues of sleep. + </p> + <p> + Before he leaves the room, silent Peter goes to the window, and asks in + fewest possible words if he shall draw the curtains. In fewer words still—for + I am feeling drowsy already—I answer No. I dislike shutting out the + cheering light of day. To my morbid fancy, at that moment, it looks like + resigning myself deliberately to the horrors of a long illness. The + hand-bell is on my bedside table; and I can always ring for Peter if the + light keeps me from sleeping. On this understanding, Peter mutely nods his + head, and goes out. + </p> + <p> + For some minutes I lie in lazy contemplation of the companionable fire. + Meanwhile the dressings on my wound and the embrocation on my sprained + wrist steadily subdue the pains which I have felt so far. Little by + little, the bright fire seems to be fading. Little by little, sleep steals + on me, and all my troubles are forgotten. + </p> + <p> + I wake, after what seems to have been a long repose—I wake, feeling + the bewilderment which we all experience on opening our eyes for the first + time in a bed and a room that are new to us. Gradually collecting my + thoughts, I find my perplexity considerably increased by a trifling but + curious circumstance. The curtains which I had forbidden Peter to touch + are drawn—closely drawn, so as to plunge the whole room in + obscurity. And, more surprising still, a high screen with folding sides + stands before the fire, and confines the light which it might otherwise + give exclusively to the ceiling. I am literally enveloped in shadows. Has + night come? + </p> + <p> + In lazy wonder, I turn my head on the pillow, and look on the other side + of my bed. + </p> + <p> + Dark as it is, I discover instantly that I am not alone. + </p> + <p> + A shadowy figure stands by my bedside. The dim outline of the dress tells + me that it is the figure of a woman. Straining my eyes, I fancy I can + discern a wavy black object covering her head and shoulders which looks + like a large veil. Her face is turned toward me, but no distinguishing + feature in it is visible. She stands like a statue, with her hands crossed + in front of her, faintly relieved against the dark substance of her dress. + This I can see—and this is all. + </p> + <p> + There is a moment of silence. The shadowy being finds its voice, and + speaks first. + </p> + <p> + “I hope you feel better, sir, after your rest?” + </p> + <p> + The voice is low, with a certain faint sweetness or tone which falls + soothingly on my ear. The accent is unmistakably the accent of a refined + and cultivated person. After making my acknowledgments to the unknown and + half-seen lady, I venture to ask the inevitable question, “To whom have I + the honor of speaking?” + </p> + <p> + The lady answers, “I am Miss Dunross; and I hope, if you have no objection + to it, to help Peter in nursing you.” + </p> + <p> + This, then, is the “other person” dimly alluded to by our host! I think + directly of the heroic conduct of Miss Dunross among her poor and + afflicted neighbors; and I do not forget the melancholy result of her + devotion to others which has left her an incurable invalid. My anxiety to + see this lady more plainly increases a hundred-fold. I beg her to add to + my grateful sense of her kindness by telling me why the room is so dark + “Surely,” I say, “it cannot be night already?” + </p> + <p> + “You have not been asleep,” she answers, “for more than two hours. The + mist has disappeared, and the sun is shining.” + </p> + <p> + I take up the bell, standing on the table at my side. + </p> + <p> + “May I ring for Peter, Miss Dunross?” + </p> + <p> + “To open the curtains, Mr. Germaine?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—with your permission. I own I should like to see the sunlight.” + </p> + <p> + “I will send Peter to you immediately.” + </p> + <p> + The shadowy figure of my new nurse glides away. In another moment, unless + I say something to stop her, the woman whom I am so eager to see will have + left the room. + </p> + <p> + “Pray don’t go!” I say. “I cannot think of troubling you to take a + trifling message for me. The servant will come in, if I only ring the + bell.” + </p> + <p> + She pauses—more shadowy than ever—halfway between the bed and + the door, and answers a little sadly: + </p> + <p> + “Peter will not let in the daylight while I am in the room. He closed the + curtains by my order.” + </p> + <p> + The reply puzzles me. Why should Peter keep the room dark while Miss + Dunross is in it? Are her eyes weak? No; if her eyes were weak, they would + be protected by a shade. Dark as it is, I can see that she does not wear a + shade. Why has the room been darkened—if not for me? I cannot + venture on asking the question—I can only make my excuses in due + form. + </p> + <p> + “Invalids only think of themselves,” I say. “I supposed that you had + kindly darkened the room on my account.” + </p> + <p> + She glides back to my bedside before she speaks again. When she does + answer, it is in these startling words: + </p> + <p> + “You were mistaken, Mr. Germaine. Your room has been darkened—not on + your account, but on <i>mine</i>.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX. THE CATS. + </h2> + <p> + MISS DUNROSS had so completely perplexed me, that I was at a loss what to + say next. + </p> + <p> + To ask her plainly why it was necessary to keep the room in darkness while + she remained in it, might prove (for all I knew to the contrary) to be an + act of positive rudeness. To venture on any general expression of sympathy + with her, knowing absolutely nothing of the circumstances, might place us + both in an embarrassing position at the outset of our acquaintance. The + one thing I could do was to beg that the present arrangement of the room + might not be disturbed, and to leave her to decide as to whether she + should admit me to her confidence or exclude me from it, at her own sole + discretion. + </p> + <p> + She perfectly understood what was going on in my mind. Taking a chair at + the foot of the bed, she told me simply and unreservedly the sad secret of + the darkened room. + </p> + <p> + “If you wish to see much of me, Mr. Germaine,” she began, “you must + accustom yourself to the world of shadows in which it is my lot to live. + Some time since, a dreadful illness raged among the people in our part of + this island; and I was so unfortunate as to catch the infection. When I + recovered—no! ‘Recovery’ is not the right word to use—let me + say, when I escaped death, I found myself afflicted by a nervous malady + which has defied medical help from that time to this. I am suffering (as + the doctors explain it to me) from a morbidly sensitive condition of the + nerves near the surface to the action of light. If I were to draw the + curtains, and look out of that window, I should feel the acutest pain all + over my face. If I covered my face, and drew the curtains with my bare + hands, I should feel the same pain in my hands. You can just see, perhaps, + that I have a very large and very thick veil on my head. I let it fall + over my face and neck and hands, when I have occasion to pass along the + corridors or to enter my father’s study—and I find it protection + enough. Don’t be too ready to deplore my sad condition, sir! I have got so + used to living in the dark that I can see quite well enough for all the + purposes of <i>my</i> poor existence. I can read and write in these + shadows—I can see you, and be of use to you in many little ways, if + you will let me. There is really nothing to be distressed about. My life + will not be a long one—I know and feel that. But I hope to be spared + long enough to be my father’s companion through the closing years of his + life. Beyond that, I have no prospect. In the meanwhile, I have my + pleasures; and I mean to add to my scanty little stack the pleasure of + attending on you. You are quite an event in my life. I look forward to + reading to you and writing for you, as some girls look forward to a new + dress, or a first ball. Do you think it very strange of me to tell you so + openly just what I have in my mind? I can’t help it! I say what I think to + my father and to our poor neighbors hereabouts—and I can’t alter my + ways at a moment’s notice. I own it when I like people; and I own it when + I don’t. I have been looking at you while you were asleep; and I have read + your face as I might read a book. There are signs of sorrow on your + forehead and your lips which it is strange to see in so young a face as + yours. I am afraid I shall trouble you with many questions about yourself + when we become better acquainted with each other. Let me begin with a + question, in my capacity as nurse. Are your pillows comfortable? I can see + they want shaking up. Shall I send for Peter to raise you? I am unhappily + not strong enough to be able to help you in that way. No? You are able to + raise yourself? Wait a little. There! Now lie back—and tell me if I + know how to establish the right sort of sympathy between a tumbled pillow + and a weary head.” + </p> + <p> + She had so indescribably touched and interested me, stranger as I was, + that the sudden cessation of her faint, sweet tones affected me almost + with a sense of pain. In trying (clumsily enough) to help her with the + pillows, I accidentally touched her hand. It felt so cold and so thin, + that even the momentary contact with it startled me. I tried vainly to see + her face, now that it was more within reach of my range of view. The + merciless darkness kept it as complete a mystery as ever. Had my curiosity + escaped her notice? Nothing escaped her notice. Her next words told me + plainly that I had been discovered. + </p> + <p> + “You have been trying to see me,” she said. “Has my hand warned you not to + try again? I felt that it startled you when you touched it just now.” + </p> + <p> + Such quickness of perception as this was not to be deceived; such fearless + candor demanded as a right a similar frankness on my side. I owned the + truth, and left it to her indulgence to forgive me. + </p> + <p> + She returned slowly to her chair at the foot of the bed. + </p> + <p> + “If we are to be friends,” she said, “we must begin by understanding one + another. Don’t associate any romantic ideas of invisible beauty with <i>me</i>, + Mr. Germaine. I had but one beauty to boast of before I fell ill—my + complexion—and that has gone forever. There is nothing to see in me + now but the poor reflection of my former self; the ruin of what was once a + woman. I don’t say this to distress you—I say it to reconcile you to + the darkness as a perpetual obstacle, so far as your eyes are concerned, + between you and me. Make the best instead of the worst of your strange + position here. It offers you a new sensation to amuse you while you are + ill. You have a nurse who is an impersonal creature—a shadow among + shadows; a voice to speak to you, and a hand to help you, and nothing + more. Enough of myself!” she exclaimed, rising and changing her tone. + “What can I do to amuse you?” She considered a little. “I have some odd + tastes,” she resumed; “and I think I may entertain you if I make you + acquainted with one of them. Are you like most other men, Mr. Germaine? Do + you hate cats?” + </p> + <p> + The question startled me. However, I could honestly answer that, in this + respect at least, I was not like other men. + </p> + <p> + “To my thinking,” I added, “the cat is a cruelly misunderstood creature—especially + in England. Women, no doubt, generally do justice to the affectionate + nature of cats. But the men treat them as if they were the natural enemies + of the human race. The men drive a cat out of their presence if it + ventures upstairs, and set their dogs at it if it shows itself in the + street—and then they turn round and accuse the poor creature (whose + genial nature must attach itself to something) of being only fond of the + kitchen!” + </p> + <p> + The expression of these unpopular sentiments appeared to raise me greatly + in the estimation of Miss Dunross. + </p> + <p> + “We have one sympathy in common, at any rate,” she said. “Now I can amuse + you! Prepare for a surprise.” + </p> + <p> + She drew her veil over her face as she spoke, and, partially opening the + door, rang my handbell. Peter appeared, and received his instructions. + </p> + <p> + “Move the screen,” said Miss Dunross. Peter obeyed; the ruddy firelight + streamed over the floor. Miss Dunross proceeded with her directions. “Open + the door of the cats’ room, Peter; and bring me my harp. Don’t suppose + that you are going to listen to a great player, Mr. Germaine,” she went + on, when Peter had departed on his singular errand, “or that you are + likely to see the sort of harp to which you are accustomed, as a man of + the modern time. I can only play some old Scotch airs; and my harp is an + ancient instrument (with new strings)—an heirloom in our family, + some centuries old. When you see my harp, you will think of pictures of + St. Cecilia—and you will be treating my performance kindly if you + will remember, at the same time, that I am no saint!” + </p> + <p> + She drew her chair into the firelight, and sounded a whistle which she + took from the pocket of her dress. In another moment the lithe and shadowy + figures of the cats appeared noiselessly in the red light, answering their + mistress’s call. I could just count six of them, as the creatures seated + themselves demurely in a circle round the chair. Peter followed with the + harp, and closed the door after him as he went out. The streak of daylight + being now excluded from the room, Miss Dunross threw back her veil, and + took the harp on her knee; seating herself, I observed, with her face + turned away from the fire. + </p> + <p> + “You will have light enough to see the cats by,” she said, “without having + too much light for <i>me</i>. Firelight does not give me the acute pain + which I suffer when daylight falls on my face—I feel a certain + inconvenience from it, and nothing more.” + </p> + <p> + She touched the strings of her instrument—the ancient harp, as she + had said, of the pictured St. Cecilia; or, rather, as I thought, the + ancient harp of the Welsh bards. The sound was at first unpleasantly high + in pitch, to my untutored ear. At the opening notes of the melody—a + slow, wailing, dirgelike air—the cats rose, and circled round their + mistress, marching to the tune. Now they followed each other singly; now, + at a change in the melody, they walked two and two; and, now again, they + separated into divisions of three each, and circled round the chair in + opposite directions. The music quickened, and the cats quickened their + pace with it. Faster and faster the notes rang out, and faster and faster + in the ruddy firelight, the cats, like living shadows, whirled round the + still black figure in the chair, with the ancient harp on its knee. + Anything so weird, wild, and ghostlike I never imagined before even in a + dream! The music changed, and the whirling cats began to leap. One perched + itself at a bound on the pedestal of the harp. Four sprung up together, + and assumed their places, two on each of her shoulders. The last and + smallest of the cats took the last leap, and lighted on her head! There + the six creatures kept their positions, motionless as statues! Nothing + moved but the wan, white hands over the harp-strings; no sound but the + sound of the music stirred in the room. Once more the melody changed. In + an instant the six cats were on the floor again, seated round the chair as + I had seen them on their first entrance; the harp was laid aside; and the + faint, sweet voice said quietly, “I am soon tired—I must leave my + cats to conclude their performances tomorrow.” + </p> + <p> + She rose, and approached the bedside. + </p> + <p> + “I leave you to see the sunset through your window,” she said. “From the + coming of the darkness to the coming of breakfast-time, you must not count + on my services—I am taking my rest. I have no choice but to remain + in bed (sleeping when I can) for twelve hours or more. The long repose + seems to keep my life in me. Have I and my cats surprised you very much? + Am I a witch; and are they my familiar spirits? Remember how few + amusements I have, and you will not wonder why I devote myself to teaching + these pretty creatures their tricks, and attaching them to me like dogs! + They were slow at first, and they taught me excellent lessons of patience. + Now they understand what I want of them, and they learn wonderfully well. + How you will amuse your friend, when he comes back from fishing, with the + story of the young lady who lives in the dark, and keeps a company of + performing cats! I shall expect <i>you</i> to amuse <i>me</i> to-morrow—I + want you to tell me all about yourself, and how you came to visit these + wild islands of ours. Perhaps, as the days go on, and we get better + acquainted, you will take me a little more into your confidence, and tell + me the true meaning of that story of sorrow which I read on your face + while you were asleep? I have just enough of the woman left in me to be + the victim of curiosity, when I meet with a person who interests me. + Good-by till to-morrow! I wish you a tranquil night, and a pleasant + waking.—Come, my familiar spirits! Come, my cat children! it’s time + we went back to our own side of the house.” + </p> + <p> + She dropped the veil over her face—and, followed by her train of + cats, glided out of the room. + </p> + <p> + Immediately on her departure, Peter appeared and drew back the curtains. + The light of the setting sun streamed in at the window. At the same moment + my traveling companion returned in high spirits, eager to tell me about + his fishing in the lake. The contrast between what I saw and heard now, + and what I had seen and heard only a few minutes since, was so + extraordinary and so startling that I almost doubted whether the veiled + figure with the harp, and the dance of cats, were not the fantastic + creations of a dream. I actually asked my friend whether he had found me + awake or asleep when he came into the room! + </p> + <p> + Evening merged into night. The Master of Books made his appearance, to + receive the latest news of my health. He spoke and listened absently as if + his mind were still pre-occupied by his studies—except when I + referred gratefully to his daughter’s kindness to me. At her name his + faded blue eyes brightened; his drooping head became erect; his sad, + subdued voice strengthened in tone. + </p> + <p> + “Do not hesitate to let her attend on you,” he said. “Whatever interests + or amuses her, lengthens her life. In <i>her</i> life is the breath of + mine. She is more than my daughter; she is the guardian-angel of the + house. Go where she may, she carries the air of heaven with her. When you + say your prayers, sir, pray God to leave my daughter here a little + longer.” + </p> + <p> + He sighed heavily; his head dropped again on his breast—he left me. + </p> + <p> + The hour advanced; the evening meal was set by my bedside. Silent Peter, + taking his leave for the night, developed into speech. “I sleep next + door,” he said. “Ring when you want me.” My traveling companion, taking + the second bed in the room, reposed in the happy sleep of youth. In the + house there was dead silence. Out of the house, the low song of the + night-wind, rising and falling over the lake and the moor, was the one + sound to be heard. So the first day ended in the hospitable Shetland + house. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX. THE GREEN FLAG. + </h2> + <p> + “I CONGRATULATE you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of painting in words. + Your description gives me a vivid idea of Mrs. Van Brandt.” + </p> + <p> + “Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross?” + </p> + <p> + “May I speak as plainly as usual?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, plainly, I don’t like your Mrs. Van Brandt.” + </p> + <p> + Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had made her way into my + confidence already! + </p> + <p> + By what means had she induced me to trust her with those secret and sacred + sorrows of my life which I had hitherto kept for my mother’s ear alone? I + can easily recall the rapid and subtle manner in which her sympathies + twined themselves round mine; but I fail entirely to trace the infinite + gradations of approach by which she surprised and conquered my habitual + reserve. The strongest influence of all, the influence of the eye, was not + hers. When the light was admitted into the room she was shrouded in her + veil. At all other times the curtains were drawn, the screen was before + the fire—I could see dimly the outline of her face, and I could see + no more. The secret of her influence was perhaps partly attributable to + the simple and sisterly manner in which she spoke to me, and partly to the + indescribable interest which associated itself with her mere presence in + the room. Her father had told me that she “carried the air of heaven with + her.” In my experience, I can only say that she carried something with her + which softly and inscrutably possessed itself of my will, and made me as + unconsciously obedient to her wishes as if I had been her dog. The + love-story of my boyhood, in all its particulars, down even to the gift of + the green flag; the mystic predictions of Dame Dermody; the loss of every + trace of my little Mary of former days; the rescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from + the river; the apparition of her in the summer-house; the after-meetings + with her in Edinburgh and in London; the final parting which had left its + mark of sorrow on my face—all these events, all these sufferings, I + confided to her as unreservedly as I have confided them to these pages. + And the result, as she sat by me in the darkened room, was summed up, with + a woman’s headlong impetuosity of judgment, in the words that I have just + written—“I don’t like your Mrs. Van Brandt!” + </p> + <p> + “Why not?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + She answered instantly, “Because you ought to love nobody but Mary.” + </p> + <p> + “But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen.” + </p> + <p> + “Be patient, and you will find her again. Mary is patient—Mary is + waiting for you. When you meet her, you will be ashamed to remember that + you ever loved Mrs. Van Brandt—you will look on your separation from + that woman as the happiest event of your life. I may not live to hear of + it—but <i>you</i> will live to own that I was right.” + </p> + <p> + Her perfectly baseless conviction that time would yet bring about my + meeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused me. + </p> + <p> + “You seem to agree with Dame Dermody,” I said. “You believe that our two + destinies are one. No matter what time may elapse, or what may happen in + the time, you believe my marriage with Mary is still a marriage delayed, + and nothing more?” + </p> + <p> + “I firmly believe it.” + </p> + <p> + “Without knowing why—except that you dislike the idea of my marrying + Mrs. Van Brandt?” + </p> + <p> + She knew that this view of her motive was not far from being the right one—and, + womanlike, she shifted the discussion to new ground. + </p> + <p> + “Why do you call her Mrs. Van Brandt?” she asked. “Mrs. Van Brandt is the + namesake of your first love. If you are so fond of her, why don’t you call + her Mary?” + </p> + <p> + I was ashamed to give the true reason—it seemed so utterly unworthy + of a man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hesitation, she insisted on + my answering her; she forced me to make my humiliating confession. + </p> + <p> + “The man who has parted us,” I said, “called her Mary. I hate him with + such a jealous hatred that he has even disgusted me with the name! It lost + all its charm for me when it passed <i>his</i> lips.” + </p> + <p> + I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No! She suddenly raised her + head as if she were looking at me intently in the dark. + </p> + <p> + “How fond you must be of that woman!” she said. “Do you dream of her now?” + </p> + <p> + “I never dream of her now.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you expect to see the apparition of her again?” + </p> + <p> + “It may be so—if a time comes when she is in sore need of help, and + when she has no friend to look to but me.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary?” + </p> + <p> + “Never!” + </p> + <p> + “But you used once to see her—as Dame Dermody predicted—in + dreams?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—when I was a lad.” + </p> + <p> + “And, in the after-time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van Brandt who came to + you in dreams—who appeared to you in the spirit, when she was far + away from you in the body? Poor old Dame Dermody. She little thought, in + her life-time, that her prediction would be fullfilled by the wrong + woman!” + </p> + <p> + To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her! If she had + only pressed them a little further—if she had not unconsciously led + me astray again by the very next question that fell from her lips—she + <i>must</i> have communicated to <i>my</i> mind the idea obscurely + germinating in hers—the idea of a possible identity between the Mary + of my first love and Mrs. Van Brandt! + </p> + <p> + “Tell me,” she went on. “If you met with your little Mary now, what would + she be like? What sort of woman would you expect to see?” + </p> + <p> + I could hardly help laughing. “How can I tell,” I rejoined, “at this + distance of time?” + </p> + <p> + “Try!” she said. + </p> + <p> + Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, I searched my + memory for the image of the frail and delicate child of my remembrance: + and I drew the picture of a frail and delicate woman—the most + absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt! + </p> + <p> + The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunross dropped out + of it instantly, expelled by the substantial conclusion which the contrast + implied. Alike ignorant of the aftergrowth of health, strength, and beauty + which time and circumstances had developed in the Mary of my youthful + days, we had alike completely and unconsciously misled one another. Once + more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missed it by a + hair-breadth! + </p> + <p> + “I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary,” said Miss Dunross, “to your + portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea of what a really + attractive woman ought to be. How you can have felt any sorrow for the + loss of that other person (I detest buxom women!) passes my understanding. + I can’t tell you how interested I am in Mary! I want to know more about + her. Where is that pretty present of needle-work which the poor little + thing embroidered for you so industriously? Do let me see the green flag!” + </p> + <p> + She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! I felt a + little confused as I answered her. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in my house in + Perthshire.” + </p> + <p> + “You have not got it with you?” she exclaimed. “You leave her keepsake + lying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeed forgotten Mary! A + woman, in your place, would have parted with her life rather than part + with the one memorial left of the time when she first loved!” + </p> + <p> + She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness—with such agitation, I + might almost say—that she quite startled me. + </p> + <p> + “Dear Miss Dunross,” I remonstrated, “the flag is not lost.” + </p> + <p> + “I should hope not!” she interposed, quickly. “If you lose the green flag, + you lose the last relic of Mary—and more than that, if <i>my</i> + belief is right.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you believe?” + </p> + <p> + “You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading of your + face was wrong—I am afraid you are a hard man.” + </p> + <p> + “Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me as frankly as + usual. What do I lose in losing the last relic of Mary?” + </p> + <p> + “You lose the one hope I have for you,” she answered, gravely—“the + hope of your meeting and your marriage with Mary in the time to come. I + was sleepless last night, and I was thinking of your pretty love story by + the banks of the bright English lake. The longer I thought, the more + firmly I felt the conviction that the poor child’s green flag is destined + to have its innocent influence in forming your future life. Your happiness + is waiting for you in that artless little keepsake! I can’t explain or + justify this belief of mine. It is one of my eccentricities, I suppose—like + training my cats to perform to the music of my harp. But, if I were your + old friend, instead of being only your friend of a few days, I would leave + you no peace—I would beg and entreat and persist, as only a woman <i>can</i> + persist—until I had made Mary’s gift as close a companion of yours, + as your mother’s portrait in the locket there at your watch-chain. While + the flag is with you, Mary’s influence is with you; Mary’s love is still + binding you by the dear old tie; and Mary and you, after years of + separation, will meet again!” + </p> + <p> + The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestness which had + given expression to it would have had its influence over a man of a far + harder nature than mine. I confess she had made me ashamed, if she had + done nothing more, of my neglect of the green flag. + </p> + <p> + “I will look for it the moment I am at home again,” I said; “and I will + take care that it is carefully preserved for the future.” + </p> + <p> + “I want more than that,” she rejoined. “If you can’t wear the flag about + you, I want it always to be <i>with</i> you—to go wherever you go. + When they brought your luggage here from the vessel at Lerwick, you were + particularly anxious about the safety of your traveling writing-desk—the + desk there on the table. Is there anything very valuable in it?” + </p> + <p> + “It contains my money, and other things that I prize far more highly—my + mother’s letters, and some family relics which I should be very sorry to + lose. Besides, the desk itself has its own familiar interest as my + constant traveling companion of many years past.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I was sitting. + </p> + <p> + “Let Mary’s flag be your constant traveling companion,” she said. “You + have spoken far too gratefully of my services here as your nurse. Reward + me beyond my deserts. Make allowances, Mr. Germaine, for the superstitious + fancies of a lonely, dreamy woman. Promise me that the green flag shall + take its place among the other little treasures in your desk!” + </p> + <p> + It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave the promise—gave + it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For the first time since I had + known her, she put her poor, wasted hand in mine, and pressed it for a + moment. Acting heedlessly under my first grateful impulse, I lifted her + hand to my lips before I released it. She started—trembled—and + suddenly and silently passed out of the room. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI. SHE COMES BETWEEN US. + </h2> + <p> + WHAT emotion had I thoughtlessly aroused in Miss Dunross? Had I offended + or distressed her? Or had I, without meaning it, forced on her inner + knowledge some deeply seated feeling which she had thus far resolutely + ignored? + </p> + <p> + I looked back through the days of my sojourn in the house; I questioned my + own feelings and impressions, on the chance that they might serve me as a + means of solving the mystery of her sudden flight from the room. + </p> + <p> + What effect had she produced on me? + </p> + <p> + In plain truth, she had simply taken her place in my mind, to the + exclusion of every other person and every other subject. In ten days she + had taken a hold on my sympathies of which other women would have failed + to possess themselves in so many years. I remembered, to my shame, that my + mother had but seldom occupied my thoughts. Even the image of Mrs. Van + Brandt—except when the conversation had turned on her—had + become a faint image in my mind! As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir + James downward, they had all kindly come to see me—and I had + secretly and ungratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene + free for the return of my nurse. In two days more the Government vessel + was to sail on the return voyage. My wrist was still painful when I tried + to use it; but the far more serious injury presented by the re-opened + wound was no longer a subject of anxiety to myself or to any one about me. + I was sufficiently restored to be capable of making the journey to + Lerwick, if I rested for one night at a farm half-way between the town and + Mr. Dunross’s house. Knowing this, I had nevertheless left the question of + rejoining the vessel undecided to the very latest moment. The motive which + I pleaded to my friends was—uncertainty as to the sufficient + recovery of my strength. The motive which I now confessed to myself was + reluctance to leave Miss Dunross. + </p> + <p> + What was the secret of her power over me? What emotion, what passion, had + she awakened in me? Was it love? + </p> + <p> + No: not love. The place which Mary had once held in my heart, the place + which Mrs. Van Brandt had taken in the after-time, was not the place + occupied by Miss Dunross. How could I (in the ordinary sense of the word) + be in love with a woman whose face I had never seen? whose beauty had + faded, never to bloom again? whose wasted life hung by a thread which the + accident of a moment might snap? The senses have their share in all love + between the sexes which is worthy of the name. They had no share in the + feeling with which I regarded Miss Dunross. What <i>was</i> the feeling, + then? I can only answer the question in one way. The feeling lay too deep + in me for my sounding. + </p> + <p> + What impression had I produced on her? What sensitive chord had I + ignorantly touched, when my lips touched her hand? + </p> + <p> + I confess I recoiled from pursuing the inquiry which I had deliberately + set myself to make. I thought of her shattered health; of her melancholy + existence in shadow and solitude; of the rich treasures of such a heart + and such a mind as hers, wasted with her wasting life; and I said to + myself, Let her secret be sacred! let me never again, by word or deed, + bring the trouble which tells of it to the surface! let her heart be + veiled from me in the darkness which veils her face! + </p> + <p> + In this frame of mind toward her, I waited her return. + </p> + <p> + I had no doubt of seeing her again, sooner or later, on that day. The post + to the south went out on the next day; and the early hour of the morning + at which the messenger called for our letters made it a matter of ordinary + convenience to write overnight. In the disabled state of my hand, Miss + Dunross had been accustomed to write home for me, under my dictation: she + knew that I owed a letter to my mother, and that I relied as usual on her + help. Her return to me, under these circumstances, was simply a question + of time: any duty which she had once undertaken was an imperative duty in + her estimation, no matter how trifling it might be. + </p> + <p> + The hours wore on; the day drew to its end—and still she never + appeared. + </p> + <p> + I left my room to enjoy the last sunny gleam of the daylight in the garden + attached to the house; first telling Peter where I might be found, if Miss + Dunross wanted me. The garden was a wild place, to my southern notions; + but it extended for some distance along the shore of the island, and it + offered some pleasant views of the lake and the moorland country beyond. + Slowly pursuing my walk, I proposed to myself to occupy my mind to some + useful purpose by arranging beforehand the composition of the letter which + Miss Dunross was to write. + </p> + <p> + To my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix my mind on the + subject. Try as I might, my thoughts persisted in wandering from the + letter to my mother, and concentrated themselves instead—on Miss + Dunross? No. On the question of my returning, or not returning, to + Perthshire by the Government vessel? No. By some capricious revulsion of + feeling which it seemed impossible to account for, my whole mind was now + absorbed on the one subject which had been hitherto so strangely absent + from it—the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt! + </p> + <p> + My memory went back, in defiance of all exercise of my own will, to my + last interview with her. I saw her again; I heard her again. I tasted once + more the momentary rapture of our last kiss; I felt once more the pang of + sorrow that wrung me when I had parted with her and found myself alone in + the street. Tears—of which I was ashamed, though nobody was near to + see them—filled my eyes when I thought of the months that had passed + since we had last looked on one another, and of all that she might have + suffered, must have suffered, in that time. Hundreds on hundreds of miles + were between us—and yet she was now as near me as if she were + walking in the garden by my side! + </p> + <p> + This strange condition of my mind was matched by an equally strange + condition of my body. A mysterious trembling shuddered over me faintly + from head to foot. I walked without feeling the ground as I trod on it; I + looked about me with no distinct consciousness of what the objects were on + which my eyes rested. My hands were cold—and yet I hardly felt it. + My head throbbed hotly—and yet I was not sensible of any pain. It + seemed as if I were surrounded and enwrapped in some electric atmosphere + which altered all the ordinary conditions of sensation. I looked up at the + clear, calm sky, and wondered if a thunderstorm was coming. I stopped, and + buttoned my coat round me, and questioned myself if I had caught a cold, + or if I was going to have a fever. The sun sank below the moorland + horizon; the gray twilight trembled over the dark waters of the lake. I + went back to the house; and the vivid memory of Mrs. Van Brandt, still in + close companionship, went back with me. + </p> + <p> + The fire in my room had burned low in my absence. One of the closed + curtains had been drawn back a few inches, so as to admit through the + window a ray of the dying light. On the boundary limit where the light was + crossed by the obscurity which filled the rest of the room, I saw Miss + Dunross seated, with her veil drawn and her writing-case on her knee, + waiting my return. + </p> + <p> + I hastened to make my excuses. I assured her that I had been careful to + tell the servant where to find me. She gently checked me before I could + say more. + </p> + <p> + “It’s not Peter’s fault,” she said. “I told him not to hurry your return + to the house. Have you enjoyed your walk?” + </p> + <p> + She spoke very quietly. The faint, sad voice was fainter and sadder than + ever. She kept her head bent over her writing-case, instead of turning it + toward me as usual while we were talking. I still felt the mysterious + trembling which had oppressed me in the garden. Drawing a chair near the + fire, I stirred the embers together, and tried to warm myself. Our + positions in the room left some little distance between us. I could only + see her sidewise, as she sat by the window in the sheltering darkness of + the curtain which still remained drawn. + </p> + <p> + “I think I have been too long in the garden,” I said. “I feel chilled by + the cold evening air.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you have some more wood put on the fire?” she asked. “Can I get you + anything?” + </p> + <p> + “No, thank you. I shall do very well here. I see you are kindly ready to + write for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she said, “at your own convenience. When you are ready, my pen is + ready.” + </p> + <p> + The unacknowledged reserve that had come between us since we had last + spoken together, was, I believe, as painfully felt by her as by me. We + were no doubt longing to break through it on either side—if we had + only known how. The writing of the letter would occupy us, at any rate. I + made another effort to give my mind to the subject—and once more it + was an effort made in vain. Knowing what I wanted to say to my mother, my + faculties seemed to be paralyzed when I tried to say it. I sat cowering by + the fire—and she sat waiting, with her writing-case on her lap. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII. SHE CLAIMS ME AGAIN. + </h2> + <p> + THE moments passed; the silence between us continued. Miss Dunross made an + attempt to rouse me. + </p> + <p> + “Have you decided to go back to Scotland with your friends at Lerwick?” + she asked. + </p> + <p> + “It is no easy matter,” I replied, “to decide on leaving my friends in + this house.” + </p> + <p> + Her head drooped lower on her bosom; her voice sunk as she answered me. + </p> + <p> + “Think of your mother,” she said. “The first duty you owe is your duty to + her. Your long absence is a heavy trial to her—your mother is + suffering.” + </p> + <p> + “Suffering?” I repeated. “Her letters say nothing—” + </p> + <p> + “You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters,” Miss Dunross + interposed. “I see the unwritten and unconscious confession of anxiety in + every line that she writes to you. You know, as well as I do, that there + is cause for her anxiety. Make her happy by telling her that you sail for + home with your friends. Make her happier still by telling her that you + grieve no more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. May I write it, in your + name and in those words?” + </p> + <p> + I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in those terms, or + in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The unhappy love-story of my manhood had + never been a forbidden subject between us on former occasions. Why did I + feel as if it had become a forbidden subject now? Why did I evade giving + her a direct reply? + </p> + <p> + “We have plenty of time before us,” I said. “I want to speak to you about + yourself.” + </p> + <p> + She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, as if to protest + against the topic to which I had returned. I persisted, nevertheless, in + returning to it. + </p> + <p> + “If I must go back,” I went on, “I may venture to say to you at parting + what I have not said yet. I cannot, and will not, believe that you are an + incurable invalid. My education, as I have told you, has been the + education of a medical man. I am well acquainted with some of the greatest + living physicians, in Edinburgh as well as in London. Will you allow me to + describe your malady (as I understand it) to men who are accustomed to + treat cases of intricate nervous disorder? And will you let me write and + tell you the result?” + </p> + <p> + I waited for her reply. Neither by word nor sign did she encourage the + idea of any future communication with her. I ventured to suggest another + motive which might induce her to receive a letter from me. + </p> + <p> + “In any case, I may find it necessary to write to you,” I went on. “You + firmly believe that I and my little Mary are destined to meet again. If + your anticipations are realized, you will expect me to tell you of it, + surely?” + </p> + <p> + Once more I waited. She spoke—but it was not to reply: it was only + to change the subject. + </p> + <p> + “The time is passing,” was all she said. “We have not begun your letter to + your mother yet.” + </p> + <p> + It would have been cruel to contend with her any longer. Her voice warned + me that she was suffering. The faint gleam of light through the parted + curtains was fading fast. It was time, indeed, to write the letter. I + could find other opportunities of speaking to her before I left the house. + </p> + <p> + “I am ready,” I answered. “Let us begin.” + </p> + <p> + The first sentence was easily dictated to my patient secretary. I informed + my mother that my sprained wrist was nearly restored to use, and that + nothing prevented my leaving Shetland when the lighthouse commissioner was + ready to return. This was all that it was necessary to say on the subject + of my health; the disaster of my re-opened wound having been, for obvious + reasons, concealed from my mother’s knowledge. Miss Dunross silently wrote + the opening lines of the letter, and waited for the words that were to + follow. + </p> + <p> + In my next sentence, I announced the date at which the vessel was to sail + on the return voyage; and I mentioned the period at which my mother might + expect to see me, weather permitting. Those words, also, Miss Dunross + wrote—and waited again. I set myself to consider what I should say + next. To my surprise and alarm, I found it impossible to fix my mind on + the subject. My thoughts wandered away, in the strangest manner, from my + letter to Mrs. Van Brandt. I was ashamed of myself; I was angry with + myself—I resolved, no matter what I said, that I would positively + finish the letter. No! try as I might, the utmost effort of my will + availed me nothing. Mrs. Van Brandt’s words at our last interview were + murmuring in my ears—not a word of my own would come to me! + </p> + <p> + Miss Dunross laid down her pen, and slowly turned her head to look at me. + </p> + <p> + “Surely you have something more to add to your letter?” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Certainly,” I answered. “I don’t know what is the matter with me. The + effort of dictating seems to be beyond my power this evening.” + </p> + <p> + “Can I help you?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + I gladly accepted the suggestion. “There are many things,” I said, “which + my mother would be glad to hear, if I were not too stupid to think of + them. I am sure I may trust your sympathy to think of them for me.” + </p> + <p> + That rash answer offered Miss Dunross the opportunity of returning to the + subject of Mrs. Van Brandt. She seized the opportunity with a woman’s + persistent resolution when she has her end in view, and is determined to + reach it at all hazards. + </p> + <p> + “You have not told your mother yet,” she said, “that your infatuation for + Mrs. Van Brandt is at an end. Will you put it in your own words? Or shall + I write it for you, imitating your language as well as I can?” + </p> + <p> + In the state of my mind at that moment, her perseverance conquered me. I + thought to myself indolently, “If I say No, she will only return to the + subject again, and she will end (after all I owe to her kindness) in + making me say Yes.” Before I could answer her she had realized my + anticipations. She returned to the subject; and she made me say Yes. + </p> + <p> + “What does your silence mean?” she said. “Do you ask me to help you, and + do you refuse to accept the first suggestion I offer?” + </p> + <p> + “Take up your pen,” I rejoined. “It shall be as you wish.” + </p> + <p> + “Will you dictate the words?” + </p> + <p> + “I will try.” + </p> + <p> + I tried; and this time I succeeded. With the image of Mrs. Van Brandt + vividly present to my mind, I arranged the first words of the sentence + which was to tell my mother that my “infatuation” was at an end! + </p> + <p> + “You will be glad to hear,” I began, “that time and change are doing their + good work.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Dunross wrote the words, and paused in anticipation of the next + sentence. The light faded and faded; the room grew darker and darker. I + went on. + </p> + <p> + “I hope I shall cause you no more anxiety, my dear mother, on the subject + of Mrs. Van Brandt.” + </p> + <p> + In the deep silence I could hear the pen of my secretary traveling + steadily over the paper while it wrote those words. + </p> + <p> + “Have you written?” I asked, as the sound of the pen ceased. + </p> + <p> + “I have written,” she answered, in her customary quiet tones. + </p> + <p> + I went on again with my letter. + </p> + <p> + “The days pass now, and I seldom or never think of her; I hope I am + resigned at last to the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt.” + </p> + <p> + As I reached the end of the sentence, I heard a faint cry from Miss + Dunross. Looking instantly toward her, I could just see, in the deepening + darkness, t hat her head had fallen on the back of the chair. My first + impulse was, of course, to rise and go to her. I had barely got to my + feet, when some indescribable dread paralyzed me on the instant. + Supporting myself against the chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapable + of advancing a step. The effort to speak was the one effort that I could + make. + </p> + <p> + “Are you ill?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + She was hardly able to answer me; speaking in a whisper, without raising + her head. + </p> + <p> + “I am frightened,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “What has frightened you?” + </p> + <p> + I heard her shudder in the darkness. Instead of answering me, she + whispered to herself: “What am I to say to him?” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me what has frightened you?” I repeated. “You know you may trust me + with the truth.” + </p> + <p> + She rallied her sinking strength. She answered in these strange words: + </p> + <p> + “Something has come between me and the letter that I am writing for you.” + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t tell you.” + </p> + <p> + “Can you see it?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Can you feel it?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes!” + </p> + <p> + “What is it like?” + </p> + <p> + “Like a breath of cold air between me and the letter.” + </p> + <p> + “Has the window come open?” + </p> + <p> + “The window is close shut.” + </p> + <p> + “And the door?” + </p> + <p> + “The door is shut also—as well as I can see. Make sure of it for + yourself. Where are you? What are you doing?” + </p> + <p> + I was looking toward the window. As she spoke her last words, I was + conscious of a change in that part of the room. + </p> + <p> + In the gap between the parted curtains there was a new light shining; not + the dim gray twilight of Nature, but a pure and starry radiance, a pale, + unearthly light. While I watched it, the starry radiance quivered as if + some breath of air had stirred it. When it was still again, there dawned + on me through the unearthly luster the figure of a woman. By fine and slow + gradations, it became more and more distinct. I knew the noble figure; I + knew the sad and tender smile. For the second time I stood in the presence + of the apparition of Mrs. Van Brandt. + </p> + <p> + She was robed, not as I had last seen her, but in the dress which she had + worn on the memorable evening when we met on the bridge—in the dress + in which she had first appeared to me, by the waterfall in Scotland. The + starry light shone round her like a halo. She looked at me with sorrowful + and pleading eyes, as she had looked when I saw the apparition of her in + the summer-house. She lifted her hand—not beckoning me to approach + her, as before, but gently signing to me to remain where I stood. + </p> + <p> + I waited—feeling awe, but no fear. My heart was all hers as I looked + at her. + </p> + <p> + She moved; gliding from the window to the chair in which Miss Dunross sat; + winding her way slowly round it, until she stood at the back. By the light + of the pale halo that encircled the ghostly Presence, and moved with it, I + could see the dark figure of the living woman seated immovable in the + chair. The writing-case was on her lap, with the letter and the pen lying + on it. Her arms hung helpless at her sides; her veiled head was now bent + forward. She looked as if she had been struck to stone in the act of + trying to rise from her seat. + </p> + <p> + A moment passed—and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop over the living + woman. It lifted the writing-case from her lap. It rested the writing-case + on her shoulder. Its white fingers took the pen and wrote on the + unfinished letter. It put the writing-case back on the lap of the living + woman. Still standing behind the chair, it turned toward me. It looked at + me once more. And now it beckoned—beckoned to me to approach. + </p> + <p> + Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved when I first saw + her in the summer-house—drawn nearer and nearer by an irresistible + power—I approached and stopped within a few paces of her. She + advanced and laid her hand on my bosom. Again I felt those strangely + mingled sensations of rapture and awe, which had once before filled me + when I was conscious, spiritually, of her touch. Again she spoke, in the + low, melodious tones which I recalled so well. Again she said the words: + “Remember me. Come to me.” Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale light + in which she stood quivered, sunk, vanished. I saw the twilight glimmering + between the curtains—and I saw no more. She had spoken. She had + gone. + </p> + <p> + I was near Miss Dunross—near enough, when I put out my hand, to + touch her. + </p> + <p> + She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awakened from a dreadful + dream. + </p> + <p> + “Speak to me!” she whispered. “Let me know that it is <i>you</i> who + touched me.” + </p> + <p> + I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her. + </p> + <p> + “Have you seen anything in the room?” + </p> + <p> + She answered. “I have been filled with a deadly fear. I have seen nothing + but the writing-case lifted from my lap.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you see the hand that lifted it?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in it?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from your lap?” + </p> + <p> + “I saw it resting on my shoulder.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you see writing on the letter, which was not <i>your</i> writing?” + </p> + <p> + “I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in which I am + sitting.” + </p> + <p> + “Did it move?” + </p> + <p> + “It moved across the paper.” + </p> + <p> + “As a pen moves in writing?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. As a pen moves in writing.” + </p> + <p> + “May I take the letter?” + </p> + <p> + She handed it to me. + </p> + <p> + “May I light a candle?” + </p> + <p> + She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed in silence. + </p> + <p> + I lighted the candle on the mantel-piece, and looked for the writing. + </p> + <p> + There, on the blank space in the letter, as I had seen it before on the + blank space in the sketch-book—there were the written words which + the ghostly Presence had left behind it; arranged once more in two lines, + as I copy them here: + </p> + <p> + At the month’s end, In the shadow of Saint Paul’s. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII. THE KISS. + </h2> + <p> + SHE had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I felt all the old + love, all the old devotion owning her power once more. Whatever had + mortified or angered me at our last interview was forgiven and forgotten + now. My whole being still thrilled with the mingled awe and rapture of + beholding the Vision of her that had come to me for the second time. The + minutes passed—and I stood by the fire like a man entranced; + thinking only of her spoken words, “Remember me. Come to me;” looking only + at her mystic writing, “At the month’s end, In the shadow of Saint + Paul’s.” + </p> + <p> + The month’s end was still far off; the apparition of her had shown itself + to me, under some subtle prevision of trouble that was still in the + future. Ample time was before me for the pilgrimage to which I was + self-dedicated already—my pilgrimage to the shadow of Saint Paul’s. + Other men, in my position, might have hesitated as to the right + understanding of the place to which they were bidden. Other men might have + wearied their memories by recalling the churches, the institutions, the + streets, the towns in foreign countries, all consecrated to Christian + reverence by the great apostle’s name, and might have fruitlessly asked + themselves in which direction they were first to turn their steps. No such + difficulty troubled me. My first conclusion was the one conclusion that + was acceptable to my mind. “Saint Paul’s” meant the famous Cathedral of + London. Where the shadow of the great church fell, there, at the month’s + end, I should find her, or the trace of her. In London once more, and + nowhere else, I was destined to see the woman I loved, in the living body, + as certainly as I had just seen her in the ghostly presence. + </p> + <p> + Who could interpret the mysterious sympathies that still united us, in + defiance of distance, in defiance of time? Who could predict to what end + our lives were tending in the years that were to come? + </p> + <p> + Those questions were still present to my thoughts; my eyes were still + fixed on the mysterious writing—when I became instinctively aware of + the strange silence in the room. Instantly the lost remembrance of Miss + Dunross came back to me. Stung by my own sense of self-reproach, I turned + with a start, and looked toward her chair by the window. + </p> + <p> + The chair was empty. I was alone in the room. + </p> + <p> + Why had she left me secretly, without a word of farewell? Because she was + suffering, in mind or body? Or because she resented, naturally resented, + my neglect of her? + </p> + <p> + The bare suspicion that I had given her pain was intolerable to me. I rang + my bell, to make inquiries. + </p> + <p> + The bell was answered, not, as usual, by the silent servant Peter, but by + a woman of middle age, very quietly and neatly dressed, whom I had once or + twice met on the way to and from my room, and of whose exact position in + the house I was still ignorant. + </p> + <p> + “Do you wish to see Peter?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “No. I wish to know where Miss Dunross is.” + </p> + <p> + “Miss Dunross is in her room. She has sent me with this letter.” + </p> + <p> + I took the letter, feeling some surprise and uneasiness. It was the first + time Miss Dunross had communicated with me in that formal way. I tried to + gain further information by questioning her messenger. + </p> + <p> + “Are you Miss Dunross’s maid?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I have served Miss Dunross for many years,” was the answer, spoken very + ungraciously. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think she would receive me if I sent you with a message to her?” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t say, sir. The letter may tell you. You will do well to read the + letter.” + </p> + <p> + We looked at each other. The woman’s preconceived impression of me was + evidently an unfavorable one. Had I indeed pained or offended Miss + Dunross? And had the servant—perhaps the faithful servant who loved + her—discovered and resented it? The woman frowned as she looked at + me. It would be a mere waste of words to persist in questioning her. I let + her go. + </p> + <p> + Left by myself again, I read the letter. It began, without any form of + address, in these lines: + </p> + <p> + “I write, instead of speaking to you, because my self-control has already + been severely tried, and I am not strong enough to bear more. For my + father’s sake—not for my own—I must take all the care I can of + the little health that I have left. + </p> + <p> + “Putting together what you have told me of the visionary creature whom you + saw in the summer-house in Scotland, and what you said when you questioned + me in your room a little while since, I cannot fail to infer that the same + vision has shown itself to you, for the second time. The fear that I felt, + the strange things that I saw (or thought I saw), may have been imperfect + reflections in my mind of what was passing in yours. I do not stop to + inquire whether we are both the victims of a delusion, or whether we are + the chosen recipients of a supernatural communication. The result, in + either case, is enough for me. You are once more under the influence of + Mrs. Van Brandt. I will not trust myself to tell you of the anxieties and + forebodings by which I am oppressed: I will only acknowledge that my one + hope for you is in your speedy reunion with the worthier object of your + constancy and devotion. I still believe, and I am consoled in believing, + that you and your first love will meet again. + </p> + <p> + “Having written so far, I leave the subject—not to return to it, + except in my own thoughts. + </p> + <p> + “The necessary preparations for your departure to-morrow are all made. + Nothing remains but to wish you a safe and pleasant journey home. Do not, + I entreat you, think me insensible of what I owe to you, if I say my + farewell words here. + </p> + <p> + “The little services which you have allowed me to render you have + brightened the closing days of my life. You have left me a treasury of + happy memories which I shall hoard, when you are gone, with miserly care. + Are you willing to add new claims to my grateful remembrance? I ask it of + you, as a last favor—do not attempt to see me again! Do not expect + me to take a personal leave of you! The saddest of all words is ‘Good-by’: + I have fortitude enough to write it, and no more. God preserve and prosper + you—farewell! + </p> + <p> + “One more request. I beg that you will not forget what you promised me, + when I told you my foolish fancy about the green flag. Wherever you go, + let Mary’s keepsake go with you. No written answer is necessary—I + would rather not receive it. Look up, when you leave the house to-morrow, + at the center window over the doorway—that will be answer enough.” + </p> + <p> + To say that these melancholy lines brought the tears into my eyes is only + to acknowledge that I had sympathies which could be touched. When I had in + some degree recovered my composure, the impulse which urged me to write to + Miss Dunross was too strong to be resisted. I did not trouble her with a + long letter; I only entreated her to reconsider her decision with all the + art of persuasion which I could summon to help me. The answer was brought + back by the servant who waited on Miss Dunross, in four resolute words: + “It can not be.” This time the woman spoke out before she left me. “If you + have any regard for my mistress,” she said sternly, “don’t make her write + to you again.” She looked at me with a last lowering frown, and left the + room. + </p> + <p> + It is needless to say that the faithful servant’s words only increased my + anxiety to see Miss Dunross once more before we parted—perhaps + forever. My one last hope of success in attaining this object lay in + approaching her indirectly through the intercession of her father. + </p> + <p> + I sent Peter to inquire if I might be permitted to pay my respects to his + master that evening. My messenger returned with an answer that was a new + disappointment to me. Mr. Dunross begged that I would excuse him, if he + deferred the proposed interview until the next morning. The next morning + was the morning of my departure. Did the message mean that he had no wish + to see me again until the time had come to take leave of him? I inquired + of Peter whether his master was particularly occupied that evening. He was + unable to tell me. “The Master of Books” was not in his study, as usual. + When he sent his message to me, he was sitting by the sofa in his + daughter’s room. + </p> + <p> + Having answered in those terms, the man left me by myself until the next + morning. I do not wish my bitterest enemy a sadder time in his life than + the time I passed during the last night of my residence under Mr. + Dunross’s roof. + </p> + <p> + After walking to and fro in the room until I was weary, I thought of + trying to divert my mind from the sad thoughts that oppressed it by + reading. The one candle which I had lighted failed to sufficiently + illuminate the room. Advancing to the mantel-piece to light the second + candle which stood there, I noticed the unfinished letter to my mother + lying where I had placed it, when Miss Dunross’s servant first presented + herself before me. Having lighted the second candle, I took up the letter + to put it away among my other papers. Doing this (while my thoughts were + still dwelling on Miss Dunross), I mechanically looked at the letter again—and + instantly discovered a change in it. + </p> + <p> + The written characters traced by the hand of the apparition had vanished! + Below the last lines written by Miss Dunross nothing met my eyes now but + the blank white paper! + </p> + <p> + My first impulse was to look at my watch. + </p> + <p> + When the ghostly presence had written in my sketch-book, the characters + had disappeared after an interval of three hours. On this occasion, as + nearly as I could calculate, the writing had vanished in one hour only. + </p> + <p> + Reverting to the conversation which I had held with Mrs. Van Brandt when + we met at Saint Anthony’s Well, and to the discoveries which followed at a + later period of my life, I can only repeat that she had again been the + subject of a trance or dream, when the apparition of her showed itself to + me for the second time. As before, she had freely trusted me and freely + appealed to me to help her, in the dreaming state, when her spirit was + free to recognize my spirit. When she had come to herself, after an + interval of an hour, she had again felt ashamed of the familiar manner in + which she had communicated with me in the trance—had again + unconsciously counteracted by her waking-will the influence of her + sleeping-will; and had thus caused the writing once more to disappear, in + an hour from the moment when the pen had traced (or seemed to trace) it. + </p> + <p> + This is still the one explanation that I can offer. At the time when the + incident happened, I was far from being fully admitted to the confidence + of Mrs. Van Brandt; and I was necessarily incapable of arriving at any + solution of the mystery, right or wrong. I could only put away the letter, + doubting vaguely whether my own senses had not deceived me. After the + distressing thoughts which Miss Dunross’s letter had roused in my mind, I + was in no humor to employ my ingenuity in finding a clew to the mystery of + the vanished writing. My nerves were irritated; I felt a sense of angry + discontent with myself and with others. “Go where I may” (I thought + impatiently), “the disturbing influence of women seems to be the only + influence that I am fated to feel.” As I still paced backward and forward + in my room—it was useless to think now of fixing my attention on a + book—I fancied I understood the motives which made men as young as I + was retire to end their lives in a monastery. I drew aside the window + curtains, and looked out. The only prospect that met my view was the black + gulf of darkness in which the lake lay hidden. I could see nothing; I + could do nothing; I could think of nothing. The one alternative before me + was that of trying to sleep. My medical knowledge told me plainly that + natural sleep was, in my nervous condition, one of the unattainable + luxuries of life for that night. The medicine-chest which Mr. Dunross had + placed at my disposal remained in the room. I mixed for myself a strong + sleeping draught, and sullenly took refuge from my troubles in bed. + </p> + <p> + It is a peculiarity of most of the soporific drugs that they not only act + in a totally different manner on different constitutions, but that they + are not even to be depended on to act always in the same manner on the + same person. I had taken care to extinguish the candles before I got into + my bed. Under ordinary circumstances, after I had lain quietly in the + darkness for half an hour, the draught that I had taken would have sent me + to sleep. In the present state of my nerves the draught stupefied me, and + did no more. + </p> + <p> + Hour after hour I lay perfectly still, with my eyes closed, in the + semi-sleeping, semi-wakeful state which is so curiously characteristic of + the ordinary repose of a dog. As the night wore on, such a sense of + heaviness oppressed my eyelids that it was literally impossible for me to + open them—such a masterful languor possessed all my muscles that I + could no more move on my pillow than if I had been a corpse. And yet, in + this somnolent condition, my mind was able to pursue lazy trains of + pleasant thought. My sense of hearing was so acute that it caught the + faintest sounds made by the passage of the night-breeze through the rushes + of the lake. Inside my bed-chamber, I was even more keenly sensible of + those weird night-noises in the heavy furniture of a room, of those sudden + settlements of extinct coals in the grate, so familiar to bad sleepers, so + startling to overwrought nerves! It is not a scientifically correct + statement, but it exactly describes my condition, that night, to say that + one half of me was asleep and the other half awake. + </p> + <p> + How many hours of the night had passed, when my irritable sense of hearing + became aware of a new sound in the room, I cannot tell. I can only relate + that I found myself on a sudden listening intently, with fast-closed eyes. + The sound that disturbed me was the faintest sound imaginable, as of + something soft and light traveling slowly over the surface of the carpet, + and brushing it just loud enough to be heard. + </p> + <p> + Little by little, the sound came nearer and nearer to my bed—and + then suddenly stopped just as I fancied it was close by me. + </p> + <p> + I still lay immovable, with closed eyes; drowsily waiting for the next + sound that might reach my ears; drowsily content with the silence, if the + silence continued. My thoughts (if thoughts they could be called) were + drifting back again into their former course, when I became suddenly + conscious of soft breathing just above me. The next moment I felt a touch + on my forehead—light, soft, tremulous, like the touch of lips that + had kissed me. There was a momentary pause. Then a low sigh trembled + through the silence. Then I heard again the still, small sound of + something brushing its way over the carpet; traveling this time <i>from</i> + my bed, and moving so rapidly that in a moment more it was lost in the + silence of the night. + </p> + <p> + Still stupefied by the drug that I had taken, I could lazily wonder what + had happened, and I could do no more. Had living lips really touched me? + Was the sound that I had heard really the sound of a sigh? Or was it all + delusion, beginning and ending in a dream? The time passed without my + deciding, or caring to decide, those questions. Minute by minute, the + composing influence of the draught began at last to strengthen its hold on + my brain. A cloud seemed to pass softly over my last waking impressions. + One after another, the ties broke gently that held me to conscious life. I + drifted peacefully into perfect sleep. + </p> + <p> + Shortly after sunrise, I awoke. When I regained the use of my memory, my + first clear recollection was the recollection of the soft breathing which + I had felt above me—then of the touch on my forehead, and of the + sigh which I had heard after it. Was it possible that some one had entered + my room in the night? It was quite possible. I had not locked the door—I + had never been in the habit of locking the door during my residence under + Mr. Dunross’s roof. + </p> + <p> + After thinking it over a little, I rose to examine my room. + </p> + <p> + Nothing in the shape of a discovery rewarded me, until I reached the door. + Though I had not locked it overnight, I had certainly satisfied myself + that it was closed before I went to bed. It was now ajar. Had it opened + again, through being imperfectly shut? or had a person, after entering and + leaving my room, forgotten to close it? + </p> + <p> + Accidentally looking downward while I was weighing these probabilities, I + noticed a small black object on the carpet, lying just under the key, on + the inner side of the door. I picked the thing up, and found that it was a + torn morsel of black lace. + </p> + <p> + The instant I saw the fragment, I was reminded of the long black veil, + hanging below her waist, which it was the habit of Miss Dunross to wear. + Was it <i>her</i> dress, then, that I had heard softly traveling over the + carpet; <i>her</i> kiss that had touched my forehead; <i>her</i> sigh that + had trembled through the silence? Had the ill-fated and noble creature + taken her last leave of me in the dead of night, trusting the preservation + of her secret to the deceitful appearances which persuaded her that I was + asleep? I looked again at the fragment of black lace. Her long veil might + easily have been caught, and torn, by the projecting key, as she passed + rapidly through the door on her way out of my room. Sadly and reverently I + laid the morsel of lace among the treasured memorials which I had brought + with me from home. To the end of her life, I vowed it, she should be left + undisturbed in the belief that her secret was safe in her own breast! + Ardently as I still longed to take her hand at parting, I now resolved to + make no further effort to see her. I might not be master of my own + emotions; something in my face or in my manner might betray me to her + quick and delicate perception. Knowing what I now knew, the last sacrifice + I could make to her would be to obey her wishes. I made the sacrifice. + </p> + <p> + In an hour more Peter informed me that the ponies were at the door, and + that the Master was waiting for me in the outer hall. + </p> + <p> + I noticed that Mr. Dunross gave me his hand, without looking at me. His + faded blue eyes, during the few minutes while we were together, were not + once raised from the ground. + </p> + <p> + “God speed you on your journey, sir, and guide you safely home,” he said. + “I beg you to forgive me if I fail to accompany you on the first few miles + of your journey. There are reasons which oblige me to remain with my + daughter in the house.” + </p> + <p> + He was scrupulously, almost painfully, courteous; but there was something + in his manner which, for the first time in my experience, seemed + designedly to keep me at a distance from him. Knowing the intimate + sympathy, the perfect confidence, which existed between the father and + daughter, a doubt crossed my mind whether the secret of the past night was + entirely a secret to Mr. Dunross. His next words set that doubt at rest, + and showed me the truth. + </p> + <p> + In thanking him for his good wishes, I attempted also to express to him + (and through him to Miss Dunross) my sincere sense of gratitude for the + kindness which I had received under his roof. He stopped me, politely and + resolutely, speaking with that quaintly precise choice of language which I + h ad remarked as characteristic of him at our first interview. + </p> + <p> + “It is in your power, sir,” he said, “to return any obligation which you + may think you have incurred on leaving my house. If you will be pleased to + consider your residence here as an unimportant episode in your life, which + ends—<i>absolutely</i> ends—with your departure, you will more + than repay any kindness that you may have received as my guest. In saying + this, I speak under a sense of duty which does entire justice to you as a + gentleman and a man of honor. In return, I can only trust to you not to + misjudge my motives, if I abstain from explaining myself any further.” + </p> + <p> + A faint color flushed his pale cheeks. He waited, with a certain proud + resignation, for my reply. I respected her secret, respected it more + resolutely than ever, before her father. + </p> + <p> + “After all that I owe to you, sir,” I answered, “your wishes are my + commands.” Saying that, and saying no more, I bowed to him with marked + respect, and left the house. + </p> + <p> + Mounting my pony at the door, I looked up at the center window, as she had + bidden me. It was open; but dark curtains, jealously closed, kept out the + light from the room within. At the sound of the pony’s hoofs on the rough + island road, as the animal moved, the curtains were parted for a few + inches only. Through the gap in the dark draperies a wan white hand + appeared; waved tremulously a last farewell; and vanished from my view. + The curtains closed again on her dark and solitary life. The dreary wind + sounded its long, low dirge over the rippling waters of the lake. The + ponies took their places in the ferryboat which was kept for the passage + of animals to and from the island. With slow, regular strokes the men + rowed us to the mainland and took their leave. I looked back at the + distant house. I thought of her in the dark room, waiting patiently for + death. Burning tears blinded me. The guide took my bridle in his hand: + “You’re not well, sir,” he said; “I will lead the pony.” + </p> + <p> + When I looked again at the landscape round me, we had descended in the + interval from the higher ground to the lower. The house and the lake had + disappeared, to be seen no more. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE SHADOW OF ST. PAUL’S. + </h2> + <h3> + In ten days I was at home again—and my mother’s arms were round me. + </h3> + <p> + I had left her for my sea-voyage very unwillingly—seeing that she + was in delicate health. On my return, I was grieved to observe a change + for the worse, for which her letters had not prepared me. Consulting our + medical friend, Mr. MacGlue, I found that he, too, had noticed my mother’s + failing health, but that he attributed it to an easily removable cause—to + the climate of Scotland. My mother’s childhood and early life had been + passed on the southern shores of England. The change to the raw, keen air + of the North had been a trying change to a person at her age. In Mr. + MacGlue’s opinion, the wise course to take would be to return to the South + before the autumn was further advanced, and to make our arrangements for + passing the coming winter at Penzance or Torquay. + </p> + <p> + Resolved as I was to keep the mysterious appointment which summoned me to + London at the month’s end, Mr. MacGlue’s suggestion met with no opposition + on my part. It had, to my mind, the great merit of obviating the necessity + of a second separation from my mother—assuming that she approved of + the doctor’s advice. I put the question to her the same day. To my + infinite relief, she was not only ready, but eager to take the journey to + the South. The season had been unusually wet, even for Scotland; and my + mother reluctantly confessed that she “did feel a certain longing” for the + mild air and genial sunshine of the Devonshire coast. + </p> + <p> + We arranged to travel in our own comfortable carriage by post—resting, + of course, at inns on the road at night. In the days before railways it + was no easy matter for an invalid to travel from Perthshire to London—even + with a light carriage and four horses. Calculating our rate of progress + from the date of our departure, I found that we had just time, and no + more, to reach London on the last day of the month. + </p> + <p> + I shall say nothing of the secret anxieties which weighed on my mind, + under these circumstances. Happily for me, on every account, my mother’s + strength held out. The easy and (as we then thought) the rapid rate of + traveling had its invigorating effect on her nerves. She slept better when + we rested for the night than she had slept at home. After twice being + delayed on the road, we arrived in London at three o’clock on the + afternoon of the last day of the month. Had I reached my destination in + time? + </p> + <p> + As I interpreted the writing of the apparition, I had still some hours at + my disposal. The phrase, “at the month’s end,” meant, as I understood it, + at the last hour of the last day in the month. If I took up my position + “under the shadow of Saint Paul’s,” say, at ten that night, I should + arrive at the place of meeting with two hours to spare, before the last + stroke of the clock marked the beginning of the new month. + </p> + <p> + At half-past nine, I left my mother to rest after her long journey, and + privately quit the house. Before ten, I was at my post. The night was fine + and clear; and the huge shadow of the cathedral marked distinctly the + limits within which I had been bid to wait, on the watch for events. + </p> + <p> + The great clock of Saint Paul’s struck ten—and nothing happened. + </p> + <p> + The next hour passed very slowly. I walked up and down; at one time + absorbed in my own thoughts; at another, engaged in watching the gradual + diminution in the number of foot passengers who passed me as the night + advanced. The City (as it is called) is the most populous part of London + in the daytime; but at night, when it ceases to be the center of commerce, + its busy population melts away, and the empty streets assume the + appearance of a remote and deserted quarter of the metropolis. As the half + hour after ten struck—then the quarter to eleven—then the hour—the + pavement steadily became more and more deserted. I could count the foot + passengers now by twos and threes; and I could see the places of public + refreshment within my view beginning already to close for the night. + </p> + <p> + I looked at the clock; it pointed to ten minutes past eleven. At that + hour, could I hope to meet Mrs. Van Brandt alone in the public street? + </p> + <p> + The more I thought of it, the less likely such an event seemed to be. The + more reasonable probability was that I might meet her once more, + accompanied by some friend—perhaps under the escort of Van Brandt + himself. I wondered whether I should preserve my self-control, in the + presence of that man, for the second time. + </p> + <p> + While my thoughts were still pursuing this direction, my attention was + recalled to passing events by a sad little voice, putting a strange little + question, close at my side. + </p> + <p> + “If you please, sir, do you know where I can find a chemist’s shop open at + this time of night?” + </p> + <p> + I looked round, and discovered a poorly clad little boy, with a basket + over his arm, and a morsel of paper in his hand. + </p> + <p> + “The chemists’ shops are all shut,” I said. “If you want any medicine, you + must ring the night-bell.” + </p> + <p> + “I dursn’t do it, sir,” replied the small stranger. “I am such a little + boy, I’m afraid of their beating me if I ring them up out of their beds, + without somebody to speak for me.” + </p> + <p> + The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with such a forlorn + experience of being beaten for trifling offenses in his face, that it was + impossible to resist the impulse to help him. + </p> + <p> + “Is it a serious case of illness?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Have you got a doctor’s prescription?” + </p> + <p> + He held out his morsel of paper. + </p> + <p> + “I have got this,” he said. + </p> + <p> + I took the paper from him, and looked at it. + </p> + <p> + It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I looked first at the + doctor’s signature; it was the name of a perfectly obscure person in the + profession. Below it was written the name of the patient for whom the + medicine had been prescribed. I started as I read it. The name was “Mrs. + Brand.” + </p> + <p> + The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound went, at any rate) + was the English equivalent of Van Brandt. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Oh yes, sir! She lodges with mother—and she owes for rent. I have + done everything she told me, except getting the physic. I’ve pawned her + ring, and I’ve bought the bread and butter and eggs, and I’ve taken care + of the change. Mother looks to the change for her rent. It isn’t my fault, + sir, that I’ve lost myself. I am but ten years old—and all the + chemists’ shops are shut up!” + </p> + <p> + Here my little friend’s sense of his unmerited misfortunes overpowered + him, and he began to cry. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t cry, my man!” I said; “I’ll help you. Tell me something more about + the lady first. Is she alone?” + </p> + <p> + “She’s got her little girl with her, sir.” + </p> + <p> + My heart quickened its beat. The boy’s answer reminded me of that other + little girl whom my mother had once seen. + </p> + <p> + “Is the lady’s husband with her?” I asked next. + </p> + <p> + “No, sir—not now. He was with her; but he went away—and he + hasn’t come back yet.” + </p> + <p> + I put a last conclusive question. + </p> + <p> + “Is her husband an Englishman?” I inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Mother says he’s a foreigner,” the boy answered. + </p> + <p> + I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might have noticed it! + </p> + <p> + Passing under the name of “Mrs. Brand”—poor, so poor that she was + obliged to pawn her ring—left, by a man who was a foreigner, alone + with her little girl—was I on the trace of her at that moment? Was + this lost child destined to be the innocent means of leading me back to + the woman I loved, in her direst need of sympathy and help? The more I + thought of it, the more strongly the idea of returning with the boy to the + house in which his mother’s lodger lived fastened itself on my mind. The + clock struck the quarter past eleven. If my anticipations ended in + misleading me, I had still three-quarters of an hour to spare before the + month reached its end. + </p> + <p> + “Where do you live?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + The boy mentioned a street, the name of which I then heard for the first + time. All he could say, when I asked for further particulars, was that he + lived close by the river—in which direction, he was too confused and + too frightened to be able to tell me. + </p> + <p> + While we were still trying to understand each other, a cab passed slowly + at some little distance. I hailed the man, and mentioned the name of the + street to him. He knew it perfectly well. The street was rather more than + a mile away from us, in an easterly direction. He undertook to drive me + there and to bring me back again to Saint Paul’s (if necessary), in less + than twenty minutes. I opened the door of the cab, and told my little + friend to get in. The boy hesitated. + </p> + <p> + “Are we going to the chemist’s, if you please, sir?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “No. You are going home first, with me.” + </p> + <p> + The boy began to cry again. + </p> + <p> + “Mother will beat me, sir, if I go back without the medicine.” + </p> + <p> + “I will take care that your mother doesn’t beat you. I am a doctor myself; + and I want to see the lady before we get the medicine.” + </p> + <p> + The announcement of my profession appeared to inspire the boy with a + certain confidence. But he still showed no disposition to accompany me to + his mother’s house. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean to charge the lady anything?” he asked. “The money I’ve got + on the ring isn’t much. Mother won’t like having it taken out of her + rent.” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t charge the lady a farthing,” I answered. + </p> + <p> + The boy instantly got into the cab. “All right,” he said, “as long as + mother gets her money.” + </p> + <p> + Alas for the poor! The child’s education in the sordid anxieties of life + was completed already at ten years old! + </p> + <p> + We drove away. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV. I KEEP MY APPOINTMENT. + </h2> + <p> + THE poverty-stricken aspect of the street when we entered it, the dirty + and dilapidated condition of the house when we drew up at the door, would + have warned most men, in my position, to prepare themselves for a + distressing discovery when they were admitted to the interior of the + dwelling. The first impression which the place produced on <i>my</i> mind + suggested, on the contrary, that the boy’s answers to my questions had led + me astray. It was simply impossible to associate Mrs. Van Brandt (as <i>I</i> + remembered her) with the spectacle of such squalid poverty as I now + beheld. I rang the door-bell, feeling persuaded beforehand that my + inquiries would lead to no useful result. + </p> + <p> + As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion’s dread of a beating + revived in full force. He hid himself behind me; and when I asked what he + was about, he answered, confidentially: “Please stand between us, sir, + when mother opens the door!” + </p> + <p> + A tall and truculent woman answered the bell. No introduction was + necessary. Holding a cane in her hand, she stood self-proclaimed as my + small friend’s mother. + </p> + <p> + “I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine,” she explained, as an + apology for the exhibition of the cane. “He has been gone on an errand + more than two hours. What did you please to want, sir?” + </p> + <p> + I interceded for the unfortunate boy before I entered on my own business. + </p> + <p> + “I must beg you to forgive your son this time,” I said. “I found him lost + in the streets; and I have brought him home.” + </p> + <p> + The woman’s astonishment when she heard what I had done, and discovered + her son behind me, literally struck her dumb. The language of the eye, + superseding on this occasion the language of the tongue, plainly revealed + the impression that I had produced on her: “You bring my lost brat home in + a cab! Mr. Stranger, you are mad.” + </p> + <p> + “I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging in the house,” I went on. + “I dare say I am mistaken in supposing her to be a lady of the same name + whom I know. But I should like to make sure whether I am right or wrong. + Is it too late to disturb your lodger to-night?” + </p> + <p> + The woman recovered the use of her tongue. + </p> + <p> + “My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who doesn’t know his + way about London yet!” She emphasized those words by shaking her brawny + fist at her son—who instantly returned to his place of refuge behind + the tail of my coat. “Have you got the money?” inquired the terrible + person, shouting at her hidden offspring over my shoulder. “Or have you + lost <i>that</i> as well as your own stupid little self?” + </p> + <p> + The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his mother’s knotty + hand. She counted it, with eyes which satisfied themselves fiercely that + each coin was of genuine silver—and then became partially pacified. + </p> + <p> + “Go along upstairs,” she growled, addressing her son; “and don’t keep the + lady waiting any longer. They’re half starved, she and her child,” the + woman proceeded, turning to me. “The food my boy has got for them in his + basket will be the first food the mother has tasted today. She’s pawned + everything by this time; and what she’s to do unless you help her is more + than I can say. The doctor does what he can; but he told me today, if she + wasn’t better nourished, it was no use sending for <i>him</i>. Follow the + boy; and see for yourself if it’s the lady you know.” + </p> + <p> + I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had acted under a + delusion in going to her house. How was it possible to associate the + charming object of my heart’s worship with the miserable story of + destitution which I had just heard? I stopped the boy on the first + landing, and told him to announce me simply as a doctor, who had been + informed of Mrs. Brand’s illness, and who had called to see her. + </p> + <p> + We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived now at the top + of the house, the boy knocked at the door that was nearest to us on the + landing. No audible voice replied. He opened the door without ceremony, + and went in. I waited outside to hear what was said. The door was left + ajar. If the voice of “Mrs. Brand” was (as I believed it would prove to + be) the voice of a stranger, I resolved to offer her delicately such help + as lay within my power, and to return forthwith to my post under “the + shadow of Saint Paul’s.” + </p> + <p> + The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a child. + </p> + <p> + “I’m so hungry, Jemmy—I’m so hungry!” + </p> + <p> + “All right, missy—I’ve got you something to eat.” + </p> + <p> + “Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!” + </p> + <p> + There was a momentary pause; and then I heard the boy’s voice once more. + </p> + <p> + “There’s a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait for your egg + till I can boil it. Don’t you eat too fast, or you’ll choke yourself. + What’s the matter with your mamma? Are you asleep, ma’am?” + </p> + <p> + I could barely hear the answering voice—it was so faint; and it + uttered but one word: “No!” + </p> + <p> + The boy spoke again. + </p> + <p> + “Cheer up, missus. There’s a doctor outside waiting to see you.” + </p> + <p> + This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself to me at the + door. “Please to come in, sir. <i>I</i> can’t make anything of her.” + </p> + <p> + It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated any longer to + enter the room. I went in. + </p> + <p> + There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed-chamber, lying + back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was one more among the thousands + of forlorn creatures, starving that night in the great city. A white + handkerchief was laid over her face as if to screen it from the flame of + the fire hard by. She lifted the handkerchief, startled by the sound of my + footsteps as I entered the room. I looked at her, and saw in the white, + wan, death-like face the face of the woman I loved! + </p> + <p> + For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint and giddy. In + another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm was round her—her + head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking, past crying out: she + trembled silently, and that was all. I said nothing. No words passed my + lips, no tears came to my relief. I held her to me; and she let me hold + her. The child, devouring its bread-and-butter at a little round table, + stared at us. The boy, on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, + stared at us. And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly in + a corner was the only sound in the room. + </p> + <p> + The instincts of the profession to which I had been trained, rather than + any active sense of the horror of the situation in which I was placed, + roused me at last. She was starving! I saw it in the deadly color of her + skin; I felt it in the faint, quick flutter of her pulse. I called the boy + to me, and sent him to the nearest public-house for wine and biscuits. “Be + quick about it,” I said; “and you shall have more money for yourself than + ever you had in your life!” The boy looked at me, spit on the coins in his + hand, said, “That’s for luck!” and ran out of the room as never boy ran + yet. + </p> + <p> + I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. The cry of the + child stopped me. + </p> + <p> + “I’m so hungry! I’m so hungry!” + </p> + <p> + I set more food before the famished child and kissed her. She looked up at + me with wondering eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Are you a new papa?” the little creature asked. “My other papa never + kisses me.” + </p> + <p> + I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed; the tears flowed slowly over + her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail hand in mine. “Happier days are + coming,” I said; “you are <i>my</i> care now.” There was no answer. She + still trembled silently, and that was all. + </p> + <p> + In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned his promised + reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting his treasure, the one + happy creature in the room. I soaked some crumbled morsels of biscuit in + the wine, and, little by little, I revived her failing strength by + nourishment administered at intervals in that cautious form. After a while + she raised her head, and looked at me with wondering eyes that were + pitiably like the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate flush began to show + itself in her face. She spoke to me, for the first time, in whispering + tones that I could just hear as I sat close at her side. + </p> + <p> + “How did you find me? Who showed you the way to this place?” + </p> + <p> + She paused; painfully recalling the memory of something that was slow to + come back. Her color deepened; she found the lost remembrance, and looked + at me with a timid curiosity. “What brought you here?” she asked. “Was it + my dream?” + </p> + <p> + “Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you all.” + </p> + <p> + I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The child followed + us, and climbing to the bedstead with my help, nestled at her mother’s + side. I sent the boy away to tell the mistress of the house that I should + remain with my patient, watching her progress toward recovery, through the + night. He went out, jingling his money joyfully in his pocket. We three + were left together. + </p> + <p> + As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals into a broken + sleep; waking with a start, and looking at me wildly as if I had been a + stranger at her bedside. Toward morning the nourishment which I still + carefully administered wrought its healthful change in her pulse, and + composed her to quieter slumbers. When the sun rose she was sleeping as + peacefully as the child at her side. I was able to leave her, until my + return later in the day, under the care of the woman of the house. The + magic of money transformed this termagant and terrible person into a + docile and attentive nurse—so eager to follow my instructions + exactly that she begged me to commit them to writing before I went away. + For a moment I still lingered alone at the bedside of the sleeping woman, + and satisfied myself for the hundredth time that her life was safe, before + I left her. It was the sweetest of all rewards to feel sure of this—to + touch her cool forehead lightly with my lips—to look, and look + again, at the poor worn face, always dear, always beautiful, to <i>my</i> + eyes. change as it might. I closed the door softly and went out in the + bright morning, a happy man again. So close together rise the springs of + joy and sorrow in human life! So near in our heart, as in our heaven, is + the brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVI. CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER. + </h2> + <p> + I REACHED my own house in time to snatch two or three hours of repose, + before I paid my customary morning visit to my mother in her own room. I + observed, in her reception of me on this occasion, certain peculiarities + of look and manner which were far from being familiar in my experience of + her. + </p> + <p> + When our eyes first met, she regarded me with a wistful, questioning look, + as if she were troubled by some doubt which she shrunk from expressing in + words. And when I inquired after her health, as usual, she surprised me by + answering as impatiently as if she resented my having mentioned the + subject. For a moment, I was inclined to think these changes signified + that she had discovered my absence from home during the night, and that + she had some suspicion of the true cause of it. But she never alluded, + even in the most distant manner, to Mrs. Van Brandt; and not a word + dropped from her lips which implied, directly or indirectly, that I had + pained or disappointed her. I could only conclude that she had something + important to say in relation to herself or to me—and that for + reasons of her own she unwillingly abstained from giving expression to it + at that time. + </p> + <p> + Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touched on the + subject (always interesting to my mother) of my visit to Shetland. + Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also of Miss Dunross. Here, again, + when I least expected it, there was another surprise in store for me. + </p> + <p> + “You were talking the other day,” said my mother, “of the green flag which + poor Dermody’s daughter worked for you, when you were both children. Have + you really kept it all this time?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Where have you left it? In Scotland?” + </p> + <p> + “I have brought it with me to London.” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” + </p> + <p> + “I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, wherever I might + go.” + </p> + <p> + My mother smiled. + </p> + <p> + “Is it possible, George, that you think about this as the young lady in + Shetland thinks? After all the years that have passed, you believe in the + green flag being the means of bringing Mary Dermody and yourself together + again?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not! I am only humoring one of the fancies of poor Miss + Dunross. Could I refuse to grant her trifling request, after all I owed to + her kindness?” + </p> + <p> + The smile left my mother’s face. She looked at me attentively. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Dunross seems to have produced a very favorable impression on you,” + she said. + </p> + <p> + “I own it. I feel deeply interested in her.” + </p> + <p> + “If she had not been an incurable invalid, George, I too might have become + interested in Miss Dunross—perhaps in the character of my + daughter-in-law?” + </p> + <p> + “It is useless, mother, to speculate on what <i>might</i> have happened. + The sad reality is enough.” + </p> + <p> + My mother paused a little before she put her next question to me. + </p> + <p> + “Did Miss Dunross always keep her veil drawn in your presence, when there + happened to be light in the room?” + </p> + <p> + “Always.” + </p> + <p> + “She never even let you catch a momentary glance at her face?” + </p> + <p> + “Never.” + </p> + <p> + “And the only reason she gave you was that the light caused her a painful + sensation if it fell on her uncovered skin?” + </p> + <p> + “You say that, mother, as if you doubt whether Miss Dunross told me the + truth.” + </p> + <p> + “No, George. I only doubt whether she told you <i>all</i> the truth.” + </p> + <p> + “What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t be offended, my dear. I believe Miss Dunross has some more serious + reason for keeping her face hidden than the reason that she gave <i>you</i>.” + </p> + <p> + I was silent. The suspicion which those words implied had never occurred + to my mind. I had read in medical books of cases of morbid nervous + sensitiveness exactly similar to the case of Miss Dunross, as described by + herself—and that had been enough for me. Now that my mother’s idea + had found its way from her mind to mine, the impression produced on me was + painful in the last degree. Horrible imaginings of deformity possessed my + brain, and profaned all that was purest and dearest in my recollections of + Miss Dunross. It was useless to change the subject—the evil + influence that was on me was too potent to be charmed away by talk. Making + the best excuse that I could think of for leaving my mother’s room, I + hurried away to seek a refuge from myself, where alone I could hope to + find it, in the presence of Mrs. Van Brandt. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVII. CONVERSATION WITH MRS. VAN BRANDT. + </h2> + <p> + THE landlady was taking the air at her own door when I reached the house. + Her reply to my inquiries justified my most hopeful anticipations. The + poor lodger looked already “like another woman”; and the child was at that + moment posted on the stairs, watching for the return of her “new papa.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s one thing I should wish to say to you, sir, before you go + upstairs,” the woman went on. “Don’t trust the lady with more money at a + time than the money that is wanted for the day’s housekeeping. If she has + any to spare, it’s as likely as not to be wasted on her good-for-nothing + husband.” + </p> + <p> + Absorbed in the higher and dearer interests that filled my mind, I had + thus far forgotten the very existence of Mr. Van Brandt. + </p> + <p> + “Where is he?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Where he ought to be,” was the answer. “In prison for debt.” + </p> + <p> + In those days a man imprisoned for debt was not infrequently a man + imprisoned for life. There was little fear of my visit being shortened by + the appearance on the scene of Mr. Van Brandt. + </p> + <p> + Ascending the stairs, I found the child waiting for me on the upper + landing, with a ragged doll in her arms. I had bought a cake for her on my + way to the house. She forthwith turned over the doll to my care, and, + trotting before me into the room with her cake in her arms, announced my + arrival in these words: + </p> + <p> + “Mamma, I like this papa better than the other. You like him better, too.” + </p> + <p> + The mother’s wasted face reddened for a moment, then turned pale again, as + she held out her hand to me. I looked at her anxiously, and discerned the + welcome signs of recovery, clearly revealed. Her grand gray eyes rested on + me again with a glimmer of their old light. The hand that had lain so cold + in mine on the past night had life and warmth in it now. + </p> + <p> + “Should I have died before the morning if you had not come here?” she + asked, softly. “Have you saved my life for the second time? I can well + believe it.” + </p> + <p> + Before I was aware of her, she bent her head over my hand, and touched it + tenderly with her lips. “I am not an ungrateful woman,” she murmured—“and + yet I don’t know how to thank you.” + </p> + <p> + The child looked up quickly from her cake. “Why don’t you kiss him?” the + quaint little creature asked, with a broad stare of astonishment. + </p> + <p> + Her head sunk on her breast. She sighed bitterly. + </p> + <p> + “No more of Me!” she said, suddenly recovering her composure, and suddenly + forcing herself to look at me again. “Tell me what happy chance brought + you here last night?” + </p> + <p> + “The same chance,” I answered, “which took me to Saint Anthony’s Well.” + </p> + <p> + She raised herself eagerly in the chair. + </p> + <p> + “You have seen me again—as you saw me in the summer-house by the + waterfall!” she exclaimed. “Was it in Scotland once more?” + </p> + <p> + “No. Further away than Scotland—as far away as Shetland.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me about it! Pray, pray tell me about it!” + </p> + <p> + I related what had happened as exactly as I could, consistently with + maintaining the strictest reserve on one point. Concealing from her the + very existence of Miss Dunross, I left her to suppose that the master of + the house was the one person whom I had found to receive me during my + sojourn under Mr. Dunross’s roof. + </p> + <p> + “That is strange!” she exclaimed, after she had heard me attentively to + the end. + </p> + <p> + “What is strange?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large grave eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I hardly like speaking of it,” she said. “And yet I ought to have no + concealments in such a matter from you. I understand everything that you + have told me—with one exception. It seems strange to me that you + should only have had one old man for your companion while you were at the + house in Shetland.” + </p> + <p> + “What other companion did you expect to hear of?” I inquired. + </p> + <p> + “I expected,” she answered, “to hear of a lady in the house.” + </p> + <p> + I cannot positively say that the reply took me by surprise: it forced me + to reflect before I spoke again. I knew, by my past experience, that she + must have seen me, in my absence from her, while I was spiritually present + to her mind in a trance or dream. Had she also seen the daily companion of + my life in Shetland—Miss Dunross? + </p> + <p> + I put the question in a form which left me free to decide whether I should + take her unreservedly into my confidence or not. + </p> + <p> + “Am I right,” I began, “in supposing that you dreamed of me in Shetland, + as you once before dreamed of me while I was at my house in Perthshire?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” she answered. “It was at the close of evening, this time. I fell + asleep, or became insensible—I cannot say which. And I saw you + again, in a vision or a dream.” + </p> + <p> + “Where did you see me?” + </p> + <p> + “I first saw you on the bridge over the Scotch river—just as I met + you on the evening when you saved my life. After a while the stream and + the landscape about it faded, and you faded with them, into darkness. I + waited a little, and the darkness melted away slowly. I stood, as it + seemed to me, in a circle of starry lights; fronting a window, with a lake + behind me, and before me a darkened room. And I looked into the room, and + the starry light showed you to me again.” + </p> + <p> + “When did this happen? Do you remember the date?” + </p> + <p> + “I remember that it was at the beginning of the month. The misfortunes + which have since brought me so low had not then fallen on me; and yet, as + I stood looking at you, I had the strangest prevision of calamity that was + to come. I felt the same absolute reliance on your power to help me that I + felt when I first dreamed of you in Scotland. And I did the same familiar + things. I laid my hand on your bosom. I said to you: ‘Remember me. Come to + me.’ I even wrote—” + </p> + <p> + She stopped, shuddering as if a sudden fear had laid its hold on her. + Seeing this, and dreading the effect of any violent agitation, I hastened + to suggest that we should say no more, for that day, on the subject of her + dream. + </p> + <p> + “No,” she answered, firmly. “There is nothing to be gained by giving me + time. My dream has left one horrible remembrance on my mind. As long as I + live, I believe I shall tremble when I think of what I saw near you in + that darkened room.” + </p> + <p> + She stopped again. Was she approaching the subject of the shrouded figure, + with the black veil over its head? Was she about to describe her first + discovery, in the dream, of Miss Dunross? + </p> + <p> + “Tell me one thing first,” she resumed. “Have I been right in what I have + said to you, so far? Is it true that you were in a darkened room when you + saw me?” + </p> + <p> + “Quite true.” + </p> + <p> + “Was the date the beginning of the month? and was the hour the close of + evening?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + “Were you alone in the room? Answer me truly!” + </p> + <p> + “I was not alone.” + </p> + <p> + “Was the master of the house with you? or had you some other companion?” + </p> + <p> + It would have been worse than useless (after what I had now heard) to + attempt to deceive her. + </p> + <p> + “I had another companion,” I answered. “The person in the room with me was + a woman.” + </p> + <p> + Her face showed, as I spoke, that she was again shaken by the terrifying + recollection to which she had just alluded. I had, by this time, some + difficulty myself in preserving my composure. Still, I was determined not + to let a word escape me which could operate as a suggestion on the mind of + my companion. + </p> + <p> + “Have you any other question to ask me?” was all I said. + </p> + <p> + “One more,” she answered. “Was there anything unusual in the dress of your + companion?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. She wore a long black veil, which hung over her head and face, and + dropped to below her waist.” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Van Brandt leaned back in her chair, and covered her eyes with her + hands. + </p> + <p> + “I understand your motive for concealing from me the presence of that + miserable woman in the house,” she said. “It is good and kind, like all + your motives; but it is useless. While I lay in the trance I saw + everything exactly as it was in the reality; and I, too, saw that + frightful face!” + </p> + <p> + Those words literally electrified me. + </p> + <p> + My conversation of that morning with my mother instantly recurred to my + memory. I started to my feet. + </p> + <p> + “Good God!” I exclaimed, “what do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you understand yet?” she asked in amazement on her side. “Must I + speak more plainly still? When you saw the apparition of me, did you see + me write?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. On a letter that the lady was writing for me. I saw the words + afterward; the words that brought me to you last night: ‘At the month’s + end, In the shadow of Saint Paul’s.’” + </p> + <p> + “How did I appear to write on the unfinished letter?” + </p> + <p> + “You lifted the writing-case, on which the letter and the pen lay, off the + lady’s lap; and, while you wrote, you rested the case on her shoulder.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you notice if the lifting of the case produced any effect on her?” + </p> + <p> + “I saw no effect produced,” I answered. “She remained immovable in her + chair.” + </p> + <p> + “I saw it differently in my dream. She raised her hand—not the hand + that was nearest to you, but nearest to me. As <i>I</i> lifted the + writing-case, <i>she</i> lifted her hand, and parted the folds of the veil + from off her face—I suppose to see more clearly. It was only for a + moment; and in that moment I saw what the veil hid. Don’t let us speak of + it! You must have shuddered at that frightful sight in the reality, as I + shuddered at it in the dream. You must have asked yourself, as I did: ‘Is + there nobody to poison the terrible creature, and hide her mercifully in + the grave?’” + </p> + <p> + At those words, she abruptly checked herself. I could say nothing—my + face spoke for me. She saw it, and guessed the truth. + </p> + <p> + “Good heavens!” she cried, “you have not seen her! She must have kept her + face hidden from you behind the veil! Oh, why, why did you cheat me into + talking of it! I will never speak of it again. See, we are frightening the + child! Come here, darling; there is nothing to be afraid of. Come, and + bring your cake with you. You shall be a great lady, giving a grand + dinner; and we will be two friends whom you have invited to dine with you; + and the doll shall be the little girl who comes in after dinner, and has + fruit at dessert!” So she ran on, trying vainly to forget the shock that + she had inflicted on me in talking nursery nonsense to the child. + </p> + <p> + Recovering my composure in some degree, I did my best to second the effort + that she had made. My quieter thoughts suggested that she might well be + self-deceived in believing the horrible spectacle presented to her in the + vision to be an actual reflection of the truth. In common justice toward + Miss Dunross I ought surely not to accept the conviction of her deformity + on no better evidence than the evidence of a dream? Reasonable as it + undoubtedly was, this view left certain doubts still lingering in my mind. + The child’s instinct soon discovered that her mother and I were + playfellows who felt no genuine enjoyment of the game. She dismissed her + make-believe guests without ceremony, and went back with her doll to the + favorite play-ground on which I had met her—the landing outside the + door. No persuasion on her mother’s part or on mine succeeded in luring + her back to us. We were left together, to face each other as best we might—with + the forbidden subject of Miss Dunross between us. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXVIII. LOVE AND MONEY. + </h2> + <p> + FEELING the embarrassment of the moment most painfully on her side, Mrs. + Van Brandt spoke first. + </p> + <p> + “You have said nothing to me about yourself,” she began. “Is your life a + happier one than it was when we last met?” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot honestly say that it is,” I answered. + </p> + <p> + “Is there any prospect of your being married?” + </p> + <p> + “My prospect of being married still rests with you.” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t say that!” she exclaimed, with an entreating look at me. “Don’t + spoil my pleasure in seeing you again by speaking of what can never be! + Have you still to be told how it is that you find me here alone with my + child?” + </p> + <p> + I forced myself to mention Van Brandt’s name, rather than hear it pass <i>her</i> + lips. + </p> + <p> + “I have been told that Mr. Van Brandt is in prison for debt,” I said. “And + I saw for myself last night that he had left you helpless.” + </p> + <p> + “He left me the little money he had with him when he was arrested,” she + rejoined, sadly. “His cruel creditors are more to blame than he is for the + poverty that has fallen on us.” + </p> + <p> + Even this negative defense of Van Brandt stung me to the quick. + </p> + <p> + “I ought to have spoken more guardedly of him,” I said, bitterly. “I ought + to have remembered that a woman can forgive almost any wrong that a man + can inflict on her—when he is the man whom she loves.” + </p> + <p> + She put her hand on my mouth, and stopped me before I could say any more. + </p> + <p> + “How can you speak so cruelly to me?” she asked. “You know—to my + shame I confessed it to you the last time we met—you know that my + heart, in secret, is all yours. What ‘wrong’ are you talking of? Is it the + wrong I suffered when Van Brandt married me, with a wife living at the + time (and living still)? Do you think I can ever forget the great + misfortune of my life—the misfortune that has made me unworthy of + you? It is no fault of mine, God knows; but it is not the less true that I + am not married, and that the little darling who is playing out there with + her doll is my child. And you talk of my being your wife—knowing + that!” + </p> + <p> + “The child accepts me as her second father,” I said. “It would be better + and happier for us both if you had as little pride as the child.” + </p> + <p> + “Pride?” she repeated. “In such a position as mine? A helpless woman, with + a mock-husband in prison for debt! Say that I have not fallen quite so low + yet as to forget what is due to you, and you will pay me a compliment that + will be nearer to the truth. Am I to marry you for my food and shelter? Am + I to marry you, because there is no lawful tie that binds me to the father + of my child? Cruelly as he has behaved, he has still <i>that</i> claim + upon me. Bad as he is, he has not forsaken me; he has been forced away. My + only friend, is it possible that you think me ungrateful enough to consent + to be your wife? The woman (in my situation) must be heartless indeed who + could destroy your place in the estimation of the world and the regard of + your friends! The wretchedest creature that walks the streets would shrink + from treating you in that way. Oh, what are men made of? How <i>can</i> + you—how <i>can</i> you speak of it!” + </p> + <p> + I yielded—-and spoke of it no more. Every word she uttered only + increased my admiration of the noble creature whom I had loved, and lost. + What refuge was now left to me? But one refuge; I could still offer to her + the sacrifice of myself. Bitterly as I hated the man who had parted us, I + loved her dearly enough to be even capable of helping him for her sake. + Hopeless infatuation! I don’t deny it; I don’t excuse it—hopeless + infatuation! + </p> + <p> + “You have forgiven me,” I said. “Let me deserve to be forgiven. It is + something to be your only friend. You must have plans for the future; tell + me unreservedly how I can help you.” + </p> + <p> + “Complete the good work that you have begun,” she answered, gratefully. + “Help me back to health. Make me strong enough to submit to a doctor’s + estimate of my chances of living for some years yet.” + </p> + <p> + “A doctor’s estimate of your chances of living?” I repeated. “What do you + mean?” + </p> + <p> + “I hardly know how to tell you,” she said, “without speaking again of Mr. + Van Brandt.” + </p> + <p> + “Does speaking of him again mean speaking of his debts?” I asked. “Why + need you hesitate? You know that there is nothing I will not do to relieve + <i>your</i> anxieties.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me for a moment, in silent distress. + </p> + <p> + “Oh! do you think I would let you give your money to Van Brandt?” she + asked, as soon as she could speak. “I, who owe everything to your devotion + to me? Never! Let me tell you the plain truth. There is a serious + necessity for his getting out of prison. He must pay his creditors; and he + has found out a way of doing it—with my help.” + </p> + <p> + “Your help?” I exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. This is his position, in two words: A little while since, he + obtained an excellent offer of employment abroad, from a rich relative of + his, and he had made all his arrangements to accept it. Unhappily, he + returned to tell me of his good fortune, and the same day he was arrested + for debt. His relative has offered to keep the situation open for a + certain time, and the time has not yet expired. If he can pay a dividend + to his creditors, they will give him his freedom; and he believes he can + raise the money if I consent to insure my life.” + </p> + <p> + To insure her life! The snare that had been set for her was plainly + revealed in those four words. + </p> + <p> + In the eye of the law she was, of course, a single woman: she was of age; + she was, to all intents and purposes, her own mistress. What was there to + prevent her from insuring her life, if she pleased, and from so disposing + of the insurance as to give Van Brandt a direct interest in her death? + Knowing what I knew of him—believing him, as I did, to be capable of + any atrocity—I trembled at the bare idea of what might have happened + if I had failed to find my way back to her until a later date. Thanks to + the happy accident of my position, the one certain way of protecting her + lay easily within my reach. I could offer to lend the scoundrel the money + that he wanted at an hour’s notice, and he was the man to accept my + proposal quite as easily as I could make it. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t seem to approve of our idea,” she said, noticing, in evident + perplexity, the effect which she had produced on me. “I am very + unfortunate; I seem to have innocently disturbed and annoyed you for the + second time.” + </p> + <p> + “You are quite mistaken,” I replied. “I am only doubting whether your plan + for relieving Mr. Van Brandt of his embarrassments is quite so simple as + you suppose. Are you aware of the delays that are likely to take place + before it will be possible to borrow money on your policy of insurance?” + </p> + <p> + “I know nothing about it,” she said, sadly. + </p> + <p> + “Will you let me ask the advice of my lawyers? They are trustworthy and + experienced men, and I am sure they can be of use to you.” + </p> + <p> + Cautiously as I had expressed myself, her delicacy took the alarm. + </p> + <p> + “Promise that you won’t ask me to borrow money of you for Mr. Van Brandt,” + she rejoined, “and I will accept your help gratefully.” + </p> + <p> + I could honestly promise that. My one chance of saving her lay in keeping + from her knowledge the course that I had now determined to pursue. I rose + to go, while my resolution still sustained me. The sooner I made my + inquiries (I reminded her) the more speedily our present doubts and + difficulties would be resolved. + </p> + <p> + She rose, as I rose—with the tears in her eyes, and the blush on her + cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “Kiss me,” she whispered, “before you go! And don’t mind my crying. I am + quite happy now. It is only your goodness that overpowers me.” + </p> + <p> + I pressed her to my heart, with the unacknowledged tenderness of a parting + embrace. It was impossible to disguise the position in which I had now + placed myself. I had, so to speak, pronounced my own sentence of + banishment. When my interference had restored my unworthy rival to his + freedom, could I submit to the degrading necessity of seeing her in his + presence, of speaking to her under his eyes? <i>That</i> sacrifice of + myself was beyond me—and I knew it. “For the last time!” I thought, + as I held her to me for a moment longer—“for the last time!” + </p> + <p> + The child ran to meet me with open arms when I stepped out on the landing. + My manhood had sustained me through the parting with the mother. It was + only when the child’s round, innocent little face laid itself lovingly + against mine that my fortitude gave way. I was past speaking; I put her + down gently in silence, and waited on the lower flight of stairs until I + was fit to face the world outside. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIX. OUR DESTINIES PART US. + </h2> + <p> + DESCENDING to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to request a moment’s + interview with the landlady. I had yet to learn in which of the London + prisons Van Brandt was confined; and she was the only person to whom I + could venture to address the question. + </p> + <p> + Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own sordid construction on + my motive for visiting the prisoner. + </p> + <p> + “Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy pockets already?” + she asked. “If I was as rich as you are, I should let it go. In your + place, I wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs!” + </p> + <p> + The woman’s coarse warning actually proved useful to me; it started a new + idea in my mind! Before she spoke, I had been too dull or too preoccupied + to see that it was quite needless to degrade myself by personally + communicating with Van Brandt in his prison. It only now occurred to me + that my legal advisers were, as a matter of course, the proper persons to + represent me in the matter—with this additional advantage, that they + could keep my share in the transaction a secret even from Van Brandt + himself. + </p> + <p> + I drove at once to the office of my lawyers. The senior partner—the + tried friend and adviser of our family—received me. + </p> + <p> + My instructions, naturally enough, astonished him. He was immediately to + satisfy the prisoner’s creditors, on my behalf, without mentioning my name + to any one. And he was gravely to accept as security for repayment—Mr. + Van Brandt’s note of hand! + </p> + <p> + “I thought I was well acquainted with the various methods by which a + gentleman can throw away his money,” the senior partner remarked. “I + congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, on having discovered an entirely new way + of effectually emptying your purse. Founding a newspaper, taking a + theater, keeping race-horses, gambling at Monaco, are highly efficient as + modes of losing money. But they all yield, sir, to paying the debts of Mr. + Van Brandt!” + </p> + <p> + I left him, and went home. + </p> + <p> + The servant who opened the door had a message for me from my mother. She + wished to see me as soon as I was at leisure to speak to her. + </p> + <p> + I presented myself at once in my mother’s sitting-room. + </p> + <p> + “Well, George?” she said, without a word to prepare me for what was + coming. “How have you left Mrs. Van Brandt?” + </p> + <p> + I was completely thrown off my guard. + </p> + <p> + “Who has told you that I have seen Mrs. Van Brandt?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “My dear, your face has told me. Don’t I know by this time how you look + and how you speak when Mrs. Van Brandt is in your mind. Sit down by me. I + have something to say to you which I wanted to say this morning; but, I + hardly know why, my heart failed me. I am bolder now, and I can say it. My + son, you still love Mrs. Van Brandt. You have my permission to marry her.” + </p> + <p> + Those were the words! Hardly an hour had elapsed since Mrs. Van Brandt’s + own lips had told me that our union was impossible. Not even half an hour + had passed since I had given the directions which would restore to liberty + the man who was the one obstacle to my marriage. And this was the time + that my mother had innocently chosen for consenting to receive as her + daughter-in-law Mrs. Van Brandt! + </p> + <p> + “I see that I surprise you,” she resumed. “Let me explain my motive as + plainly as I can. I should not be speaking the truth, George, if I told + you that I have ceased to feel the serious objections that there are to + your marrying this lady. The only difference in my way of thinking is, + that I am now willing to set my objections aside, out of regard for your + happiness. I am an old woman, my dear. In the course of nature, I cannot + hope to be with you much longer. When I am gone, who will be left to care + for you and love you, in the place of your mother? No one will be left, + unless you marry Mrs. Van Brandt. Your happiness is my first + consideration, and the woman you love (sadly as she has been led astray) + is a woman worthy of a better fate. Marry her.” + </p> + <p> + I could not trust myself to speak. I could only kneel at my mother’s feet, + and hide my face on her knees, as if I had been a boy again. + </p> + <p> + “Think of it, George,” she said. “And come back to me when you are + composed enough to speak as quietly of the future as I do.” + </p> + <p> + She lifted my head and kissed me. As I rose to leave her, I saw something + in the dear old eyes that met mine so tenderly, which struck a sudden fear + through me, keen and cutting, like a stroke from a knife. + </p> + <p> + The moment I had closed the door, I went downstairs to the porter in the + hall. + </p> + <p> + “Has my mother left the house,” I asked, “while I have been away?” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Have any visitors called?” + </p> + <p> + “One visitor has called, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you know who it was?” + </p> + <p> + The porter mentioned the name of a celebrated physician—a man at the + head of his profession in those days. I instantly took my hat and went to + his house. + </p> + <p> + He had just returned from his round of visits. My card was taken to him, + and was followed at once by my admission to his consulting-room. + </p> + <p> + “You have seen my mother,” I said. “Is she seriously ill? and have you not + concealed it from her? For God’s sake, tell me the truth; I can bear it.” + </p> + <p> + The great man took me kindly by the hand. + </p> + <p> + “Your mother stands in no need of any warning; she is herself aware of the + critical state of her health,” he said. “She sent for me to confirm her + own conviction. I could not conceal from her—I must not conceal from + you—that the vital energies are sinking. She may live for some + months longer in a milder air than the air of London. That is all I can + say. At her age, her days are numbered.” + </p> + <p> + He gave me time to steady myself under the blow; and then he placed his + vast experience, his matured and consummate knowledge, at my disposal. + From his dictation, I committed to writing the necessary instructions for + watching over the frail tenure of my mother’s life. + </p> + <p> + “Let me give you one word of warning,” he said, as we parted. “Your mother + is especially desirous that you should know nothing of the precarious + condition of her health. Her one anxiety is to see you happy. If she + discovers your visit to me, I will not answer for the consequences. Make + the best excuse you can think of for at once taking her away from London, + and, whatever you may feel in secret, keep up an appearance of good + spirits in her presence.” + </p> + <p> + That evening I made my excuse. It was easily found. I had only to tell my + poor mother of Mrs. Van Brandt’s refusal to marry me, and there was an + intelligible motive assigned for my proposing to leave London. The same + night I wrote to inform Mrs. Van Brandt of the sad event which was the + cause of my sudden departure, and to warn her that there no longer existed + the slightest necessity for insuring her life. “My lawyers” (I wrote) + “have undertaken to arrange Mr. Van Brandt’s affairs immediately. In a few + hours he will be at liberty to accept the situation that has been offered + to him.” The last lines of the letter assured her of my unalterable love, + and entreated her to write to me before she left England. + </p> + <p> + This done, all was done. I was conscious, strange to say, of no acutely + painful suffering at this saddest time of my life. There is a limit, + morally as well as physically, to our capacity for endurance. I can only + describe my sensations under the calamities that had now fallen on me in + one way: I felt like a man whose mind had been stunned. + </p> + <p> + The next day my mother and I set forth on the first stage of our journey + to the south coast of Devonshire. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXX. THE PROSPECT DARKENS. + </h2> + <p> + THREE days after my mother and I had established ourselves at Torquay, I + received Mrs. Van Brandt’s answer to my letter. After the opening + sentences (informing me that Van Brandt had been set at liberty, under + circumstances painfully suggestive to the writer of some unacknowledged + sacrifice on my part), the letter proceeded in these terms: + </p> + <p> + “The new employment which Mr. Van Brandt is to undertake secures to us the + comforts, if not the luxuries, of life. For the first time since my + troubles began, I have the prospect before me of a peaceful existence, + among a foreign people from whom all that is false in my position may be + concealed—not for my sake, but for the sake of my child. To more + than this, to the happiness which some women enjoy, I must not, I dare + not, aspire. + </p> + <p> + “We leave England for the Continent early tomorrow morning. Shall I tell + you in what part of Europe my new residence is to be? + </p> + <p> + “No! You might write to me again; and I might write back. The one poor + return I can make to the good angel of my life is to help him to forget + me. What right have I to cling to my usurped place in your regard? The + time will come when you will give your heart to a woman who is worthier of + it than I am. Let me drop out of your life—except as an occasional + remembrance, when you sometimes think of the days that have gone forever. + </p> + <p> + “I shall not be without some consolation on my side, when I too look back + at the past. I have been a better woman since I met with you. Live as long + as I may, I shall always remember that. + </p> + <p> + “Yes! The influence that you have had over me has been from first to last + an influence for good. Allowing that I have done wrong (in my position) to + love you, and, worse even than that, to own it, still the love has been + innocent, and the effort to control it has been an honest effort at least. + But, apart from this, my heart tells me that I am the better for the + sympathy which has united us. I may confess to you what I have never yet + acknowledged—now that we are so widely parted, and so little likely + to meet again—whenever I have given myself up unrestrainedly to my + own better impulses, they have always seemed to lead me to you. Whenever + my mind has been most truly at peace, and I have been able to pray with a + pure and a penitent heart, I have felt as if there was some unseen tie + that was drawing us nearer and nearer together. And, strange to say, this + has always happened (just as my dreams of you have always come to me) when + I have been separated from Van Brandt. At such times, thinking or + dreaming, it has always appeared to me that I knew you far more familiarly + than I know you when we meet face to face. Is there really such a thing, I + wonder, as a former state of existence? And were we once constant + companions in some other sphere, thousands of years since? These are idle + guesses. Let it be enough for me to remember that I have been the better + for knowing you—without inquiring how or why. + </p> + <p> + “Farewell, my beloved benefactor, my only friend! The child sends you a + kiss; and the mother signs herself your grateful and affectionate + </p> + <p> + “M. VAN BRANDT.” + </p> + <p> + When I first read those lines, they once more recalled to my memory—very + strangely, as I then thought—the predictions of Dame Dermody in the + days of my boyhood. Here were the foretold sympathies which were + spiritually to unite me to Mary, realized by a stranger whom I had met by + chance in the later years of my life! + </p> + <p> + Thinking in this direction, did I advance no further? Not a step further! + Not a suspicion of the truth presented itself to my mind even yet. + </p> + <p> + Was my own dullness of apprehension to blame for this? Would another man + in my position have discovered what I had failed to see? + </p> + <p> + I look back along the chain of events which runs through my narrative, and + I ask myself, Where are the possibilities to be found (in my case, or in + the case of any other man) of identifying the child who was Mary Dermody + with the woman who was Mrs. Van Brandt? Was there anything left in our + faces, when we met again by the Scotch river, to remind us of our younger + selves? We had developed, in the interval, from boy and girl to man and + woman: no outward traces were discernible in us of the George and Mary of + other days. Disguised from each other by our faces, we were also disguised + by our names. Her mock-marriage had changed her surname. My step-father’s + will had changed mine. Her Christian name was the commonest of all names + of women; and mine was almost as far from being remarkable among the names + of men. Turning next to the various occasions on which we had met, had we + seen enough of each other to drift into recognition on either side, in the + ordinary course of talk? We had met but four times in all; once on the + bridge, once again in Edinburgh, twice more in London. On each of these + occasions, the absorbing anxieties and interests of the passing moment had + filled her mind and mine, had inspired her words and mine. When had the + events which had brought us together left us with leisure enough and + tranquillity enough to look back idly through our lives, and calmly to + compare the recollections of our youth? Never! From first to last, the + course of events had borne us further and further away from any results + that could have led even to a suspicion of the truth. She could only + believe when she wrote to me on leaving England—and I could only + believe when I read her letter—that we had first met at the river, + and that our divergent destinies had ended in parting us forever. + </p> + <p> + Reading her farewell letter in later days by the light of my matured + experience, I note how remarkably Dame Dermody’s faith in the purity of + the tie that united us as kindred spirits was justified by the result. + </p> + <p> + It was only when my unknown Mary was parted from Van Brandt—in other + words, it was only when she was a pure spirit—that she felt my + influence over her as a refining influence on her life, and that the + apparition of her communicated with me in the visible and perfect likeness + of herself. On my side, when was it that I dreamed of her (as in + Scotland), or felt the mysterious warning of her presence in my waking + moments (as in Shetland)? Always at the time when my heart opened most + tenderly toward her and toward others—when my mind was most free + from the bitter doubts, the self-seeking aspirations, which degrade the + divinity within us. Then, and then only, my sympathy with her was the + perfect sympathy which holds its fidelity unassailable by the chances and + changes, the delusions and temptations, of mortal life. + </p> + <p> + I am writing prematurely of the time when the light came to me. My + narrative must return to the time when I was still walking in darkness. + </p> + <p> + Absorbed in watching over the closing days of my mother’s life, I found in + the performance of this sacred duty my only consolation under the + overthrow of my last hope of marriage with Mrs. Van Brandt. By slow + degrees my mother felt the reviving influences of a quiet life and a soft, + pure air. The improvement in her health could, as I but too well knew, be + only an improvement for a time. Still, it was a relief to see her free + from pain, and innocently happy in the presence of her son. Excepting + those hours of the day and night which were dedicated to repose, I was + never away from her. To this day I remember, with a tenderness which + attaches to no other memories of mine, the books that I read to her, the + sunny corner on the seashore where I sat with her, the games of cards that + we played together, the little trivial gossip that amused her when she was + strong enough for nothing else. These are my imperishable relics; these + are the deeds of my life that I shall love best to look back on, when the + all-infolding shadows of death are closing round me. + </p> + <p> + In the hours when I was alone, my thoughts—occupying themselves + mostly among the persons and events of the past—wandered back, many + and many a time, to Shetland and Miss Dunross. + </p> + <p> + My haunting doubt as to what the black veil had really hidden from me was + no longer accompanied by a feeling of horror when it now recurred to my + mind. The more vividly my later remembrances of Miss Dunross were + associated with the idea of an unutterable bodily affliction, the higher + the noble nature of the woman seemed to rise in my esteem. For the first + time since I had left Shetland, the temptation now came to me to disregard + the injunction which her father had laid on me at parting. When I thought + again of the stolen kiss in the dead of night; when I recalled the + appearance of the frail white hand, waving to me through the dark curtains + its last farewell; and when there mingled with these memories the later + remembrance of what my mother had suspected, and of what Mrs. Van Brandt + had seen in her dream—the longing in me to find a means of assuring + Miss Dunross that she still held her place apart in my memory and my heart + was more than mortal fortitude could resist. I was pledged in honor not to + return to Shetland, and not to write. How to communicate with her + secretly, in some other way, was the constant question in my mind as the + days went on. A hint to enlighten me was all that I wanted; and, as the + irony of circumstances ordered it, my mother was the person who gave me + the hint. + </p> + <p> + We still spoke, at intervals, of Mrs. Van Brandt. Watching me on those + occasions when we were in the company of friends and acquaintances at + Torquay, my mother plainly discerned that no other woman, whatever her + attractions might be, could take the place in my heart of the woman whom I + had lost. Seeing but one prospect of happiness for me, she steadily + refused to abandon the idea of my marriage. When a woman has owned that + she loves a man (so my mother used to express her opinion), it is that + man’s fault, no matter what the obstacles may be, if he fails to make her + his wife. Reverting to this view in various ways, she pressed it on my + consideration one day in these words: + </p> + <p> + “There is one drawback, George, to my happiness in being here with you. I + am an obstacle in the way of your communicating with Mrs. Van Brandt.” + </p> + <p> + “You forget,” I said, “that she has left England without telling me where + to find her.” + </p> + <p> + “If you were free from the incumbrance of your mother, my dear, you would + easily find her. Even as things are, you might surely write to her. Don’t + mistake my motives, George. If I had any hope of your forgetting her—if + I saw you only moderately attracted by one or other of the charming women + whom we know here—I should say, let us never speak again or think + again of Mrs. Van Brandt. But, my dear, your heart is closed to every + woman but one. Be happy in your own way, and let me see it before I die. + The wretch to whom that poor creature is sacrificing her life will, sooner + or later, ill-treat her or desert her and then she must turn to you. Don’t + let her think that you are resigned to the loss of her. The more + resolutely you set her scruples at defiance, the more she will love you + and admire you in secret. Women are like that. Send her a letter, and + follow it with a little present. You talked of taking me to the studio of + the young artist here who left his card the other day. I am told that he + paints admirable portraits in miniatures. Why not send your portrait to + Mrs. Van Brandt?” + </p> + <p> + Here was the idea of which I had been vainly in search! Quite superfluous + as a method of pleading my cause with Mrs. Van Brandt, the portrait + offered the best of all means of communicating with Miss Dunross, without + absolutely violating the engagement to which her father had pledged me. In + this way, without writing a word, without even sending a message, I might + tell her how gratefully she was remembered; I might remind her of me + tenderly in the bitterest moments of her sad and solitary life. + </p> + <p> + The same day I went to the artist privately. The sittings were afterward + continued during the hours while my mother was resting in her room, until + the portrait was completed. I caused it to be inclosed in a plain gold + locket, with a chain attached; and I forwarded my gift, in the first + instance, to the one person whom I could trust to assist me in arranging + for the conveyance of it to its destination. This was the old friend + (alluded to in these pages as “Sir James”) who had taken me with him to + Shetland in the Government yacht. + </p> + <p> + I had no reason, in writing the necessary explanations, to express myself + to Sir James with any reserve. On the voyage back we had more than once + spoken together confidentially of Miss Dunross. Sir James had heard her + sad story from the resident medical man at Lerwick, who had been an old + companion of his in their college days. Requesting him to confide my gift + to this gentleman, I did not hesitate to acknowledge the doubt that + oppressed me in relation to the mystery of the black veil. It was, of + course, impossible to decide whether the doctor would be able to relieve + that doubt. I could only venture to suggest that the question might be + guardedly put, in making the customary inquiries after the health of Miss + Dunross. + </p> + <p> + In those days of slow communication, I had to wait, not for days, but for + weeks, before I could expect to receive Sir James’s answer. His letter + only reached me after an unusually long delay. For this, or for some other + reason that I cannot divine, I felt so strongly the foreboding of bad news + that I abstained from breaking the seal in my mother’s presence. I waited + until I could retire to my own room, and then I opened the letter. My + presentiment had not deceived me. + </p> + <p> + Sir James’s reply contained these words only: “The letter inclosed tells + its own sad story, without help from me. I cannot grieve for her; but I + can feel sorry for you.” + </p> + <p> + The letter thus described was addressed to Sir James by the doctor at + Lerwick. I copy it (without comment) in these words: + </p> + <p> + “The late stormy weather has delayed the vessel by means of which we + communicate with the mainland. I have only received your letter to-day. + With it, there has arrived a little box, containing a gold locket and + chain; being the present which you ask me to convey privately to Miss + Dunross, from a friend of yours whose name you are not at liberty to + mention. + </p> + <p> + “In transmitting these instructions, you have innocently placed me in a + position of extreme difficulty. + </p> + <p> + “The poor lady for whom the gift is intended is near the end of her life—a + life of such complicated and terrible suffering that death comes, in her + case, literally as a mercy and a deliverance. Under these melancholy + circumstances, I am, I think, not to blame if I hesitate to give her the + locket in secret; not knowing with what associations this keepsake may be + connected, or of what serious agitation it may not possibly be the cause. + </p> + <p> + “In this state of doubt I have ventured on opening the locket, and my + hesitation is naturally increased. I am quite ignorant of the remembrances + which my unhappy patient may connect with the portrait. I don’t know + whether it will give her pleasure or pain to receive it, in her last + moments on earth. I can only decide to take it with me, when I see her + to-morrow, and to let circumstances determine whether I shall risk letting + her see it or not. Our post to the South only leaves this place in three + days’ time. I can keep my letter open, and let you know the result. + </p> + <p> + “I have seen her; and I have just returned to my own house. My distress of + mind is great. But I will do my best to write intelligibly and fully of + what has happened. + </p> + <p> + “Her sinking energies, when I first saw her this morning, had rallied for + the moment. The nurse informed me that she had slept during the early + hours of the new day. Previously to this, there were symptoms of fever, + accompanied by some slight delirium. The words that escaped her in this + condition appear to have related mainly to an absent person whom she spoke + of by the name of ‘George.’ Her one anxiety, I am told, was to see + ‘George’ again before she died. + </p> + <p> + “Hearing this, it struck me as barely possible that the portrait in the + locket might be the portrait of the absent person. I sent her nurse out of + the room, and took her hand in mine. Trusting partly to her own admirable + courage and strength of mind, and partly to the confidence which I knew + she placed in me as an old friend and adviser, I adverted to the words + which had fallen from her in the feverish state. And then I said, ‘You + know that any secret of yours is safe in my keeping. Tell me, do you + expect to receive any little keepsake or memorial from ‘George’? + </p> + <p> + “It was a risk to run. The black veil which she always wears was over her + face. I had nothing to tell me of the effect which I was producing on her, + except the changing temperature, or the partial movement, of her hand, as + it lay in mine, just under the silk coverlet of the bed. + </p> + <p> + “She said nothing at first. Her hand turned suddenly from cold to hot, and + closed with a quick pressure on mine. Her breathing became oppressed. When + she spoke, it was with difficulty. She told me nothing; she only put a + question: + </p> + <p> + “‘Is he here?’ she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I said, ‘Nobody is here but myself.’ + </p> + <p> + “‘Is there a letter?’ + </p> + <p> + “I said ‘No.’ + </p> + <p> + “She was silent for a while. Her hand turned cold; the grasp of her + fingers loosened. She spoke again: ‘Be quick, doctor! Whatever it is, give + it to me, before I die.’ + </p> + <p> + “I risked the experiment; I opened the locket, and put it into her hand. + </p> + <p> + “So far as I could discover, she refrained from looking at it at first. + She said, ‘Turn me in the bed, with my face to the wall.’ I obeyed her. + With her back turned toward me she lifted her veil; and then (as I + suppose) she looked at the portrait. A long, low cry—not of sorrow + or pain: a cry of rapture and delight—burst from her. I heard her + kiss the portrait. Accustomed as I am in my profession to piteous sights + and sounds, I never remember so completely losing my self-control as I + lost it at that moment. I was obliged to turn away to the window. + </p> + <p> + “Hardly a minute can have passed before I was back again at the bedside. + In that brief interval she had changed. Her voice had sunk again; it was + so weak that I could only hear what she said by leaning over her and + placing my ear close to her lips. + </p> + <p> + “‘Put it round my neck,’ she whispered. + </p> + <p> + “I clasped the chain of the locket round her neck. She tried to lift her + hand to it, but her strength failed her. + </p> + <p> + “‘Help me to hide it,’ she said. + </p> + <p> + “I guided her hand. She hid the locket in her bosom, under the white + dressing-gown which she wore that day. The oppression in her breathing + increased. I raised her on the pillow. The pillow was not high enough. I + rested her head on my shoulder, and partially opened her veil. She was + able to speak once more, feeling a momentary relief. + </p> + <p> + “‘Promise,’ she said, ‘that no stranger’s hand shall touch me. Promise to + bury me as I am now.’ + </p> + <p> + “I gave her my promise. + </p> + <p> + “Her failing breath quickened. She was just able to articulate the next + words: + </p> + <p> + “‘Cover my face again.’ + </p> + <p> + “I drew the veil over her face. She rested a while in silence. Suddenly + the sound of her laboring respiration ceased. She started, and raised her + head from my shoulder. + </p> + <p> + “‘Are you in pain?’ I asked. + </p> + <p> + “‘I am in heaven!’ she answered. + </p> + <p> + “Her head dropped back on my breast as she spoke. In that last outburst of + joy her last breath had passed. The moment of her supreme happiness and + the moment of her death were one. The mercy of God had found her at last. + </p> + <p> + “I return to my letter before the post goes out. + </p> + <p> + “I have taken the necessary measures for the performance of my promise. + She will be buried with the portrait hidden in her bosom, and with the + black veil over her face. No nobler creature ever breathed the breath of + life. Tell the stranger who sent her his portrait that her last moments + were joyful moments, through his remembrance of her as expressed by his + gift. + </p> + <p> + “I observe a passage in your letter to which I have not yet replied. You + ask me if there was any more serious reason for the persistent hiding of + her face under the veil than the reason which she was accustomed to give + to the persons about her. It is true that she suffered under a morbid + sensitiveness to the action of light. It is also true that this was not + the only result, or the worst result, of the malady that afflicted her. + She had another reason for keeping her face hidden—a reason known to + two persons only: to the doctor who lives in the village near her father’s + house, and to myself. We are both pledged never to divulge to any living + creature what our eyes alone have seen. We have kept our terrible secret + even from her father; and we shall carry it with us to our graves. I have + no more to say on this melancholy subject to the person in whose interest + you write. When he thinks of her now, let him think of the beauty which no + bodily affliction can profane—the beauty of the freed spirit, + eternally happy in its union with the angels of God. + </p> + <p> + “I may add, before I close my letter, that the poor old father will not be + left in cheerless solitude at the lake house. He will pass the remainder + of his days under my roof, with my good wife to take care of him, and my + children to remind him of the brighter side of life.” + </p> + <p> + So the letter ended. I put it away, and went out. The solitude of my room + forewarned me unendurably of the coming solitude in my own life. My + interests in this busy world were now narrowed to one object—to the + care of my mother’s failing health. Of the two women whose hearts had once + beaten in loving sympathy with mine, one lay in her grave and the other + was lost to me in a foreign land. On the drive by the sea I met my mother, + in her little pony-chaise, moving slowly under the mild wintry sunshine. I + dismissed the man who was in attendance on her, and walked by the side of + the chaise, with the reins in my hand. We chatted quietly on trivial + subjects. I closed my eyes to the dreary future that was before me, and + tried, in the intervals of the heart-ache, to live resignedly in the + passing hour. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXI. THE PHYSICIAN’S OPINION. + </h2> + <h3> + SIX months have elapsed. Summer-time has come again. + </h3> + <p> + The last parting is over. Prolonged by my care, the days of my mother’s + life have come to their end. She has died in my arms: her last words have + been spoken to me, her last look on earth has been mine. I am now, in the + saddest and plainest meaning of the words, alone in the world. + </p> + <p> + The affliction which has befallen me has left certain duties to be + performed that require my presence in London. My house is let; I am + staying at a hotel. My friend, Sir James (also in London on business), has + rooms near mine. We breakfast and dine together in my sitting-room. For + the moment solitude is dreadful to me, and yet I cannot go into society; I + shrink from persons who are mere acquaintances. At Sir James’s suggestion, + however, one visitor at the hotel has been asked to dine with us, who + claims distinction as no ordinary guest. The physician who first warned me + of the critical state of my mother’s health is anxious to hear what I can + tell him of her last moments. His time is too precious to be wasted in the + earlier hours of the day, and he joins us at the dinner-table when his + patients leave him free to visit his friends. + </p> + <p> + The dinner is nearly at an end. I have made the effort to preserve my + self-control; and in few words have told the simple story of my mother’s + last peaceful days on earth. The conversation turns next on topics of + little interest to me: my mind rests after the effort that it has made; my + observation is left free to exert itself as usual. + </p> + <p> + Little by little, while the talk goes on, I observe something in the + conduct of the celebrated physician which first puzzles me, and then + arouses my suspicion of some motive for his presence which has not been + acknowledged, and in which I am concerned. + </p> + <p> + Over and over again I discover that his eyes are resting on me with a + furtive interest and attention which he seems anxious to conceal. Over and + over again I notice that he contrives to divert the conversation from + general topics, and to lure me into talking of myself; and, stranger still + (unless I am quite mistaken), Sir James understands and encourages him. + Under various pretenses I am questioned about what I have suffered in the + past, and what plans of life I have formed for the future. Among other + subjects of personal interest to me, the subject of supernatural + appearances is introduced. I am asked if I believe in occult spiritual + sympathies, and in ghostly apparitions of dead or distant persons. I am + dexterously led into hinting that my views on this difficult and debatable + question are in some degree influenced by experiences of my own. Hints, + however, are not enough to satisfy the doctor’s innocent curiosity; he + tries to induce me to relate in detail what I have myself seen and felt. + But by this time I am on my guard; I make excuses; I steadily abstain from + taking my friend into my confidence. It is more and more plain to me that + I am being made the subject of an experiment, in which Sir James and the + physician are equally interested. Outwardly assuming to be guiltless of + any suspicion of what is going on, I inwardly determine to discover the + true motive for the doctor’s presence that evening, and for the part that + Sir James has taken in inviting him to be my guest. + </p> + <p> + Events favor my purpose soon after the dessert has been placed on the + table. + </p> + <p> + The waiter enters the room with a letter for me, and announces that the + bearer waits to know if there is any answer. I open the envelope, and find + inside a few lines from my lawyers, announcing the completion of some + formal matter of business. I at once seize the opportunity that is offered + to me. Instead of sending a verbal message downstairs, I make my + apologies, and use the letter as a pretext for leaving the room. + </p> + <p> + Dismissing the messenger who waits below, I return to the corridor in + which my rooms are situated, and softly open the door of my bed-chamber. A + second door communicates with the sitting-room, and has a ventilator in + the upper part of it. I have only to stand under the ventilator, and every + word of the conversation between Sir James and the physician reaches my + ears. + </p> + <p> + “Then you think I am right?” are the first words I hear, in Sir James’s + voice. + </p> + <p> + “Quite right,” the doctor answers. + </p> + <p> + “I have done my best to make him change his dull way of life,” Sir James + proceeds. “I have asked him to pay a visit to my house in Scotland; I have + proposed traveling with him on the Continent; I have offered to take him + with me on my next voyage in the yacht. He has but one answer—he + simply says No to everything that I can suggest. You have heard from his + own lips that he has no definite plans for the future. What is to become + of him? What had we better do?” + </p> + <p> + “It is not easy to say,” I hear the physician reply. “To speak plainly, + the man’s nervous system is seriously deranged. I noticed something + strange in him when he first came to consult me about his mother’s health. + The mischief has not been caused entirely by the affliction of her death. + In my belief, his mind has been—what shall I say?—unhinged, + for some time past. He is a very reserved person. I suspect he has been + oppressed by anxieties which he has kept secret from every one. At his + age, the unacknowledged troubles of life are generally troubles caused by + women. It is in his temperament to take the romantic view of love; and + some matter-of-fact woman of the present day may have bitterly + disappointed him. Whatever may be the cause, the effect is plain—his + nerves have broken down, and his brain is necessarily affected by whatever + affects his nerves. I have known men in his condition who have ended + badly. He may drift into insane delusions, if his present course of life + is not altered. Did you hear what he said when we talked about ghosts?” + </p> + <p> + “Sheer nonsense!” Sir James remarks. + </p> + <p> + “Sheer delusion would be the more correct form of expression,” the doctor + rejoins. “And other delusions may grow out of it at any moment.” + </p> + <p> + “What is to be done?” persists Sir James. “I may really say for myself, + doctor, that I feel a fatherly interest in the poor fellow. His mother was + one of my oldest and dearest friends, and he has inherited many of her + engaging and endearing qualities. I hope you don’t think the case is bad + enough to be a case for restraint?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not—as yet,” answers the doctor. “So far there is no + positive brain disease; and there is accordingly no sort of reason for + placing him under restraint. It is essentially a difficult and a doubtful + case. Have him privately looked after by a competent person, and thwart + him in nothing, if you can possibly help it. The merest trifle may excite + his suspicions; and if that happens, we lose all control over him.” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t think he suspects us already, do you, doctor?” + </p> + <p> + “I hope not. I saw him once or twice look at me very strangely; and he has + certainly been a long time out of the room.” + </p> + <p> + Hearing this, I wait to hear no more. I return to the sitting-room (by way + of the corridor) and resume my place at the table. + </p> + <p> + The indignation that I feel—naturally enough, I think, under the + circumstances—makes a good actor of me for once in my life. I invent + the necessary excuse for my long absence, and take my part in the + conversation, keeping the strictest guard on every word that escapes me, + without betraying any appearance of restraint in my manner. Early in the + evening the doctor leaves us to go to a scientific meeting. For half an + hour or more Sir James remains with me. By way (as I suppose) of farther + testing the state of my mind, he renews the invitation to his house in + Scotland. I pretend to feel flattered by his anxiety to secure me as his + guest. I undertake to reconsider my first refusal, and to give him a + definite answer when we meet the next morning at breakfast. Sir James is + delighted. We shake hands cordially, and wish each other good-night. At + last I am left alone. + </p> + <p> + My resolution as to my next course of proceeding is formed without a + moment’s hesitation. I determine to leave the hotel privately the next + morning before Sir James is out of his bedroom. + </p> + <p> + To what destination I am to betake myself is naturally the next question + that arises, and this also I easily decide. During the last days of my + mother’s life we spoke together frequently of the happy past days when we + were living together on the banks of the Greenwater lake. The longing thus + inspired to look once more at the old scenes, to live for a while again + among the old associations, has grown on me since my mother’s death. I + have, happily for myself, not spoken of this feeling to Sir James or to + any other person. When I am missed at the hotel, there will be no + suspicion of the direction in which I have turned my steps. To the old + home in Suffolk I resolve to go the next morning. Wandering among the + scenes of my boyhood, I can consider with myself how I may best bear the + burden of the life that lies before me. + </p> + <p> + After what I have heard that evening, I confide in nobody. For all I know + to the contrary, my own servant may be employed to-morrow as the spy who + watches my actions. When the man makes his appearance to take his orders + for the night, I tell him to wake me at six the next morning, and release + him from further attendance. + </p> + <p> + I next employ myself in writing two letters. They will be left on the + table, to speak for themselves after my departure. + </p> + <p> + In the first letter I briefly inform Sir James that I have discovered his + true reason for inviting the doctor to dinner. While I thank him for the + interest he takes in my welfare, I decline to be made the object of any + further medical inquiries as to the state of my mind. In due course of + time, when my plans are settled, he will hear from me again. Meanwhile, he + need feel no anxiety about my safety. It is one among my other delusions + to believe that I am still perfectly capable of taking care of myself. My + second letter is addressed to the landlord of the hotel, and simply + provides for the disposal of my luggage and the payment of my bill. + </p> + <p> + I enter my bedroom next, and pack a traveling-bag with the few things that + I can carry with me. My money is in my dressing-case. Opening it, I + discover my pretty keepsake—the green flag! Can I return to + “Greenwater Broad,” can I look again at the bailiff’s cottage, without the + one memorial of little Mary that I possess? Besides, have I not promised + Miss Dunross that Mary’s gift shall always go with me wherever I go? and + is the promise not doubly sacred now that she is dead? For a while I sit + idly looking at the device on the flag—the white dove embroidered on + the green ground, with the golden olive-branch in its beak. The innocent + love-story of my early life returns to my memory, and shows me in horrible + contrast the life that I am leading now. I fold up the flag and place it + carefully in my traveling-bag. This done, all is done. I may rest till the + morning comes. + </p> + <p> + No! I lie down on my bed, and I discover that there is no rest for me that + night. + </p> + <p> + Now that I have no occupation to keep my energies employed, now that my + first sense of triumph in the discomfiture of the friends who have plotted + against me has had time to subside, my mind reverts to the conversation + that I have overheard, and considers it from a new point of view. For the + first time, the terrible question confronts me: The doctor’s opinion on my + case has been given very positively. How do I know that the doctor is not + right? + </p> + <p> + This famous physician has risen to the head of his profession entirely by + his own abilities. He is one of the medical men who succeed by means of an + ingratiating manner and the dexterous handling of good opportunities. Even + his enemies admit that he stands unrivaled in the art of separating the + true conditions from the false in the discovery of disease, and in tracing + effects accurately to their distant and hidden cause. Is such a man as + this likely to be mistaken about me? Is it not far more probable that I am + mistaken in my judgment of myself? + </p> + <p> + When I look back over the past years, am I quite sure that the strange + events which I recall may not, in certain cases, be the visionary product + of my own disordered brain—realities to me, and to no one else? What + are the dreams of Mrs. Van Brandt? What are the ghostly apparitions of her + which I believe myself to have seen? Delusions which have been the + stealthy growth of years? delusions which are leading me, by slow degrees, + nearer and nearer to madness in the end? Is it insane suspicion which has + made me so angry with the good friends who have been trying to save my + reason? Is it insane terror which sets me on escaping from the hotel like + a criminal escaping from prison? + </p> + <p> + These are the questions which torment me when I am alone in the dead of + night. My bed becomes a place of unendurable torture. I rise and dress + myself, and wait for the daylight, looking through my open window into the + street. + </p> + <p> + The summer night is short. The gray light of dawn comes to me like a + deliverance; the glow of the glorious sunrise cheers my soul once more. + Why should I wait in the room that is still haunted by my horrible doubts + of the night? I take up my traveling-bag; I leave my letters on the + sitting-room table; and I descend the stairs to the house door. The + night-porter at the hotel is slumbering in his chair. He wakes as I pass + him; and (God help me!) he too looks as if he thought I was mad. + </p> + <p> + “Going to leave us already, sir?” he says, looking at the bag in my hand. + </p> + <p> + Mad or sane, I am ready with my reply. I tell him I am going out for a day + in the country, and to make it a long day, I must start early. + </p> + <p> + The man still stares at me. He asks if he shall find some one to carry my + bag. I decline to let anybody be disturbed. He inquires if I have any + messages to leave for my friend. I inform him that I have left written + messages upstairs for Sir James and the landlord. Upon this he draws the + bolts and opens the door. To the last he looks at me as if he thought I + was mad. + </p> + <p> + Was he right or wrong? Who can answer for himself? How can I tell? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXII. A LAST LOOK AT GREENWATER BROAD. + </h2> + <p> + MY spirits rose as I walked through the bright empty streets, and breathed + the fresh morning air. + </p> + <p> + Taking my way eastward through the great city, I stopped at the first + office that I passed, and secured my place by the early coach to Ipswich. + Thence I traveled with post-horses to the market-town which was nearest to + Greenwater Broad. A walk of a few miles in the cool evening brought me, + through well-remembered by-roads, to our old house. By the last rays of + the setting sun I looked at the familiar row of windows in front, and saw + that the shutters were all closed. Not a living creature was visible + anywhere. Not even a dog barked as I rang the great bell at the door. The + place was deserted; the house was shut up. + </p> + <p> + After a long delay, I heard heavy footsteps in the hall. An old man opened + the door. + </p> + <p> + Changed as he was, I remembered him as one of our tenants in the by-gone + time. To his astonishment, I greeted him by his name. On his side, he + tried hard to recognize me, and tried in vain. No doubt I was the more + sadly changed of the two: I was obliged to introduce myself. The poor + fellow’s withered face brightened slowly and timidly, as if he were half + incapable, half afraid, of indulging in the unaccustomed luxury of a + smile. In his confusion he bid me welcome home again, as if the house had + been mine. + </p> + <p> + Taking me into the little back-room which he inhabited, the old man gave + me all he had to offer—a supper of bacon and eggs and a glass of + home-brewed beer. He was evidently puzzled to understand me when I + informed him that the only object of my visit was to look once more at the + familiar scenes round my old home. But he willingly placed his services at + my disposal; and he engaged to do his best, if I wished it, to make me up + a bed for the night. + </p> + <p> + The house had been closed and the establishment of servants had been + dismissed for more than a year past. A passion for horse-racing, developed + late in life, had ruined the rich retired tradesman who had purchased the + estate at the time of our family troubles. He had gone abroad with his + wife to live on the little income that had been saved from the wreck of + his fortune; and he had left the house and lands in such a state of + neglect that no new purchaser had thus far been found to take them. My old + friend, “now past his work,” had been put in charge of the place. As for + Dermody’s cottage, it was empty, like the house. I was at perfect liberty + to look over it if I liked. There was the key of the door on the bunch + with the others; and here was the old man, with his old hat on his head, + ready to accompany me wherever I pleased to go. I declined to trouble him + to accompany me or to make up a bed in the lonely house. The night was + fine, the moon was rising. I had supped; I had rested. When I had seen + what I wanted to see, I could easily walk back to the market-town and + sleep at the inn. Taking the key in my hand, I set forth alone on the way + through the grounds which led to Dermody’s cottage. + </p> + <p> + Again I followed the woodland paths along which I had once idled so + happily with my little Mary. At every step I saw something that reminded + me of her. Here was the rustic bench on which we had sat together under + the shadow of the old cedar-tree, and vowed to be constant to each other + to the end of our lives. There was the bright little water spring, from + which we drank when we were weary and thirsty in sultry summer days, still + bubbling its way downward to the lake as cheerily as ever. As I listened + to the companionable murmur of the stream, I almost expected to see her + again, in her simple white frock and straw hat, singing to the music of + the rivulet, and freshening her nosegay of wild flowers by dipping it in + the cool water. A few steps further on and I reached a clearing in the + wood and stood on a little promontory of rising ground which commanded the + prettiest view of Greenwater lake. A platform of wood was built out from + the bank, to be used for bathing by good swimmers who were not afraid of a + plunge into deep water. I stood on the platform and looked round me. The + trees that fringed the shore on either hand murmured their sweet sylvan + music in the night air; the moonlight trembled softly on the rippling + water. Away on my right hand I could just see the old wooden shed that + once sheltered my boat in the days when Mary went sailing with me and + worked the green flag. On my left was the wooden paling that followed the + curves of the winding creek, and beyond it rose the brown arches of the + decoy for wild fowl, now falling to ruin for want of use. Guided by the + radiant moonlight, I could see the very spot on which Mary and I had stood + to watch the snaring of the ducks. Through the hole in the paling before + which the decoy-dog had shown himself, at Dermody’s signal, a water-rat + now passed, like a little black shadow on the bright ground, and was lost + in the waters of the lake. Look where I might, the happy by-gone time + looked back in mockery, and the voices of the past came to me with their + burden of reproach: See what your life was once! Is your life worth living + now? + </p> + <p> + I picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. I watched the circling + ripples round the place at which it had sunk. I wondered if a practiced + swimmer like myself had ever tried to commit suicide by drowning, and had + been so resolute to die that he had resisted the temptation to let his own + skill keep him from sinking. Something in the lake itself, or something in + connection with the thought that it had put into my mind, revolted me. I + turned my back suddenly on the lonely view, and took the path through the + wood which led to the bailiff’s cottage. + </p> + <p> + Opening the door with my key, I groped my way into the well-remembered + parlor; and, unbarring the window-shutters, I let in the light of the + moon. + </p> + <p> + With a heavy heart I looked round me. The old furniture—renewed, + perhaps, in one or two places—asserted its mute claim to my + recognition in every part of the room. The tender moonlight streamed + slanting into the corner in which Mary and I used to nestle together while + Dame Dermody was at the window reading her mystic books. Overshadowed by + the obscurity in the opposite corner, I discovered the high-backed + arm-chair of carved wood in which the Sibyl of the cottage sat on the + memorable day when she warned us of our coming separation, and gave us her + blessing for the last time. Looking next round the walls of the room, I + recognized old friends wherever my eyes happened to rest—the gaudily + colored prints; the framed pictures in fine needle-work, which we thought + wonderful efforts of art; the old circular mirror to which I used to lift + Mary when she wanted “to see her face in the glass.” Whenever the + moonlight penetrated there, it showed me some familiar object that + recalled my happiest days. Again the by-gone time looked back in mockery. + Again the voices of the past came to me with their burden of reproach: See + what your life was once! Is your life worth living now? + </p> + <p> + I sat down at the window, where I could just discover, here and there + between the trees, the glimmer of the waters of the lake. I thought to + myself: “Thus far my mortal journey has brought me. Why not end it here?” + </p> + <p> + Who would grieve for me if my death were reported to-morrow? Of all living + men, I had perhaps the smallest number of friends, the fewest duties to + perform toward others, the least reason to hesitate at leaving a world + which had no place in it for my ambition, no creature in it for my love. + </p> + <p> + Besides, what necessity was there for letting it be known that my death + was a death of my own seeking? It could easily be left to represent itself + as a death by accident. + </p> + <p> + On that fine summer night, and after a long day of traveling, might I not + naturally take a bath in the cool water before I went to bed? And, + practiced as I was in the exercise of swimming, might it not nevertheless + be my misfortune to be attacked by cramp? On the lonely shores of + Greenwater Broad the cry of a drowning man would bring no help at night. + The fatal accident would explain itself. There was literally but one + difficulty in the way—the difficulty which had already occurred to + my mind. Could I sufficiently master the animal instinct of + self-preservation to deliberately let myself sink at the first plunge? + </p> + <p> + The atmosphere in the room felt close and heavy. I went out, and walked to + and fro—now in the shadow, and now in the moonlight—under the + trees before the cottage door. + </p> + <p> + Of the moral objections to suicide, not one had any influence over me now. + I, who had once found it impossible to excuse, impossible even to + understand, the despair which had driven Mrs. Van Brandt to attempt + self-destruction—I now contemplated with composure the very act + which had horrified me when I saw it committed by another person. Well may + we hesitate to condemn the frailties of our fellow-creatures, for the one + unanswerable reason that we can never feel sure how soon similar + temptations may not lead us to be guilty of the same frailties ourselves. + Looking back at the events of the night, I can recall but one + consideration that stayed my feet on the fatal path which led back to the + lake. I still doubted whether it would be possible for such a swimmer as I + was to drown himself. This was all that troubled my mind. For the rest, my + will was made, and I had few other affairs which remained unsettled. No + lingering hope was left in me of a reunion in the future with Mrs. Van + Brandt. She had never written to me again; I had (forgiven) her for having + forgotten me. My thoughts of her and of others were the forbearing + thoughts of a man whose mind was withdrawn already from the world, whose + views were narrowing fast to the one idea of his own death. + </p> + <p> + I grew weary of walking up and down. The loneliness of the place began to + oppress me. The sense of my own indecision irritated my nerves. After a + long look at the lake through the trees, I came to a positive conclusion + at last. I determined to try if a good swimmer could drown himself. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIII. A VISION OF THE NIGHT. + </h2> + <p> + RETURNING to the cottage parlor, I took a chair by the window and opened + my pocket-book at a blank page. I had certain directions to give to my + representatives, which might spare them some trouble and uncertainty in + the event of my death. Disguising my last instructions under the + commonplace heading of “Memoranda on my return to London,” I began to + write. + </p> + <p> + I had filled one page of the pocket-book, and had just turned to the next, + when I became conscious of a difficulty in fixing my attention on the + subject that was before it. I was at once reminded of the similar + difficulty which I felt in Shetland, when I had tried vainly to arrange + the composition of the letter to my mother which Miss Dunross was to + write. By way of completing the parallel, my thoughts wandered now, as + they had wandered then, to my latest remembrance of Mrs. Van Brandt. In a + minute or two I began to feel once more the strange physical sensations + which I had first experienced in the garden at Mr. Dunross’s house. The + same mysterious trembling shuddered through me from head to foot. I looked + about me again, with no distinct consciousness of what the objects were on + which my eyes rested. My nerves trembled, on that lovely summer night, as + if there had been an electric disturbance in the atmosphere and a storm + coming. I laid my pocket-book and pencil on the table, and rose to go out + again under the trees. Even the trifling effort to cross the room was an + effort made in vain. I stood rooted to the spot, with my face turned + toward the moonlight streaming in at the open door. + </p> + <p> + An interval passed, and as I still looked out through the door, I became + aware of something moving far down among the trees that fringed the shore + of the lake. The first impression produced on me was of two gray shadows + winding their way slowly toward me between the trunks of the trees. By + fine degrees the shadows assumed a more and more marked outline, until + they presented themselves in the likeness of two robed figures, one taller + than the other. While they glided nearer and nearer, their gray obscurity + of hue melted away. They brightened softly with an inner light of their + own as they slowly approached the open space before the door. For the + third time I stood in the ghostly presence of Mrs. Van Brandt; and with + her, holding her hand, I beheld a second apparition never before revealed + to me, the apparition of her child. + </p> + <p> + Hand-in-hand, shining in their unearthly brightness through the bright + moonlight itself, the two stood before me. The mother’s face looked at me + once more with the sorrowful and pleading eyes which I remembered so well. + But the face of the child was innocently radiant with an angelic smile. I + waited in unutterable expectation for the word that was to be spoken, for + the movement that was to come. The movement came first. The child released + its hold on the mother’s hand, and floating slowly upward, remained poised + in midair—a softly glowing presence shining out of the dark + background of the trees. The mother glided into the room, and stopped at + the table on which I had laid my pocket-book and pencil when I could no + longer write. As before, she took the pencil and wrote on the blank page. + As before, she beckoned to me to step nearer to her. I approached her + outstretched hand, and felt once more the mysterious rapture of her touch + on my bosom, and heard once more her low, melodious tones repeating the + words: “Remember me. Come to me.” Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale + light which revealed her to me quivered, sunk, vanished. She had spoken. + She had gone. + </p> + <p> + I drew to me the open pocket-book. And this time I saw, in the writing of + the ghostly hand, these words only: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + <i>“Follow the Child.”</i> +</pre> + <p> + I looked out again at the lonely night landscape. + </p> + <p> + There, in mid-air, shining softly out of the dark background of the trees, + still hovered the starry apparition of the child. + </p> + <p> + Advancing without conscious will of my own, I crossed the threshold of the + door. The softly glowing vision of the child moved away before me among + the trees. I followed, like a man spellbound. The apparition, floating + slowly onward, led me out of the wood, and past my old home, back to the + lonely by-road along which I had walked from the market-town to the house. + From time to time, as we two went on our way, the bright figure of the + child paused, hovering low in the cloudless sky. Its radiant face looked + down smiling on me; it beckoned with its little hand, and floated on + again, leading me as the Star led the Eastern sages in the olden time. + </p> + <p> + I reached the town. The airy figure of the child paused, hovering over the + house at which I had left my traveling-carriage in the evening. I ordered + the horses to be harnessed again for another journey. The postilion waited + for his further directions. I looked up. The child’s hand was pointing + southward, along the road that led to London. I gave the man his + instructions to return to the place at which I had hired the carriage. At + intervals, as we proceeded, I looked out through the window. The bright + figure of the child still floated on before me gliding low in the + cloudless sky. Changing the horses stage by stage, I went on till the + night ended—went on till the sun rose in the eastern heaven. And + still, whether it was dark or whether it was light, the figure of the + child floated on before me in its changeless and mystic light. Mile after + mile, it still led the way southward, till we left the country behind us, + and passing through the din and turmoil of the great city, stopped under + the shadow of the ancient Tower, within view of the river that runs by it. + </p> + <p> + The postilion came to the carriage door to ask if I had further need of + his services. I had called to him to stop, when I saw the figure of the + child pause on its airy course. I looked upward again. The child’s hand + pointed toward the river. I paid the postilion and left the carriage. + Floating on before me, the child led the way to a wharf crowded with + travelers and their luggage. A vessel lay along-side of the wharf ready to + sail. The child led me on board the vessel and paused again, hovering over + me in the smoky air. + </p> + <p> + I looked up. The child looked back at me with its radiant smile, and + pointed eastward down the river toward the distant sea. While my eyes were + still fixed on the softly glowing figure, I saw it fade away upward and + upward into the higher light, as the lark vanishes upward and upward in + the morning sky. I was alone again with my earthly fellow-beings—left + with no clew to guide me but the remembrance of the child’s hand pointing + eastward to the distant sea. + </p> + <p> + A sailor was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on the deck. I + asked him to what port the vessel was bound. The man looked at me in surly + amazement, and answered: + </p> + <p> + “To Rotterdam.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXIV. BY LAND AND SEA. + </h2> + <p> + IT mattered little to me to what port the vessel was bound. Go where I + might, I knew that I was on my way to Mrs. Van Brandt. She had need of me + again; she had claimed me again. Where the visionary hand of the child had + pointed, thither I was destined to go. Abroad or at home, it mattered + nothing: when I next set my foot on the land, I should be further directed + on the journey which lay before me. I believed this as firmly as I + believed that I had been guided, thus far, by the vision of the child. + </p> + <p> + For two nights I had not slept—my weariness overpowered me. I + descended to the cabin, and found an unoccupied corner in which I could + lie down to rest. When I awoke, it was night already, and the vessel was + at sea. + </p> + <p> + I went on deck to breathe the fresh air. Before long the sensation of + drowsiness returned; I slept again for hours together. My friend, the + physician, would no doubt have attributed this prolonged need of repose to + the exhausted condition of my brain, previously excited by delusions which + had lasted uninterruptedly for many hours together. Let the cause be what + it might, during the greater part of the voyage I was awake at intervals + only. The rest of the time I lay like a weary animal, lost in sleep. + </p> + <p> + When I stepped on shore at Rotterdam, my first proceeding was to ask my + way to the English Consulate. I had but a small sum of money with me; and, + for all I knew to the contrary, it might be well, before I did anything + else, to take the necessary measures for replenishing my purse. + </p> + <p> + I had my traveling-bag with me. On the journey to Greenwater Broad I had + left it at the inn in the market-town, and the waiter had placed it in the + carriage when I started on my return to London. The bag contained my + checkbook, and certain letters which assisted me in proving my identity to + the consul. He kindly gave me the necessary introduction to the + correspondents at Rotterdam of my bankers in London. + </p> + <p> + Having obtained my money, and having purchased certain necessaries of + which I stood in need, I walked slowly along the street, knowing nothing + of what my next proceeding was to be, and waiting confidently for the + event which was to guide me. I had not walked a hundred yards before I + noticed the name of “Van Brandt” inscribed on the window-blinds of a house + which appeared to be devoted to mercantile purposes. + </p> + <p> + The street door stood open. A second door, on one side of the passage, led + into the office. I entered the room and inquired for Mr. Van Brandt. A + clerk who spoke English was sent for to communicate with me. He told me + there were three partners of that name in the business, and inquired which + of them I wished to see. I remembered Van Brandt’s Christian name, and + mentioned it. No such person as “Mr. Ernest Van Brandt” was known at the + office. + </p> + <p> + “We are only the branch house of the firm of Van Brandt here,” the clerk + explained. “The head office is at Amsterdam. They may know where Mr. + Ernest Van Brandt is to be found, if you inquire there.” + </p> + <p> + It mattered nothing to me where I went, so long as I was on my way to Mrs. + Van Brandt. It was too late to travel that day; I slept at a hotel. The + night passed quietly and uneventfully. The next morning I set forth by the + public conveyance for Amsterdam. + </p> + <p> + Repeating my inquiries at the head office on my arrival, I was referred to + one of the partners in the firm. He spoke English perfectly; and he + received me with an appearance of interest which I was at a loss to + account for at first. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is well known to me,” he said. “May I ask if you + are a relative or friend of the English lady who has been introduced here + as his wife?” + </p> + <p> + I answered in the affirmative; adding, “I am here to give any assistance + to the lady of which she may stand in need.” + </p> + <p> + The merchant’s next words explained the appearance of interest with which + he had received me. + </p> + <p> + “You are most welcome,” he said. “You relieve my partners and myself of a + great anxiety. I can only explain what I mean by referring for a moment to + the business affairs of my firm. We have a fishing establishment in the + ancient city of Enkhuizen, on the shores of the Zuyder Zee. Mr. Ernest Van + Brandt had a share in it at one time, which he afterward sold. Of late + years our profits from this source have been diminishing; and we think of + giving up the fishery, unless our prospects in that quarter improve after + a further trial. In the meantime, having a vacant situation in the + counting-house at Enkhuizen, we thought of Mr. Ernest Van Brandt, and + offered him the opportunity of renewing his connection with us, in the + capacity of a clerk. He is related to one of my partners; but I am bound + in truth to tell you that he is a very bad man. He has awarded us for our + kindness to him by embezzling our money; and he has taken to flight—in + what direction we have not yet discovered. The English lady and her child + are left deserted at Enkhuizen; and until you came here to-day we were + quite at a loss to know what to do with them. I don’t know whether you are + already aware of it, sir; but the lady’s position is made doubly + distressing by doubts which we entertain of her being really Mr. Ernest + Van Brandt’s wife. To our certain knowledge, he was privately married to + another woman some years since; and we have no evidence whatever that the + first wife is dead. If we can help you in any way to assist your + unfortunate country-woman, pray believe that our services are at your + disposal.” + </p> + <p> + With what breathless interest I listened to these words it is needless to + say. Van Brandt had deserted her! Surely (as my poor mother had once said) + “she must turn to me now.” The hopes that had abandoned me filled my heart + once more; the future which I had so long feared to contemplate showed + itself again bright with the promise of coming happiness to my view. I + thanked the good merchant with a fervor that surprised him. “Only help me + to find my way to Enkhuizen,” I said, “and I will answer for the rest.” + </p> + <p> + “The journey will put you to some expense,” the merchant replied. “Pardon + me if I ask the question bluntly. Have you money?” + </p> + <p> + “Plenty of money.” + </p> + <p> + “Very good. The rest will be easy enough. I will place you under the care + of a countryman of yours, who has been employed in our office for many + years. The easiest way for you, as a stranger, will be to go by sea; and + the Englishman will show you where to hire a boat.” + </p> + <p> + In a few minutes more the clerk and I were on our way to the harbor. + </p> + <p> + Difficulties which I had not anticipated occurred in finding the boat and + in engaging a crew. This done, it was next necessary to purchase + provisions for the voyage. Thanks to the experience of my companion, and + to the hearty good-will with which he exerted it, my preparations were + completed before night-fall. I was able to set sail for my destination on + the next day. + </p> + <p> + The boat had the double advantage, in navigating the Zuyder Zee, of being + large, and of drawing very little water; the captain’s cabin was at the + stern; and the two or three men who formed his crew were berthed forward, + in the bows. The whole middle of the boat, partitioned off on the one side + and on the other from the captain and the crew, was assigned to me for my + cabin. Under these circumstances, I had no reason to complain of want of + space; the vessel measuring between fifty and sixty tons. I had a + comfortable bed, a table, and chairs. The kitchen was well away from me, + in the forward part of the boat. At my own request, I set forth on the + voyage without servant or interpreter. I preferred being alone. The Dutch + captain had been employed, at a former period of his life, in the + mercantile navy of France; and we could communicate, whenever it was + necessary or desirable, in the French language. + </p> + <p> + We left the spires of Amsterdam behind us, and sailed over the smooth + waters of the lake on our way to the Zuyder Zee. + </p> + <p> + The history of this remarkable sea is a romance in itself. In the days + when Rome was mistress of the world, it had no existence. Where the waves + now roll, vast tracts of forest surrounded a great inland lake, with but + one river to serve it as an outlet to the sea. Swelled by a succession of + tempests, the lake overflowed its boundaries: its furious waters, + destroying every obstacle in their course, rested only when they reached + the furthest limits of the land. + </p> + <p> + The Northern Ocean beyond burst its way in through the gaps of ruin; and + from that time the Zuyder Zee existed as we know it now. The years + advanced, the generations of man succeeded each other; and on the shores + of the new ocean there rose great and populous cities, rich in commerce, + renowned in history. For centuries their prosperity lasted, before the + next in this mighty series of changes ripened and revealed itself. + Isolated from the rest of the world, vain of themselves and their good + fortune, careless of the march of progress in the nations round them, the + inhabitants of the Zuyder Zee cities sunk into the fatal torpor of a + secluded people. The few members of the population who still preserved the + relics of their old energy emigrated, while the mass left behind + resignedly witnessed the diminution of their commerce and the decay of + their institutions. As the years advanced to the nineteenth century, the + population was reckoned by hundreds where it had once been numbered by + thousands. Trade disappeared; whole streets were left desolate. Harbors, + once filled with shipping, were destroyed by the unresisted accumulation + of sand. In our own times the decay of these once flourishing cities is so + completely beyond remedy, that the next great change in contemplation is + the draining of the now dangerous and useless tract of water, and the + profitable cultivation of the reclaimed land by generations that are still + to come. Such, briefly told, is the strange story of the Zuyder Zee. + </p> + <p> + As we advanced on our voyage, and left the river, I noticed the tawny hue + of the sea, caused by sand-banks which color the shallow water, and which + make the navigation dangerous to inexperienced seamen. We found our + moorings for the night at the fishing island of Marken—a low, lost, + desolate-looking place, as I saw it under the last gleams of the twilight. + Here and there, the gabled cottages, perched on hillocks, rose black + against the dim gray sky. Here and there, a human figure appeared at the + waterside, standing, fixed in contemplation of the strange boat. And that + was all I saw of the island of Marken. + </p> + <p> + Lying awake in the still night, alone on a strange sea, there were moments + when I found myself beginning to doubt the reality of my own position. + </p> + <p> + Was it all a dream? My thoughts of suicide; my vision of the mother and + daughter; my journey back to the metropolis, led by the apparition of the + child; my voyage to Holland; my night anchorage in the unknown sea—were + these, so to speak, all pieces of the same morbid mental puzzle, all + delusions from which I might wake at any moment, and find myself restored + to my senses again in the hotel at London? Bewildered by doubts which led + me further and further from any definite conclusion, I left my bed and + went on deck to change the scene. It was a still and cloudy night. In the + black void around me, the island was a blacker shadow yet, and nothing + more. The one sound that reached my ears was the heavy breathing of the + captain and his crew sleeping on either side of me. I waited, looking + round and round the circle of darkness in which I stood. No new vision + showed itself. When I returned again to the cabin, and slumbered at last, + no dreams came to me. All that was mysterious, all that was marvelous, in + the later events of my life seemed to have been left behind me in England. + Once in Holland, my course had been influenced by circumstances which were + perfectly natural, by commonplace discoveries which might have revealed + themselves to any man in my position. What did this mean? Had my gifts as + a seer of visions departed from me in the new land and among the strange + people? Or had my destiny led me to the place at which the troubles of my + mortal pilgrimage were to find their end? Who could say? + </p> + <p> + Early the next morning we set sail once more. + </p> + <p> + Our course was nearly northward. On one side of me was the tawny sea, + changing under certain conditions of the weather to a dull pearl-gray. On + the other side was the flat, winding coast, composed alternately of yellow + sand and bright-green meadow-lands; diversified at intervals by towns and + villages, whose red-tiled roofs and quaint church-steeples rose gayly + against the clear blue sky. The captain suggested to me to visit the + famous towns of Edam and Hoorn; but I declined to go on shore. My one + desire was to reach the ancient city in which Mrs. Van Brandt had been + left deserted. As we altered our course, to make for the promontory on + which Enkhuizen is situated, the wind fell, then shifted to another + quarter, and blew with a force which greatly increased the difficulties of + navigation. I still insisted, as long as it was possible to do so, on + holding on our course. After sunset, the strength of the wind abated. The + night came without a cloud, and the starry firmament gave us its pale and + glittering light. In an hour more the capricious wind shifted back again + in our favor. Toward ten o’clock we sailed into the desolate harbor of + Enkhuizen. + </p> + <p> + The captain and crew, fatigued by their exertions, ate their frugal + suppers and went to their beds. In a few minutes more, I was the only + person left awake in the boat. + </p> + <p> + I ascended to the deck, and looked about me. + </p> + <p> + Our boat was moored to a deserted quay. Excepting a few fishing vessels + visible near us, the harbor of this once prosperous place was a vast + solitude of water, varied here and there by dreary banks of sand. Looking + inland, I saw the lonely buildings of the Dead City—black, grim, and + dreadful under the mysterious starlight. Not a human creature, not even a + stray animal, was to be seen anywhere. The place might have been desolated + by a pestilence, so empty and so lifeless did it now appear. Little more + than a hundred years ago, the record of its population reached sixty + thousand. The inhabitants had dwindled to a tenth of that number when I + looked at Enkhuizen now! + </p> + <p> + I considered with myself what my next course of proceeding was to be. + </p> + <p> + The chances were certainly against my discovering Mrs. Van Brandt if I + ventured alone and unguided into the city at night. On the other hand, now + that I had reached the place in which she and her child were living, + friendless and deserted, could I patiently wait through the weary interval + that must elapse before the morning came and the town was astir? I knew my + own self-tormenting disposition too well to accept this latter + alternative. Whatever came of it, I determined to walk through Enkhuizen + on the bare chance of meeting some one who might inform me of Mrs. Van + Brandt’s address. + </p> + <p> + First taking the precaution of locking my cabin door, I stepped from the + bulwark of the vessel to the lonely quay, and set forth upon my night + wanderings through the Dead City. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXV. UNDER THE WINDOW. + </h2> + <p> + I SET the position of the harbor by my pocket-compass, and then followed + the course of the first street that lay before me. + </p> + <p> + On either side, as I advanced, the desolate old houses frowned on me. + There were no lights in the windows, no lamps in the streets. For a + quarter of an hour at least I penetrated deeper and deeper into the city, + without encountering a living creature on my way—with only the + starlight to guide me. Turning by chance into a street broader than the + rest, I at last saw a moving figure, just visible ahead, under the shadows + of the houses. I quickened my pace, and found myself following a man in + the dress of a peasant. Hearing my footsteps behind him, he turned and + looked at me. Discovering that I was a stranger, he lifted a thick cudgel + that he carried with him, shook it threateningly, and called to me in his + own language (as I gathered by his actions) to stand back. A stranger in + Eukhuizen at that time of night was evidently reckoned as a robber in the + estimation of this citizen! I had learned on the voyage, from the captain + of the boat, how to ask my way in Dutch, if I happened to be by myself in + a strange town; and I now repeated my lesson, asking my way to the fishing + office of Messrs. Van Brandt. Either my foreign accent made me + unintelligible, or the man’s suspicions disinclined him to trust me. Again + he shook his cudgel, and again he signed to me to stand back. It was + useless to persist. I crossed to the opposite side of the way, and soon + afterward lost sight of him under the portico of a house. + </p> + <p> + Still following the windings of the deserted streets, I reached what I at + first supposed to be the end of the town. + </p> + <p> + Before me, for half a mile or more (as well as I could guess), rose a + tract of meadow-land, with sheep dotted over it at intervals reposing for + the night. I advanced over the grass, and observed here and there, where + the ground rose a little, some moldering fragments of brickwork. Looking + onward as I reached the middle of the meadow, I perceived on its further + side, towering gaunt and black in the night, a lofty arch or gateway, + without walls at its sides, without a neighboring building of any sort, + far or near. This (as I afterward learned) was one of the ancient gates of + the city. The walls, crumbling to ruin, had been destroyed as useless + obstacles that cumbered the ground. On the waste meadow-land round me had + once stood the shops of the richest merchants, the palaces of the proudest + nobles of North Holland. I was actually standing on what had been formerly + the wealthy quarter of Enkhuizen! And what was left of it now? A few + mounds of broken bricks, a pasture-land of sweet-smelling grass, and a + little flock of sheep sleeping. + </p> + <p> + The mere desolation of the view (apart altogether from its history) struck + me with a feeling of horror. My mind seemed to lose its balance in the + dreadful stillness that was round me. I felt unutterable forebodings of + calamities to come. For the first time, I repented having left England. My + thoughts turned regretfully to the woody shores of Greenwater Broad. If I + had only held to my resolution, I might have been at rest now in the deep + waters of the lake. For what had I lived and planned and traveled since I + left Dermody’s cottage? Perhaps only to find that I had lost the woman + whom I loved—now that I was in the same town with her! + </p> + <p> + Regaining the outer rows of houses still left standing, I looked about me, + intending to return by the street which was known to me already. Just as I + thought I had discovered it, I noticed another living creature in the + solitary city. A man was standing at the door of one of the outermost + houses on my right hand, looking at me. + </p> + <p> + At the risk of meeting with another rough reception, I determined to make + a last effort to discover Mrs. Van Brandt before I returned to the boat. + </p> + <p> + Seeing that I was approaching him, the stranger met me midway. His dress + and manner showed plainly that I had not encountered this time a person in + the lower ranks of life. He answered my question civilly in his own + language. Seeing that I was at a loss to understand what he said, he + invited me by signs to follow him. After walking for a few minutes in a + direction which was quite new to me, we stopped in a gloomy little square, + with a plot of neglected garden-ground in the middle of it. Pointing to a + lower window in one of the houses, in which a light dimly appeared, my + guide said in Dutch: “Office of Van Brandt, sir,” bowed, and left me. + </p> + <p> + I advanced to the window. It was open, and it was just high enough to be + above my head. The light in the room found its way outward through the + interstices of closed wooden shutters. Still haunted by misgivings of + trouble to come, I hesitated to announce my arrival precipitately by + ringing the house-bell. How did I know what new calamity might not + confront me when the door was opened? I waited under the window and + listened. + </p> + <p> + Hardly a minute passed before I heard a woman’s voice in the room. There + was no mistaking the charm of those tones. It was the voice of Mrs. Van + Brandt. + </p> + <p> + “Come, darling,” she said. “It is very late—you ought to have been + in bed two hours ago.” + </p> + <p> + The child’s voice answered, “I am not sleepy, mamma.” + </p> + <p> + “But, my dear, remember you have been ill. You may be ill again if you + keep out of bed so late as this. Only lie down, and you will soon fall + asleep when I put the candle out.” + </p> + <p> + “You must <i>not</i> put the candle out!” the child returned, with strong + emphasis. “My new papa is coming. How is he to find his way to us, if you + put out the light?” + </p> + <p> + The mother answered sharply, as if the child’s strange words had irritated + her. + </p> + <p> + “You are talking nonsense,” she said; “and you must go to bed. Mr. + Germaine knows nothing about us. Mr. Germaine is in England.” + </p> + <p> + I could restrain myself no longer. I called out under the window: + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Germaine is here!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVI. LOVE AND PRIDE. + </h2> + <p> + A CRY of terror from the room told me that I had been heard. For a moment + more nothing happened. Then the child’s voice reached me, wild and shrill: + “Open the shutters, mamma! I said he was coming—I want to see him!” + </p> + <p> + There was still an interval of hesitation before the mother opened the + shutters. She did it at last. I saw her darkly at the window, with the + light behind her, and the child’s head just visible above the lower part + of the window-frame. The quaint little face moved rapidly up and down, as + if my self-appointed daughter were dancing for joy! + </p> + <p> + “Can I trust my own senses?” said Mrs. Van Brandt. “Is it really Mr. + Germaine?” + </p> + <p> + “How do you do, new papa?” cried the child. “Push open the big door and + come in. I want to kiss you.” + </p> + <p> + There was a world of difference between the coldly doubtful tone of the + mother and the joyous greeting of the child. Had I forced myself too + suddenly on Mrs. Van Brandt? Like all sensitively organized persons, she + possessed that inbred sense of self-respect which is pride under another + name. Was her pride wounded at the bare idea of my seeing her, deserted as + well as deceived—abandoned contemptuously, a helpless burden on + strangers—by the man for whom she had sacrificed and suffered so + much? And that man a thief, flying from the employers whom he had cheated! + I pushed open the heavy oaken street-door, fearing that this might be the + true explanation of the change which I had already remarked in her. My + apprehensions were confirmed when she unlocked the inner door, leading + from the courtyard to the sitting-room, and let me in. + </p> + <p> + As I took her by both hands and kissed her, she turned her head, so that + my lips touched her cheek only. She flushed deeply; her eyes looked away + from me as she spoke her few formal words of welcome. When the child flew + into my arms, she cried out, irritably, “Don’t trouble Mr. Germaine!” I + took a chair, with the little one on my knee. Mrs. Van Brandt seated + herself at a distance from me. “It is needless, I suppose, to ask you if + you know what has happened,” she said, turning pale again as suddenly as + she had turned red, and keeping her eyes fixed obstinately on the floor. + </p> + <p> + Before I could answer, the child burst out with the news of her father’s + disappearance in these words: + </p> + <p> + “My other papa has run away! My other papa has stolen money! It’s time I + had a new one, isn’t it?” She put her arms round my neck. “And now I’ve + got him!” she cried, at the shrillest pitch of her voice. + </p> + <p> + The mother looked at us. For a while, the proud, sensitive woman struggled + successfully with herself; but the pang that wrung her was not to be + endured in silence. With a low cry of pain, she hid her face in her hands. + Overwhelmed by the sense of her own degradation, she was even ashamed to + let the man who loved her see that she was in tears. + </p> + <p> + I took the child off my knee. There was a second door in the sitting-room, + which happened to be left open. It showed me a bed-chamber within, and a + candle burning on the toilet-table. + </p> + <p> + “Go in there and play,” I said. “I want to talk to your mamma.” + </p> + <p> + The child pouted: my proposal did not appear to tempt her. “Give me + something to play with,” she said. “I’m tired of my toys. Let me see what + you have got in your pockets.” + </p> + <p> + Her busy little hands began to search in my coat-pockets. I let her take + what she pleased, and so bribed her to run away into the inner room. As + soon as she was out of sight, I approached the poor mother and seated + myself by her side. + </p> + <p> + “Think of it as I do,” I said. “Now that he has forsaken you, he has left + you free to be mine.” + </p> + <p> + She lifted her head instantly; her eyes flashed through her tears. + </p> + <p> + “Now that he has forsaken me,” she answered, “I am more unworthy of you + than ever!” + </p> + <p> + “Why?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Why!” she repeated, passionately. “Has a woman not reached the lowest + depths of degradation when she has lived to be deserted by a thief?” + </p> + <p> + It was hopeless to attempt to reason with her in her present frame of + mind. I tried to attract her attention to a less painful subject by + referring to the strange succession of events which had brought me to her + for the third time. She stopped me impatiently at the outset. + </p> + <p> + “It seems useless to say once more what we have said on other occasions,” + she answered. “I understand what has brought you here. I have appeared to + you again in a vision, just as I appeared to you twice before.” + </p> + <p> + “No,” I said. “Not as you appeared to me twice before. This time I saw you + with the child by your side.” + </p> + <p> + That reply roused her. She started, and looked nervously toward the + bed-chamber door. + </p> + <p> + “Don’t speak loud!” she said. “Don’t let the child hear us! My dream of + you this time has left a painful impression on my mind. The child is mixed + up in it—and I don’t like that. Then the place in which I saw you is + associated—” She paused, leaving the sentence unfinished. “I am + nervous and wretched to-night,” she resumed; “and I don’t want to speak of + it. And yet, I should like to know whether my dream has misled me, or + whether you really were in that cottage, of all places in the world?” + </p> + <p> + I was at a loss to understand the embarrassment which she appeared to feel + in putting her question. There was nothing very wonderful, to my mind, in + the discovery that she had been in Suffolk, and that she was acquainted + with Greenwater Broad. The lake was known all over the county as a + favorite resort of picnic parties; and Dermody’s pretty cottage used to be + one of the popular attractions of the scene. What really surprised me was + to see, as I now plainly saw, that she had some painful association with + my old home. I decided on answering her question in such terms as might + encourage her to take me into her confidence. In a moment more I should + have told her that my boyhood had been passed at Greenwater Broad—in + a moment more, we should have recognized each other—when a trivial + interruption suspended the words on my lips. The child ran out of the + bed-chamber, with a quaintly shaped key in her hand. It was one of the + things she had taken out of my pockets and it belonged to the cabin door + on board the boat. A sudden fit of curiosity (the insatiable curiosity of + a child) had seized her on the subject of this key. She insisted on + knowing what door it locked; and, when I had satisfied her on that point, + she implored me to take her immediately to see the boat. This entreaty led + naturally to a renewal of the disputed question of going, or not going, to + bed. By the time the little creature had left us again, with permission to + play for a few minutes longer, the conversation between Mrs. Van Brandt + and myself had taken a new direction. Speaking now of the child’s health, + we were led naturally to the kindred subject of the child’s connection + with her mother’s dream. + </p> + <p> + “She had been ill with fever,” Mrs. Van Brandt began; “and she was just + getting better again on the day when I was left deserted in this miserable + place. Toward evening, she had another attack that frightened me + dreadfully. She became perfectly insensible—her little limbs were + stiff and cold. There is one doctor here who has not yet abandoned the + town. Of course I sent for him. He thought her insensibility was caused by + a sort of cataleptic seizure. At the same time, he comforted me by saying + that she was in no immediate danger of death; and he left me certain + remedies to be given, if certain symptoms appeared. I took her to bed, and + held her to me, with the idea of keeping her warm. Without believing in + mesmerism, it has since struck me that we might unconsciously have had + some influence over each other, which may explain what followed. Do you + think it likely?” + </p> + <p> + “Quite likely. At the same time, the mesmeric theory (if you could believe + in it) would carry the explanation further still. Mesmerism would assert, + not only that you and the child influenced each other, but that—in + spite of the distance—you both influenced <i>me</i>. And in that + way, mesmerism would account for my vision as the necessary result of a + highly developed sympathy between us. Tell me, did you fall asleep with + the child in your arms?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. I was completely worn out; and I fell asleep, in spite of my + resolution to watch through the night. In my forlorn situation, forsaken + in a strange place, I dreamed of you again, and I appealed to you again as + my one protector and friend. The only new thing in the dream was, that I + thought I had the child with me when I approached you, and that the child + put the words into my mind when I wrote in your book. You saw the words, I + suppose? and they vanished, as before, no doubt, when I awoke? I found the + child still lying, like a dead creature, in my arms. All through the night + there was no change in her. She only recovered her senses at noon the next + day. Why do you start? What have I said that surprises you?” + </p> + <p> + There was good reason for my feeling startled, and showing it. On the day + and at the hour when the child had come to herself, I had stood on the + deck of the vessel, and had seen the apparition of her disappear from my + view. + </p> + <p> + “Did she say anything,” I asked, “when she recovered her senses?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. She too had been dreaming—dreaming that she was in company + with you. She said: ‘He is coming to see us, mamma; and I have been + showing him the way.’ I asked her where she had seen you. She spoke + confusedly of more places than one. She talked of trees, and a cottage, + and a lake; then of fields and hedges, and lonely lanes; then of a + carriage and horses, and a long white road; then of crowded streets and + houses, and a river and a ship. As to these last objects, there is nothing + very wonderful in what she said. The houses, the river, and the ship which + she saw in her dream, she saw in the reality when we took her from London + to Rotterdam, on our way here. But as to the other places, especially the + cottage and the lake (as she described them) I can only suppose that her + dream was the reflection of mine. <i>I</i> had been dreaming of the + cottage and the lake, as I once knew them in years long gone by; and—Heaven + only knows why—I had associated you with the scene. Never mind going + into that now! I don’t know what infatuation it is that makes me trifle in + this way with old recollections, which affect me painfully in my present + position. We were talking of the child’s health; let us go back to that.” + </p> + <p> + It was not easy to return to the topic of her child’s health. She had + revived my curiosity on the subject of her association with Greenwater + Broad. The child was still quietly at play in the bedchamber. My second + opportunity was before me. I took it. + </p> + <p> + “I won’t distress you,” I began. “I will only ask leave, before we change + the subject, to put one question to you about the cottage and the lake.” + </p> + <p> + As the fatality that pursued us willed it, it was <i>her</i> turn now to + be innocently an obstacle in the way of our discovering each other. + </p> + <p> + “I can tell you nothing more to-night,” she interposed, rising + impatiently. “It is time I put the child to bed—and, besides, I + can’t talk of things that distress me. You must wait for the time—if + it ever comes!—when I am calmer and happier than I am now.” + </p> + <p> + She turned to enter the bed-chamber. Acting headlong on the impulse of the + moment, I took her by the hand and stopped her. + </p> + <p> + “You have only to choose,” I said, “and the calmer and happier time is + yours from this moment.” + </p> + <p> + “Mine?” she repeated. “What do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Say the word,” I replied, “and you and your child have a home and a + future before you.” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me half bewildered, half angry. + </p> + <p> + “Do you offer me your protection?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I offer you a husband’s protection,” I answered. “I ask you to be my + wife.” + </p> + <p> + She advanced a step nearer to me, with her eyes riveted on my face. + </p> + <p> + “You are evidently ignorant of what has really happened,” she said. “And + yet, God knows, the child spoke plainly enough!” + </p> + <p> + “The child only told me,” I rejoined, “what I had heard already, on my way + here.” + </p> + <p> + “All of it?” + </p> + <p> + “All of it.” + </p> + <p> + “And you still ask me to be your wife?” + </p> + <p> + “I can imagine no greater happiness than to make you my wife.” + </p> + <p> + “Knowing what you know now?” + </p> + <p> + “Knowing what I know now, I ask you confidently to give me your hand. + Whatever claim that man may once have had, as the father of your child, he + has now forfeited it by his infamous desertion of you. In every sense of + the word, my darling, you are a free woman. We have had sorrow enough in + our lives. Happiness is at last within our reach. Come to me, and say + Yes.” + </p> + <p> + I tried to take her in my arms. She drew back as if I had frightened her. + </p> + <p> + “Never!” she said, firmly. + </p> + <p> + I whispered my next words, so that the child in the inner room might not + hear us. + </p> + <p> + “You once said you loved me!” + </p> + <p> + “I do love you!” + </p> + <p> + “As dearly as ever?” + </p> + <p> + “<i>More</i> dearly than ever!” + </p> + <p> + “Kiss me!” + </p> + <p> + She yielded mechanically; she kissed me—with cold lips, with big + tears in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t love me!” I burst out, angrily. “You kiss me as if it were a + duty. Your lips are cold—your heart is cold. You don’t love me!” + </p> + <p> + She looked at me sadly, with a patient smile. + </p> + <p> + “One of us must remember the difference between your position and mine,” + she said. “You are a man of stainless honor, who holds an undisputed rank + in the world. And what am I? I am the deserted mistress of a thief. One of + us must remember that. You have generously forgotten it. I must bear it in + mind. I dare say I am cold. Suffering has that effect on me; and, I own + it, I am suffering now.” + </p> + <p> + I was too passionately in love with her to feel the sympathy on which she + evidently counted in saying those words. A man can respect a woman’s + scruples when they appeal to him mutely in her looks or in her tears; but + the formal expression of them in words only irritates or annoys him. + </p> + <p> + “Whose fault is it that you suffer?” I retorted, coldly. “I ask you to + make my life a happy one, and your life a happy one. You are a cruelly + wronged woman, but you are not a degraded woman. You are worthy to be my + wife, and I am ready to declare it publicly. Come back with me to England. + My boat is waiting for you; we can set sail in two hours.” + </p> + <p> + She dropped into a chair; her hands fell helplessly into her lap. + </p> + <p> + “How cruel!” she murmured, “how cruel to tempt me!” She waited a little, + and recovered her fatal firmness. “No!” she said. “If I die in doing it, I + can still refuse to disgrace you. Leave me, Mr. Germaine. You can show me + that one kindness more. For God’s sake, leave me!” + </p> + <p> + I made a last appeal to her tenderness. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know what my life is if I live without you?” I asked. “My mother + is dead. There is not a living creature left in the world whom I love but + you. And you ask me to leave you! Where am I to go to? what am I to do? + You talk of cruelty! Is there no cruelty in sacrificing the happiness of + my life to a miserable scruple of delicacy, to an unreasoning fear of the + opinion of the world? I love you and you love me. There is no other + consideration worth a straw. Come back with me to England! come back and + be my wife!” + </p> + <p> + She dropped on her knees, and taking my hand put it silently to her lips. + I tried to raise her. It was useless: she steadily resisted me. + </p> + <p> + “Does this mean No?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “It means,” she said in faint, broken tones, “that I prize your honor + beyond my happiness. If I marry you, your career is destroyed by your + wife; and the day will come when you will tell me so. I can suffer—I + can die; but I can <i>not</i> face such a prospect as that. Forgive me and + forget me. I can say no more!” + </p> + <p> + She let go of my hand, and sank on the floor. The utter despair of that + action told me, far more eloquently than the words which she had just + spoken, that her resolution was immovable. She had deliberately separated + herself from me; her own act had parted us forever. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXXVII. THE TWO DESTINIES. + </h2> + <p> + I MADE no movement to leave the room; I let no sign of sorrow escape me. + At last, my heart was hardened against the woman who had so obstinately + rejected me. I stood looking down at her with a merciless anger, the bare + remembrance of which fills me at this day with a horror of myself. There + is but one excuse for me. The shock of that last overthrow of the one hope + that held me to life was more than my reason could endure. On that + dreadful night (whatever I may have been at other times), I myself believe + it, I was a maddened man. + </p> + <p> + I was the first to break the silence. + </p> + <p> + “Get up,” I said coldly. + </p> + <p> + She lifted her face from the floor, and looked at me as if she doubted + whether she had heard aright. + </p> + <p> + “Put on your hat and cloak,” I resumed. “I must ask you to go back with me + as far as the boat.” + </p> + <p> + She rose slowly. Her eyes rested on my face with a dull, bewildered look. + </p> + <p> + “Why am I to go with you to the boat?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + The child heard her. The child ran up to us with her little hat in one + hand, and the key of the cabin in the other. + </p> + <p> + “I’m ready,” she said. “I will open the cabin door.” + </p> + <p> + Her mother signed to her to go back to the bed-chamber. She went back as + far as the door which led into the courtyard, and waited there, listening. + I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt with immovable composure, and answered the + question which she had addressed to me. + </p> + <p> + “You are left,” I said, “without the means of getting away from this + place. In two hours more the tide will be in my favor, and I shall sail at + once on the return voyage. We part, this time, never to meet again. Before + I go I am resolved to leave you properly provided for. My money is in my + traveling-bag in the cabin. For that reason, I am obliged to ask you to go + with me as far as the boat.” + </p> + <p> + “I thank you gratefully for your kindness,” she said. “I don’t stand in + such serious need of help as you suppose.” + </p> + <p> + “It is useless to attempt to deceive me,” I proceeded. “I have spoken with + the head partner of the house of Van Brandt at Amsterdam, and I know + exactly what your position is. Your pride must bend low enough to take + from my hands the means of subsistence for yourself and your child. If I + had died in England—” + </p> + <p> + I stopped. The unexpressed idea in my mind was to tell her that she would + inherit a legacy under my will, and that she might quite as becomingly + take money from me in my life-time as take it from my executors after my + death. In forming this thought into words, the associations which it + called naturally into being revived in me the memory of my contemplated + suicide in the Greenwater lake. Mingling with the remembrance thus + aroused, there rose in me unbidden, a temptation so overpoweringly vile, + and yet so irresistible in the state of my mind at the moment, that it + shook me to the soul. “You have nothing to live for, now that she has + refused to be yours,” the fiend in me whispered. “Take your leap into the + next world, and make the woman whom you love take it with you!” While I + was still looking at her, while my last words to her faltered on my lips, + the horrible facilities for the perpetration of the double crime revealed + themselves enticingly to my view. My boat was moored in the one part of + the decaying harbor in which deep water still lay at the foot of the quay. + I had only to induce her to follow me when I stepped on the deck, to seize + her in my arms, and to jump overboard with her before she could utter a + cry for help. My drowsy sailors, as I knew by experience, were hard to + wake, and slow to move even when they were roused at last. We should both + be drowned before the youngest and the quickest of them could get up from + his bed and make his way to the deck. Yes! We should both be struck + together out of the ranks of the living at one and the same moment. And + why not? She who had again and again refused to be my wife—did she + deserve that I should leave her free to go back, perhaps, for the second + time to Van Brandt? On the evening when I had saved her from the waters of + the Scotch river, I had made myself master of her fate. She had tried to + destroy herself by drowning; she should drown now, in the arms of the man + who had once thrown himself between her and death! + </p> + <p> + Self-abandoned to such atrocious reasoning as this, I stood face to face + with her, and returned deliberately to my unfinished sentence. + </p> + <p> + “If I had died in England, you would have been provided for by my will. + What you would have taken from me then, you may take from me now. Come to + the boat.” + </p> + <p> + A change passed over her face as I spoke; a vague doubt of me began to + show itself in her eyes. She drew back a little, without making any reply. + </p> + <p> + “Come to the boat,” I reiterated. + </p> + <p> + “It is too late.” With that answer, she looked across the room at the + child, still waiting by the door. “Come, Elfie,” she said, calling the + little creature by one of her favorite nicknames. “Come to bed.” + </p> + <p> + I too looked at Elfie. Might she not, I asked myself, be made the innocent + means of forcing her mother to leave the house? Trusting to the child’s + fearless character, and her eagerness to see the boat, I suddenly opened + the door. As I had anticipated, she instantly ran out. The second door, + leading into the square, I had not closed when I entered the courtyard. In + another moment Elfie was out in the square, triumphing in her freedom. The + shrill little voice broke the death-like stillness of the place and hour, + calling to me again and again to take her to the boat. + </p> + <p> + I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. The stratagem had succeeded. Elfie’s mother + could hardly refuse to follow when Elfie led the way. + </p> + <p> + “Will you go with us?” I asked. “Or must I send the money back by the + child?” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes rested on me for a moment with a deepening expression of + distrust, then looked away again. She began to turn pale. “You are not + like yourself to-night,” she said. Without a word more, she took her hat + and cloak and went out before me into the square. I followed her, closing + the doors behind me. She made an attempt to induce the child to approach + her. “Come, darling,” she said, enticingly—“come and take my hand.” + </p> + <p> + But Elfie was not to be caught: she took to her heels, and answered from a + safe distance. “No,” said the child; “you will take me back and put me to + bed.” She retreated a little further, and held up the key: “I shall go + first,” she cried, “and open the door.” + </p> + <p> + She trotted off a few steps in the direction of the harbor, and waited for + what was to happen next. Her mother suddenly turned, and looked close at + me under the light of the stars. + </p> + <p> + “Are the sailors on board the boat?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + The question startled me. Had she any suspicion of my purpose? Had my face + warned her of lurking danger if she went to the boat? It was impossible. + The more likely motive for her inquiry was to find a new excuse for not + accompanying me to the harbor. If I told her that the men were on board, + she might answer, “Why not employ one of your sailors to bring the money + to me at the house?” I took care to anticipate the suggestion in making my + reply. + </p> + <p> + “They may be honest men,” I said, watching her carefully; “but I don’t + know them well enough to trust them with money.” + </p> + <p> + To my surprise, she watched me just as carefully on her side, and + deliberately repeated her question: + </p> + <p> + “Are the sailors on board the boat?” + </p> + <p> + I informed her that the captain and crew slept in the boat, and paused to + see what would follow. My reply seemed to rouse her resolution. After a + moment’s consideration, she turned toward the place at which the child was + waiting for us. “Let us go, as you insist on it,” she said, quietly. I + made no further remark. Side by side, in silence we followed Elfie on our + way to the boat. + </p> + <p> + Not a human creature passed us in the streets; not a light glimmered on us + from the grim black houses. Twice the child stopped, and (still keeping + slyly out of her mother’s reach) ran back to me, wondering at my silence. + “Why don’t you speak?” she asked. “Have you and mamma quarreled?” + </p> + <p> + I was incapable of answering her—I could think of nothing but my + contemplated crime. Neither fear nor remorse troubled me. Every better + instinct, every nobler feeling that I had once possessed, seemed to be + dead and gone. Not even a thought of the child’s future troubled my mind. + I had no power of looking on further than the fatal leap from the boat: + beyond that there was an utter blank. For the time being—I can only + repeat it, my moral sense was obscured, my mental faculties were thrown + completely off their balance. The animal part of me lived and moved as + usual; the viler animal instincts in me plotted and planned, and that was + all. Nobody, looking at me, would have seen anything but a dull quietude + in my face, an immovable composure in my manner. And yet no madman was + fitter for restraint, or less responsible morally for his own actions, + than I was at that moment. + </p> + <p> + The night air blew more freshly on our faces. Still led by the child, we + had passed through the last street—we were out on the empty open + space which was the landward boundary of the harbor. In a minute more we + stood on the quay, within a step of the gunwale of the boat. I noticed a + change in the appearance of the harbor since I had seen it last. Some + fishing-boats had come in during my absence. They moored, some immediately + astern and some immediately ahead of my own vessel. I looked anxiously to + see if any of the fishermen were on board and stirring. Not a living being + appeared anywhere. The men were on shore with their wives and their + families. + </p> + <p> + Elfie held out her arms to be lifted on board my boat. Mrs. Van Brandt + stepped between us as I stooped to take her up. + </p> + <p> + “We will wait here,” she said, “while you go into the cabin and get the + money.” + </p> + <p> + Those words placed it beyond all doubt that she had her suspicions of me—suspicions, + probably, which led her to fear not for her life, but for her freedom. She + might dread being kept a prisoner in the boat, and being carried away by + me against her will. More than this she could not thus far possibly + apprehend. The child saved me the trouble of making any remonstrance. She + was determined to go with me. “I must see the cabin,” she cried, holding + up the key. “I must open the door myself.” + </p> + <p> + She twisted herself out of her mother’s hands, and ran round to the other + side of me. I lifted her over the gunwale of the boat in an instant. + Before I could turn round, her mother had followed her, and was standing + on the deck. + </p> + <p> + The cabin door, in the position which she now occupied, was on her left + hand. The child was close behind her. I was on her right. Before us was + the open deck, and the low gunwale of the boat overlooking the deep water. + In a moment we might step across; in a moment we might take the fatal + plunge. The bare thought of it brought the mad wickedness in me to its + climax. I became suddenly incapable of restraining myself. I threw my arm + round her waist with a loud laugh. “Come,” I said, trying to drag her + across the deck—“come and look at the water.” + </p> + <p> + She released herself by a sudden effort of strength that astonished me. + With a faint cry of horror, she turned to take the child by the hand and + get back to the quay. I placed myself between her and the sides of the + boat, and cut off her retreat in that way. Still laughing, I asked her + what she was frightened about. She drew back, and snatched the key of the + cabin door out of the child’s hand. The cabin was the one place of refuge + now left, to which she could escape from the deck of the boat. In the + terror of the moment, she never hesitated. She unlocked the door, and + hurried down the two or three steps which led into the cabin, taking the + child with her. I followed them, conscious that I had betrayed myself, yet + still obstinately, stupidly, madly bent on carrying out my purpose. “I + have only to behave quietly,” I thought to myself, “and I shall persuade + her to go on deck again.” + </p> + <p> + My lamp was burning as I had left it; my traveling-bag was on the table. + Still holding the child, she stood, pale as death, waiting for me. Elfie’s + wondering eyes rested inquiringly on my face as I approached them. She + looked half inclined to cry; the suddenness of the mother’s action had + frightened the child. I did my best to compose Elfie before I spoke to her + mother. I pointed out the different objects which were likely to interest + her in the cabin. “Go and look at them,” I said, “go and amuse yourself.” + </p> + <p> + The child still hesitated. “Are you angry with me?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “No, no!” + </p> + <p> + “Are you angry with mamma?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly not.” I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. “Tell Elfie if I am angry + with you,” I said. + </p> + <p> + She was perfectly aware, in her critical position, of the necessity of + humoring me. Between us, we succeeded in composing the child. She turned + away to examine, in high delight, the new and strange objects which + surrounded her. Meanwhile her mother and I stood together, looking at each + other by the light of the lamp, with an assumed composure which hid our + true faces like a mask. In that horrible situation, the grotesque and the + terrible, always together in this strange life of ours, came together now. + On either side of us, the one sound that broke the sinister and + threatening silence was the lumpish snoring of the sleeping captain and + crew. + </p> + <p> + She was the first to speak. + </p> + <p> + “If you wish to give me the money,” she said, trying to propitiate me in + that way, “I am ready to take it now.” + </p> + <p> + I unlocked my traveling-bag. As I looked into it for the leather case + which held my money, my overpowering desire to get her on deck again, my + mad impatience to commit the fatal act, became too strong to be + controlled. + </p> + <p> + “We shall be cooler on deck,” I said. “Let us take the bag up there.” + </p> + <p> + She showed wonderful courage. I could almost see the cry for help rising + to her lips. She repressed it; she had still presence of mind enough to + foresee what might happen before she could rouse the sleeping men. + </p> + <p> + “We have a light here to count the money by,” she answered. “I don’t feel + at all too warm in the cabin. Let us stay here a little longer. See how + Elfie is amusing herself!” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes rested on me as she spoke. Something in the expression of them + quieted me for the time. I was able to pause and think. I might take her + on deck by force before the men could interfere. But her cries would rouse + them; they would hear the splash in the water, and they might be quick + enough to rescue us. It would be wiser, perhaps, to wait a little and + trust to my cunning to delude her into leaving the cabin of her own + accord. I put the bag back on the table, and began to search for the + leather money-case. My hands were strangely clumsy and helpless. I could + only find the case after scattering half the contents of the bag on the + table. The child was near me at the time, and noticed what I was doing. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, how awkward you are!” she burst out, in her frankly fearless way. + “Let me put your bag tidy. Do, please!” + </p> + <p> + I granted the request impatiently. Elfie’s restless desire to be always + doing something, instead of amusing me, as usual, irritated me now. The + interest that I had once felt in the charming little creature was all + gone. An innocent love was a feeling that was stifled in the poisoned + atmosphere of my mind that night. + </p> + <p> + The money I had with me was mostly composed of notes of the Bank of + England. Carefully keeping up appearances, I set aside the sum that would + probably be required to take a traveler back to London; and I put all that + remained into the hands of Mrs. Van Brandt. Could she suspect me of a + design on her life now? + </p> + <p> + “That will do for the present,” I said. “I can communicate with you in the + future through Messrs. Van Brandt, of Amsterdam.” + </p> + <p> + She took the money mechanically. Her hand trembled; her eyes met mine with + a look of piteous entreaty. She tried to revive my old tenderness for her; + she made a last appeal to my forbearance and consideration. + </p> + <p> + “We may part friends,” she said, in low, trembling tones. “And as friends + we may meet again, when time has taught you to think forgivingly of what + has passed between us, to-night.” + </p> + <p> + She offered me her hand. I looked at her without taking it. I penetrated + her motive in appealing to my old regard for her. Still suspecting me, she + had tried her last chance of getting safely on shore. + </p> + <p> + “The less we say of the past, the better,” I answered, with ironical + politeness. “It is getting late. And you will agree with me that Elfie + ought to be in her bed.” I looked round at the child. “Be quick, Elfie,” I + said; “your mamma is going away.” I opened the cabin door, and offered my + arm to Mrs. Van Brandt. “This boat is my house for the time being,” I + resumed. “When ladies take leave of me after a visit, I escort them to the + dock. Pray take my arm.” + </p> + <p> + She started back. For the second time she was on the point of crying for + help, and for the second time she kept that last desperate alternative in + reserve. + </p> + <p> + “I haven’t seen your cabin yet,” she said, her eyes wild with fear, a + forced smile on her lips, as she spoke. “There are several little things + here that interest me. Give me another minute or two to look at them.” + </p> + <p> + She turned away to get nearer to the child, under pretense of looking + round the cabin. I stood on guard before the open door, watching her. She + made a second pretense: she noisily overthrew a chair as if by accident, + and then waited to discover whether her trick had succeeded in waking the + men. + </p> + <p> + The heavy snoring went on; not a sound of a person moving was audible on + either side of us. + </p> + <p> + “My men are heavy sleepers,” I said, smiling significantly. “Don’t be + alarmed; you have not disturbed them. Nothing wakes these Dutch sailors + when they are once safe in port.” + </p> + <p> + She made no reply. My patience was exhausted. I left the door and advanced + toward her. She retreated in speechless terror, passing behind the table + to the other end of the cabin. I followed her until she had reached the + extremity of the room and could get no further. She met the look I fixed + on her; she shrunk into a corner, and called for help. In the deadly + terror that possessed her, she lost the use of her voice. A low moaning, + hardly louder than a whisper, was all that passed her lips. Already, in + imagination, I stood with her on the gunwale, already I felt the cold + contact of the water—when I was startled by a cry behind me. I + turned round. The cry had come from Elfie. She had apparently just + discovered some new object in the bag, and she was holding it up in + admiration, high above her head. “Mamma! mamma!” the child cried, + excitedly, “look at this pretty thing! Oh, do, do ask him if I may have + it!” + </p> + <p> + Her mother ran to her, eager to seize the poorest excuse for getting away + from me. I followed; I stretched out my hands to seize her. She suddenly + turned round on me, a woman transformed. A bright flush was on her face, + an eager wonder sparkled in her eyes. Snatching Elfie’s coveted object out + of the child’s hand, she held it up before me. I saw it under the + lamp-light. It was my little forgotten keepsake—the Green Flag! + </p> + <p> + “How came you by this?” she asked, in breathless anticipation of my reply. + Not the slightest trace was left in her face of the terror that had + convulsed it barely a minute since! “How came you by this?” she repeated, + seizing me by the arm and shaking me, in the ungovernable impatience that + possessed her. + </p> + <p> + My head turned giddy, my heart beat furiously under the conflict of + emotions that she had roused in me. My eyes were riveted on the green + flag. The words that I wanted to speak were words that refused to come to + me. I answered, mechanically: “I have had it since I was a boy.” + </p> + <p> + She dropped her hold on me, and lifted her hands with a gesture of + ecstatic gratitude. A lovely, angelic brightness flowed like light from + heaven over her face. For one moment she stood enraptured. The next she + clasped me passionately to her bosom, and whispered in my ear: “I am Mary + Dermody! I made it for You!” + </p> + <p> + The shock of discovery, following so closely on all that I had suffered + before it, was too much for me. I sank, fainting, in her arms. + </p> + <p> + When I came to myself I was lying on my bed in the cabin. Elfie was + playing with the green flag, and Mary was sitting by me with my hand in + hers. One long look of love passed silently from her eyes to mine—from + mine to hers. In that look the kindred spirits were united; The Two + Destinies were fulfilled. + </p> + <p> + THE END OF THE STORY. + </p> + <p> + The Finale. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0041" id="link2H_4_0041"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE WIFE WRITES, AND CLOSES THE STORY. + </h2> + <p> + THERE was a little introductory narrative prefixed to “The Two Destinies,” + which you may possibly have forgotten by this time. + </p> + <p> + The narrative was written by myself—a citizen of the United States, + visiting England with his wife. It described a dinner-party at which we + were present, given by Mr. and Mrs. Germaine, in celebration of their + marriage; and it mentioned the circumstances under which we were intrusted + with the story which has just come to an end in these pages. Having read + the manuscript, Mr. and Mrs. Germaine left it to us to decide whether we + should continue our friendly intercourse with them or not. + </p> + <p> + At 3 o’clock P.M. we closed the last leaf of the story. Five minutes later + I sealed it up in its cover; my wife put her bonnet on, and there we were, + bound straight for Mr. Germaine’s house, when the servant brought a letter + into the room, addressed to my wife. + </p> + <p> + She opened it, looked at the signature, and discovered that it was “Mary + Germaine.” Seeing this, we sat down side by side to read the letter before + we did anything else. + </p> + <p> + On reflection, it strikes me that you may do well to read it, too. Mrs. + Germaine is surely by this time a person in whom you feel some interest. + And she is on that account, as I think, the fittest person to close the + story. Here is her letter: + </p> + <p> + “DEAR MADAM (or may I say—‘dear friend’?)—Be prepared, if you + please, for a little surprise. When you read these lines we shall have + left London for the Continent. + </p> + <p> + “After you went away last night, my husband decided on taking this + journey. Seeing how keenly he felt the insult offered to me by the ladies + whom we had asked to our table, I willingly prepared for our sudden + departure. When Mr. Germaine is far away from his false friends, my + experience of him tells me that he will recover his tranquillity. That is + enough for me. + </p> + <p> + “My little daughter goes with us, of course. Early this morning I drove to + the school in the suburbs at which she is being educated, and took her + away with me. It is needless to say that she was delighted at the prospect + of traveling. She shocked the schoolmistress by waving her hat over her + head and crying ‘Hooray,’ like a boy. The good lady was very careful to + inform me that my daughter could not possibly have learned to cry ‘Hooray’ + in <i>her</i> house. + </p> + <p> + “You have probably by this time read the narrative which I have committed + to your care. I hardly dare ask how I stand in your estimation now. Is it + possible that I might have seen you and your good husband if we had not + left London so suddenly? As things are, I must now tell you in writing + what I should infinitely have preferred saying to you with your friendly + hand in mine. + </p> + <p> + “Your knowledge of the world has no doubt already attributed the absence + of the ladies at our dinner-table to some report affecting my character. + You are quite right. While I was taking Elfie away from her school, my + husband called on one of his friends who dined with us (Mr. Waring), and + insisted on an explanation. Mr. Waring referred him to the woman who is + known to you by this time as Mr. Van Brandt’s lawful wife. In her + intervals of sobriety she possesses some musical talent; Mrs. Waring had + met with her at a concert for a charity, and had been interested in the + story of her wrongs, as she called them. My name was, of course, + mentioned. I was described as a ‘cast-off mistress’ of Van Brandt, who had + persuaded Mr. Germaine into disgracing himself by marrying her, and + becoming the step-father of her child. Mrs. Waring thereupon communicated + what she had heard to other ladies who were her friends. The result you + saw for yourselves when you dined at our house. + </p> + <p> + “I inform you of what has happened without making any comment. Mr. + Germaine’s narrative has already told you that I foresaw the deplorable + consequences which might follow our marriage, and that I over and over + again (God knows at what cost of misery to myself) refused to be his wife. + It was only when my poor little green flag had revealed us to each other + that I lost all control over myself. The old time on the banks of the lake + came back to me; my heart hungered for its darling of happier days; and I + said Yes, when (as you may think) I ought to have still said No. Will you + take poor old Dame Dermody’s view of it, and believe that the kindred + spirits, once reunited, could be parted no more? Or will you take my view, + which is simpler still? I do love him so dearly, and he is so fond of me! + </p> + <p> + “In the meantime, our departure from England seems to be the wisest course + that we can adopt. As long as this woman lives she will say again of me + what she has said already, whenever she can find the opportunity. My child + might hear the reports about her mother, and might be injured by them when + she gets older. We propose to take up our abode, for a time at least, in + the neighborhood of Naples. Here, or further away yet, we may hope to live + without annoyance among a people whose social law is the law of mercy. + Whatever may happen, we have always one last consolation to sustain us—we + have love. + </p> + <p> + “You talked of traveling on the Continent when you dined with us. If you + should wander our way, the English consul at Naples is a friend of my + husband’s, and he will have our address. I wonder whether we shall ever + meet again? It does seem hard to charge the misfortunes of my life on me, + as if they were my faults. + </p> + <p> + “Speaking of my misfortunes, I may say, before I close this letter, that + the man to whom I owe them is never likely to cross my path again. The Van + Brandts of Amsterdam have received certain information that he is now on + his way to New Zealand. They are determined to prosecute him if he + returns. He is little likely to give them the opportunity. + </p> + <p> + “The traveling-carriage is at the door: I must say good-by. My husband + sends to you both his kindest regards and best wishes. His manuscript will + be quite safe (when you leave London) if you send it to his bankers, at + the address inclosed. Think of me sometimes—and think of me kindly. + I appeal confidently to <i>your</i> kindness, for I don’t forget that you + kissed me at parting. Your grateful friend (if you will let her be your + friend), + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “MARY GERMAINE.” + </pre> + <p> + We are rather impulsive people in the United States, and we decide on long + journeys by sea or land without making the slightest fuss about it. My + wife and I looked at each other when we had read Mrs. Germaine’s letter. + </p> + <p> + “London is dull,” I remarked, and waited to see what came of it. + </p> + <p> + My wife read my remark the right way directly. + </p> + <p> + “Suppose we try Naples?” she said. + </p> + <p> + That is all. Permit us to wish you good-by. We are off to Naples. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Two Destinies, by Wilkie Collins + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWO DESTINIES *** + +***** This file should be named 1624-h.htm or 1624-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/2/1624/ + +Produced by James Rusk, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Two Destinies + +Author: Wilkie Collins + +Release Date: February, 1999 [Etext #1624] +Posting Date: November 18, 2009 +[Last Updated: February 13, 2019] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWO DESTINIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk + + + + + +THE TWO DESTINIES + +By Wilkie Collins + + + + +The Prelude. + +THE GUEST WRITES AND TELLS THE STORY OF THE DINNER PARTY. + +MANY years have passed since my wife and I left the United States to pay +our first visit to England. + +We were provided with letters of introduction, as a matter of course. +Among them there was a letter which had been written for us by my wife's +brother. It presented us to an English gentleman who held a high rank on +the list of his old and valued friends. + +"You will become acquainted with Mr. George Germaine," my brother-in-law +said, when we took leave of him, "at a very interesting period of his +life. My last news of him tells me that he is just married. I know +nothing of the lady, or of the circumstances under which my friend +first met with her. But of this I am certain: married or single, George +Germaine will give you and your wife a hearty welcome to England, for my +sake." + +The day after our arrival in London, we left our letter of introduction +at the house of Mr. Germaine. + +The next morning we went to see a favorite object of American interest, +in the metropolis of England--the Tower of London. The citizens of the +United States find this relic of the good old times of great use in +raising their national estimate of the value of republican institutions. +On getting back to the hotel, the cards of Mr. and Mrs. Germaine told us +that they had already returned our visit. The same evening we received +an invitation to dine with the newly married couple. It was inclosed in +a little note from Mrs. Germaine to my wife, warning us that we were not +to expect to meet a large party. "It is the first dinner we give, on our +return from our wedding tour" (the lady wrote); "and you will only be +introduced to a few of my husband's old friends." + +In America, and (as I hear) on the continent of Europe also, when your +host invites you to dine at a given hour, you pay him the compliment of +arriving punctually at his house. In England alone, the incomprehensible +and discourteous custom prevails of keeping the host and the dinner +waiting for half an hour or more--without any assignable reason and +without any better excuse than the purely formal apology that is implied +in the words, "Sorry to be late." + +Arriving at the appointed time at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Germaine, we +had every reason to congratulate ourselves on the ignorant punctuality +which had brought us into the drawing-room half an hour in advance of +the other guests. + +In the first place, there was so much heartiness, and so little +ceremony, in the welcome accorded to us, that we almost fancied +ourselves back in our own country. In the second place, both husband and +wife interested us the moment we set eyes on them. The lady, especially, +although she was not, strictly speaking, a beautiful woman, quite +fascinated us. There was an artless charm in her face and manner, a +simple grace in all her movements, a low, delicious melody in her voice, +which we Americans felt to be simply irresistible. And then, it was so +plain (and so pleasant) to see that here at least was a happy marriage! +Here were two people who had all their dearest hopes, wishes, and +sympathies in common--who looked, if I may risk the expression, born to +be man and wife. By the time when the fashionable delay of the half +hour had expired, we were talking together as familiarly and as +confidentially as if we had been all four of us old friends. + +Eight o'clock struck, and the first of the English guests appeared. + +Having forgotten this gentleman's name, I must beg leave to distinguish +him by means of a letter of the alphabet. Let me call him Mr. A. When +he entered the room alone, our host and hostess both started, and both +looked surprised. Apparently they expected him to be accompanied by some +other person. Mr. Germaine put a curious question to his friend. + +"Where is your wife?" he asked. + +Mr. A answered for the absent lady by a neat little apology, expressed +in these words: + +"She has got a bad cold. She is very sorry. She begs me to make her +excuses." + +He had just time to deliver his message, before another unaccompanied +gentleman appeared. Reverting to the letters of the alphabet, let me +call him Mr. B. Once more, I noticed that our host and hostess started +when they saw him enter the room alone. And, rather to my surprise, I +heard Mr. Germaine put his curious question again to the new guest: + +"Where is your wife?" + +The answer--with slight variations--was Mr. A's neat little apology, +repeated by Mr. B. + +"I am very sorry. Mrs. B has got a bad headache. She is subject to bad +headaches. She begs me to make her excuses." + +Mr. and Mrs. Germaine glanced at one another. The husband's face plainly +expressed the suspicion which this second apology had roused in his +mind. The wife was steady and calm. An interval passed--a silent +interval. Mr. A and Mr. B retired together guiltily into a corner. My +wife and I looked at the pictures. + +Mrs. Germaine was the first to relieve us from our own intolerable +silence. Two more guests, it appeared, were still wanting to complete +the party. "Shall we have dinner at once, George?" she said to her +husband. "Or shall we wait for Mr. and Mrs. C?" + +"We will wait five minutes," he answered, shortly--with his eye on Mr. A +and Mr. B, guiltily secluded in their corner. + +The drawing-room door opened. We all knew that a third married lady was +expected; we all looked toward the door in unutterable anticipation. Our +unexpressed hopes rested silently on the possible appearance of Mrs. C. +Would that admirable, but unknown, woman, at once charm and relieve +us by her presence? I shudder as I write it. Mr. C walked into the +room--and walked in, _alone_. + +Mr. Germaine suddenly varied his formal inquiry in receiving the new +guest. + +"Is your wife ill?" he asked. + +Mr. C was an elderly man; Mr. C had lived (judging by appearances) in +the days when the old-fashioned laws of politeness were still in force. +He discovered his two married brethren in their corner, unaccompanied by +_their_ wives; and he delivered his apology for _his_ wife with the air +of a man who felt unaffectedly ashamed of it: + +"Mrs. C is so sorry. She has got such a bad cold. She does so regret not +being able to accompany me." + +At this third apology, Mr. Germaine's indignation forced its way outward +into expression in words. + +"Two bad colds and one bad headache," he said, with ironical politeness. +"I don't know how your wives agree, gentlemen, when they are well. But +when they are ill, their unanimity is wonderful!" + +The dinner was announced as that sharp saying passed his lips. + +I had the honor of taking Mrs. Germaine to the dining-room. Her sense of +the implied insult offered to her by the wives of her husband's friends +only showed itself in a trembling, a very slight trembling, of the hand +that rested on my arm. My interest in her increased tenfold. Only +a woman who had been accustomed to suffer, who had been broken and +disciplined to self-restraint, could have endured the moral martyrdom +inflicted on her as _this_ woman endured it, from the beginning of the +evening to the end. + +Am I using the language of exaggeration when I write of my hostess in +these terms? Look at the circumstances as they struck two strangers like +my wife and myself. + +Here was the first dinner party which Mr. and Mrs. Germaine had given +since their marriage. Three of Mr. Germaine's friends, all married men, +had been invited with their wives to meet Mr. Germaine's wife, and had +(evidently) accepted the invitation without reserve. What discoveries +had taken place between the giving of the invitation and the giving of +the dinner it was impossible to say. The one thing plainly discernible +was, that in the interval the three wives had agreed in the resolution +to leave their husbands to represent them at Mrs. Germaine's table; +and, more amazing still, the husbands had so far approved of the +grossly discourteous conduct of the wives as to consent to make the most +insultingly trivial excuses for their absence. Could any crueler slur +than this have been cast on a woman at the outs et of her married life, +before the face of her husband, and in the presence of two strangers +from another country? Is "martyrdom" too big a word to use in describing +what a sensitive person must have suffered, subjected to such treatment +as this? Well, I think not. + +We took our places at the dinner-table. Don't ask me to describe that +most miserable of mortal meetings, that weariest and dreariest of +human festivals! It is quite bad enough to remember that evening--it is +indeed. + +My wife and I did our best to keep the conversation moving as easily +and as harmlessly as might be. I may say that we really worked hard. +Nevertheless, our success was not very encouraging. Try as we might to +overlook them, there were the three empty places of the three absent +women, speaking in their own dismal language for themselves. Try as we +might to resist it, we all felt the one sad conclusion which those empty +places persisted in forcing on our minds. It was surely too plain that +some terrible report, affecting the character of the unhappy woman at +the head of the table, had unexpectedly come to light, and had at one +blow destroyed her position in the estimation of her husband's friends. +In the face of the excuses in the drawing-room, in the face of the empty +places at the dinner-table, what could the friendliest guests do, to +any good purpose, to help the husband and wife in their sore and sudden +need? They could say good-night at the earliest possible opportunity, +and mercifully leave the married pair to themselves. + +Let it at least be recorded to the credit of the three gentlemen, +designated in these pages as A, B, and C, that they were sufficiently +ashamed of themselves and their wives to be the first members of the +dinner party who left the house. In a few minutes more we rose to follow +their example. Mrs. Germaine earnestly requested that we would delay our +departure. + +"Wait a few minutes," she whispered, with a glance at her husband. "I +have something to say to you before you go." + +She left us, and, taking Mr. Germaine by the arm, led him away to the +opposite side of the room. The two held a little colloquy together in +low voices. The husband closed the consultation by lifting the wife's +hand to his lips. + +"Do as you please, my love," he said to her. "I leave it entirely to +you." + +He sat down sorrowfully, lost in his thoughts. Mrs. Germaine unlocked +a cabinet at the further end of the room, and returned to us, alone, +carrying a small portfolio in her hand. + +"No words of mine can tell you how gratefully I feel your kindness," +she said, with perfect simplicity, and with perfect dignity at the same +time. "Under very trying circumstances, you have treated me with the +tenderness and the sympathy which you might have shown to an old friend. +The one return I can make for all that I owe to you is to admit you to +my fullest confidence, and to leave you to judge for yourselves whether +I deserve the treatment which I have received to-night." + +Her eyes filled with tears. She paused to control herself. We both +begged her to say no more. Her husband, joining us, added his entreaties +to ours. She thanked us, but she persisted. Like most sensitively +organized persons, she could be resolute when she believed that the +occasion called for it. + +"I have a few words more to say," she resumed, addressing my wife. "You +are the only married woman who has come to our little dinner party. The +marked absence of the other wives explains itself. It is not for me to +say whether they are right or wrong in refusing to sit at our table. +My dear husband--who knows my whole life as well as I know it +myself--expressed the wish that we should invite these ladies. He +wrongly supposed that _his_ estimate of me would be the estimate +accepted by his friends; and neither he nor I anticipated that the +misfortunes of my past life would be revealed by some person acquainted +with them, whose treachery we have yet to discover. The least I can +do, by way of acknowledging your kindness, is to place you in the same +position toward me which the other ladies now occupy. The circumstances +under which I have become the wife of Mr. Germaine are, in some +respects, very remarkable. They are related, without suppression or +reserve, in a little narrative which my husband wrote, at the time of +our marriage, for the satisfaction of one of his absent relatives, whose +good opinion he was unwilling to forfeit. The manuscript is in this +portfolio. After what has happened, I ask you both to read it, as +a personal favor to me. It is for you to decide, when you know all, +whether I am a fit person for an honest woman to associate with or not." + +She held out her hand, with a sweet, sad smile, and bid us good night. +My wife, in her impulsive way, forgot the formalities proper to the +occasion, and kissed her at parting. At that one little act of sisterly +sympathy, the fortitude which the poor creature had preserved all +through the evening gave way in an instant. She burst into tears. + +I felt as fond of her and as sorry for her as my wife. But +(unfortunately) I could not take my wife's privilege of kissing her. On +our way downstairs, I found the opportunity of saying a cheering word to +her husband as he accompanied us to the door. + +"Before I open this," I remarked, pointing to the portfolio under my +arm, "my mind is made up, sir, about one thing. If I wasn't married +already, I tell you this--I should envy you your wife." + +He pointed to the portfolio in his turn. + +"Read what I have written there," he said; "and you will understand what +those false friends of mine have made me suffer to-night." + +The next morning my wife and I opened the portfolio, and read the +strange story of George Germaine's marriage. + + + + +The Narrative. + + + + +GEORGE GERMAINE WRITES, AND TELLS HIS OWN LOVE STORY. + + + + +CHAPTER I. GREENWATER BROAD + +LOOK back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the past, through +the mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. Rise again, my boyhood's +days, by the winding green shores of the little lake. Come to me once +more, my child-love, in the innocent beauty of your first ten years of +life. Let us live again, my angel, as we lived in our first paradise, +before sin and sorrow lifted their flaming swords and drove us out into +the world. + + +The month was March. The last wild fowl of the season were floating +on the waters of the lake which, in our Suffolk tongue, we called +Greenwater Broad. + +Wind where it might, the grassy banks and the overhanging trees tinged +the lake with the soft green reflections from which it took its name. +In a creek at the south end, the boats were kept--my own pretty sailing +boat having a tiny natural harbor all to itself. In a creek at the north +end stood the great trap (called a "decoy"), used for snaring the +wild fowl which flocked every winter, by thousands and thousands, to +Greenwater Broad. + +My little Mary and I went out together, hand in hand, to see the last +birds of the season lured into the decoy. + +The outer part of the strange bird-trap rose from the waters of the lake +in a series of circular arches, formed of elastic branches bent to the +needed shape, and covered with folds of fine network, making the roof. +Little by little diminishing in size, the arches and their net-work +followed the secret windings of the creek inland to its end. Built back +round the arches, on their landward side, ran a wooden paling, high +enough to hide a man kneeling behind it from the view of the birds on +the lake. At certain intervals a hole was broken in the paling just +large enough to allow of the passage through it of a dog of the +terrier or the spaniel breed. And there began and ended the simple yet +sufficient mechanism of the decoy. + +In those days I was thirteen, and Mary was ten years old. Walking on our +way to the lake we had Mary's father with us for guide and companion. +The good man served as bailiff on my father's estate. He was, besides, a +skilled master in the art of decoying ducks. The dog that helped him (we +used no tame ducks as decoys in Suffolk) was a little black terrier; +a skilled master also, in his way; a creature who possessed, in equal +proportions, the enviable advantages of perfect good-humor and perfect +common sense. + +The dog followed the bailiff, and we followed the dog. + +Arrived at the paling which surrounded the decoy, the dog sat down to +wait until he was wanted. The bailiff and the children crouched behind +the paling, and peeped through the outermost dog-hole, which commanded +a full view of the lake. It was a day without wind; not a ripple stirred +the surface of the water; the soft gray clouds filled all the sky, and +hid the sun from view. + +We peeped through the hole in the paling. There were the wild +ducks--collected within easy reach of the decoy--placidly dressing their +feathers on the placid surface of the lake. + +The bailiff looked at the dog, and made a sign. The dog looked at the +bailiff; and, stepping forward quietly, passed through the hole, so as +to show himself on the narrow strip of ground shelving down from the +outer side of the paling to the lake. + +First one duck, then another, then half a dozen together, discovered the +dog. + +A new object showing itself on the solitary scene instantly became an +object of all-devouring curiosity to the ducks. The outermost of them +began to swim slowly toward the strange four-footed creature, planted +motionless on the bank. By twos and threes, the main body of the +waterfowl gradually followed the advanced guard. Swimming nearer and +nearer to the dog, the wary ducks suddenly came to a halt, and, poised +on the water, viewed from a safe distance the phenomenon on the land. + +The bailiff, kneeling behind the paling, whispered, "Trim!" + +Hearing his name, the terrier turned about, and retiring through the +hole, became lost to the view of the ducks. Motionless on the water, +the wild fowl wondered and waited. In a minute more, the dog had trotted +round, and had shown himself through the next hole in the paling, +pierced further inward where the lake ran up into the outermost of the +windings of the creek. + +The second appearance of the terrier instantly produced a second fit of +curiosity among the ducks. With one accord, they swam forward again, +to get another and a nearer view of the dog; then, judging their +safe distance once more, they stopped for the second time, under the +outermost arch of the decoy. Again the dog vanished, and the puzzled +ducks waited. An interval passed, and the third appearance of Trim took +place, through a third hole in the paling, pierced further inland up +the creek. For the third time irresistible curiosity urged the ducks to +advance further and further inward, under the fatal arches of the decoy. +A fourth and a fifth time the game went on, until the dog had lured the +water-fowl from point to point into the inner recesses of the decoy. +There a last appearance of Trim took place. A last advance, a last +cautious pause, was made by the ducks. The bailiff touched the strings, +the weighed net-work fell vertically into the water, and closed the +decoy. There, by dozens and dozens, were the ducks, caught by means of +their own curiosity--with nothing but a little dog for a bait! In a +few hours afterward they were all dead ducks on their way to the London +market. + +As the last act in the curious comedy of the decoy came to its end, +little Mary laid her hand on my shoulder, and, raising herself on +tiptoe, whispered in my ear: + +"George, come home with me. I have got something to show you that is +better worth seeing than the ducks." + +"What is it?" + +"It's a surprise. I won't tell you." + +"Will you give me a kiss?" + +The charming little creature put her slim sun-burned arms round my neck, +and answered: + +"As many kisses as you like, George." + +It was innocently said, on her side. It was innocently done, on mine. +The good easy bailiff, looking aside at the moment from his ducks, +discovered us pursuing our boy-and-girl courtship in each other's arms. +He shook his big forefinger at us, with something of a sad and doubting +smile. + +"Ah, Master George, Master George!" he said. "When your father comes +home, do you think he will approve of his son and heir kissing his +bailiff's daughter?" + +"When my father comes home," I answered, with great dignity, "I shall +tell him the truth. I shall say I am going to marry your daughter." + +The bailiff burst out laughing, and looked back again at his ducks. + +"Well, well!" we heard him say to himself. "They're only children. +There's no call, poor things, to part them yet awhile." + +Mary and I had a great dislike to be called children. Properly +understood, one of us was a lady aged ten, and the other was a gentleman +aged thirteen. We left the good bailiff indignantly, and went away +together, hand in hand, to the cottage. + +CHAPTER II. TWO YOUNG HEARTS. + +"HE is growing too fast," said the doctor to my mother; "and he is +getting a great deal too clever for a boy at his age. Remove him from +school, ma'am, for six months; let him run about in the open air +at home; and if you find him with a book in his hand, take it away +directly. There is my prescription." + +Those words decided my fate in life. + +In obedience to the doctor's advice, I was left an idle boy--without +brothers, sisters, or companions of my own age--to roam about the +grounds of our lonely country-house. The bailiff's daughter, like me, +was an only child; and, like me, she had no playfellows. We met in +our wanderings on the solitary shores of the lake. Beginning by being +inseparable companions, we ripened and developed into true lovers. Our +preliminary courtship concluded, we next proposed (before I returned to +school) to burst into complete maturity by becoming man and wife. + +I am not writing in jest. Absurd as it may appear to "sensible people," +we two children were lovers, if ever there were lovers yet. + +We had no pleasures apart from the one all-sufficient pleasure which +we found in each other's society. We objected to the night, because it +parted us. We entreated our parents, on either side, to let us sleep in +the same room. I was angry with my mother, and Mary was disappointed in +her father, when they laughed at us, and wondered what we should want +next. Looking onward, from those days to the days of my manhood, I can +vividly recall such hours of happiness as have fallen to my share. But I +remember no delights of that later time comparable to the exquisite and +enduring pleasure that filled my young being when I walked with Mary in +the woods; when I sailed with Mary in my boat on the lake; when I met +Mary, after the cruel separation of the night, and flew into her open +arms as if we had been parted for months and months together. + +What was the attraction that drew us so closely one to the other, at an +age when the sexual sympathies lay dormant in her and in me? + +We neither knew nor sought to know. We obeyed the impulse to love one +another, as a bird obeys the impulse to fly. + +Let it not be supposed that we possessed any natural gifts, or +advantages which singled us out as differing in a marked way from other +children at our time of life. We possessed nothing of the sort. I had +been called a clever boy at school; but there were thousands of other +boys, at thousands of other schools, who headed their classes and +won their prizes, like me. Personally speaking, I was in no way +remarkable--except for being, in the ordinary phrase, "tall for my age." +On her side, Mary displayed no striking attractions. She was a +fragile child, with mild gray eyes and a pale complexion; singularly +undemonstrative, singularly shy and silent, except when she was alone +with me. Such beauty as she had, in those early days, lay in a certain +artless purity and tenderness of expression, and in the charming +reddish-brown color of her hair, varying quaintly and prettily in +different lights. To all outward appearance two perfectly commonplace +children, we were mysteriously united by some kindred association of the +spirit in her and the spirit in me, which not only defied discovery by +our young selves, but which lay too deep for investigation by far older +and far wiser heads than ours. + +You will naturally wonder whether anything was done by our elders to +check our precocious attachment, while it was still an innocent love +union between a boy and a girl. + +Nothing was done by my father, for the simple reason that he was away +from home. + +He was a man of a restless and speculative turn of mind. Inheriting his +estate burdened with debt, his grand ambition was to increase his small +available income by his own exertions; to set up an establishment +in London; and to climb to political distinction by the ladder of +Parliament. An old friend, who had emigrated to America, had proposed +to him a speculation in agriculture, in one of the Western States, which +was to make both their fortunes. My father's eccentric fancy was struck +by the idea. For more than a year past he had been away from us in the +United States; and all we knew of him (instructed by his letters) +was, that he might be shortly expected to return to us in the enviable +character of one of the richest men in England. + +As for my poor mother--the sweetest and softest-hearted of women--to see +me happy was all that she desired. + +The quaint little love romance of the two children amused and interested +her. She jested with Mary's father about the coming union between the +two families, without one serious thought of the future--without even a +foreboding of what might happen when my father returned. "Sufficient for +the day is the evil (or the good) thereof," had been my mother's motto +all her life. She agreed with the easy philosophy of the bailiff, +already recorded in these pages: "They're only children. There's no +call, poor things, to part them yet a while." + +There was one member of the family, however, who took a sensible and +serious view of the matter. + +My father's brother paid us a visit in our solitude; discovered what +was going on between Mary and me; and was, at first, naturally enough, +inclined to laugh at us. Closer investigation altered his way of +thinking. He became convinced that my mother was acting like a fool; +that the bailiff (a faithful servant, if ever there was one yet) was +cunningly advancing his own interests by means of his daughter; and that +I was a young idiot, who had developed his native reserves of imbecility +at an unusually early period of life. Speaking to my mother under the +influence of these strong impressions, my uncle offered to take me back +with him to London, and keep me there until I had been brought to +my senses by association with his own children, and by careful +superintendence under his own roof. + +My mother hesitated about accepting this proposal; she had the advantage +over my uncle of understanding my disposition. While she was still +doubting, while my uncle was still impatiently waiting for her decision, +I settled the question for my elders by running away. + +I left a letter to represent me in my absence; declaring that no mortal +power should part me from Mary, and promising to return and ask my +mother's pardon as soon as my uncle had left the house. The strictest +search was made for me without discovering a trace of my place of +refuge. My uncle departed for London, predicting that I should live to +be a disgrace to the family, and announcing that he should transmit his +opinion of me to my father in America by the next mail. + +The secret of the hiding-place in which I contrived to defy discovery is +soon told. I was hidden (without the bailiff's knowledge) in the bedroom +of the bailiff's mother. And did the bailiff's mother know it? you will +ask. To which I answer: the bailiff's mother did it. And, what is +more, gloried in doing it--not, observe, as an act of hostility to my +relatives, but simply as a duty that lay on her conscience. + +What sort of old woman, in the name of all that is wonderful, was this? +Let her appear, and speak for herself--the wild and weird grandmother of +gentle little Mary; the Sibyl of modern times, known, far and wide, in +our part of Suffolk, as Dame Dermody. + +I see her again, as I write, sitting in her son's pretty cottage parlor, +hard by the window, so that the light fell over her shoulder while she +knitted or read. A little, lean, wiry old woman was Dame Dermody--with +fierce black eyes, surmounted by bushy white eyebrows, by a high +wrinkled forehead, and by thick white hair gathered neatly under her +old-fashioned "mob-cap." Report whispered (and whispered truly) that +she had been a lady by birth and breeding, and that she had deliberately +closed her prospects in life by marrying a man greatly her inferior +in social rank. Whatever her family might think of her marriage, she +herself never regretted it. In her estimation her husband's memory was +a sacred memory; his spirit was a guardian spirit, watching over her, +waking or sleeping, morning or night. + +Holding this faith, she was in no respect influenced by those grossly +material ideas of modern growth which associate the presence of +spiritual beings with clumsy conjuring tricks and monkey antics +performed on tables and chairs. Dame Dermody's nobler superstition +formed an integral part of her religious convictions--convictions which +had long since found their chosen resting-place in the mystic doctrines +of Emanuel Swedenborg. The only books which she read were the works +of the Swedish Seer. She mixed up Swedenborg's teachings on angels and +departed spirits, on love to one's neighbor and purity of life, with +wild fancies, and kindred beliefs of her own; and preached the visionary +religious doctrines thus derived, not only in the bailiff's household, +but also on proselytizing expeditions to the households of her humble +neighbors, far and near. + +Under her son's roof--after the death of his wife--she reigned a supreme +power; priding herself alike on her close attention to her domestic +duties, and on her privileged communications with angels and spirits. +She would hold long colloquys with the spirit of her dead husband before +anybody who happened to be present--colloquys which struck the simple +spectators mute with terror. To her mystic view, the love union between +Mary and me was something too sacred and too beautiful to be tried by +the mean and matter-of-fact tests set up by society. She wrote for us +little formulas of prayer and praise, which we were to use when we met +and when we parted, day by day. She solemnly warned her son to look +upon us as two young consecrated creatures, walking unconsciously on +a heavenly path of their own, whose beginning was on earth, but whose +bright end was among the angels in a better state of being. Imagine my +appearing before such a woman as this, and telling her with tears of +despair that I was determined to die, rather than let my uncle part +me from little Mary, and you will no longer be astonished at the +hospitality which threw open to me the sanctuary of Dame Dermody's own +room. + +When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I committed a +serious mistake. In thanking the old woman at parting, I said to her +(with a boy's sense of honor), "I won't tell upon you, Dame. My mother +shan't know that you hid me in your bedroom." + +The Sibyl laid her dry, fleshless hand on my shoulder, and forced me +roughly back into the chair from which I had just risen. + +"Boy!" she said, looking through and through me with her fierce black +eyes. "Do you dare suppose that I ever did anything that I was ashamed +of? Do you think I am ashamed of what I have done now? Wait there. Your +mother may mistake me too. I shall write to your mother." + +She put on her great round spectacles with tortoise-shell rims and sat +down to her letter. Whenever her thoughts flagged, whenever she was at a +loss for an expression, she looked over her shoulder, as if some visible +creature were stationed behind her, watching what she wrote; consulted +the spirit of her husband, exactly as she might have consulted a living +man; smiled softly to herself, and went on with her writing. + +"There!" she said, handing me the completed letter with an imperial +gesture of indulgence. "_His_ mind and _my_ mind are written there. Go, +boy. I pardon you. Give my letter to your mother." + +So she always spoke, with the same formal and measured dignity of manner +and language. + +I gave the letter to my mother. We read it, and marveled over it +together. Thus, counseled by the ever-present spirit of her husband, +Dame Dermody wrote: + + +"MADAM--I have taken what you may be inclined to think a great liberty. +I have assisted your son George in setting his uncle's authority at +defiance. I have encouraged your son George in his resolution to be +true, in time and in eternity, to my grandchild, Mary Dermody. + +"It is due to you and to me that I should tell you with what motive I +have acted in doing these things. + +"I hold the belief that all love that is true is foreordained and +consecrated in heaven. Spirits destined to be united in the better world +are divinely commissioned to discover each other and to begin their +union in this world. The only happy marriages are those in which the two +destined spirits have succeeded in meeting one another in this sphere of +life. + +"When the kindred spirits have once met, no human power can really part +them. Sooner or later, they must, by divine law, find each other again +and become united spirits once more. Worldly wisdom may force them into +widely different ways of life; worldly wisdom may delude them, or may +make them delude themselves, into contracting an earthly and a fallible +union. It matters nothing. The time will certainly come when that union +will manifest itself as earthly and fallible; and the two disunited +spirits, finding each other again, will become united here for the world +beyond this--united, I tell you, in defiance of all human laws and of +all human notions of right and wrong. + +"This is my belief. I have proved it by my own life. Maid, wife, and +widow, I have held to it, and I have found it good. + +"I was born, madam, in the rank of society to which you belong. I +received the mean, material teaching which fulfills the worldly notion +of education. Thanks be to God, my kindred spirit met _my_ spirit while +I was still young. I knew true love and true union before I was twenty +years of age. I married, madam, in the rank from which Christ chose +his apostles--I married a laboring-man. No human language can tell my +happiness while we lived united here. His death has not parted us. He +helps me to write this letter. In my last hours I shall see him standing +among the angels, waiting for me on the banks of the shining river. + +"You will now understand the view I take of the tie which unites the +young spirits of our children at the bright outset of their lives. + +"Believe me, the thing which your husband's brother has proposed to you +to do is a sacrilege and a profanation. I own to you freely that I look +on what I have done toward thwarting your relative in this matter as an +act of virtue. You cannot expect _me_ to think it a serious obstacle to +a union predestined in heaven, that your son is the squire's heir, and +that my grandchild is only the bailiff's daughter. Dismiss from your +mind, I implore you, the unworthy and unchristian prejudices of rank. +Are we not all equal before God? Are we not all equal (even in this +world) before disease and death? Not your son's happiness only, but your +own peace of mind, is concerned in taking heed to my words. I warn you, +madam, you cannot hinder the destined union of these two child-spirits, +in after-years, as man and wife. Part them now--and YOU will be +responsible for the sacrifices, degradations and distresses through +which your George and my Mary may be condemned to pass on their way back +to each other in later life. + +"Now my mind is unburdened. Now I have said all. + +"If I have spoken too freely, or have in any other way unwittingly +offended, I ask your pardon, and remain, madam, your faithful servant +and well-wisher, HELEN DERMODY." + +So the letter ended. + +To me it is something more than a mere curiosity of epistolary +composition. I see in it the prophecy--strangely fulfilled in later +years--of events in Mary's life, and in mine, which future pages are now +to tell. + +My mother decided on leaving the letter unanswered. Like many of her +poorer neighbors, she was a little afraid of Dame Dermody; and she +was, besides, habitually averse to all discussions which turned on the +mysteries of spiritual life. I was reproved, admonished, and forgiven; +and there was the end of it. + +For some happy weeks Mary and I returned, without hinderance or +interruption, to our old intimate companionship The end was coming, +however, when we least expected it. My mother was startled, one +morning, by a letter from my father, which informed her that he had been +unexpectedly obliged to sail for England at a moment's notice; that he +had arrived in London, and that he was detained there by business which +would admit of no delay. We were to wait for him at home, in daily +expectation of seeing him the moment he was free. + +This news filled my mother's mind with foreboding doubts of the +stability of her husband's grand speculation in America. The sudden +departure from the United States, and the mysterious delay in London, +were ominous, to her eyes, of misfortune to come. I am now writing of +those dark days in the past, when the railway and the electric telegraph +were still visions in the minds of inventors. Rapid communication +with my father (even if he would have consented to take us into his +confidence) was impossible. We had no choice but to wait and hope. + +The weary days passed; and still my father's brief letters described him +as detained by his business. The morning came when Mary and I went out +with Dermody, the bailiff, to see the last wild fowl of the season lured +into the decoy; and still the welcome home waited for the master, and +waited in vain. + +CHAPTER III. SWEDENBORG AND THE SIBYL. + +MY narrative may move on again from the point at which it paused in the +first chapter. + +Mary and I (as you may remember) had left the bailiff alone at the +decoy, and had set forth on our way together to Dermody's cottage. + +As we approached the garden gate, I saw a servant from the house waiting +there. He carried a message from my mother--a message for me. + +"My mistress wishes you to go home, Master George, as soon as you can. A +letter has come by the coach. My master means to take a post-chaise from +London, and sends word that we may expect him in the course of the day." + +Mary's attentive face saddened when she heard those words. + +"Must you really go away, George," she whispered, "before you see what I +have got waiting for you at home?" + +I remembered Mary's promised "surprise," the secret of which was only +to be revealed to me when we got to the cottage. How could I disappoint +her? My poor little lady-love looked ready to cry at the bare prospect +of it. + +I dismissed the servant with a message of the temporizing sort. My love +to my mother--and I would be back at the house in half an hour. + +We entered the cottage. + +Dame Dermody was sitting in the light of the window, as usual, with one +of the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg open on her lap. She solemnly +lifted her hand on our appearance, signing to us to occupy our customary +corner without speaking to her. It was an act of domestic high treason +to interrupt the Sibyl at her books. We crept quietly into our places. +Mary waited until she saw her grandmother's gray head bend down, and +her grandmother's bushy eyebrows contract attentively, over her reading. +Then, and then only, the discreet child rose on tiptoe, disappeared +noiselessly in the direction of her bedchamber, and came back to +me carrying something carefully wrapped up in her best cambric +handkerchief. + +"Is that the surprise?" I whispered. + +Mary whispered back: "Guess what it is?" + +"Something for me?" + +"Yes. Go on guessing. What is it?" + +I guessed three times, and each guess was wrong. Mary decided on helping +me by a hint. + +"Say your letters," she suggested; "and go on till I stop you." + +I began: "A, B, C, D, E, F--" There she stopped me. + +"It's the name of a Thing," she said; "and it begins with F." + +I guessed, "Fern," "Feather," "Fife." And here my resources failed me. + +Mary sighed, and shook her head. "You don't take pains," she said. "You +are three whole years older than I am. After all the trouble I have +taken to please you, you may be too big to care for my present when you +see it. Guess again." + +"I can't guess." + +"You must!" + +"I give it up." + +Mary refused to let me give it up. She helped me by another hint. + +"What did you once say you wished you had in your boat?" she asked. + +"Was it long ago?" I inquired, at a loss for an answer. + +"Long, long ago! Before the winter. When the autumn leaves were falling, +and you took me out one evening for a sail. Ah, George, _you_ have +forgotten!" + +Too true, of me and of my brethren, old and young alike! It is always +_his_ love that forgets, and _her_ love that remembers. We were only two +children, and we were types of the man and the woman already. + +Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the terrible presence of her +grandmother, she jumped up, and snatched the concealed object out of her +handkerchief. + +"There!" she cried, briskly, "_now_ do you know what it is?" + +I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my boat, all those +months ago, was a new flag. And here was the flag, made for me in secret +by Mary's own hand! The ground was green silk, with a dove embroidered +on it in white, carrying in its beak the typical olive-branch, wrought +in gold thread. The work was the tremulous, uncertain work of a child's +fingers. But how faithfully my little darling had remembered my wish! +how patiently she had plied the needle over the traced lines of the +pattern! how industriously she had labored through the dreary winter +days! and all for my sake! What words could tell my pride, my gratitude, +my happiness? + +I too forgot the presence of the Sibyl bending over her book. I took +the little workwoman in my arms, and kissed her till I was fairly out of +breath and could kiss no longer. + +"Mary!" I burst out, in the first heat of my enthusiasm, "my father is +coming home to-day. I will speak to him to-night. And I will marry you +to-morrow!" + +"Boy!" said the awful voice at the other end of the room. "Come here." + +Dame Dermody's mystic book was closed; Dame Dermody's weird black eyes +were watching us in our corner. I approached her; and Mary followed me +timidly, by a footstep at a time. + +The Sibyl took me by the hand, with a caressing gentleness which was new +in my experience of her. + +"Do you prize that toy?" she inquired, looking at the flag. "Hide it!" +she cried, before I could answer. "Hide it--or it may be taken from +you!" + +"Why should I hide it?" I asked. "I want to fly it at the mast of my +boat." + +"You will never fly it at the mast of your boat!" With that answer she +took the flag from me and thrust it impatiently into the breast-pocket +of my jacket. + +"Don't crumple it, grandmother!" said Mary, piteously. + +I repeated my question: + +"Why shall I never fly it at the mast of my boat?" + +Dame Dermody laid her hand on the closed volume of Swedenborg lying in +her lap. + +"Three times I have opened this book since the morning," she said. +"Three times the words of the prophet warn me that there is trouble +coming. Children, it is trouble that is coming to You. I look there," +she went on, pointing to the place where a ray of sunlight poured +slanting into the room, "and I see my husband in the heavenly light. He +bows his head in grief, and he points his unerring hand at You. George +and Mary, you are consecrated to each other! Be always worthy of your +consecration; be always worthy of yourselves." She paused. Her voice +faltered. She looked at us with softening eyes, as those look who know +sadly that there is a parting at hand. "Kneel!" she said, in low tones +of awe and grief. "It may be the last time I bless you--it may be the +last time I pray over you, in this house. Kneel!" + +We knelt close together at her feet. I could feel Mary's heart +throbbing, as she pressed nearer and nearer to my side. I could feel my +own heart quickening its beat, with a fear that was a mystery to me. + +"God bless and keep George and Mary, here and hereafter! God prosper, +in future days, the union which God's wisdom has willed! Amen. So be it. +Amen." + +As the last words fell from her lips the cottage door was thrust open. +My father--followed by the bailiff--entered the room. + +Dame Dermody got slowly on her feet, and looked at him with a stern +scrutiny. + +"It has come," she said to herself. "It looks with the eyes--it will +speak with the voice--of that man." + +My father broke the silence that followed, addressing himself to the +bailiff. + +"You see, Dermody," he said, "here is my son in your cottage--when he +ought to be in my house." He turned, and looked at me as I stood with +my arm round little Mary, patiently waiting for my opportunity to speak. +"George," he said, with the hard smile which was peculiar to him, +when he was angry and was trying to hide it, "you are making a fool of +yourself there. Leave that child, and come to me." + +Now, or never, was my time to declare myself. Judging by appearances, +I was still a boy. Judging by my own sensations, I had developed into a +man at a moment's notice. + +"Papa," I said, "I am glad to see you home again. This is Mary Dermody. +I am in love with her, and she is in love with me. I wish to marry her +as soon as it is convenient to my mother and you." + +My father burst out laughing. Before I could speak again, his humor +changed. He had observed that Dermody, too, presumed to be amused. He +seemed to become mad with anger, all in a moment. + +"I have been told of this infernal tomfoolery," he said, "but I didn't +believe it till now. Who has turned the boy's weak head? Who has +encouraged him to stand there hugging that girl? If it's you, Dermody, +it shall be the worst day's work you ever did in your life." He turned +to me again, before the bailiff could defend himself. "Do you hear what +I say? I tell you to leave Dermody's girl, and come home with me." + +"Yes, papa," I answered. "But I must go back to Mary, if you please, +after I have been with you." + +Angry as he was, my father was positively staggered by my audacity. + +"You young idiot, your insolence exceeds belief!" he burst out. "I tell +you this: you will never darken these doors again! You have been taught +to disobey me here. You have had things put into your head, here, which +no boy of your age ought to know--I'll say more, which no decent people +would have let you know." + +"I beg your pardon, sir," Dermody interposed, very respectfully and very +firmly at the same time. "There are many things which a master in a hot +temper is privileged to say to the man who serves him. But you have gone +beyond your privilege. You have shamed me, sir, in the presence of my +mother, in the hearing of my child--" + +My father checked him there. + +"You may spare the rest of it," he said. "We are master and servant +no longer. When my son came hanging about your cottage, and playing at +sweethearts with your girl there, your duty was to close the door on +him. You have failed in your duty. I trust you no longer. Take a month's +notice, Dermody. You leave my service." + +The bailiff steadily met my father on his ground. He was no longer the +easy, sweet-tempered, modest man who was the man of my remembrance. + +"I beg to decline taking your month's notice, sir," he answered. "You +shall have no opportunity of repeating what you have just said to me. +I will send in my accounts to-night. And I will leave your service +to-morrow." + +"We agree for once," retorted my father. "The sooner you go, the +better." + +He stepped across the room and put his hand on my shoulder. + +"Listen to me," he said, making a last effort to control himself. "I +don't want to quarrel with you before a discarded servant. There must be +an end to this nonsense. Leave these people to pack up and go, and come +back to the house with me." + +His heavy hand, pressing on my shoulder, seemed to press the spirit +of resistance out of me. I so far gave way as to try to melt him by +entreaties. + +"Oh, papa! papa!" I cried. "Don't part me from Mary! See how pretty and +good she is! She has made me a flag for my boat. Let me come here and +see her sometimes. I can't live without her." + +I could say no more. My poor little Mary burst out crying. Her tears and +my entreaties were alike wasted on my father. + +"Take your choice," he said, "between coming away of your own accord, or +obliging me to take you away by force. I mean to part you and Dermody's +girl." + +"Neither you nor any man can part them," interposed a voice, speaking +behind us. "Rid your mind of that notion, master, before it is too +late." + +My father looked round quickly, and discovered Dame Dermody facing him +in the full light of the window. She had stepped back, at the outset +of the dispute, into the corner behind the fireplace. There she had +remained, biding her time to speak, until my father's last threat +brought her out of her place of retirement. + +They looked at each other for a moment. My father seemed to think it +beneath his dignity to answer her. He went on with what he had to say to +me. + +"I shall count three slowly," he resumed. "Before I get to the last +number, make up your mind to do what I tell you, or submit to the +disgrace of being taken away by force." + +"Take him where you may," said Dame Dermody, "he will still be on his +way to his marriage with my grandchild." + +"And where shall I be, if you please?" asked my father, stung into +speaking to her this time. + +The answer followed instantly in these startling words: + +"_You_ will be on your way to your ruin and your death." + +My father turned his back on the prophetess with a smile of contempt. + +"One!" he said, beginning to count. + +I set my teeth, and clasped both arms round Mary as he spoke. I had +inherited some of his temper, and he was now to know it. + +"Two!" proceeded my father, after waiting a little. + +Mary put her trembling lips to my ear, and whispered: "Let me go, +George! I can't bear to see it. Oh, look how he frowns! I know he'll +hurt you." + +My father lifted his forefinger as a preliminary warning before he +counted Three. + +"Stop!" cried Dame Dermody. + +My father looked round at her again with sardonic astonishment. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am--have you anything particular to say to me?" +he asked. + +"Man!" returned the Sibyl, "you speak lightly. Have I spoken lightly to +You? I warn you to bow your wicked will before a Will that is mightier +than yours. The spirits of these children are kindred spirits. For time +and for eternity they are united one to the other. Put land and sea +between them--they will still be together; they will communicate in +visions, they will be revealed to each other in dreams. Bind them by +worldly ties; wed your son, in the time to come, to another woman, and +my grand-daughter to another man. In vain! I tell you, in vain! You may +doom them to misery, you may drive them to sin--the day of their union +on earth is still a day predestined in heaven. It will come! it will +come! Submit, while the time for submission is yours. You are a doomed +man. I see the shadow of disaster, I see the seal of death, on your +face. Go; and leave these consecrated ones to walk the dark ways of +the world together, in the strength of their innocence, in the light of +their love. Go--and God forgive you!" In spite of himself, my father was +struck by the irresistible strength of conviction which inspired those +words. The bailiff's mother had impressed him as a tragic actress might +have impressed him on the stage. She had checked the mocking answer on +his lips, but she had not shaken his iron will. His face was as hard as +ever when he turned my way once more. + +"The last chance, George," he said, and counted the last number: +"Three!" + +I neither moved nor answered him. + +"You _will_ have it?" he said, as he fastened his hold on my arm. + +I fastened _my_ hold on Mary; I whispered to her, "I won't leave you!" +She seemed not to hear me. She trembled from head to foot in my arms. A +faint cry of terror fluttered from her lips. Dermody instantly stepped +forward. Before my father could wrench me away from her, he had said in +my ear, "You can give her to _me_, Master George," and had released +his child from my embrace. She stretched her little frail hands out +yearningly to me, as she lay in Dermody's arms. "Good-by, dear," she +said, faintly. I saw her head sink on her father's bosom as I was +dragged to the door. In my helpless rage and misery, I struggled against +the cruel hands that had got me with all the strength I had left. I +cried out to her, "I love you, Mary! I will come back to you, Mary! I +will never marry any one but you!" Step by step, I was forced further +and further away. The last I saw of her, my darling's head was still +resting on Dermody's breast. Her grandmother stood near, and shook her +withered hands at my father, and shrieked her terrible prophecy, in +the hysteric frenzy that possessed her when she saw the separation +accomplished. "Go!--you go to your ruin! you go to your death!" While +her voice still rang in my ears, the cottage door was opened and closed +again. It was all over. The modest world of my boyish love and my boyish +joy disappeared like the vision of a dream. The empty outer wilderness, +which was my father's world, opened before me void of love and void of +joy. God forgive me--how I hated him at that moment! + +CHAPTER IV. THE CURTAIN FALLS. + +FOR the rest of the day, and through the night, I was kept a close +prisoner in my room, watched by a man on whose fidelity my father could +depend. + +The next morning I made an effort to escape, and was discovered before +I had got free of the house. Confined again to my room, I contrived +to write to Mary, and to slip my note into the willing hand of the +housemaid who attended on me. Useless! The vigilance of my guardian was +not to be evaded. The woman was suspected and followed, and the letter +was taken from her. My father tore it up with his own hands. + +Later in the day, my mother was permitted to see me. + +She was quite unfit, poor soul, to intercede for me, or to serve my +interests in any way. My father had completely overwhelmed her by +announcing that his wife and his son were to accompany him, when he +returned to America. + +"Every farthing he has in the world," said my mother, "is to be thrown +into that hateful speculation. He has raised money in London; he has let +the house to some rich tradesman for seven years; he has sold the plate, +and the jewels that came to me from his mother. The land in America +swallows it all up. We have no home, George, and no choice but to go +with him." + +An hour afterward the post-chaise was at the door. + +My father himself took me to the carriage. I broke away from him, with +a desperation which not even his resolution could resist. I ran, I flew, +along the path that led to Dermody's cottage. The door stood open; the +parlor was empty. I went into the kitchen; I went into the upper rooms. +Solitude everywhere. The bailiff had left the place; and his mother and +his daughter had gone with him. No friend or neighbor lingered near with +a message; no letter lay waiting for me; no hint was left to tell me in +what direction they had taken their departure. After the insulting words +which his master had spoken to him, Dermody's pride was concerned in +leaving no trace of his whereabouts; my father might consider it as a +trace purposely left with the object of reuniting Mary and me. I had no +keepsake to speak to me of my lost darling but the flag which she had +embroidered with her own hand. The furniture still remained in the +cottage. I sat down in our customary corner, by Mary's empty chair, and +looked again at the pretty green flag, and burst out crying. + +A light touch roused me. My father had so far yielded as to leave to my +mother the responsibility of bringing me back to the traveling carriage. + +"We shall not find Mary here, George," she said, gently. "And we _may_ +hear of her in London. Come with me." + +I rose and silently gave her my hand. Something low down on the clean +white door-post caught my eye as we passed it. I stooped, and discovered +some writing in pencil. I looked closer--it was writing in Mary's hand! +The unformed childish characters traced these last words of farewell: + +"Good-by, dear. Don't forget Mary." + +I knelt down and kissed the writing. It comforted me--it was like a +farewell touch from Mary's hand. I followed my mother quietly to the +carriage. + +Late that night we were in London. + +My good mother did all that the most compassionate kindness could do +(in her position) to comfort me. She privately wrote to the solicitors +employed by her family, inclosing a description of Dermody and his +mother and daughter and directing inquiries to be made at the various +coach-offices in London. She also referred the lawyers to two of +Dermody's relatives, who lived in the city, and who might know +something of his movements after he left my father's service. When she +had done this, she had done all that lay in her power. We neither of us +possessed money enough to advertise in the newspapers. + +A week afterward we sailed for the United States. Twice in that interval +I communicated with the lawyers; and twice I was informed that the +inquiries had led to nothing. + + +With this the first epoch in my love story comes to an end. + +For ten long years afterward I never again met with my little Mary; I +never even heard whether she had lived to grow to womanhood or not. I +still kept the green flag, with the dove worked on it. For the rest, +the waters of oblivion had closed over the old golden days at Greenwater +Broad. + +CHAPTER V. MY STORY. + +WHEN YOU last saw me, I was a boy of thirteen. You now see me a man of +twenty-three. + +The story of my life, in the interval between these two ages, is a story +that can be soon told. + +Speaking of my father first, I have to record that the end of his career +did indeed come as Dame Dermody had foretold it. Before we had been a +year in America, the total collapse of his land speculation was followed +by his death. The catastrophe was complete. But for my mother's little +income (settled on her at her marriage) we should both have been left +helpless at the mercy of the world. + +We made some kind friends among the hearty and hospitable people of the +United States, whom we were unaffectedly sorry to leave. But there were +reasons which inclined us to return to our own country after my father's +death; and we did return accordingly. + +Besides her brother-in-law (already mentioned in the earlier pages of my +narrative), my mother had another relative--a cousin named Germaine--on +whose assistance she mainly relied for starting me, when the time came, +in a professional career. I remember it as a family rumor, that Mr. +Germaine had been an unsuccessful suitor for my mother's hand in the +days when they were young people together. He was still a bachelor at +the later period when his eldest brother's death without issue placed +him in possession of a handsome fortune. The accession of wealth made +no difference in his habits of life: he was a lonely old man, estranged +from his other relatives, when my mother and I returned to England. If +I could only succeed in pleasing Mr. Germaine, I might consider my +prospects (in some degree, at least) as being prospects assured. + +This was one consideration that influenced us in leaving America. There +was another--in which I was especially interested--that drew me back to +the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad. + +My only hope of recovering a trace of Mary was to make inquiries among +the cottagers in the neighborhood of my old home. The good bailiff had +been heartily liked and respected in his little sphere. It seemed at +least possible that some among his many friends in Suffolk might have +discovered traces of him, in the year that had passed since I had left +England. In my dreams of Mary--and I dreamed of her constantly--the +lake and its woody banks formed a frequent background in the visionary +picture of my lost companion. To the lake shores I looked, with a +natural superstition, as to my way back to the one life that had its +promise of happiness for _me_--my life with Mary. + +On our arrival in London, I started for Suffolk alone--at my mother's +request. At her age she naturally shrank from revisiting the home scenes +now occupied by the strangers to whom our house had been let. + +Ah, how my heart ached (young as I was) when I saw the familiar green +waters of the lake once more! It was evening. The first object that +caught my eye was the gayly painted boat, once mine, in which Mary and I +had so often sailed together. The people in possession of our house were +sailing now. The sound of their laughter floated toward me merrily over +the still water. _Their_ flag flew at the little mast-head, from which +Mary's flag had never fluttered in the pleasant breeze. I turned my eyes +from the boat; it hurt me to look at it. A few steps onward brought me +to a promontory on the shore, and revealed the brown archways of the +decoy on the opposite bank. There was the paling behind which we had +knelt to watch the snaring of the ducks; there was the hole through +which "Trim," the terrier, had shown himself to rouse the stupid +curiosity of the water-fowl; there, seen at intervals through the trees, +was the winding woodland path along which Mary and I had traced our way +to Dermody's cottage on the day when my father's cruel hand had torn us +from each other. How wisely my good mother had shrunk from looking again +at the dear old scenes! I turned my back on the lake, to think with +calmer thoughts in the shadowy solitude of the woods. + +An hour's walk along the winding banks brought me round to the cottage +which had once been Mary's home. + +The door was opened by a woman who was a stranger to me. She civilly +asked me to enter the parlor. I had suffered enough already; I made my +inquiries, standing on the doorstep. They were soon at an end. The woman +was a stranger in our part of Suffolk; neither she nor her husband had +ever heard of Dermody's name. + +I pursued my investigations among the peasantry, passing from cottage +to cottage. The twilight came; the moon rose; the lights began to vanish +from the lattice-windows; and still I continued my weary pilgrimage; and +still, go where I might, the answer to my questions was the same. Nobody +knew anything of Dermody. Everybody asked if I had not brought news of +him myself. It pains me even now to recall the cruelly complete defeat +of every effort which I made on that disastrous evening. I passed the +night in one of the cottages; and I returned to London the next day, +broken by disappointment, careless what I did, or where I went next. + +Still, we were not wholly parted. I saw Mary--as Dame Dermody said I +should see her--in dreams. + +Sometimes she came to me with the green flag in her hand, and repeated +her farewell words--"Don't forget Mary!" Sometimes she led me to our +well-remembered corner in the cottage parlor, and opened the paper on +which her grandmother had written our prayers for us. We prayed together +again, and sung hymns together again, as if the old times had come back. +Once she appeared to me, with tears in her eyes, and said, "We must +wait, dear: our time has not come yet." Twice I saw her looking at me, +like one disturbed by anxious thoughts; and twice I heard her say, "Live +patiently, live innocently, George, for my sake." + +We settled in London, where my education was undertaken by a private +tutor. Before we had been long in our new abode, an unexpected change +in our prospects took place. To my mother's astonishment she received an +offer of marriage (addressed to her in a letter) from Mr. Germaine. + +"I entreat you not to be startled by my proposal!" (the old gentleman +wrote). "You can hardly have forgotten that I was once fond of you, +in the days when we were both young and both poor. No return to the +feelings associated with that time is possible now. At my age, all I ask +of you is to be the companion of the closing years of my life, and to +give me something of a father's interest in promoting the future welfare +of your son. Consider this, my dear, and tell me whether you will take +the empty chair at an old man's lonely fireside." + +My mother (looking almost as confused, poor soul! as if she had become +a young girl again) left the whole responsibility of decision on the +shoulders of her son! I was not long in making up my mind. If she said +Yes, she would accept the hand of a man of worth and honor, who had +been throughout his whole life devoted to her; and she would recover +the comfort, the luxury, the social prosperity and position of which my +father's reckless course of life had deprived her. Add to this, that +I liked Mr. Germaine, and that Mr. Germaine liked me. Under these +circumstances, why should my mother say No? She could produce no +satisfactory answer to that question when I put it. As the necessary +consequence, she became, in due course of time, Mrs. Germaine. + +I have only to add that, to the end of her life, my good mother +congratulated herself (in this case at least) on having taken her son's +advice. + +The years went on, and still Mary and I were parted, except in my +dreams. The years went on, until the perilous time which comes in every +man's life came in mine. I reached the age when the strongest of all +the passions seizes on the senses, and asserts its mastery over mind and +body alike. + +I had hitherto passively endured the wreck of my earliest and dearest +hopes: I had lived patiently, and lived innocently, for Mary's sake. Now +my patience left me; my innocence was numbered among the lost things of +the past. My days, it is true, were still devoted to the tasks set me by +my tutor; but my nights were given, in secret, to a reckless profligacy, +which (in my present frame of mind) I look back on with disgust and +dismay. I profaned my remembrances of Mary in the company of women +who had reached the lowest depths of degradation. I impiously said to +myself: "I have hoped for her long enough; I have waited for her long +enough. The one thing now to do is to enjoy my youth and to forget her." + +From the moment when I dropped into this degradation, I might sometimes +think regretfully of Mary--at the morning time, when penitent thoughts +mostly come to us; but I ceased absolutely to see her in my dreams. +We were now, in the completest sense of the word, parted. Mary's pure +spirit could hold no communion with mine; Mary's pure spirit had left +me. + +It is needless to say that I failed to keep the secret of my depravity +from the knowledge of my mother. The sight of her grief was the first +influence that sobered me. In some degree at least I restrained myself: +I made the effort to return to purer ways of life. Mr. Germaine, though +I had disappointed him, was too just a man to give me up as lost. +He advised me, as a means of self-reform, to make my choice of a +profession, and to absorb myself in closer studies than any that I had +yet pursued. + +I made my peace with this good friend and second father, not only by +following his advice, but by adopting the profession to which he had +been himself attached before he inherited his fortune--the profession of +medicine. Mr. Germaine had been a surgeon: I resolved on being a surgeon +too. + +Having entered, at rather an earlier age than usual, on my new way of +life, I may at least say for myself that I worked hard. I won, and kept, +the interest of the professors under whom I studied. On the other hand, +it cannot be denied that my reformation was, morally speaking, far from +being complete. I worked; but what I did was done selfishly, bitterly, +with a hard heart. In religion and morals I adopted the views of a +materialist companion of my studies--a worn-out man of more than double +my age. I believed in nothing but what I could see, or taste, or feel. +I lost all faith in humanity. With the one exception of my mother, I had +no respect for women. My remembrances of Mary deteriorated until they +became little more than a lost link of association with the past. I +still preserved the green flag as a matter of habit; but it was +no longer kept about me; it was left undisturbed in a drawer of my +writing-desk. Now and then a wholesome doubt, whether my life was not +utterly unworthy of me, would rise in my mind. But it held no long +possession of my thoughts. Despising others, it was in the logical order +of things that I should follow my conclusions to their bitter end, and +consistently despise myself. + +The term of my majority arrived. I was twenty-one years old; and of the +illusions of my youth not a vestige remained. + +Neither my mother nor Mr. Germaine could make any positive complaint of +my conduct. But they were both thoroughly uneasy about me. After anxious +consideration, my step-father arrived at a conclusion. He decided that +the one chance of restoring me to my better and brighter self was to try +the stimulant of a life among new people and new scenes. + +At the period of which I am now writing, the home government had decided +on sending a special diplomatic mission to one of the native princes +ruling over a remote province of our Indian empire. In the disturbed +state of the province at that time, the mission, on its arrival in +India, was to be accompanied to the prince's court by an escort, +including the military as well as the civil servants of the crown. The +surgeon appointed to sail with the expedition from England was an old +friend of Mr. Germaine's, and was in want of an assistant on whose +capacity he could rely. Through my stepfather's interest, the post was +offered to me. I accepted it without hesitation. My only pride left was +the miserable pride of indifference. So long as I pursued my profession, +the place in which I pursued it was a matter of no importance to my +mind. + +It was long before we could persuade my mother even to contemplate the +new prospect now set before me. When she did at length give way, she +yielded most unwillingly. I confess I left her with the tears in my +eyes--the first I had shed for many a long year past. + +The history of our expedition is part of the history of British India. +It has no place in this narrative. + +Speaking personally, I have to record that I was rendered incapable of +performing my professional duties in less than a week from the time when +the mission reached its destination. We were encamped outside the city; +and an attack was made on us, under cover of darkness, by the fanatical +natives. The attempt was defeated with little difficulty, and with only +a trifling loss on our side. I was among the wounded, having been struck +by a javelin, or spear, while I was passing from one tent to another. + +Inflicted by a European weapon, my injury would have been of no serious +consequence. But the tip of the Indian spear had been poisoned. I +escaped the mortal danger of lockjaw; but, through some peculiarity in +the action of the poison on my constitution (which I am quite unable to +explain), the wound obstinately refused to heal. + +I was invalided and sent to Calcutta, where the best surgical help was +at my disposal. To all appearance, the wound healed there--then broke +out again. Twice this happened; and the medical men agreed that the +best course to take would be to send me home. They calculated on +the invigorating effect of the sea voyage, and, failing this, on +the salutary influence of my native air. In the Indian climate I was +pronounced incurable. + +Two days before the ship sailed a letter from my mother brought me +startling news. My life to come--if I _had_ a life to come--had +been turned into a new channel. Mr. Germaine had died suddenly, of +heart-disease. His will, bearing date at the time when I left England, +bequeathed an income for life to my mother, and left the bulk of his +property to me, on the one condition that I adopted his name. I accepted +the condition, of course, and became George Germaine. + +Three months later, my mother and I were restored to each other. + +Except that I still had some trouble with my wound, behold me now to all +appearance one of the most enviable of existing mortals; promoted to the +position of a wealthy gentleman; possessor of a house in London and of a +country-seat in Perthshire; and, nevertheless, at twenty-three years of +age, one of the most miserable men living! + + +And Mary? + +In the ten years that had now passed over, what had become of Mary? + +You have heard my story. Read the few pages that follow, and you will +hear hers. + +CHAPTER VI. HER STORY. + +WHAT I have now to tell you of Mary is derived from information obtained +at a date in my life later by many years than any date of which I have +written yet. Be pleased to remember this. + + +Dermody, the bailiff, possessed relatives in London, of whom he +occasionally spoke, and relatives in Scotland, whom he never mentioned. +My father had a strong prejudice against the Scotch nation. Dermody knew +his master well enough to be aware that the prejudice might extend to +_him_, if he spoke of his Scotch kindred. He was a discreet man, and he +never mentioned them. + +On leaving my father's service, he had made his way, partly by land and +partly by sea, to Glasgow--in which city his friends resided. With his +character and his experience, Dermody was a man in a thousand to any +master who was lucky enough to discover him. His friends bestirred +themselves. In six weeks' time he was placed in charge of a gentleman's +estate on the eastern coast of Scotland, and was comfortably established +with his mother and his daughter in a new home. + +The insulting language which my father had addressed to him had sunk +deep in Dermody's mind. He wrote privately to his relatives in London, +telling them that he had found a new situation which suited him, and +that he had his reasons for not at present mentioning his address. In +this way he baffled the inquiries which my mother's lawyers (failing +to discover a trace of him in other directions) addressed to his +London friends. Stung by his old master's reproaches, he sacrificed his +daughter and he sacrificed me--partly to his own sense of self-respect, +partly to his conviction that the difference between us in rank made it +his duty to check all further intercourse before it was too late. + +Buried in their retirement in a remote part of Scotland, the little +household lived, lost to me, and lost to the world. + +In dreams, I had seen and heard Mary. In dreams, Mary saw and heard me. +The innocent longings and wishes which filled my heart while I was still +a boy were revealed to her in the mystery of sleep. Her grandmother, +holding firmly to her faith in the predestined union between us, +sustained the girl's courage and cheered her heart. She could hear her +father say (as my father had said) that we were parted to meet no more, +and could privately think of her happy dreams as the sufficient promise +of another future than the future which Dermody contemplated. So she +still lived with me in the spirit--and lived in hope. + +The first affliction that befell the little household was the death +of the grandmother, by the exhaustion of extreme old age. In her last +conscious moments, she said to Mary, "Never forget that you and George +are spirits consecrated to each other. Wait--in the certain knowledge +that no human power can hinder your union in the time to come." + +While those words were still vividly present to Mary's mind, our +visionary union by dreams was abruptly broken on her side, as it had +been abruptly broken on mine. In the first days of my self-degradation, +I had ceased to see Mary. Exactly at the same period Mary ceased to see +me. + +The girl's sensitive nature sunk under the shock. She had now no elder +woman to comfort and advise her; she lived alone with her father, who +invariably changed the subject whenever she spoke of the old times. The +secret sorrow that preys on body and mind alike preyed on _her_. A cold, +caught at the inclement season, turned to fever. For weeks she was in +danger of death. When she recovered, her head had been stripped of its +beautiful hair by the doctor's order. The sacrifice had been +necessary to save her life. It proved to be, in one respect, a cruel +sacrifice--her hair never grew plentifully again. When it did reappear, +it had completely lost its charming mingled hues of deep red and brown; +it was now of one monotonous light-brown color throughout. At first +sight, Mary's Scotch friends hardly knew her again. + +But Nature made amends for what the head had lost by what the face and +the figure gained. + +In a year from the date of her illness, the frail little child of the +old days at Greenwater Broad had ripened, in the bracing Scotch air and +the healthy mode of life, into a comely young woman. Her features were +still, as in her early years, not regularly beautiful; but the change +in her was not the less marked on that account. The wan face had filled +out, and the pale complexion had found its color. As to her figure, its +remarkable development was perceived even by the rough people about her. +Promising nothing when she was a child, it had now sprung into womanly +fullness, symmetry, and grace. It was a strikingly beautiful figure, in +the strictest sense of the word. + +Morally as well as physically, there were moments, at this period of +their lives, when even her own father hardly recognized his daughter of +former days. She had lost her childish vivacity--her sweet, equable +flow of good humor. Silent and self-absorbed, she went through the daily +routine of her duties enduringly. The hope of meeting me again had sunk +to a dead hope in her by this time. She made no complaint. The bodily +strength that she had gained in these later days had its sympathetic +influence in steadying her mind. When her father once or twice ventured +to ask if she was still thinking of me, she answered quietly that she +had brought herself to share his opinions. She could not doubt that I +had long since ceased to think of her. Even if I had remained faithful +to her, she was old enough now to know that the difference between us in +rank made our union by marriage an impossibility. It would be best (she +thought) not to refer any more to the past, best to forget me, as I had +forgotten her. So she spoke now. So, tried by the test of appearances, +Dame Dermody's confident forecast of our destinies had failed to justify +itself, and had taken its place among the predictions that are never +fulfilled. + +The next notable event in the family annals which followed Mary's +illness happened when she had attained the age of nineteen years. Even +at this distance of time my heart sinks, my courage fails me, at the +critical stage in my narrative which I have now reached. + +A storm of unusual severity burst over the eastern coast of Scotland. +Among the ships that were lost in the tempest was a vessel bound from +Holland, which was wrecked on the rocky shore near Dermody's place of +abode. Leading the way in all good actions, the bailiff led the way in +rescuing the passengers and crew of the lost ship. He had brought one +man alive to land, and was on his way back to the vessel, when two heavy +seas, following in close succession, dashed him against the rocks. +He was rescued, at the risk of their own lives, by his neighbors. The +medical examination disclosed a broken bone and severe bruises and +lacerations. So far, Dermody's sufferings were easy of relief. But, +after a lapse of time, symptoms appeared in the patient which revealed +to his medical attendant the presence of serious internal injury. In the +doctor's opinion, he could never hope to resume the active habits of +his life. He would be an invalid and a crippled man for the rest of his +days. + +Under these melancholy circumstances, the bailiff's employer did +all that could be strictly expected of him, He hired an assistant to +undertake the supervision of the farm work, and he permitted Dermody to +occupy his cottage for the next three months. This concession gave the +poor man time to recover such relics of strength as were still left to +him, and to consult his friends in Glasgow on the doubtful question of +his life to come. + +The prospect was a serious one. Dermody was quite unfit for any +sedentary employment; and the little money that he had saved was not +enough to support his daughter and himself. The Scotch friends were +willing and kind; but they had domestic claims on them, and they had no +money to spare. + +In this emergency, the passenger in the wrecked vessel (whose life +Dermody had saved) came forward with a proposal which took father and +daughter alike by surprise. He made Mary an offer of marriage; on the +express understanding (if she accepted him) that her home was to be her +father's home also to the end of his life. + +The person who thus associated himself with the Dermodys in the time +of their trouble was a Dutch gentleman, named Ernest Van Brandt. He +possessed a share in a fishing establishment on the shores of the +Zuyder Zee; and he was on his way to establish a correspondence with the +fisheries in the North of Scotland when the vessel was wrecked. Mary had +produced a strong impression on him when they first met. He had lingered +in the neighborhood, in the hope of gaining her favorable regard, with +time to help him. Personally he was a handsome man, in the prime of +life; and he was possessed of a sufficient income to marry on. In making +his proposal, he produced references to persons of high social position +in Holland, who could answer for him, so far as the questions of +character and position were concerned. + +Mary was long in considering which course it would be best for her +helpless father, and best for herself, to adopt. + +The hope of a marriage with me had been a hope abandoned by her years +since. No woman looks forward willingly to a life of cheerless celibacy. +In thinking of her future, Mary naturally thought of herself in the +character of a wife. Could she fairly expect in the time to come to +receive any more attractive proposal than the proposal now addressed +to her? Mr. Van Brandt had every personal advantage that a woman could +desire; he was devotedly in love with her; and he felt a grateful +affection for her father as the man to whom he owed his life. With no +other hope in her heart--with no other prospect in view--what could she +do better than marry Mr. Van Brandt? + +Influenced by these considerations, she decided on speaking the fatal +word. She said, "Yes." + +At the same time, she spoke plainly to Mr. Van Brandt, unreservedly +acknowledging that she had contemplated another future than the future +now set before her. She did not conceal that there had once been an old +love in her heart, and that a new love was more than she could command. +Esteem, gratitude, and regard she could honestly offer; and, with time, +love might come. For the rest, she had long since disassociated herself +from the past, and had definitely given up all the hopes and wishes once +connected with it. Repose for her father, and tranquil happiness for +herself, were the only favors that she asked of fortune now. These she +might find under the roof of an honorable man who loved and respected +her. She could promise, on her side, to make him a good and faithful +wife, if she could promise no more. It rested with Mr. Van Brandt to say +whether he really believed that he would be consulting his own happiness +in marrying her on these terms. + +Mr. Van Brandt accepted the terms without a moment's hesitation. + +They would have been married immediately but for an alarming change +for the worse in the condition of Dermody's health. Symptoms showed +themselves, which the doctor confessed that he had not anticipated when +he had given his opinion on the case. He warned Mary that the end might +be near. A physician was summoned from Edinburgh, at Mr. Van Brandt's +expense. He confirmed the opinion entertained by the country doctor. For +some days longer the good bailiff lingered. On the last morning, he +put his daughter's hand in Van Brandt's hand. "Make her happy, sir," he +said, in his simple way, "and you will be even with me for saving your +life." The same day he died quietly in his daughter's arms. + +Mary's future was now entirely in her lover's hands. The relatives in +Glasgow had daughters of their own to provide for. The relatives in +London resented Dermody's neglect of them. Van Brandt waited, delicately +and considerately, until the first violence of the girl's grief had worn +itself out, and then he pleaded irresistibly for a husband's claim to +console her. + +The time at which they were married in Scotland was also the time at +which I was on my way home from India. Mary had then reached the age of +twenty years. + + +The story of our ten years' separation is now told; the narrative leaves +us at the outset of our new lives. + +I am with my mother, beginning my career as a country gentleman on the +estate in Perthshire which I have inherited from Mr. Germaine. Mary is +with her husband, enjoying her new privileges, learning her new duties, +as a wife. She, too, is living in Scotland--living, by a strange +fatality, not very far distant from my country-house. I have no +suspicion that she is so near to me: the name of Mrs. Van Brandt (even +if I had heard it) appeals to no familiar association in my mind. Still +the kindred spirits are parted. Still there is no idea on her side, and +no idea on mine, that we shall ever meet again. + +CHAPTER VII. THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE. + +MY mother looked in at the library door, and disturbed me over my books. + +"I have been hanging a little picture in my room," she said. "Come +upstairs, my dear, and give me your opinion of it." + +I rose and followed her. She pointed to a miniature portrait, hanging +above the mantelpiece. + +"Do you know whose likeness that is?" she asked, half sadly, half +playfully. "George! Do you really not recognize yourself at thirteen +years old?" + +How should I recognize myself? Worn by sickness and sorrow; browned by +the sun on my long homeward voyage; my hair already growing thin over +my forehead; my eyes already habituated to their one sad and weary look; +what had I in common with the fair, plump, curly-headed, bright-eyed +boy who confronted me in the miniature? The mere sight of the portrait +produced the most extraordinary effect on my mind. It struck me with +an overwhelming melancholy; it filled me with a despair of myself too +dreadful to be endured. Making the best excuse I could to my mother, I +left the room. In another minute I was out of the house. + +I crossed the park, and left my own possessions behind me. Following +a by-road, I came to our well-known river; so beautiful in itself, so +famous among trout-fishers throughout Scotland. It was not then the +fishing season. No human being was in sight as I took my seat on the +bank. The old stone bridge which spanned the stream was within a hundred +yards of me; the setting sun still tinged the swift-flowing water under +the arches with its red and dying light. + +Still the boy's face in the miniature pursued me. Still the portrait +seemed to reproach me in a merciless language of its own: "Look at what +you were once; think of what you are now!" + +I hid my face in the soft, fragrant grass. I thought of the wasted years +of my life between thirteen and twenty-three. + +How was it to end? If I lived to the ordinary life of man, what prospect +had I before me? + +Love? Marriage? I burst out laughing as the idea crossed my mind. Since +the innocently happy days of my boyhood I had known no more of love than +the insect that now crept over my hand as it lay on the grass. My money, +to be sure, would buy me a wife; but would my money make her dear to +me? dear as Mary had once been, in the golden time when my portrait was +first painted? + +Mary! Was she still living? Was she married? Should I know her again if +I saw her? Absurd! I had not seen her since she was ten years old: she +was now a woman, as I was a man. Would she know _me_ if we met? The +portrait, still pursuing me, answered the question: "Look at what you +were once; think of what you are now!" + +I rose and walked backward and forward, and tried to turn the current of +my thoughts in some new direction. + +It was not to be done. After a banishment of years, Mary had got back +again into my mind. I sat down once more on the river bank. The sun was +sinking fast. Black shadows hovered under the arches of the old stone +bridge. The red light had faded from the swift-flowing water, and had +left it overspread with one monotonous hue of steely gray. The +first stars looked down peacefully from the cloudless sky. The first +shiverings of the night breeze were audible among the trees, and visible +here and there in the shallow places of the stream. And still, the +darker it grew, the more persistently my portrait led me back to the +past, the more vividly the long-lost image of the child Mary showed +itself to me in my thoughts. + +Was this the prelude of her coming back to me in dreams; in her +perfected womanhood, in the young prime of her life? + +It might be so. + +I was no longer unworthy of her, as I had once been. The effect produced +on me by the sight of my portrait was in itself due to moral and mental +changes in me for the better, which had been steadily proceeding since +the time when my wound had laid me helpless among strangers in a strange +land. Sickness, which has made itself teacher and friend to many a man, +had made itself teacher and friend to me. I looked back with horror at +the vices of my youth; at the fruitless after-days when I had impiously +doubted all that is most noble, all that is most consoling in human +life. Consecrated by sorrow, purified by repentance, was it vain in me +to hope that her spirit a nd my spirit might yet be united again? Who +could tell? + +I rose once more. It could serve no good purpose to linger until night +by the banks of the river. I had left the house, feeling the impulse +which drives us, in certain excited conditions of the mind, to take +refuge in movement and change. The remedy had failed; my mind was as +strangely disturbed as ever. My wisest course would be to go home, and +keep my good mother company over her favorite game of piquet. + +I turned to take the road back, and stopped, struck by the tranquil +beauty of the last faint light in the western sky, shining behind the +black line formed by the parapet of the bridge. + +In the grand gathering of the night shadows, in the deep stillness of +the dying day, I stood alone and watched the sinking light. + +As I looked, there came a change over the scene. Suddenly and softly a +living figure glided into view on the bridge. It passed behind the black +line of the parapet, in the last long rays of the western light. It +crossed the bridge. It paused, and crossed back again half-way. Then it +stopped. The minutes passed, and there the figure stood, a motionless +black object, behind the black parapet of the bridge. + +I advanced a little, moving near enough to obtain a closer view of the +dress in which the figure was attired. The dress showed me that the +solitary stranger was a woman. + +She did not notice me in the shadow which the trees cast on the bank. +She stood with her arms folded in her cloak, looking down at the +darkening river. + +Why was she waiting there at the close of evening alone? + +As the question occurred to me, I saw her head move. She looked along +the bridge, first on one side of her, then on the other. Was she +waiting for some person who was to meet her? Or was she suspicious of +observation, and anxious to make sure that she was alone? + +A sudden doubt of her purpose in seeking that solitary place, a sudden +distrust of the lonely bridge and the swift-flowing river, set my heart +beating quickly and roused me to instant action. I hurried up the +rising ground which led from the river-bank to the bridge, determined on +speaking to her while the opportunity was still mine. + +She neither saw nor heard me until I was close to her. I approached with +an irrepressible feeling of agitation; not knowing how she might receive +me when I spoke to her. The moment she turned and faced me, my composure +came back. It was as if, expecting to see a stranger, I had unexpectedly +encountered a friend. + +And yet she _was_ a stranger. I had never before looked on that grave +and noble face, on that grand figure whose exquisite grace and symmetry +even her long cloak could not wholly hide. She was not, perhaps, +a strictly beautiful woman. There were defects in her which were +sufficiently marked to show themselves in the fading light. Her hair, +for example, seen under the large garden hat that she wore, looked +almost as short as the hair of a man; and the color of it was of that +dull, lusterless brown hue which is so commonly seen in English women +of the ordinary type. Still, in spite of these drawbacks, there was a +latent charm in her expression, there was an inbred fascination in her +manner, which instantly found its way to my sympathies and its hold on +my admiration. She won me in the moment when I first looked at her. + +"May I inquire if you have lost your way?" I asked. + +Her eyes rested on my face with a strange look of inquiry in them. She +did not appear to be surprised or confused at my venturing to address +her. + +"I know this part of the country well," I went on. "Can I be of any use +to you?" + +She still looked at me with steady, inquiring eyes. For a moment, +stranger as I was, my face seemed to trouble her as if it had been a +face that she had seen and forgotten again. If she really had this idea, +she at once dismissed it with a little toss of her head, and looked away +at the river as if she felt no further interest in me. + +"Thank you. I have not lost my way. I am accustomed to walking alone. +Good-evening." + +She spoke coldly, but courteously. Her voice was delicious; her bow, as +she left me, was the perfection of unaffected grace. She left the bridge +on the side by which I had first seen her approach it, and walked slowly +away along the darkening track of the highroad. + +Still I was not quite satisfied. There was something underlying the +charming expression and the fascinating manner which my instinct felt +to be something wrong. As I walked away toward the opposite end of the +bridge, the doubt began to grow on me whether she had spoken the truth. +In leaving the neighborhood of the river, was she simply trying to get +rid of me? + +I at once resolved to put this suspicion of her to the test. Leaving the +bridge, I had only to cross the road beyond, and to enter a plantation +on the bank of the river. Here, concealed behind the first tree which +was large enough to hide me, I could command a view of the bridge, and I +could fairly count on detecting her, if she returned to the river, while +there was a ray of light to see her by. It was not easy walking in the +obscurity of the plantation: I had almost to grope my way to the nearest +tree that suited my purpose. + +I had just steadied my foothold on the uneven ground behind the tree, +when the stillness of the twilight hour was suddenly broken by the +distant sound of a voice. + +The voice was a woman's. It was not raised to any high pitch; its accent +was the accent of prayer, and the words it uttered were these: + +"Christ, have mercy on me!" + +There was silence again. A nameless fear crept over me, as I looked out +on the bridge. + +She was standing on the parapet. Before I could move, before I could +cry out, before I could even breathe again freely, she leaped into the +river. + +The current ran my way. I could see her, as she rose to the surface, +floating by in the light on the mid-stream. I ran headlong down the +bank. She sank again, in the moment when I stopped to throw aside my +hat and coat and to kick off my shoes. I was a practiced swimmer. The +instant I was in the water my composure came back to me--I felt like +myself again. + +The current swept me out into the mid-stream, and greatly increased +the speed at which I swam. I was close behind her when she rose for +the second time--a shadowy thing, just visible a few inches below the +surface of the river. One more stroke, and my left arm was round her; I +had her face out of the water. She was insensible. I could hold her in +the right way to leave me master of all my movements; I could devote +myself, without flurry or fatigue, to the exertion of taking her back to +the shore. + +My first attempt satisfied me that there was no reasonable hope, +burdened as I now was, of breasting the strong current running toward +the mid-river from either bank. I tried it on one side, and I tried +it on the other, and gave it up. The one choice left was to let myself +drift with her down the stream. Some fifty yards lower, the river took +a turn round a promontory of land, on which stood a little inn much +frequented by anglers in the season. As we approached the place, I made +another attempt (again an attempt in vain) to reach the shore. Our last +chance now was to be heard by the people of the inn. I shouted at the +full pitch of my voice as we drifted past. The cry was answered. A +man put off in a boat. In five minutes more I had her safe on the bank +again; and the man and I were carrying her to the inn by the river-side. + +The landlady and her servant-girl were equally willing to be of service, +and equally ignorant of what they were to do. Fortunately, my medical +education made me competent to direct them. A good fire, warm blankets, +hot water in bottles, were all at my disposal. I showed the women myself +how to ply the work of revival. They persevered, and I persevered; and +still there she lay, in her perfect beauty of form, without a sign of +life perceptible; there she lay, to all outward appearance, dead by +drowning. + +A last hope was left--the hope of restoring her (if I could construct +the apparatus in time) by the process called "artificial respiration." +I was just endeavoring to tell the landlady what I wanted and was just +conscious o f a strange difficulty in expressing myself, when the good +woman started back, and looked at me with a scream of terror. + +"Good God, sir, you're bleeding!" she cried. "What's the matter? Where +are you hurt?" + +In the moment when she spoke to me I knew what had happened. The old +Indian wound (irritated, doubtless, by the violent exertion that I had +imposed on myself) had opened again. I struggled against the sudden +sense of faintness that seized on me; I tried to tell the people of the +inn what to do. It was useless. I dropped to my knees; my head sunk on +the bosom of the woman stretched senseless upon the low couch beneath +me. The death-in-life that had got _her_ had got _me_. Lost to the world +about us, we lay, with my blood flowing on her, united in our deathly +trance. + +Where were our spirits at that moment? Were they together and conscious +of each other? United by a spiritual bond, undiscovered and unsuspected +by us in the flesh, did we two, who had met as strangers on the fatal +bridge, know each other again in the trance? You who have loved and +lost--you whose one consolation it has been to believe in other worlds +than this--can you turn from my questions in contempt? Can you honestly +say that they have never been _your_ questions too? + +CHAPTER VIII. THE KINDRED SPIRITS + +THE morning sunlight shining in at a badly curtained window; a clumsy +wooden bed, with big twisted posts that reached to the ceiling; on one +side of the bed, my mother's welcome face; on the other side, an elderly +gentleman unremembered by me at that moment--such were the objects that +presented themselves to my view, when I first consciously returned to +the world that we live in. + +"Look, doctor, look! He has come to his senses at last." + +"Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this." My mother was rejoicing +over me on one side of the bed; and the unknown gentleman, addressed as +"doctor," was offering me a spoonful of whisky-and-water on the other. +He called it the "elixir of life"; and he bid me remark (speaking in +a strong Scotch accent) that he tasted it himself to show he was in +earnest. + +The stimulant did its good work. My head felt less giddy, my mind became +clearer. I could speak collectedly to my mother; I could vaguely recall +the more marked events of the previous evening. A minute or two more, +and the image of the person in whom those events had all centered became +a living image in my memory. I tried to raise myself in the bed; I +asked, impatiently, "Where is she?" + +The doctor produced another spoonful of the elixir of life, and gravely +repeated his first address to me. + +"Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this." + +I persisted in repeating my question: + +"Where is she?" + +The doctor persisted in repeating his formula: + +"Take a sup of this." + +I was too weak to contest the matter; I obeyed. My medical attendant +nodded across the bed to my mother, and said, "Now, he'll do." My mother +had some compassion on me. She relieved my anxiety in these plain words: + +"The lady has quite recovered, George, thanks to the doctor here." + +I looked at my professional colleague with a new interest. He was the +legitimate fountainhead of the information that I was dying to have +poured into my mind. + +"How did you revive her?" I asked. "Where is she now?" + +The doctor held up his hand, warning me to stop. + +"We shall do well, sir, if we proceed systematically," he began, in a +very positive manner. "You will understand, that every time you open +your mouth, it will be to take a sup of this, and not to speak. I shall +tell you, in due course, and the good lady, your mother, will tell you, +all that you have any need to know. As I happen to have been first on +what you may call the scene of action, it stands in the fit order of +things that I should speak first. You will just permit me to mix a +little more of the elixir of life, and then, as the poet says, my plain +unvarnished tale I shall deliver." + +So he spoke, pronouncing in his strong Scotch accent the most carefully +selected English I had ever heard. A hard-headed, square-shouldered, +pertinaciously self-willed man--it was plainly useless to contend with +him. I turned to my mother's gentle face for encouragement; and I let my +doctor have his own way. + +"My name," he proceeded, "is MacGlue. I had the honor of presenting +my respects at your house yonder when you first came to live in this +neighborhood. You don't remember me at present, which is natural +enough in the unbalanced condition of your mind, consequent, you will +understand (as a professional person yourself) on copious loss of +blood." + +There my patience gave way. + +"Never mind me!" I interposed. "Tell me about the lady!" + +"You have opened your mouth, sir!" cried Mr. MacGlue, severely. "You +know the penalty--take a sup of this. I told you we should proceed +systematically," he went on, after he had forced me to submit to the +penalty. "Everything in its place, Mr. Germaine--everything in its +place. I was speaking of your bodily condition. Well, sir, and how did +I discover your bodily condition? Providentially for _you_ I was driving +home yesterday evening by the lower road (which is the road by the river +bank), and, drawing near to the inn here (they call it a hotel; it's +nothing but an inn), I heard the screeching of the landlady half a mile +off. A good woman enough, you will understand, as times go; but a poor +creature in any emergency. Keep still, I'm coming to it now. Well, +I went in to see if the screeching related to anything wanted in the +medical way; and there I found you and the stranger lady in a position +which I may truthfully describe as standing in some need of improvement +on the score of propriety. Tut! tut! I speak jocosely--you were both in +a dead swoon. Having heard what the landlady had to tell me, and having, +to the best of my ability, separated history from hysterics in the +course of the woman's narrative, I found myself, as it were, placed +between two laws. The law of gallantry, you see, pointed to the lady as +the first object of my professional services, while the law of humanity +(seeing that you were still bleeding) pointed no less imperatively to +you. I am no longer a young man: I left the lady to wait. My word! it +was no light matter, Mr. Germaine, to deal with your case, and get you +carried up here out of the way. That old wound of yours, sir, is not to +be trifled with. I bid you beware how you open it again. The next time +you go out for an evening walk and you see a lady in the water, you will +do well for your own health to leave her there. What's that I see? Are +you opening your mouth again? Do you want another sup already?" + +"He wants to hear more about the lady," said my mother, interpreting my +wishes for me. + +"Oh, the lady," resumed Mr. MacGlue, with the air of a man who found no +great attraction in the subject proposed to him. "There's not much that +I know of to be said about the lady. A fine woman, no doubt. If you +could strip the flesh off her bones, you would find a splendid skeleton +underneath. For, mind this! there's no such thing as a finely made woman +without a good bony scaffolding to build her on at starting. I don't +think much of this lady--morally speaking, you will understand. If I +may be permitted to say so in your presence, ma'am, there's a man in the +background of that dramatic scene of hers on the bridge. However, not +being the man myself, I have nothing to do with that. My business with +the lady was just to set her vital machinery going again. And, Heaven +knows, she proved a heavy handful! It was even a more obstinate case to +deal with, sir, than yours. I never, in all my experience, met with two +people more unwilling to come back to this world and its troubles than +you two were. And when I had done the business at last, when I was +wellnigh swooning myself with the work and the worry of it, guess--I +give you leave to speak for this once--guess what were the first words +the lady said to me when she came to herself again." + +I was too much excited to be able to exercise my ingenuity. "I give it +up!" I said, impatiently. + +"You may well give it up," remarked Mr. MacGlue. "The first words she +addressed, sir, to the man who had dragged her out of the very jaws of +death were these: 'How dare you meddle with me? why didn't you leave +me to die?' Her exact language--I'll take my Bible oath of it. I was so +provoked that I gave her the change back (as the saying is) in her own +coin. 'There's the river handy, ma'am,' I said; 'do it again. I, for +one, won't stir a hand to save you; I promise you that.' She looked up +sharply. 'Are you the man who took me out of the river?' she said. 'God +forbid!' says I. 'I'm only the doctor who was fool enough to meddle +with you afterward.' She turned to the landlady. 'Who took me out of +the river?' she asked. The landlady told her, and mentioned your name. +'Germaine?' she said to herself; 'I know nobody named Germaine; I wonder +whether it was the man who spoke to me on the bridge?' 'Yes,' says the +landlady; 'Mr. Germaine said he met you on the bridge.' Hearing that, +she took a little time to think; and then she asked if she could see Mr. +Germaine. 'Whoever he is,' she says, 'he has risked his life to save me, +and I ought to thank him for doing that.' 'You can't thank him tonight,' +I said; 'I've got him upstairs between life and death, and I've sent +for his mother: wait till to-morrow.' She turned on me, looking half +frightened, half angry. 'I can't wait,' she says; 'you don't know what +you have done among you in bringing me back to life. I must leave this +neighborhood; I must be out of Perthshire to-morrow: when does the first +coach southward pass this way?' Having nothing to do with the first +coach southward, I referred her to the people of the inn. My business +(now I had done with the lady) was upstairs in this room, to see how you +were getting on. You were getting on as well as I could wish, and your +mother was at your bedside. I went home to see what sick people might be +waiting for me in the regular way. When I came back this morning, there +was the foolish landlady with a new tale to tell 'Gone!' says she. +'Who's gone?' says I. 'The lady,' says she, 'by the first coach this +morning!'" + +"You don't mean to tell me that she has left the house?" I exclaimed. + +"Oh, but I do!" said the doctor, as positively as ever. "Ask madam your +mother here, and she'll certify it to your heart's content. I've got +other sick ones to visit, and I'm away on my rounds. You'll see no more +of the lady; and so much the better, I'm thinking. In two hours' time +I'll be back again; and if I don't find you the worse in the interim, +I'll see about having you transported from this strange place to the +snug bed that knows you at home. Don't let him talk, ma'am, don't let +him talk." + +With those parting words, Mr. MacGlue left us to ourselves. + +"Is it really true?" I said to my mother. "Has she left the inn, without +waiting to see me?" + +"Nobody could stop her, George," my mother answered. "The lady left the +inn this morning by the coach for Edinburgh." + +I was bitterly disappointed. Yes: "bitterly" is the word--though she +_was_ a stranger to me. + +"Did you see her yourself?" I asked. + +"I saw her for a few minutes, my dear, on my way up to your room." + +"What did she say?" + +"She begged me to make her excuses to you. She said, 'Tell Mr. Germaine +that my situation is dreadful; no human creature can help me. I must +go away. My old life is as much at an end as if your son had left me to +drown in the river. I must find a new life for myself, in a new place. +Ask Mr. Germaine to forgive me for going away without thanking him. I +daren't wait! I may be followed and found out. There is a person whom I +am determined never to see again--never! never! never! Good-by; and try +to forgive me!' She hid her face in her hands, and said no more. I tried +to win her confidence; it was not to be done; I was compelled to leave +her. There is some dreadful calamity, George, in that wretched woman's +life. And such an interesting creature, too! It was impossible not to +pity her, whether she deserved it or not. Everything about her is a +mystery, my dear. She speaks English without the slightest foreign +accent, and yet she has a foreign name." + +"Did she give you her name?" + +"No, and I was afraid to ask her to give it. But the landlady here +is not a very scrupulous person. She told me she looked at the poor +creature's linen while it was drying by the fire. The name marked on it +was, 'Van Brandt.'" + +"Van Brandt?" I repeated. "That sounds like a Dutch name. And yet you +say she spoke like an Englishwoman. Perhaps she was born in England." + +"Or perhaps she may be married," suggested my mother; "and Van Brandt +may be the name of her husband." + +The idea of her being a married woman had something in it repellent +to me. I wished my mother had not thought of that last suggestion. I +refused to receive it. I persisted in my own belief that the stranger +was a single woman. In that character, I could indulge myself in the +luxury of thinking of her; I could consider the chances of my being able +to trace this charming fugitive, who had taken so strong a hold on my +interest--whose desperate attempt at suicide had so nearly cost me my +own life. + +If she had gone as far as Edinburgh (which she would surely do, being +bent on avoiding discovery), the prospect of finding her again--in that +great city, and in my present weak state of health--looked doubtful +indeed. Still, there was an underlying hopefulness in me which kept +my spirits from being seriously depressed. I felt a purely imaginary +(perhaps I ought to say, a purely superstitious) conviction that we who +had nearly died together, we who had been brought to life together, were +surely destined to be involved in some future joys or sorrows common to +us both. "I fancy I shall see her again," was my last thought before my +weakness overpowered me, and I sunk into a peaceful sleep. + +That night I was removed from the inn to my own room at home; and that +night I saw her again in a dream. + +The image of her was as vividly impressed on me as the far different +image of the child Mary, when I used to see it in the days of old. +The dream-figure of the woman was robed as I had seen it robed on the +bridge. She wore the same broad-brimmed garden-hat of straw. She looked +at me as she had looked when I approached her in the dim evening light. +After a little her face brightened with a divinely beautiful smile; and +she whispered in my ear, "Friend, do you know me?" + +I knew her, most assuredly; and yet it was with an incomprehensible +after-feeling of doubt. Recognizing her in my dream as the stranger +who had so warmly interested me, I was, nevertheless, dissatisfied with +myself, as if it had not been the right recognition. I awoke with this +idea; and I slept no more that night. + +In three days' time I was strong enough to go out driving with my +mother, in the comfortable, old-fashioned, open carriage which had once +belonged to Mr. Germaine. + +On the fourth day we arranged to make an excursion to a little waterfall +in our neighborhood. My mother had a great admiration of the place, and +had often expressed a wish to possess some memorial of it. I resolved +to take my sketch-book: with me, on the chance that I might be able to +please her by making a drawing of her favorite scene. + +Searching for the sketch-book (which I had not used for years), I found +it in an old desk of mine that had remained unopened since my departure +for India. In the course of my investigation, I opened a drawer in the +desk, and discovered a relic of the old times--my poor little Mary's +first work in embroidery, the green flag! + +The sight of the forgotten keepsake took my mind back to the bailiff's +cottage, and reminded me of Dame Dermody, and her confident prediction +about Mary and me. + +I smiled as I recalled the old woman's assertion that no human power +could "hinder the union of the kindred spirits of the children in the +time to come." What had become of the prophesied dreams in which we were +to communicate with each other through the term of our separation? Years +had passed; and, sleeping or waking, I had seen nothing of Mary. Years +had passed; and the first vision of a woman that had come to me had +been my dream a few nights since of the stranger whom I had saved from +drowning. I thought of these chances and changes in my life, but not +contemptuously or bitterly. The new love that was now stealing its way +into my heart had softened and humanized me. I said to myself, "Ah, poor +little Mary!" and I kissed the green flag, in grateful memory of the +days that were gone forever. + +We drove to the waterfall. + +It was a beautiful day; the lonely sylvan scene was at its brightest +and best. A wooden summer-house, commanding a prospect of the falling +stream, had been built for the accommodation of pleasure parties by the +proprietor of the place. My mother suggested that I should try to make +a sketch of the view from this point. I did my best to please her, but I +was not satisfied with the result; and I abandoned my drawing before it +was half finished. Leaving my sketch-book and pencil on the table of the +summer-house, I proposed to my mother to cross a little wooden bridge +which spanned the stream, below the fall, and to see how the landscape +looked from a new point of view. + +The prospect of the waterfall, as seen from the opposite bank, presented +even greater difficulties, to an amateur artist like me, than the +prospect which he had just left. We returned to the summer-house. + +I was the first to approach the open door. I stopped, checked in my +advance by an unexpected discovery. The summer-house was no longer empty +as we had left it. A lady was seated at the table with my pencil in her +hand, writing in my sketch-book! + +After waiting a moment, I advanced a few steps nearer to the door, and +stopped again in breathless amazement. The stranger in the summer-house +was now plainly revealed to me as the woman who had attempted to destroy +herself from the bridge! + +There was no doubt about it. There was the dress; there was the +memorable face which I had seen in the evening light, which I had +dreamed of only a few nights since! The woman herself--I saw her as +plainly as I saw the sun shining on the waterfall--the woman herself, +with my pencil in her hand, writing in my book! + +My mother was close behind me. She noticed my agitation. "George!" she +exclaimed, "what is the matter with you?" + +I pointed through the open door of the summer-house. + +"Well?" said my mother. "What am I to look at?" + +"Don't you see somebody sitting at the table and writing in my +sketch-book?" + +My mother eyed me quickly. "Is he going to be ill again?" I heard her +say to herself. + +At the same moment the woman laid down the pencil and rose slowly to her +feet. + +She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes: she lifted her hand +and beckoned me to approach her. I obeyed. Moving without conscious will +of my own, drawn nearer and nearer to her by an irresistible power, I +ascended the short flight of stairs which led into the summer-house. +Within a few paces of her I stopped. She advanced a step toward me, and +laid her hand gently on my bosom. Her touch filled me with strangely +united sensations of rapture and awe. After a while, she spoke in low +melodious tones, which mingled in my ear with the distant murmur of the +falling water, until the two sounds became one. I heard in the murmur, +I heard in the voice, these words: "Remember me. Come to me." Her hand +dropped from my bosom; a momentary obscurity passed like a flying shadow +over the bright daylight in the room. I looked for her when the light +came back. She was gone. + +My consciousness of passing events returned. + +I saw the lengthening shadows outside, which told me that the evening +was at hand. I saw the carriage approaching the summerhouse to take us +away. I felt my mother's hand on my arm, and heard her voice speaking +to me anxiously. I was able to reply by a sign entreating her not to be +uneasy about me, but I could do no more. I was absorbed, body and soul, +in the one desire to look at the sketch-book. As certainly as I had +seen the woman, so certainly I had seen her, with my pencil in her hand, +writing in my book. + +I advanced to the table on which the book was lying open. I looked at +the blank space on the lower part of the page, under the foreground +lines of my unfinished drawing. My mother, following me, looked at the +page too. + +There was the writing! The woman had disappeared, but there were her +written words left behind her: visible to my mother as well as to me, +readable by my mother's eyes as well as by mine! + +These were the words we saw, arranged in two lines, as I copy them here: + + When the full moon shines + On Saint Anthony's Well. + + +CHAPTER IX. NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. + +I POINTED to the writing in the sketch book, and looked at my mother. I +was not mistaken. She _had_ seen it, as I had seen it. But she refused +to acknowledge that anything had happened to alarm her--plainly as I +could detect it in her face. + +"Somebody has been playing a trick on you, George," she said. + +I made no reply. It was needless to say anything. My poor mother was +evidently as far from being satisfied with her own shallow explanation +as I was. The carriage waited for us at the door. We set forth in +silence on our drive home. + +The sketch-book lay open on my knee. My eyes were fastened on it; my +mind was absorbed in recalling the moment when the apparition beckoned +me into the summer-house and spoke. Putting the words and the writing +together, the conclusion was too plain to be mistaken. The woman whom I +had saved from drowning had need of me again. + +And this was the same woman who, in her own proper person, had not +hesitated to seize the first opportunity of leaving the house in which +we had been sheltered together--without stopping to say one grateful +word to the man who had preserved her from death! Four days only had +elapsed since she had left me, never (to all appearance) to see me +again. And now the ghostly apparition of her had returned as to a tried +and trusted friend; had commanded me to remember her and to go to her; +and had provided against all possibility of my memory playing me false, +by writing the words which invited me to meet her "when the full moon +shone on Saint Anthony's Well." + +What had happened in the interval? What did the supernatural manner of +her communication with me mean? What ought my next course of action to +be? + +My mother roused me from my reflections. She stretched out her hand, and +suddenly closed the open book on my knee, as if the sight of the writing +in it were unendurable to her. + +"Why don't you speak to me, George?" she said. "Why do you keep your +thoughts to yourself?" + +"My mind is lost in confusion," I answered. "I can suggest nothing and +explain nothing. My thoughts are all bent on the one question of what +I am to do next. On that point I believe I may say that my mind is made +up." I touched the sketch-book as I spoke. "Come what may of it," I +said, "I mean to keep the appointment." + +My mother looked at me as if she doubted the evidence of her own senses. + +"He talks as if it were a real thing!" she exclaimed. "George, you don't +really believe that you saw somebody in the summer-house? The place was +empty. I tell you positively, when you pointed into the summer-house, +the place was empty. You have been thinking and thinking of this woman +till you persuade yourself that you have actually seen her." + +I opened the sketch-book again. "I thought I saw her writing on this +page," I answered. "Look at it, and tell me if I was wrong." + +My mother refused to look at it. Steadily as she persisted in taking the +rational view, nevertheless the writing frightened her. + +"It is not a week yet," she went on, "since I saw you lying between +life and death in your bed at the inn. How can you talk of keeping the +appointment, in your state of health? An appointment with a shadowy +Something in your own imagination, which appears and disappears, and +leaves substantial writing behind it! It's ridiculous, George; I wonder +you can help laughing at yourself." + +She tried to set the example of laughing at me--with the tears in her +eyes, poor soul! as she made the useless effort. I began to regret +having opened my mind so freely to her. + +"Don't take the matter too seriously, mother," I said. "Perhaps I may +not be able to find the place. I never heard of Saint Anthony's Well; I +have not the least idea where it is. Suppose I make the discovery, and +suppose the journey turns out to be an easy one, would you like to go +with me?" + +"God forbid" cried my mother, fervently. "I will have nothing to do +with it, George. You are in a state of delusion; I shall speak to the +doctor." + +"By all means, my dear mother. Mr. MacGlue is a sensible person. We +pass his house on our way home, and we will ask him to dinner. In the +meantime, let us say no more on the subject till we see the doctor." + +I spoke lightly, but I really meant what I said. My mind was sadly +disturbed; my nerves were so shaken that the slightest noises on the +road startled me. The opinion of a man like Mr. MacGlue, who looked +at all mortal matters from the same immovably practical point of view, +might really have its use, in my case, as a species of moral remedy. + + +We waited until the dessert was on the table, and the servants had left +the dining-room. Then I told my story to the Scotch doctor as I have +told it here; and, that done, I opened the sketch-book to let him see +the writing for himself. + +Had I turned to the wrong page? + +I started to my feet, and held the book close to the light of the lamp +that hung over the dining table. No: I had found the right page. There +was my half-finished drawing of the waterfall--but where were the two +lines of writing beneath? + +Gone! + +I strained my eyes; I looked and looked. And the blank white paper +looked back at me. + +I placed the open leaf before my mother. "You saw it as plainly as I +did," I said. "Are my own eyes deceiving me? Look at the bottom of the +page." + +My mother sunk back in her chair with a cry of terror. + +"Gone?" I asked. + +"Gone!" + +I turned to the doctor. He took me completely by surprise. No +incredulous smile appeared on his face; no jesting words passed his +lips. He was listening to us attentively. He was waiting gravely to hear +more. + +"I declare to you, on my word of honor," I said to him, "that I saw the +apparition writing with my pencil at the bottom of that page. I declare +that I took the book in my hand, and saw these words written in it, +'When the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' Not more than three +hours have passed since that time; and, see for yourself, not a vestige +of the writing remains." + +"Not a vestige of the writing remains," Mr. MacGlue repeated, quietly. + +"If you feel the slightest doubt of what I have told you," I went on, +"ask my mother; she will bear witness that she saw the writing too." + +"I don't doubt that you both saw the writing," answered Mr. MacGlue, +with a composure that surprised me. + +"Can you account for it?" I asked. + +"Well," said the impenetrable doctor, "if I set my wits at work, I +believe I might account for it to the satisfaction of some people. For +example, I might give you what they call the rational explanation, to +begin with. I might say that you are, to my certain knowledge, in a +highly excited nervous condition; and that, when you saw the apparition +(as you call it), you simply saw nothing but your own strong impression +of an absent woman, who (as I greatly fear) has got on the weak or +amatory side of you. I mean no offense, Mr. Germaine--" + +"I take no offense, doctor. But excuse me for speaking plainly--the +rational explanation is thrown away on me." + +"I'll readily excuse you," answered Mr. MacGlue; "the rather that I'm +entirely of your opinion. I don't believe in the rational explanation +myself." + +This was surprising, to say the least of it. "What _do_ you believe in?" +I inquired. + +Mr. MacGlue declined to let me hurry him. + +"Wait a little," he said. "There's the _ir_rational explanation to try +next. Maybe it will fit itself to the present state of your mind better +than the other. We will say this time that you have really seen the +ghost (or double) of a living person. Very good. If you can suppose a +disembodied spirit to appear in earthly clothing--of silk or merino, as +the case may be--it's no great stretch to suppose, next, that this same +spirit is capable of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortal +words in a mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost vanishes (which your +ghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the writing should +follow the example and vanish too. And the reason of the vanishment may +be (if you want a reason), either that the ghost does not like letting a +stranger like me into its secrets, or that vanishing is a settled habit +of ghosts and of everything associated with them, or that this ghost +has changed its mind in the course of three hours (being the ghost of +a woman, I am sure that's not wonderful), and doesn't care to see +you 'when the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' There's the +_ir_rational explanation for you. And, speaking for myself, I'm bound to +add that I don't set a pin's value on _that_ explanation either." + +Mr. MacGlue's sublime indifference to both sides of the question began +to irritate me. + +"In plain words, doctor," I said, "you don't think the circumstances +that I have mentioned to you worthy of serious investigation?" + +"I don't think serious investigation capable of dealing with the +circumstances," answered the doctor. "Put it in that way, and you put it +right. Just look round you. Here we three persons are alive and hearty +at this snug table. If (which God forbid!) good Mistress Germaine or +yourself were to fall down dead in another moment, I, doctor as I am, +could no more explain what first principle of life and movement had +been suddenly extinguished in you than the dog there sleeping on the +hearth-rug. If I am content to sit down ignorant in the face of such an +impenetrable mystery as this--presented to me, day after day, every time +I see a living creature come into the world or go out of it--why may I +not sit down content in the face of your lady in the summer-house, and +say she's altogether beyond my fathoming, and there is an end of her?" + +At those words my mother joined in the conversation for the first time. + +"Ah, sir," she said, "if you could only persuade my son to take +your sensible view, how happy I should be! Would you believe it?--he +positively means (if he can find the place) to go to Saint Anthony's +Well!" + +Even this revelation entirely failed to surprise Mr. MacGlue. + +"Ay, ay. He means to keep his appointment with the ghost, does he? Well, +I can be of some service to him if he sticks to his resolution. I can +tell him of another man who kept a written appointment with a ghost, and +what came of it."* + +This was a startling announcement. Did he really mean what he said? + +"Are you in jest or in earnest?" I asked. + +"I never joke, sir," said Mr. MacGlue. "No sick person really believes +in a doctor who jokes. I defy you to show me a man at the head of our +profession who has ever been discovered in high spirits (in medical +hours) by his nearest and dearest friend. You may have wondered, I dare +say, at seeing me take your strange narrative as coolly as I do. It +comes naturally, sir. Yours is not the first story of a ghost and a +pencil that I have heard." + +"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that you know of another man who has +seen what I have seen?" + +"That's just what I mean to tell you," rejoined the doctor. "The man was +a far-away Scots cousin of my late wife, who bore the honorable name +of Bruce, and followed a seafaring life. I'll take another glass of the +sherry wine, just to wet my whistle, as the vulgar saying is, before +I begin. Well, you must know, Bruce was mate of a bark at the time I'm +speaking of, and he was on a voyage from Liverpool to New Brunswick. At +noon one day, he and the captain, having taken their observation of the +sun, were hard at it below, working out the latitude and longitude on +their slates. Bruce, in his cabin, looked across through the open door +of the captain's cabin opposite. 'What do you make it, sir?' says Brace. +The man in the captain's cabin looked up. And what did Bruce see? The +face of the captain? Devil a bit of it--the face of a total stranger! +Up jumps Bruce, with his heart going full gallop all in a moment, and +searches for the captain on deck, and finds him much as usual, with his +calculations done, and his latitude and longitude off his mind for the +day. 'There's somebody at your desk, sir,' says Bruce. 'He's writing on +your slate; and he's a total stranger to me.' 'A stranger in my cabin?' +says the captain. 'Why, Mr. Bruce, the ship has been six weeks out of +port. How did he get on board?' Bruce doesn't know how, but he sticks to +his story. Away goes the captain, and bursts like a whirlwind into his +cabin, and finds nobody there. Bruce himself is obliged to acknowledge +that the place is certainly empty. 'If I didn't know you were a sober +man,' says the captain, 'I should charge you with drinking. As it is, +I'll hold you accountable for nothing worse than dreaming. Don't do it +again, Mr. Bruce.' Bruce sticks to his story; Bruce swears he saw the +man writing on the captain's slate. The captain takes up the slate and +looks at it. 'Lord save us and bless us!' says he; 'here the writing is, +sure enough!' Bruce looks at it too, and sees the writing as plainly +as can be, in these words: 'Steer to the nor'-west.' That, and no +more.--Ah, goodness me, narrating is dry work, Mr. Germaine. With your +leave, I'll take another drop of the sherry wine. + +"Well (it's fine old wine, that; look at the oily drops running down the +glass)--well, steering to the north-west, you will understand, was +out of the captain's course. Nevertheless, finding no solution of the +mystery on board the ship, and the weather at the time being fine, the +captain determined, while the daylight lasted, to alter his course, and +see what came of it. Toward three o'clock in the afternoon an iceberg +came of it; with a wrecked ship stove in, and frozen fast to the ice; +and the passengers and crew nigh to death with cold and exhaustion. +Wonderful enough, you will say; but more remains behind. As the mate +was helping one of the rescued passengers up the side of the bark, who +should he turn out to be but the very man whose ghostly appearance Bruce +had seen in the captain's cabin writing on the captain's slate! And more +than that--if your capacity for being surprised isn't clean worn out by +this time--the passenger recognized the bark as the very vessel which he +had seen in a dream at noon that day. He had even spoken of it to one +of the officers on board the wrecked ship when he woke. 'We shall be +rescued to-day,' he had said; and he had exactly described the rig of +the bark hours and hours before the vessel herself hove in view. Now you +know, Mr. Germaine, how my wife's far-away cousin kept an appointment +with a ghost, and what came of it."* + +Concluding his story in these words, the doctor helped himself to +another glass of the "sherry wine." I was not satisfied yet; I wanted to +know more. + +"The writing on the slate," I said. "Did it remain there, or did it +vanish like the writing in my book?" + +Mr. MacGlue's answer disappointed me. He had never asked, and had never +heard, whether the writing had remained or not. He had told me all +that he knew, and he had but one thing more to say, and that was in the +nature of a remark with a moral attached to it. "There's a marvelous +resemblance, Mr. Germaine, between your story and Bruce's story. The +main difference, as I see it, is this. The passenger's appointment +proved to be the salvation of a whole ship's company. I very much doubt +whether the lady's appointment will prove to be the salvation of You." + +I silently reconsidered the strange narrative which had just been +related to me. Another man had seen what I had seen--had done what I +proposed to do! My mother noticed with grave displeasure the strong +impression which Mr. MacGlue had produced on my mind. + +"I wish you had kept your story to yourself, doctor," she said, sharply. + +"May I ask why, madam?" + +"You have confirmed my son, sir, in his resolution to go to Saint +Anthony's Well." + +Mr. MacGlue quietly consulted his pocket almanac before he replied. + +"It's the full moon on the ninth of the month," he said. "That gives Mr. +Germaine some days of rest, ma'am, before he takes the journey. If he +travels in his own comfortable carriage--whatever I may think, morally +speaking, of his enterprise--I can't say, medically speaking, that I +believe it will do him much harm." + +"You know where Saint Anthony's Well is?" I interposed. + +"I must be mighty ignorant of Edinburgh not to know that," replied the +doctor. + +"Is the Well in Edinburgh, then?" + +"It's just outside Edinburgh--looks down on it, as you may say. You +follow the old street called the Canongate to the end. You turn to your +right past the famous Palace of Holyrood; you cross the Park and the +Drive, and take your way upward to the ruins of Anthony's Chapel, on the +shoulder of the hill--and there you are! There's a high rock behind +the chapel, and at the foot of it you will find the spring they call +Anthony's Well. It's thought a pretty view by moonlight; and they tell +me it's no longer beset at night by bad characters, as it used to be in +the old time." + +My mother, in graver and graver displeasure, rose to retire to the +drawing-room. + +"I confess you have disappointed me," she said to Mr. MacGlue. "I should +have thought you would have been the last man to encourage my son in an +act of imprudence." + +"Craving your pardon, madam, your son requires no encouragement. I can +see for myself that his mind is made up. Where is the use of a person +like me trying to stop him? Dear madam, if he won't profit by your +advice, what hope can I have that he will take mine?" + +Mr. MacGlue pointed this artful compliment by a bow of the deepest +respect, and threw open the door for my mother to pass out. + +When we were left together over our wine, I asked the doctor how soon I +might safely start on my journey to Edinburgh. + +"Take two days to do the journey, and you may start, if you're bent +on it, at the beginning of the week. But mind this," added the +prudent doctor, "though I own I'm anxious to hear what comes of +your expedition--understand at the same time, so far as the lady is +concerned, that I wash my hands of the consequences."-- + + * The doctor's narrative is not imaginary. It will be found + related in full detail, and authenticated by names and + dates, in Robert Dale Owen's very interesting work called + "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World." The author + gladly takes this opportunity of acknowledging his + obligations to Mr. Owen's remarkable book. + + +CHAPTER X. SAINT ANTHONY'S WELL. + +I STOOD on the rocky eminence in front of the ruins of Saint Anthony's +Chapel, and looked on the magnificent view of Edinburgh and of the old +Palace of Holyrood, bathed in the light of the full moon. + +The Well, as the doctor's instructions had informed me, was behind +the chapel. I waited for some minutes in front of the ruin, partly to +recover my breath after ascending the hill; partly, I own, to master +the nervous agitation which the sense of my position at that moment had +aroused in me. The woman, or the apparition of the woman--it might be +either--was perhaps within a few yards of the place that I occupied. Not +a living creature appeared in front of the chapel. Not a sound caught +my ear from any part of the solitary hill. I tried to fix my whole +attention on the beauties of the moonlit view. It was not to be done. My +mind was far away from the objects on which my eyes rested. My mind was +with the woman whom I had seen in the summer-house writing in my book. + +I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps more over the +broken ground brought me within view of the Well, and of the high +boulder or rock from the foot of which the waters gushed brightly in the +light of the moon. + +She was there. + +I recognized her figure as she stood leaning against the rock, with her +hands crossed in front of her, lost in thought. I recognized her face as +she looked up quickly, startled by the sound of my footsteps in the deep +stillness of the night. + +Was it the woman, or the apparition of the woman? I waited, looking at +her in silence. + +She spoke. The sound of her voice was not the mysterious sound that +I had heard in the summer-house. It was the sound I had heard on the +bridge when we first met in the dim evening light. + +"Who are you? What do you want?" + +As those words passed her lips, she recognized me. "_You_ here!" she +went on, advancing a step, in uncontrollable surprise. "What does this +mean?" + +"I am here," I answered, "to meet you, by your own appointment." + +She stepped back again, leaning against the rock. The moonlight shone +full upon her face. There was terror as well as astonishment in her eyes +while they now looked at me. + +"I don't understand you," she said. "I have not seen you since you spoke +to me on the bridge." + +"Pardon me," I replied. "I have seen you--or the appearance of +you--since that time. I heard you speak. I saw you write." + +She looked at me with the strangest expression of mingled resentment and +curiosity. "What did I say?" she asked. "What did I write?" + +"You said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' You wrote, 'When the full moon +shines on Saint Anthony's Well.'" + +"Where?" she cried. "Where did I do that?" + +"In a summer-house which stands by a waterfall," I answered. "Do you +know the place?" + +Her head sunk back against the rock. A low cry of terror burst from +her. Her arm, resting on the rock, dropped at her side. I hurriedly +approached her, in the fear that she might fall on the stony ground. + +She rallied her failing strength. "Don't touch me!" she exclaimed. +"Stand back, sir. You frighten me." + +I tried to soothe her. "Why do I frighten you? You know who I am. Can +you doubt my interest in you, after I have been the means of saving your +life?" + +Her reserve vanished in an instant. She advanced without hesitation, and +took me by the hand. + +"I ought to thank you," she said. "And I do. I am not so ungrateful as +I seem. I am not a wicked woman, sir--I was mad with misery when I tried +to drown myself. Don't distrust me! Don't despise me!" She stopped; I +saw the tears on her cheeks. With a sudden contempt for herself, she +dashed them away. Her whole tone and manner altered once more. Her +reserve returned; she looked at me with a strange flash of suspicion and +defiance in her eyes. "Mind this!" she said, loudly and abruptly, "you +were dreaming when you thought you saw me writing. You didn't see me; +you never heard me speak. How could I say those familiar words to a +stranger like you? It's all your fancy--and you try to frighten me by +talking of it as if it was a real thing!" She changed again; her eyes +softened to the sad and tender look which made them so irresistibly +beautiful. She drew her cloak round her with a shudder, as if she felt +the chill of the night air. "What is the matter with me?" I heard her +say to herself. "Why do I trust this man in my dreams? And why am I +ashamed of it when I wake?" + +That strange outburst encouraged me. I risked letting her know that I +had overheard her last words. + +"If you trust me in your dreams, you only do me justice," I said. "Do +me justice now; give me your confidence. You are alone--you are in +trouble--you want a friend's help. I am waiting to help you." + +She hesitated. I tried to take her hand. The strange creature drew it +away with a cry of alarm: her one great fear seemed to be the fear of +letting me touch her. + +"Give me time to think of it," she said. "You don't know what I have got +to think of. Give me till to-morrow; and let me write. Are you staying +in Edinburgh?" + +I thought it wise to be satisfied--in appearance at least--with this +concession. Taking out my card, I wrote on it in pencil the address of +the hotel at which I was staying. She read the card by the moonlight +when I put it into her hand. + +"George!" she repeated to herself, stealing another look at me as the +name passed her lips. "'George Germaine.' I never heard of 'Germaine.' +But 'George' reminds me of old times." She smiled sadly at some passing +fancy or remembrance in which I was not permitted to share. "There is +nothing very wonderful in your being called 'George,'" she went on, +after a while. "The name is common enough: one meets with it everywhere +as a man's name And yet--" Her eyes finished the sentence; her eyes said +to me, "I am not so much afraid of you, now I know that you are called +'George.'" + +So she unconsciously led me to the brink of discovery! + +If I had only asked her what associations she connected with my +Christian name--if I had only persuaded her to speak in the briefest and +most guarded terms of her past life--the barrier between us, which the +change in our names and the lapse of ten years had raised, must have +been broken down; the recognition must have followed. But I never even +thought of it; and for this simple reason--I was in love with her. The +purely selfish idea of winning my way to her favorable regard by taking +instant advantage of the new interest that I had awakened in her was the +one idea which occurred to my mind. + +"Don't wait to write to me," I said. "Don't put it off till to-morrow. +Who knows what may happen before to-morrow? Surely I deserve some little +return for the sympathy that I feel with you? I don't ask for much. Make +me happy by making me of some service to you before we part to-night." + +I took her hand, this time, before she was aware of me. The whole woman +seemed to yield at my touch. Her hand lay unresistingly in mine; her +charming figure came by soft gradations nearer and nearer to me; her +head almost touched my shoulder. She murmured in faint accents, broken +by sighs, "Don't take advantage of me. I am so friendless; I am so +completely in your power." Before I could answer, before I could move, +her hand closed on mine; her head sunk on my shoulder: she burst into +tears. + +Any man, not an inbred and inborn villain, would have respected her at +that moment. I put her hand on my arm and led her away gently past the +ruined chapel, and down the slope of the hill. + +"This lonely place is frightening you," I said. "Let us walk a little, +and you will soon be yourself again." + +She smiled through her tears like a child. + +"Yes," she said, eagerly. "But not that way." I had accidentally taken +the direction which led away from the city; she begged me to turn toward +the houses and the streets. We walked back toward Edinburgh. She eyed +me, as we went on in the moonlight, with innocent, wondering looks. +"What an unaccountable influence you have over me!" she exclaimed. + +"Did you ever see me, did you ever hear my name, before we met that +evening at the river?" + +"Never." + +"And I never heard _your_ name, and never saw _you_ before. Strange! +very strange! Ah! I remember somebody--only an old woman, sir--who might +once have explained it. Where shall I find the like of her now?" + +She sighed bitterly. The lost friend or relative had evidently been dear +to her. "A relation of yours?" I inquired--more to keep her talking than +because I felt any interest in any member of her family but herself. + +We were again on the brink of discovery. And again it was decreed that +we were to advance no further. + +"Don't ask me about my relations!" she broke out. "I daren't think of +the dead and gone, in the trouble that is trying me now. If I speak of +the old times at home, I shall only burst out crying again, and distress +you. Talk of something else, sir--talk of something else." + + +The mystery of the apparition in the summer-house was not cleared up +yet. I took my opportunity of approaching the subject. + +"You spoke a little while since of dreaming of me," I began. "Tell me +your dream." + +"I hardly know whether it was a dream or whether it was something else," +she answered. "I call it a dream for want of a better word." + +"Did it happen at night?" + +"No. In the daytime--in the afternoon." + +"Late in the afternoon?" + +"Yes--close on the evening." + +My memory reverted to the doctor's story of the shipwrecked passenger, +whose ghostly "double" had appeared in the vessel that was to rescue +him, and who had himself seen that vessel in a dream. + +"Do you remember the day of the month and the hour?" I asked. + +She mentioned the day, and she mentioned the hour. It was the day when +my mother and I had visited the waterfall. It was the hour when I had +seen the apparition in the summer-house writing in my book! + +I stopped in irrepressible astonishment. We had walked by this time +nearly as far on the way back to the city as the old Palace of Holyrood. +My companion, after a glance at me, turned and looked at the rugged old +building, mellowed into quiet beauty by the lovely moonlight. + +"This is my favorite walk," she said, simply, "since I have been in +Edinburgh. I don't mind the loneliness. I like the perfect tranquillity +here at night." She glanced at me again. "What is the matter?" she +asked. "You say nothing; you only look at me." + +"I want to hear more of your dream," I said. "How did you come to be +sleeping in the daytime?" + +"It is not easy to say what I was doing," she replied, as we walked on +again. "I was miserably anxious and ill. I felt my helpless condition +keenly on that day. It was dinner-time, I remember, and I had no +appetite. I went upstairs (at the inn where I am staying), and lay down, +quite worn out, on my bed. I don't know whether I fainted or whether I +slept; I lost all consciousness of what was going on about me, and I got +some other consciousness in its place. If this was dreaming, I can only +say it was the most vivid dream I ever had in my life." + +"Did it begin by your seeing me?" I inquired. + +"It began by my seeing your drawing-book--lying open on a table in a +summer-house." + +"Can you describe the summer-house as you saw it?" + +She described not only the summer-house, but the view of the waterfall +from the door. She knew the size, she knew the binding, of my +sketch-book--locked up in my desk, at that moment, at home in +Perthshire! + +"And you wrote in the book," I went on. "Do you remember what you +wrote?" + +She looked away from me confusedly, as if she were ashamed to recall +this part of her dream. + +"You have mentioned it already," she said. "There is no need for me to +go over the words again. Tell me one thing--when _you_ were at the +summer-house, did you wait a little on the path to the door before you +went in?" + +I _had_ waited, surprised by my first view of the woman writing in my +book. Having answered her to this effect, I asked what she had done or +dreamed of doing at the later moment when I entered the summer-house. + +"I did the strangest things," she said, in low, wondering tones. "If you +had been my brother, I could hardly have treated you more familiarly. +I beckoned to you to come to me. I even laid my hand on your bosom. I +spoke to you as I might have spoken to my oldest and dearest friend. I +said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' Oh, I was so ashamed of myself when +I came to my senses again, and recollected it. Was there ever such +familiarity--even in a dream--between a woman and a man whom she had +only once seen, and then as a perfect stranger?" + +"Did you notice how long it was," I asked, "from the time when you lay +down on the bed to the time when you found yourself awake again?" + +"I think I can tell you," she replied. "It was the dinner-time of the +house (as I said just now) when I went upstairs. Not long after I had +come to myself I heard a church clock strike the hour. Reckoning from +one time to the other, it must have been quite three hours from the time +when I first lay down to the time when I got up again." + +Was the clew to the mysterious disappearance of the writing to be found +here? + +Looking back by the light of later discoveries, I am inclined to think +that it was. In three hours the lines traced by the apparition of her +had vanished. In three hours she had come to herself, and had felt +ashamed of the familiar manner in which she had communicated with me in +her sleeping state. While she had trusted me in the trance--trusted me +because her spirit was then free to recognize my spirit--the writing had +remained on the page. When her waking will counteracted the influence of +her sleeping will, the writing disappeared. Is this the explanation? If +it is not, where is the explanation to be found? + +We walked on until we reached that part of the Canongate street in which +she lodged. We stopped at the door. + +CHAPTER XI. THE LETTER OF INTRODUCTION. + +I LOOKED at the house. It was an inn, of no great size, but of +respectable appearance. If I was to be of any use to her that night, the +time had come to speak of other subjects than the subject of dreams. + +"After all that you have told me," I said, "I will not ask you to admit +me any further into your confidence until we meet again. Only let me +hear how I can relieve your most pressing anxieties. What are your +plans? Can I do anything to help them before you go to rest to-night?" + +She thanked me warmly, and hesitated, looking up the street and down the +street in evident embarrassment what to say next. + +"Do you propose staying in Edinburgh?" I asked. + +"Oh no! I don't wish to remain in Scotland. I want to go much further +away. I think I should do better in London; at some respectable +milliner's, if I could be properly recommended. I am quick at my needle, +and I understand cutting out. Or I could keep accounts, if--if anybody +would trust me." + +She stopped, and looked at me doubtingly, as if she felt far from sure, +poor soul, of winning my confidence to begin with. I acted on that hint, +with the headlong impetuosity of a man who was in love. + +"I can give you exactly the recommendation you want," I said, "whenever +you like. Now, if you would prefer it." + +Her charming features brightened with pleasure. "Oh, you are indeed a +friend to me!" she said, impulsively. Her face clouded again--she saw +my proposal in a new light. "Have I any right," she asked, sadly, "to +accept what you offer me?" + +"Let me give you the letter," I answered, "and you can decide for +yourself whether you will use it or not." + +I put her arm again in mine, and entered the inn. + +She shrunk back in alarm. What would the landlady think if she saw her +lodger enter the house at night in company with a stranger, and that +stranger a gentleman? The landlady appeared as she made the objection. +Reckless what I said or what I did, I introduced myself as her relative, +and asked to be shown into a quiet room in which I could write a letter. +After one sharp glance at me, the landlady appeared to be satisfied that +she was dealing with a gentleman. She led the way into a sort of parlor +behind the "bar," placed writing materials on the table, looked at +my companion as only one woman can look at another under certain +circumstances, and left us by ourselves. + +It was the first time I had ever been in a room with her alone. +The embarrassing sense of her position had heightened her color and +brightened her eyes. She stood, leaning one hand on the table, confused +and irresolute, her firm and supple figure falling into an attitude +of unsought grace which it was literally a luxury to look at. I said +nothing; my eyes confessed my admiration; the writing materials lay +untouched before me on the table. How long the silence might have +lasted I cannot say. She abruptly broke it. Her instinct warned her that +silence might have its dangers, in our position. She turned to me with +an effort; she said, uneasily, "I don't think you ought to write your +letter to-night, sir." + +"Why not?" + +"You know nothing of me. Surely you ought not to recommend a person who +is a stranger to you? And I am worse than a stranger. I am a miserable +wretch who has tried to commit a great sin--I have tried to destroy +myself. Perhaps the misery I was in might be some excuse for me, if you +knew it. You ought to know it. But it's so late to-night, and I am so +sadly tired--and there are some things, sir, which it is not easy for a +woman to speak of in the presence of a man." + +Her head sunk on her bosom; her delicate lips trembled a little; she +said no more. The way to reassure and console her lay plainly enough +before me, if I chose to take it. Without stopping to think, I took it. + +Reminding her that she had herself proposed writing to me when we met +that evening, I suggested that she should wait to tell the sad story of +her troubles until it was convenient to her to send me the narrative +in the form of a letter. "In the mean time," I added, "I have the most +perfect confidence in you; and I beg as a favor that you will let me put +it to the proof. I can introduce you to a dressmaker in London who is at +the head of a large establishment, and I will do it before I leave you +to-night." + +I dipped my pen in the ink as I said the words. Let me confess frankly +the lengths to which my infatuation led me. The dressmaker to whom I +had alluded had been my mother's maid in former years, and had been +established in business with money lent by my late step-father, Mr. +Germaine. I used both their names without scruple; and I wrote my +recommendation in terms which the best of living women and the ablest of +existing dressmakers could never have hoped to merit. Will anybody find +excuses for me? Those rare persons who have been in love, and who have +not completely forgotten it yet, may perhaps find excuses for me. It +matters little; I don't deserve them. + +I handed her the open letter to read. + +She blushed delightfully; she cast one tenderly grateful look at me, +which I remembered but too well for many and many an after-day. The next +moment, to my astonishment, this changeable creature changed again. Some +forgotten consideration seemed to have occurred to her. She turned pale; +the soft lines of pleasure in her face hardened, little by little; she +regarded me with the saddest look of confusion and distress. Putting the +letter down before me on the table, she said, timidly: + +"Would you mind adding a postscript, sir?" + +I suppressed all appearance of surprise as well as I could, and took up +the pen again. + +"Would you please say," she went on, "that I am only to be taken on +trial, at first? I am not to be engaged for more"--her voice sunk lower +and lower, so that I could barely hear the next words--"for more than +three months, certain." + +It was not in human nature--perhaps I ought to say it was not in the +nature of a man who was in my situation--to refrain from showing some +curiosity, on being asked to supplement a letter of recommendation by +such a postscript as this. + +"Have you some other employment in prospect?" I asked. + +"None," she answered, with her head down, and her eyes avoiding mine. + +An unworthy doubt of her--the mean offspring of jealousy--found its way +into my mind. + +"Have you some absent friend," I went on, "who is likely to prove a +better friend than I am, if you only give him time?" + +She lifted her noble head. Her grand, guileless gray eyes rested on me +with a look of patient reproach. + +"I have not got a friend in the world," she said. "For God's sake, ask +me no more questions to-night!" + +I rose and gave her the letter once more--with the postscript added, in +her own words. + +We stood together by the table; we looked at each other in a momentary +silence. + +"How can I thank you?" she murmured, softly. "Oh, sir, I will indeed be +worthy of the confidence that you have shown in me!" Her eyes moistened; +her variable color came and went; her dress heaved softly over the +lovely outline of her bosom. I don't believe the man lives who could +have resisted her at that moment. I lost all power of restraint; +I caught her in my arms; I whispered, "I love you!" I kissed her +passionately. For a moment she lay helpless and trembling on my breast; +for a moment her fragrant lips softly returned the kiss. In an instant +more it was over. She tore herself away with a shudder that shook +her from head to foot, and threw the letter that I had given to her +indignantly at my feet. + +"How dare you take advantage of me! How dare you touch me!" she said. +"Take your letter back, sir; I refuse to receive it; I will never speak +to you again. You don't know what you have done. You don't know how +deeply you have wounded me. Oh!" she cried, throwing herself in despair +on a sofa that stood near her, "shall I ever recover my self-respect? +shall I ever forgive myself for what I have done to-night?" + +I implored her pardon; I assured her of my repentance and regret in +words which did really come from my heart. The violence of her agitation +more than distressed me--I was really alarmed by it. + +She composed herself after a while. She rose to her feet with modest +dignity, and silently held out her hand in token that my repentance was +accepted. + +"You will give me time for atonement?" I pleaded. "You will not lose all +confidence in me? Let me see you again, if it is only to show that I am +not quite unworthy of your pardon--at your own time; in the presence of +another person, if you like." + +"I will write to you," she said. + +"To-morrow?" + +"To-morrow." + +I took up the letter of recommendation from the floor. + +"Make your goodness to me complete," I said. "Don't mortify me by +refusing to take my letter." + +"I will take your letter," she answered, quietly. "Thank you for writing +it. Leave me now, please. Good-night." + +I left her, pale and sad, with my letter in her hand. I left her, with +my mind in a tumult of contending emotions, which gradually resolved +themselves into two master-feelings as I walked on: Love, that adored +her more fervently than ever; and Hope, that set the prospect before me +of seeing her again on the next day. + +CHAPTER XII. THE DISASTERS OF MRS. VAN BRANDT. + +A MAN who passes his evening as I had passed mine, may go to bed +afterward if he has nothing better to do. But he must not rank among +the number of his reasonable anticipations the expectation of getting +a night's rest. The morning was well advanced, and the hotel was astir, +before I at last closed my eyes in slumber. When I awoke, my watch +informed me that it was close on noon. + +I rang the bell. My servant appeared with a letter in his hand. It had +been left for me, three hours since, by a lady who had driven to the +hotel door in a carriage, and had then driven away again. The man had +found me sleeping when he entered my bed-chamber, and, having received +no orders to wake me overnight, had left the letter on the sitting-room +table until he heard my bell. + +Easily guessing who my correspondent was, I opened the letter. An +inclosure fell out of it--to which, for the moment, I paid no attention. +I turned eagerly to the first lines. They announced that the writer +had escaped me for the second time: early that morning she had left +Edinburgh. The paper inclosed proved to be my letter of introduction to +the dressmaker returned to me. + +I was more than angry with her--I felt her second flight from me as a +downright outrage. In five minutes I had hurried on my clothes and was +on my way to the inn in the Canongate as fast as a horse could draw me. + +The servants could give me no information. Her escape had been effected +without their knowledge. + +The landlady, to whom I next addressed myself, deliberately declined to +assist me in any way whatever. + +"I have given the lady my promise," said this obstinate person, "to +answer not one word to any question that you may ask me about her. In +my belief, she is acting as becomes an honest woman in removing herself +from any further communication with you. I saw you through the keyhole +last night, sir. I wish you good-morning." + +Returning to my hotel, I left no attempt to discover her untried. I +traced the coachman who had driven her. He had set her down at a shop, +and had then been dismissed. I questioned the shop-keeper. He remembered +that he had sold some articles of linen to a lady with her veil down and +a traveling-bag in her hand, and he remembered no more. I circulated a +description of her in the different coach offices. Three "elegant young +ladies, with their veils down, and with traveling-bags in their hands," +answered to the description; and which of the three was the fugitive +of whom I was in search, it was impossible to discover. In the days of +railways and electric telegraphs I might have succeeded in tracing +her. In the days of which I am now writing, she set investigation at +defiance. + +I read and reread her letter, on the chance that some slip of the pen +might furnish the clew which I had failed to find in any other way. Here +is the narrative that she addressed to me, copied from the original, +word for word: + + +"DEAR SIR--Forgive me for leaving you again as I left you in Perthshire. +After what took place last night, I have no other choice (knowing my own +weakness, and the influence that you seem to have over me) than to +thank you gratefully for your kindness, and to bid you farewell. My sad +position must be my excuse for separating myself from you in this rude +manner, and for venturing to send you back your letter of introduction. +If I use the letter, I only offer you a means of communicating with me. +For your sake, as well as for mine, this mu st not be. I must never give +you a second opportunity of saying that you love me; I must go away, +leaving no trace behind by which you can possibly discover me. + +"But I cannot forget that I owe my poor life to your compassion and your +courage. You, who saved me, have a right to know what the provocation +was that drove me to drowning myself, and what my situation is, now that +I am (thanks to you) still a living woman. You shall hear my sad story, +sir; and I will try to tell it as briefly as possible. + +"I was married, not very long since, to a Dutch gentleman, whose name +is Van Brandt. Please excuse my entering into family particulars. I have +endeavored to write and tell you about my dear lost father and my old +home. But the tears come into my eyes when I think of my happy past +life. I really cannot see the lines as I try to write them. + +"Let me, then, only say that Mr. Van Brandt was well recommended to +my good father before I married. I have only now discovered that he +obtained these recommendations from his friends under a false pretense, +which it is needless to trouble you by mentioning in detail. Ignorant of +what he had done, I lived with him happily. I cannot truly declare that +he was the object of my first love, but he was the one person in the +world whom I had to look up to after my father's death. I esteemed him +and respected him, and, if I may say so without vanity, I did indeed +make him a good wife. + +"So the time went on, sir, prosperously enough, until the evening came +when you and I met on the bridge. + +"I was out alone in our garden, trimming the shrubs, when the +maid-servant came and told me there was a foreign lady in a carriage at +the door who desired to say a word to Mrs. Van Brandt. I sent the maid +on before to show her into the sitting-room, and I followed to receive +my visitor as soon as I had made myself tidy. She was a dreadful woman, +with a flushed, fiery face and impudent, bright eyes. 'Are you Mrs. Van +Brandt?' she said. I answered, 'Yes.' 'Are you really married to him?' +she asked me. That question (naturally enough, I think) upset my temper. +I said, 'How dare you doubt it?' She laughed in my face. 'Send for Van +Brandt,' she said. I went out into the passage and called him down from +the room upstairs in which he was writing. 'Ernest,' I said, 'here is +a person who has insulted me. Come down directly.' He left his room the +moment he heard me. The woman followed me out into the passage to meet +him. She made him a low courtesy. He turned deadly pale the moment he +set eyes on her. That frightened me. I said to him, 'For God's sake, +what does this mean?' He took me by the arm, and he answered: 'You shall +know soon. Go back to your gardening, and don't return to the house till +I send for you.' His looks were so shocking, he was so unlike himself, +that I declare he daunted me. I let him take me as far as the garden +door. He squeezed my hand. 'For my sake, darling,' he whispered, 'do +what I ask of you.' I went into the garden and sat me down on the +nearest bench, and waited impatiently for what was to come. + +"How long a time passed I don't know. My anxiety got to such a pitch at +last that I could bear it no longer. I ventured back to the house. + +"I listened in the passage, and heard nothing. I went close to the +parlor door, and still there was silence. I took courage, and opened the +door. + +"The room was empty. There was a letter on the table. It was in my +husband's handwriting, and it was addressed to me. I opened it and read +it. The letter told me that I was deserted, disgraced, ruined. The woman +with the fiery face and the impudent eyes was Van Brandt's lawful wife. +She had given him his choice of going away with her at once or of being +prosecuted for bigamy. He had gone away with her--gone, and left me. + +"Remember, sir, that I had lost both father and mother. I had no +friends. I was alone in the world, without a creature near to comfort or +advise me. And please to bear in mind that I have a temper which feels +even the smallest slights and injuries very keenly. Do you wonder at +what I had it in my thoughts to do that evening on the bridge? + +"Mind this: I believe I should never have attempted to destroy myself if +I could only have burst out crying. No tears came to me. A dull, stunned +feeling took hold like a vise on my head and on my heart. I walked +straight to the river. I said to myself, quite calmly, as I went along, +'_There_ is the end of it, and the sooner the better.' + +"What happened after that, you know as well as I do. I may get on to the +next morning--the morning when I so ungratefully left you at the inn by +the river-side. + +"I had but one reason, sir, for going away by the first conveyance that +I could find to take me, and this was the fear that Van Brandt might +discover me if I remained in Perthshire. The letter that he had left on +the table was full of expressions of love and remorse, to say nothing +of excuses for his infamous behavior to me. He declared that he had been +entrapped into a private marriage with a profligate woman when he was +little more than a lad. They had long since separated by common consent. +When he first courted me, he had every reason to believe that she was +dead. How he had been deceived in this particular, and how she had +discovered that he had married me, he had yet to find out. Knowing +her furious temper, he had gone away with her, as the one means +of preventing an application to the justices and a scandal in the +neighborhood. In a day or two he would purchase his release from her by +an addition to the allowance which she had already received from him: +he would return to me and take me abroad, out of the way of further +annoyance. I was his wife in the sight of Heaven; I was the only woman +he had ever loved; and so on, and so on. + +"Do you now see, sir, the risk that I ran of his discovering me if I +remained in your neighborhood? The bare thought of it made my flesh +creep. I was determined never again to see the man who had so cruelly +deceived me. I am in the same mind still--with this difference, that I +might consent to see him, if I could be positively assured first of the +death of his wife. That is not likely to happen. Let me get on with my +letter, and tell you what I did on my arrival in Edinburgh. + +"The coachman recommended me to the house in the Canongate where you +found me lodging. I wrote the same day to relatives of my father, living +in Glasgow, to tell them where I was, and in what a forlorn position I +found myself. + +"I was answered by return of post. The head of the family and his wife +requested me to refrain from visiting them in Glasgow. They had business +then in hand which would take them to Edinburgh, and I might expect to +see them both with the least possible delay. + +"They arrived, as they had promised, and they expressed themselves +civilly enough. Moreover, they did certainly lend me a small sum of +money when they found how poorly my purse was furnished. But I don't +think either husband or wife felt much for me. They recommended me, at +parting, to apply to my father's other relatives, living in England. I +may be doing them an injustice, but I fancy they were eager to get me +(as the common phrase is) off their hands. + +"The day when the departure of my relatives left me friendless was +also the day, sir, when I had that dream or vision of you which I have +already related. I lingered on at the house in the Canongate, partly +because the landlady was kind to me, partly because I was so depressed +by my position that I really did not know what to do next. + +"In this wretched condition you discovered me on that favorite walk +of mine from Holyrood to Saint Anthony's Well. Believe me, your kind +interest in my fortunes has not been thrown away on an ungrateful woman. +I could ask Providence for no greater blessing than to find a brother +and a friend in you. You have yourself destroyed that hope by what you +said and did when we were together in the parlor. I don't blame you: I +am afraid my manner (without my knowing it) might have seemed to give +you some encouragement. I am only sorry--very, very sorry--to have no +honorable choice left but never to see you again. + +"After much thin king, I have made up my mind to speak to those other +relatives of my father to whom I have not yet applied. The chance that +they may help me to earn an honest living is the one chance that I have +left. God bless you, Mr. Germaine! I wish you prosperity and happiness +from the bottom of my heart; and remain, your grateful servant, + + "M. VAN BRANDT. + +"P.S.--I sign my own name (or the name which I once thought was mine) as +a proof that I have honestly written the truth about myself, from first +to last. For the future I must, for safety's sake, live under some other +name. I should like to go back to my name when I was a happy girl at +home. But Van Brandt knows it; and, besides, I have (no matter how +innocently) disgraced it. Good-by again, sir; and thank you again." + + +So the letter concluded. + +I read it in the temper of a thoroughly disappointed and thoroughly +unreasonable man. Whatever poor Mrs. Van Brandt had done, she had done +wrong. It was wrong of her, in the first place, to have married at all. +It was wrong of her to contemplate receiving Mr. Van Brandt again, even +if his lawful wife had died in the interval. It was wrong of her to +return my letter of introduction, after I had given myself the trouble +of altering it to suit her capricious fancy. It was wrong of her to take +an absurdly prudish view of a stolen kiss and a tender declaration, +and to fly from me as if I were as great a scoundrel as Mr. Van Brandt +himself. And last, and more than all, it was wrong of her to sign her +Christian name in initial only. Here I was, passionately in love with a +woman, and not knowing by what fond name to identify her in my thoughts! +"M. Van Brandt!" I might call her Maria, Margaret, Martha, Mabel, +Magdalen, Mary--no, not Mary. The old boyish love was dead and gone, but +I owed some respect to the memory of it. If the "Mary" of my early days +were still living, and if I had met her, would she have treated me as +this woman had treated me? Never! It was an injury to "Mary" to think +even of that heartless creature by her name. Why think of her at all? +Why degrade myself by trying to puzzle out a means of tracing her in her +letter? It was sheer folly to attempt to trace a woman who had gone I +knew not whither, and who herself informed me that she meant to pass +under an assumed name. Had I lost all pride, all self-respect? In the +flower of my age, with a handsome fortune, with the world before me, +full of interesting female faces and charming female figures, what +course did it become me to take? To go back to my country-house, and +mope over the loss of a woman who had deliberately deserted me? or to +send for a courier and a traveling carriage, and forget her gayly among +foreign people and foreign scenes? In the state of my temper at that +moment, the idea of a pleasure tour in Europe fired my imagination. +I first astonished the people at the hotel by ordering all further +inquiries after the missing Mrs. Van Brandt to be stopped; and then I +opened my writing desk and wrote to tell my mother frankly and fully of +my new plans. + +The answer arrived by return of post. + +To my surprise and delight, my good mother was not satisfied with only +formally approving of my new resolution. With an energy which I had +not ventured to expect from her, she had made all her arrangements for +leaving home, and had started for Edinburgh to join me as my traveling +companion. "You shall not go away alone, George," she wrote, "while I +have strength and spirits to keep you company." + +In three days from the time when I read those words our preparations +were completed, and we were on our way to the Continent. + +CHAPTER XIII. NOT CURED YET. + +WE visited France, Germany, and Italy; and we were absent from England +nearly two years. + +Had time and change justified my confidence in them? Was the image of +Mrs. Van Brandt an image long since dismissed from my mind? + +No! Do what I might, I was still (in the prophetic language of Dame +Dermody) taking the way to reunion with my kindred spirit in the time to +come. For the first two or three months of our travels I was haunted +by dreams of the woman who had so resolutely left me. Seeing her in my +sleep, always graceful, always charming, always modestly tender toward +me, I waited in the ardent hope of again beholding the apparition of her +in my waking hours--of again being summoned to meet her at a given place +and time. My anticipations were not fulfilled; no apparition showed +itself. The dreams themselves grew less frequent and less vivid and then +ceased altogether. Was this a sign that the days of her adversity +were at an end? Having no further need of help, had she no further +remembrance of the man who had tried to help her? Were we never to meet +again? + +I said to myself: "I am unworthy of the name of man if I don't forget +her now!" She still kept her place in my memory, say what I might. + +I saw all the wonders of Nature and Art which foreign countries could +show me. I lived in the dazzling light of the best society that Paris, +Rome, Vienna could assemble. I passed hours on hours in the company +of the most accomplished and most beautiful women whom Europe could +produce--and still that solitary figure at Saint Anthony's Well, those +grand gray eyes that had rested on me so sadly at parting, held their +place in my memory, stamped their image on my heart. + +Whether I resisted my infatuation, or whether I submitted to it, I still +longed for her. I did all I could to conceal the state of my mind from +my mother. But her loving eyes discovered the secret: she saw that I +suffered, and suffered with me. More than once she said: "George, the +good end is not to be gained by traveling; let us go home." More than +once I answered, with the bitter and obstinate resolution of despair: +"No. Let us try more new people and more new scenes." It was only when +I found her health and strength beginning to fail under the stress of +continual traveling that I consented to abandon the hopeless search +after oblivion, and to turn homeward at last. + +I prevailed on my mother to wait and rest at my house in London before +she returned to her favorite abode at the country-seat in Perthshire. +It is needless to say that I remained in town with her. My mother now +represented the one interest that held me nobly and endearingly to life. +Politics, literature, agriculture--the customary pursuits of a man in my +position--had none of them the slightest attraction for me. + +We had arrived in London at what is called "the height of the season." +Among the operatic attractions of that year--I am writing of the days +when the ballet was still a popular form of public entertainment--there +was a certain dancer whose grace and beauty were the objects of +universal admiration. I was asked if I had seen her, wherever I went, +until my social position, as the one man who was indifferent to the +reigning goddess of the stage, became quite unendurable. On the next +occasion when I was invited to take a seat in a friend's box, I accepted +the proposal; and (far from willingly) I went the way of the world--in +other words, I went to the opera. + +The first part of the performance had concluded when we got to the +theater, and the ballet had not yet begun. My friends amused themselves +with looking for familiar faces in the boxes and stalls. I took a chair +in a corner and waited, with my mind far away from the theater, from the +dancing that was to come. The lady who sat nearest to me (like ladies +in general) disliked the neighborhood of a silent man. She determined to +make me talk to her. + +"Do tell me, Mr. Germaine," she said. "Did you ever see a theater +anywhere so full as this theater is to-night?" + +She handed me her opera-glass as she spoke. I moved to the front of the +box to look at the audience. + +It was certainty a wonderful sight. Every available atom of space (as +I gradually raised the glass from the floor to the ceiling of the +building) appeared to be occupied. Looking upward and upward, my range +of view gradually reached the gallery. Even at that distance, the +excellent glass which had been put into my hands brought the faces of +the audience close to me. I looked first at the persons who occupied +the front row of seats in the gallery stalls. + +Moving the opera-glass slowly along the semicircle formed by the seats, +I suddenly stopped when I reached the middle. + +My heart gave a great leap as if it would bound out of my body. There +was no mistaking _that_ face among the commonplace faces near it. I had +discovered Mrs. Van Brandt! + +She sat in front--but not alone. There was a man in the stall +immediately behind her, who bent over her and spoke to her from time to +time. She listened to him, so far as I could see, with something of a +sad and weary look. Who was the man? I might, or might not, find that +out. Under any circumstances, I determined to speak to Mrs. Van Brandt. + +The curtain rose for the ballet. I made the best excuse I could to my +friends, and instantly left the box. + +It was useless to attempt to purchase my admission to the gallery. My +money was refused. There was not even standing room left in that part of +the theater. + +But one alternative remained. I returned to the street, to wait for Mrs. +Van Brandt at the gallery door until the performance was over. + +Who was the man in attendance on her--the man whom I had seen sitting +behind her, and talking familiarly over her shoulder? While I paced +backward and forward before the door, that one question held possession +of my mind, until the oppression of it grew beyond endurance. I went +back to my friends in the box, simply and solely to look at the man +again. + +What excuses I made to account for my strange conduct I cannot now +remember. Armed once more with the lady's opera-glass (I borrowed it and +kept it without scruple), I alone, of all that vast audience, turned my +back on the stage, and riveted my attention on the gallery stalls. + +There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearance spell-bound +by the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. Van Brandt, on +the contrary, seemed to find but little attraction in the spectacle +presented by the stage. She looked at the dancing (so far as I could +see) in an absent, weary manner. When the applause broke out in a +perfect frenzy of cries and clapping of hands, she sat perfectly +unmoved by the enthusiasm which pervaded the theater. The man behind her +(annoyed, as I supposed, by the marked indifference which she showed +to the performance) tapped her impatiently on the shoulder, as if he +thought that she was quite capable of falling asleep in her stall. The +familiarity of the action--confirming the suspicion in my mind which had +already identified him with Van Brandt--so enraged me that I said or did +something which obliged one of the gentlemen in the box to interfere. +"If you can't control yourself," he whispered, "you had better leave +us." He spoke with the authority of an old friend. I had sense enough +left to take his advice, and return to my post at the gallery door. + +A little before midnight the performance ended. The audience began to +pour out of the theater. + +I drew back into a corner behind the door, facing the gallery stairs, +and watched for her. After an interval which seemed to be endless, she +and her companion appeared, slowly descending the stairs. She wore a +long dark cloak; her head was protected by a quaintly shaped hood, which +looked (on _her_) the most becoming head-dress that a woman could wear. +As the two passed me, I heard the man speak to her in a tone of sulky +annoyance. + +"It's wasting money," he said, "to go to the expense of taking _you_ to +the opera." + +"I am not well," she answered with her head down and her eyes on the +ground. "I am out of spirits to-night." + +"Will you ride home or walk?" + +"I will walk, if you please." + +I followed them unperceived, waiting to present myself to her until +the crowd about them had dispersed. In a few minutes they turned into a +quiet by-street. I quickened my pace until I was close at her side, and +then I took off my hat and spoke to her. + +She recognized me with a cry of astonishment. For an instant her face +brightened radiantly with the loveliest expression of delight that I +ever saw on any human countenance. The moment after, all was changed. +The charming features saddened and hardened. She stood before me like a +woman overwhelmed by shame--without uttering a word, without taking my +offered hand. + +Her companion broke the silence. + +"Who is this gentleman?" he asked, speaking in a foreign accent, with an +under-bred insolence of tone and manner. + +She controlled herself the moment he addressed her. "This is Mr. +Germaine," she answered: "a gentleman who was very kind to me in +Scotland." She raised her eyes for a moment to mine, and took refuge, +poor soul, in a conventionally polite inquiry after my health. "I hope +you are quite well, Mr. Germaine," said the soft, sweet voice, trembling +piteously. + +I made the customary reply, and explained that I had seen her at the +opera. "Are you staying in London?" I asked. "May I have the honor of +calling on you?" + +Her companion answered for her before she could speak. + +"My wife thanks you, sir, for the compliment you pay her. She doesn't +receive visitors. We both wish you good-night." + +Saying those words, he took off his hat with a sardonic assumption of +respect; and, holding her arm in his, forced her to walk on abruptly +with him. Feeling certainly assured by this time that the man was no +other than Van Brandt, I was on the point of answering him sharply, when +Mrs. Van Brandt checked the rash words as they rose to my lips. + +"For my sake!" she whispered, over her shoulder, with an imploring look +that instantly silenced me. After all, she was free (if she liked) to go +back to the man who had so vilely deceived and deserted her. I bowed and +left them, feeling with no common bitterness the humiliation of entering +into rivalry with Mr. Van Brandt. + +I crossed to the other side of the street. Before I had taken three +steps away from her, the old infatuation fastened its hold on me again. +I submitted, without a struggle against myself, to the degradation +of turning spy and following them home. Keeping well behind, on the +opposite side of the way, I tracked them to their own door, and entered +in my pocket-book the name of the street and the number of the house. + +The hardest critic who reads these lines cannot feel more contemptuously +toward me than I felt toward myself. Could I still love a woman after +she had deliberately preferred to me a scoundrel who had married her +while he was the husband of another wife? Yes! Knowing what I now knew, +I felt that I loved her just as dearly as ever. It was incredible, it +was shocking; but it was true. For the first time in my life, I tried to +take refuge from my sense of my own degradation in drink. I went to my +club, and joined a convivial party at a supper table, and poured glass +after glass of champagne down my throat, without feeling the slightest +sense of exhilaration, without losing for an instant the consciousness +of my own contemptible conduct. I went to my bed in despair; and through +the wakeful night I weakly cursed the fatal evening at the river-side +when I had met her for the first time. But revile her as I might, +despise myself as I might, I loved her--I loved her still! + +Among the letters laid on my table the next morning there were two which +must find their place in this narrative. + +The first letter was in a handwriting which I had seen once before, at +the hotel in Edinburgh. The writer was Mrs. Van Brandt. + +"For your own sake" (the letter ran) "make no attempt to see me, and +take no notice of an invitation which I fear you will receive with this +note. I am living a degraded life. I have sunk beneath your notice. You +owe it to yourself, sir, to forget the miserable woman who now writes to +you for the last time, and bids you gratefully a last farewell." + +Those sad lines were signed in initials only. It is needless to say +that they merely strengthened my resolution to see her at all hazards. I +kissed the paper on which her hand had rested, and then I turned to the +second letter. It contained the "invitation" to which my correspondent +had alluded, and it was expressed in these terms: + +"Mr. Van Brandt presents his compliments to Mr. Germaine, and begs +to apologize for the somewhat abrupt manner in which he received Mr. +Germaine's polite advances. Mr. Van Brandt suffers habitually from +nervous irritability, and he felt particularly ill last night. He trusts +Mr. Germaine will receive this candid explanation in the spirit in which +it is offered; and he begs to add that Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted +to receive Mr. Germaine whenever he may find it convenient to favor her +with a visit." + +That Mr. Van Brandt had some sordid interest of his own to serve in +writing this grotesquely impudent composition, and that the unhappy +woman who bore his name was heartily ashamed of the proceeding on which +he had ventured, were conclusions easily drawn after reading the two +letters. The suspicion of the man and of his motives which I naturally +felt produced no hesitation in my mind as to the course which I had +determined to pursue. On the contrary, I rejoiced that my way to +an interview with Mrs. Van Brandt was smoothed, no matter with what +motives, by Mr. Van Brandt himself. + +I waited at home until noon, and then I could wait no longer. Leaving a +message of excuse for my mother (I had just sense of shame enough left +to shrink from facing her), I hastened away to profit by my invitation +on the very day when I received it. + +CHAPTER XIV. MRS. VAN BRANDT AT HOME. + +As I lifted my hand to ring the house bell, the door was opened from +within, and no less a person than Mr. Van Brandt himself stood before +me. He had his hat on. We had evidently met just as he was going out. + +"My dear sir, how good this is of you! You present the best of all +replies to my letter in presenting yourself. Mrs. Van Brandt is at home. +Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted. Pray walk in." + +He threw open the door of a room on the ground-floor. His politeness was +(if possible) even more offensive than his insolence. "Be seated, Mr. +Germaine, I beg of you." He turned to the open door, and called up the +stairs, in a loud and confident voice: + +"Mary! come down directly." + +"Mary"! I knew her Christian name at last, and knew it through Van +Brandt. No words can tell how the name jarred on me, spoken by his lips. +For the first time for years past my mind went back to Mary Dermody +and Greenwater Broad. The next moment I heard the rustling of Mrs. Van +Brandt's dress on the stairs. As the sound caught my ear, the old times +and the old faces vanished again from my thoughts as completely as if +they had never existed. What had _she_ in common with the frail, +shy little child, her namesake, of other days? What similarity was +perceivable in the sooty London lodging-house to remind me of the +bailiff's flower-scented cottage by the shores of the lake? + +Van Brandt took off his hat, and bowed to me with sickening servility. + +"I have a business appointment," he said, "which it is impossible to put +off. Pray excuse me. Mrs. Van Brandt will do the honors. Good morning." + +The house door opened and closed again. The rustling of the dress came +slowly nearer and nearer. She stood before me. + +"Mr. Germaine!" she exclaimed, starting back, as if the bare sight of me +repelled her. "Is this honorable? Is this worthy of you? You allow me to +be entrapped into receiving you, and you accept as your accomplice Mr. +Van Brandt! Oh, sir, I have accustomed myself to look up to you as a +high-minded man. How bitterly you have disappointed me!" + +Her reproaches passed by me unheeded. They only heightened her color; +they only added a new rapture to the luxury of looking at her. + +"If you loved me as faithfully as I love you," I said, "you would +understand why I am here. No sacrifice is too great if it brings me into +your presence again after two years of absence." + +She suddenly approached me, and fixed her eyes in eager scrutiny on my +face. + +"There must be some mistake," she said. "You cannot possibly have +received my letter, or you have not read it?" + +"I have received it, and I have read it." + +"And Van Brandt's letter--you have read that too?" + +"Yes." + +She sat down by the table, and, leaning her arms on it, covered her face +with her hands. My answers seemed not only to have distressed, but to +have perplexed her. "Are men all alike?" I heard her say. "I thought I +might trust in _his_ sense of what was due to himself and of what was +compassionate toward me." + +I closed the door and seated myself by her side. She removed her hands +from her face when she felt me near her. She looked at me with a cold +and steady surprise. + +"What are you going to do?" she asked. + +"I am going to try if I can recover my place in your estimation," I +said. "I am going to ask your pity for a man whose whole heart is yours, +whose whole life is bound up in you." + +She started to her feet, and looked round her incredulously, as if +doubting whether she had rightly heard and rightly interpreted my last +words. Before I could speak again, she suddenly faced me, and struck her +open hand on the table with a passionate resolution which I now saw in +her for the first time. + +"Stop!" she cried. "There must be an end to this. And an end there shall +be. Do you know who that man is who has just left the house? Answer me, +Mr. Germaine! I am speaking in earnest." + +There was no choice but to answer her. She was indeed in +earnest--vehemently in earnest. + +"His letter tells me," I said, "that he is Mr. Van Brandt." + +She sat down again, and turned her face away from me. + +"Do you know how he came to write to you?" she asked. "Do you know what +made him invite you to this house?" + +I thought of the suspicion that had crossed my mind when I read Van +Brandt's letter. I made no reply. + +"You force me to tell you the truth," she went on. "He asked me who you +were, last night on our way home. I knew that you were rich, and that +_he_ wanted money. I told him I knew nothing of your position in the +world. He was too cunning to believe me; he went out to the public-house +and looked at a directory. He came back and said, 'Mr. Germaine has a +house in Berkeley Square and a country-seat in the Highlands. He is not +a man for a poor devil like me to offend; I mean to make a friend of +him, and I expect you to make a friend of him too.' He sat down and +wrote to you. I am living under that man's protection, Mr. Germaine. His +wife is not dead, as you may suppose; she is living, and I know her to +be living. I wrote to you that I was beneath your notice, and you have +obliged me to tell you why. Am I sufficiently degraded to bring you to +your senses?" + +I drew closer to her. She tried to get up and leave me. I knew my +power over her, and used it (as any man in my place would have used it) +without scruple. I took her hand. + +"I don't believe you have voluntarily degraded yourself," I said. "You +have been forced into your present position: there are circumstances +which excuse you, and which you are purposely keeping back from me. +Nothing will convince me that you are a base woman. Should I love you as +I love you, if you were really unworthy of me?" + +She struggled to free her hand; I still held it. She tried to change the +subject. "There is one thing you haven't told me yet," she said, with a +faint, forced smile. "Have you seen the apparition of me again since I +left you?" + +"No. Have _you_ ever seen _me_ again, as you saw me in your dream at the +inn in Edinburgh?" + +"Never. Our visions of each other have left us. Can you tell why?" + +If we had continued to speak on this subject, we must surely have +recognized each other. But the subject dropped. Instead of answering her +question, I drew her nearer to me--I returned to the forbidden subject +of my love. + +"Look at me," I pleaded, "and tell me the truth. Can you see me, can you +hear me, and do you feel no answering sympathy in your own heart? Do you +really care nothing for me? Have you never once thought of me in all the +time that has passed since we last met?" + +I spoke as I felt--fervently, passionately. She made a last effort to +repel me, and yielded even as she made it. Her hand closed on mine, +a low sigh fluttered on her lips. She answered with a sudden +self-abandonment; she recklessly cast herself loose from the restraints +which had held her up to this time. + +"I think of you perpetually," she said. "I was thinking of you at the +opera last night. My heart leaped in me when I heard your voice in the +street." + +"You love me!" I whispered. + +"Love you!" she repeated. "My whole heart goes out to you in spite of +myself. Degraded as I am, unworthy as I am--knowing as I do that nothing +can ever come of it--I love you! I love you!" + +She threw her arms round my neck, and held me to her with all her +strength. The moment after, she dropped on her knees. "Oh, don't tempt +me!" she murmured. "Be merciful--and leave me." + +I was beside myself. I spoke as recklessly to her as she had spoken to +me. + +"Prove that you love me," I said. "Let me rescue you from the +degradation of living with that man. Leave him at once and forever. +Leave him, and come with me to a future that is worthy of you--your +future as my wife." + +"Never!" she answered, crouching low at my feet. + +"Why not? What obstacle is there?" + +"I can't tell you--I daren't tell you." + +"Will you write it?" + +"No, I can't even write it--to _you_. Go, I implore you, before Van +Brandt comes back. Go, if you love me and pity me." + +She had roused my jealousy. I positively refused to leave her. + +"I insist on knowing what binds you to that man," I said. "Let him come +back! If _you_ won't answer my question, I will put it to _him_." + +She looked at me wildly, with a cry of terror. She saw my resolution in +my face. + +"Don't frighten me," she said. "Let me think." + +She reflected for a moment. Her eyes brightened, as if some new way out +of the difficulty had occurred to her. + +"Have you a mother living?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"Do you think she would come and see me?" + +"I am sure she would if I asked her." + +She considered with herself once more. "I will tell your mother what the +obstacle is," she said, thoughtfully. + +"When?" + +"To-morrow, at this time." + +She raised herself on her knees; the tears suddenly filled her eyes. She +drew me to her gently. "Kiss me," she whispered. "You will never come +here again. Kiss me for the last time." + +My lips had barely touched hers, when she started to her feet and +snatched up my hat from the chair on which I had placed it. + +"Take your hat," she said. "He has come back." + +My duller sense of hearing had discovered nothing. I rose and took +my hat to quiet her. At the same moment the door of the room opened +suddenly and softly. Mr. Van Brandt came in. I saw in his face that he +had some vile motive of his own for trying to take us by surprise, and +that the result of the experiment had disappointed him. + +"You are not going yet?" he said, speaking to me with his eye on Mrs. +Van Brandt. "I have hurried over my business in the hope of prevailing +on you to stay and take lunch with us. Put down your hat, Mr. Germaine. +No ceremony!" + +"You are very good," I answered. "My time is limited to-day. I must beg +you and Mrs. Van Brandt to excuse me." + +I took leave of her as I spoke. She turned deadly pale when she shook +hands with me at parting. Had she any open brutality to dread from Van +Brandt as soon as my back was turned? The bare suspicion of it made my +blood boil. But I thought of _her_. In her interests, the wise thing and +the merciful thing to do was to conciliate the fellow before I left the +house. + +"I am sorry not to be able to accept your invitation," I said, as we +walked together to the door. "Perhaps you will give me another chance?" + +His eyes twinkled cunningly. "What do you say to a quiet little dinner +here?" he asked. "A slice of mutton, you know, and a bottle of good +wine. Only our three selves, and one old friend of mine to make up +four. We will have a rubber of whist in the evening. Mary and you +partners--eh? When shall it be? Shall we say the day after to-morrow?" + +She had followed us to the door, keeping behind Van Brandt while he was +speaking to me. When he mentioned the "old friend" and the "rubber of +whist," her face expressed the strongest emotions of shame and disgust. +The next moment (when she had heard him fix the date of the dinner for +"the day after to-morrow") her features became composed again, as if +a sudden sense of relief had come to her. What did the change mean? +"To-morrow" was the day she had appointed for seeing my mother. Did she +really believe, when I had heard what passed at the interview, that I +should never enter the house again, and never attempt to see her more? +And was this the secret of her composure when she heard the date of the +dinner appointed for "the day after to-morrow"? + +Asking myself these questions, I accepted my invitation, and left the +house with a heavy heart. That farewell kiss, that sudden composure when +the day of the dinner was fixed, weighed on my spirits. I would have +given twelve years of my life to have annihilated the next twelve hours. + +In this frame of mind I reached home, and presented myself in my +mother's sitting-room. + +"You have gone out earlier than usual to-day," she said. "Did the fine +weather tempt you, my dear?" She paused, and looked at me more closely. +"George!" she exclaimed, "what has happened to you? Where have you +been?" + +I told her the truth as honestly as I have told it here. + +The color deepened in my mother's face. She looked at me, and spoke to +me with a severity which was rare indeed in my experience of her. + +"Must I remind you, for the first time in your life, of what is due to +your mother?" she asked. "Is it possible that you expect me to visit a +woman, who, by her own confession--" + +"I expect you to visit a woman who has only to say the word and to be +your daughter-in-law," I interposed. "Surely I am not asking what is +unworthy of you, if I ask that?" + +My mother looked at me in blank dismay. + +"Do you mean, George, that you have offered her marriage?" + +"Yes." + +"And she has said No?" + +"She has said No, because there is some obstacle in her way. I have +tried vainly to make her explain herself. She has promised to confide +everything to _you_." + +The serious nature of the emergency had its effect. My mother yielded. +She handed me the little ivory tablets on which she was accustomed to +record her engagements. "Write down the name and address," she said +resignedly. + +"I will go with you," I answered, "and wait in the carriage at the +door. I want to hear what has passed between you and Mrs. Van Brandt the +instant you have left her." + +"Is it as serious as that, George?" + +"Yes, mother, it is as serious as that." + +CHAPTER XV. THE OBSTACLE BEATS ME. + +HOW long was I left alone in the carriage at the door of Mrs. Van +Brandt's lodgings? Judging by my sensations, I waited half a life-time. +Judging by my watch, I waited half an hour. + +When my mother returned to me, the hope which I had entertained of +a happy result from her interview with Mrs. Van Brandt was a hope +abandoned before she had opened her lips. I saw, in her face, that an +obstacle which was beyond my power of removal did indeed stand between +me and the dearest wish of my life. + +"Tell me the worst," I said, as we drove away from the house, "and tell +it at once." + +"I must tell it to you, George," my mother answered, sadly, "as she told +it to me. She begged me herself to do that. 'We must disappoint him,' +she said, 'but pray let it be done as gently as possible.' Beginning +in those words, she confided to me the painful story which you know +already--the story of her marriage. From that she passed to her meeting +with you at Edinburgh, and to the circumstances which have led her +to live as she is living now. This latter part of her narrative she +especially requested me to repeat to you. Do you feel composed enough to +hear it now? Or would you rather wait?" + +"Let me hear it now, mother; and tell it, as nearly as you can, in her +own words." + +"I will repeat what she said to me, my dear, as faithfully as I can. +After speaking of her father's death, she told me that she had only two +relatives living. 'I have a married aunt in Glasgow, and a married +aunt in London,' she said. 'When I left Edinburgh, I went to my aunt +in London. She and my father had not been on good terms together; she +considered that my father had neglected her. But his death had softened +her toward him and toward me. She received me kindly, and she got me a +situation in a shop. I kept my situation for three months, and then I +was obliged to leave it.'" + +My mother paused. I thought directly of the strange postscript which +Mrs. Van Brandt had made me add to the letter that I wrote for her at +the Edinburgh inn. In that case also she had only contemplated remaining +in her employment for three months' time. + +"Why was she obliged to leave her situation?" I asked. + +"I put that question to her myself," replied my mother. "She made no +direct reply--she changed color, and looked confused. 'I will tell you +afterward, madam,' she said. 'Please let me go on now. My aunt was angry +with me for leaving my employment--and she was more angry still, when +I told her the reason. She said I had failed in duty toward her in not +speaking frankly at first. We parted coolly. I had saved a little money +from my wages; and I did well enough while my savings lasted. When they +came to an end, I tried to get employment again, and I failed. My aunt +said, and said truly, that her husband's income was barely enough to +support his family: she could do nothing for me, and I could do nothing +for myself. I wrote to my aunt at Glasgow, and received no answer. +Starvation stared me in the face, when I saw in a newspaper an +advertisement addressed to me by Mr. Van Brandt. He implored me to write +to him; he declared that his life without me was too desolate to be +endured; he solemnly promised that there should be no interruption to my +tranquillity if I would return to him. If I had only had myself to think +of, I would have begged my bread in the streets rather than return to +him--'" + +I interrupted the narrative at that point. + +"What other person could she have had to think of?" I said. + +"Is it possible, George," my mother rejoined, "that you have no +suspicion of what she was alluding to when she said those words?" + +The question passed by me unheeded: my thoughts were dwelling bitterly +on Van Brandt and his advertisement. "She answered the advertisement, of +course?" I said. + +"And she saw Mr. Van Brandt," my mother went on. "She gave me no +detailed account of the interview between them. 'He reminded me,' she +said, 'of what I knew to be true--that the woman who had entrapped him +into marrying her was an incurable drunkard, and that his ever living +with her again was out of the question. Still she was alive, and she had +a right to the name at least of his wife. I won't attempt to excuse my +returning to him, knowing the circumstances as I did. I will only say +that I could see no other choice before me, in my position at the time. +It is needless to trouble you with what I have suffered since, or to +speak of what I may suffer still. I am a lost woman. Be under no alarm, +madam, about your son. I shall remember proudly to the end of my life +that he once offered me the honor and the happiness of becoming his +wife; but I know what is due to him and to you. I have seen him for the +last time. The one thing that remains to be done is to satisfy him that +our marriage is impossible. You are a mother; you will understand why +I reveal the obstacle which stands between us--not to him, but to you.' +She rose saying those words, and opened the folding-doors which led from +the parlor into a back room. After an absence of a few moments only, she +returned." + +At that crowning point in the narrative, my mother stopped. Was she +afraid to go on? or did she think it needless to say more? + +"Well?" I said. + +"Must I really tell it to you in words, George? Can't you guess how it +ended, even yet?" + +There were two difficulties in the way of my understanding her. I had +a man's bluntness of perception, and I was half maddened by suspense. +Incredible as it may appear, I was too dull to guess the truth even now. + +"When she returned to me," my mother resumed, "she was not alone. She +had with her a lovely little girl, just old enough to walk with the help +of her mother's hand. She tenderly kissed the child, and then she put it +on my lap. 'There is my only comfort,' she said, simply; 'and there is +the obstacle to my ever becoming Mr. Germaine's wife.'" + +Van Brandt's child! Van Brandt's child! + +The postscript which she had made me add to my letter; the +incomprehensible withdrawal from the employment in which she was +prospering; the disheartening difficulties which had brought her to the +brink of starvation; the degrading return to the man who had cruelly +deceived her--all was explained, all was excused now! With an infant at +the breast, how could she obtain a new employment? With famine staring +her in the face, what else could the friendless woman do but return to +the father of her child? What claim had I on her, by comparison with +_him_? What did it matter, now that the poor creature secretly returned +the love that I felt for her? There was the child, an obstacle between +us--there was _his_ hold on her, now that he had got her back! What was +_my_ hold worth? All social proprieties and all social laws answered the +question: Nothing! + +My head sunk on my breast; I received the blow in silence. + +My good mother took my hand. "You understand it now, George?" she said, +sorrowfully. + +"Yes, mother; I understand it." + +"There was one thing she wished me to say to you, my dear, which I have +not mentioned yet. She entreats you not to suppose that she had the +faintest idea of her situation when she attempted to destroy herself. +Her first suspicion that it was possible she might become a mother was +conveyed to her at Edinburgh, in a conversation with her aunt. It is +impossible, George, not to feel compassionately toward this poor woman. +Regrettable as her position is, I cannot see that she is to blame for +it. She was the innocent victim of a vile fraud when that man married +her; she has suffered undeservedly since; and she has behaved nobly to +you and to me. I only do her justice in saying that she is a woman in a +thousand--a woman worthy, under happier circumstances, to be my daughter +and your wife. I feel _for_ you, and feel _with_ you, my dear--I do, +with my whole heart." + +So this scene in my life was, to all appearance, a scene closed forever. +As it had been with my love, in the days of my boyhood, so it was again +now with the love of my riper age! + +Later in the day, when I had in some degree recovered my +self-possession, I wrote to Mr. Van Brandt--as _she_ had foreseen I +should write!--to apologize for breaking my engagement to dine with him. + +Could I trust to a letter also, to say the farewell words for me to the +woman whom I had loved and lost? No! It was better for her, and better +for me, that I should not write. And yet the idea of leaving her in +silence was more than my fortitude could endure. Her last words at +parting (as they were repeated to me by my mother) had expressed the +hope that I should not think hardly of her in the future. How could I +assure her that I should think of her tenderly to the end of my life? +My mother's delicate tact and true sympathy showed me the way. "Send a +little present, George," she said, "to the child. You bear no malice to +the poor little child?" God knows I was not hard on the child! I went +out myself and bought her a toy. I brought it home, and before I sent it +away, I pinned a slip of paper to it, bearing this inscription: "To your +little daughter, from George Germaine." There is nothing very pathetic, +I suppose, in those words. And yet I burst out crying when I had written +them. + +The next morning my mother and I set forth for my country-house in +Perthshire. London was now unendurable to me. Traveling abroad I had +tried already. Nothing was left but to go back to the Highlands, and to +try what I could make of my life, with my mother still left to live for. + +CHAPTER XVI. MY MOTHER'S DIARY. + +THERE is something repellent to me, even at this distance of time, in +looking back at the dreary days, of seclusion which followed each +other monotonously in my Highland home. The actions of my life, however +trifling they may have been, I can find some interest in recalling: they +associate me with my fellow-creatures; they connect me, in some degree, +with the vigorous movement of the world. But I have no sympathy with the +purely selfish pleasure which some men appear to derive from dwelling on +the minute anatomy of their own feelings, under the pressure of adverse +fortune. Let the domestic record of our stagnant life in Perthshire (so +far as I am concerned in it) be presented in my mother's words, not in +mine. A few lines of extract from the daily journal which it was her +habit to keep will tell all that need be told before this narrative +advances to later dates and to newer scenes. + + +"20th August.--We have been two months at our home in Scotland, and I +see no change in George for the better. He is as far as ever, I fear, +from being reconciled to his separation from that unhappy woman. Nothing +will induce him to confess it himself. He declares that his quiet life +here with me is all that he desires. But I know better! I have been into +his bedroom late at night. I have heard him talking of her in his sleep, +and I have seen the tears on his eyelids. My poor boy! What thousands +of charming women there are who would ask nothing better than to be his +wife! And the one woman whom he can never marry is the only woman whom +he loves! + +"25th.--A long conversation about George with Mr. MacGlue. I have never +liked this Scotch doctor since he encouraged my son to keep the fatal +appointment at Saint Anthony's Well. But he seems to be a clever man in +his profession--and I think, in his way, he means kindly toward George. +His advice was given as coarsely as usual, and very positively at the +same time. 'Nothing will cure your son, madam, of his amatory passion +for that half-drowned lady of his but change--and another lady. Send +him away by himself this time; and let him feel the want of some kind +creature to look after him. And when he meets with that kind creature +(they are as plenty as fish in the sea), never trouble your head about +it if there's a flaw in her character. I have got a cracked tea-cup +which has served me for twenty years. Marry him, ma'am, to the new one +with the utmost speed and impetuosity which the law will permit.' I hate +Mr. MacGlue's opinions--so coarse and so hard-hearted!--but I sadly fear +that I must part with my son for a little while, for his own sake. + +"26th.--Where is George to go? I have been thinking of it all through +the night, and I cannot arrive at a conclusion. It is so difficult to +reconcile myself to letting him go away alone. + +"29th.--I have always believed in special providences; and I am now +confirmed in my belief. This morning has brought with it a note from +our good friend and neighbor at Belhelvie. Sir James is one of the +commissioners for the Northern Lights. He is going in a Government +vessel to inspect the lighthouses on the North of Scotland, and on the +Orkney and Shetland Islands--and, having noticed how worn and ill my +poor boy looks, he most kindly invites George to be his guest on the +voyage. They will not be absent for more than two months; and the +sea (as Sir James reminds me) did wonders for George's health when he +returned from India. I could wish for no better opportunity than this of +trying what change of air and scene will do for him. However painfully I +may feel the separation myself, I shall put a cheerful face on it; and I +shall urge George to accept the invitation. + +"30th.--I have said all I could; but he still refuses to leave me. I am +a miserable, selfish creature. I felt so glad when he said No. + +"31st.--Another wakeful night. George must positively send his answer to +Sir James to-day. I am determined to do my duty toward my son--he looks +so dreadfully pale and ill this morning! Besides, if something is not +done to rouse him, how do I know that he may not end in going back to +Mrs. Van Brandt after all? From every point of view, I feel bound to +insist on his accepting Sir James's invitation. I have only to be firm, +and the thing is done. He has never yet disobeyed me, poor fellow. He +will not disobey me now. + +"2d September.--He has gone! Entirely to please me--entirely against his +own wishes. Oh, how is it that such a good son cannot get a good wife! +He would make any woman happy. I wonder whether I have done right in +sending him away? The wind is moaning in the fir plantation at the back +of the house. Is there a storm at sea? I forgot to ask Sir James how big +the vessel was. The 'Guide to Scotland' says the coast is rugged; and +there is a wild sea between the north shore and the Orkney Islands. I +almost regret having insisted so strongly--how foolish I am! We are all +in the hands of God. May God bless and prosper my good son! + +"10th.--Very uneasy. No letter from George. Ah, how full of trouble this +life is! and how strange that we should cling to it as we do! + +"15th.--A letter from George! They have done with the north coast and +they have crossed the wild sea to the Orkneys. Wonderful weather has +favored them so far; and George is in better health and spirits. Ah! how +much happiness there is in life if we only have the patience to wait for +it. + +"2d October.--Another letter. They are safe in the harbor of Lerwick, +the chief port in the Shetland Islands. The weather has not latterly +been at all favorable. But the amendment in George's health remains. He +writes most gratefully of Sir James's unremitting kindness to him. I am +so happy, I declare I could kiss Sir James--though he _is_ a great man, +and a Commissioner for Northern Lights! In three weeks more (wind and +weather permitting) they hope to get back. Never mind my lonely life +here, if I can only see George happy and well again! He tells me they +have passed a great deal of their time on shore; but not a word does +he say about meeting any ladies. Perhaps they are scarce in those wild +regions? I have heard of Shetland shawls and Shetland ponies. Are there +any Shetland ladies, I wonder?" + +CHAPTER XVII. SHETLAND HOSPITALITY. + +"GUIDE! Where are we?" + +"I can't say for certain." + +"Have you lost your way?" + +The guide looks slowly all round him, and then looks at me. That is his +answer to my question. And that is enough. + +The lost persons are three in number. My traveling companion, myself, +and the guide. We are seated on three Shetland ponies--so small in +stature, that we two strangers were at first literally ashamed to get on +their backs. We are surrounded by dripping white mist so dense that we +become invisible to one another at a distance of half a dozen yards. We +know that we are somewhere on the mainland of the Shetland Isles. We see +under the feet of our ponies a mixture of moorland and bog--here, the +strip of firm ground that we are standing on, and there, a few feet off, +the strip of watery peat-bog, which is deep enough to suffocate us if +we step into it. Thus far, and no further, our knowledge extends. This +question of the moment is, What are we to do next? + +The guide lights his pipe, and reminds me that he warned us against the +weather before we started for our ride. My traveling companion looks +at me resignedly, with an expression of mild reproach. I deserve it. My +rashness is to blame for the disastrous position in which we now find +ourselves. + +In writing to my mother, I have been careful to report favorably of my +health and spirits. But I have not confessed that I still remember the +day when I parted with the one hope and renounced the one love which +made life precious to me. My torpid condition of mind, at home, +has simply given place to a perpetual restlessness, produced by the +excitement of my new life. I must now always be doing something--no +matter what, so long as it diverts me from my own thoughts. Inaction is +unendurable; solitude has become horrible to me. While the other members +of the party which has accompanied Sir James on his voyage of inspection +among the lighthouses are content to wait in the harbor of Lerwick for +a favorable change in the weather, I am obstinately bent on leaving +the comfortable shelter of the vessel to explore some inland ruin of +prehistoric times, of which I never heard, and for which I care nothing. +The movement is all I want; the ride will fill the hateful void of +time. I go, in defiance of sound advice offered to me on all sides. The +youngest member of our party catches the infection of my recklessness +(in virtue of his youth) and goes with me. And what has come of it? +We are blinded by mist; we are lost on a moor; and the treacherous +peat-bogs are round us in every direction! + +What is to be done? + +"Just leave it to the pownies," the guide says. + +"Do you mean leave the ponies to find the way?" + +"That's it," says the guide. "Drop the bridle, and leave it to the +pownies. See for yourselves. I'm away on _my_ powny." + +He drops his bridle on the pommel of his saddle, whistles to his pony, +and disappears in the mist; riding with his hands in his pockets, and +his pipe in his mouth, as composedly as if he were sitting by his own +fireside at home. + +We have no choice but to follow his example, or to be left alone on +the moor. The intelligent little animals, relieved from our stupid +supervision, trot off with their noses to the ground, like hounds on the +scent. Where the intersecting tract of bog is wide, they skirt round it. +Where it is narrow enough to be leaped over, they cross it by a jump. +Trot! trot!--away the hardy little creatures go; never stopping, never +hesitating. Our "superior intelligence," perfectly useless in the +emergency, wonders how it will end. Our guide, in front of us, answers +that it will end in the ponies finding their way certainly to the +nearest village or the nearest house. "Let the bridles be," is his one +warning to us. "Come what may of it, let the bridles be!" + +It is easy for the guide to let his bridle be--he is accustomed to place +himself in that helpless position under stress of circumstances, and he +knows exactly what his pony can do. + +To us, however, the situation is a new one; and it looks dangerous in +the extreme. More than once I check myself, not without an effort, in +the act of resuming the command of my pony on passing the more dangerous +points in the journey. The time goes on; and no sign of an inhabited +dwelling looms through the mist. I begin to get fidgety and irritable; I +find myself secretly doubting the trustworthiness of the guide. While +I am in this unsettled frame of mind, my pony approaches a dim, black, +winding line, where the bog must be crossed for the hundredth time at +least. The breadth of it (deceptively enlarged in appearance by the +mist) looks to my eyes beyond the reach of a leap by any pony that ever +was foaled. I lose my presence of mind. At the critical moment before +the jump is taken, I am foolish enough to seize the bridle, and suddenly +check the pony. He starts, throws up his head, and falls instantly as if +he had been shot. My right hand, as we drop on the ground together, gets +twisted under me, and I feel that I have sprained my wrist. + +If I escape with no worse injury than this, I may consider myself well +off. But no such good fortune is reserved for me. In his struggles to +rise, before I have completely extricated myself from him, the pony +kicks me; and, as my ill-luck will have it, his hoof strikes just where +the poisoned spear struck me in the past days of my service in India. +The old wound opens again--and there I lie bleeding on the barren +Shetland moor! + +This time my strength has not been exhausted in attempting to breast +the current of a swift-flowing river with a drowning woman to support. +I preserve my senses; and I am able to give the necessary directions +for bandaging the wound with the best materials which we have at our +disposal. To mount my pony again is simply out of the question. I must +remain where I am, with my traveling companion to look after me; and the +guide must trust his pony to discover the nearest place of shelter to +which I can be removed. + +Before he abandons us on the moor, the man (at my suggestion) takes our +"bearings," as correctly as he can by the help of my pocket-compass. +This done, he disappears in the mist, with the bridle hanging loose, +and the pony's nose to the ground, as before. I am left, under my young +friend's care, with a cloak to lie on, and a saddle for a pillow. Our +ponies composedly help themselves to such grass as they can find on the +moor; keeping always near us as companionably as if they were a couple +of dogs. In this position we wait events, while the dripping mist hangs +thicker than ever all round us. + +The slow minutes follow each other wearily in the majestic silence of +the moor. We neither of us acknowledge it in words, but we both feel +that hours may pass before the guide discovers us again. The penetrating +damp slowly strengthens its clammy hold on me. My companion's +pocket-flask of sherry has about a teaspoonful of wine left in the +bottom of it. We look at one another--having nothing else to look at in +the present state of the weather--and we try to make the best of it. So +the slow minutes follow each other, until our watches tell us that forty +minutes have elapsed since the guide and his pony vanished from our +view. + +My friend suggests that we may as well try what our voices can do toward +proclaiming our situation to any living creature who may, by the barest +possibility, be within hearing of us. I leave him to try the experiment, +having no strength to spare for vocal efforts of any sort. My companion +shouts at the highest pitch of his voice. Silence follows his first +attempt. He tries again; and, this time, an answering hail reaches us +faintly through the white fog. A fellow-creature of some sort, guide or +stranger, is near us--help is coming at last! + +An interval passes; and voices reach our ears--the voices of two men. +Then the shadowy appearance of the two becomes visible in the mist. Then +the guide advances near enough to be identified. He is followed by a +sturdy fellow in a composite dress, which presents him under the double +aspect of a groom and a gardener. The guide speaks a few words of rough +sympathy. The composite man stands by impenetrably silent; the sight of +a disabled stranger fails entirely either to surprise or to interest the +gardener-groom. + +After a little private consultation, the two men decide to cross their +hands, and thus make a seat for me between them. My arms rest on their +shoulders; and so they carry me off. My friend trudges behind them, with +the saddle and the cloak. The ponies caper and kick, in unrestrained +enjoyment of their freedom; and sometimes follow, sometimes precede +us, as the humor of the moment inclines them. I am, fortunately for my +bearers, a light weight. After twice resting, they stop altogether, and +set me down on the driest place they can find. I look eagerly through +the mist for some signs of a dwelling-house--and I see nothing but a +little shelving beach, and a sheet of dark water beyond. Where are we? + +The gardener-groom vanishes, and appears again on the water, looming +large in a boat. I am laid down in the bottom of the boat, with my +saddle-pillow; and we shove off, leaving the ponies to the desolate +freedom of the moor. They will pick up plenty to eat (the guide says); +and when night comes on they will find their own way to shelter in a +village hard by. The last I see of the hardy little creatures they are +taking a drink of water, side by side, and biting each other sportively +in higher spirits than ever! + +Slowly we float over the dark water--not a river, as I had at first +supposed, but a lake--until we reach the shores of a little island; a +flat, lonely, barren patch of ground. I am carried along a rough pathway +made of great flat stones, until we reach the firmer earth, and discover +a human dwelling-place at last. It is a long, low house of one story +high; forming (as well as I can see) three sides of a square. The door +stands hospitably open. The hall within is bare and cold and dreary. The +men open an inner door, and we enter a long corridor, comfortably warmed +by a peat fire. On one wall I notice the closed oaken doors of rooms; +on the other, rows on rows of well-filled book-shelves meet my eye. +Advancing to the end of the first passage, we turn at right angles into +a second. Here a door is opened at last: I find myself in a spacious +room, completely and tastefully furnished, having two beds in it, and +a large fire burning in the grate. The change to this warm and cheerful +place of shelter from the chilly and misty solitude of the moor is +so luxuriously delightful that I am quite content, for the first +few minutes, to stretch myself on a bed, in lazy enjoyment of my new +position; without caring to inquire into whose house we have intruded; +without even wondering at the strange absence of master, mistress, or +member of the family to welcome our arrival under their hospitable roof. + +After a while, the first sense of relief passes away. My dormant +curiosity revives. I begin to look about me. + +The gardener-groom has disappeared. I discover my traveling companion +at the further end of the room, evidently occupied in questioning the +guide. A word from me brings him to my bedside. What discoveries has he +made? whose is the house in which we are sheltered; and how is it that +no member of the family appears to welcome us? + +My friend relates his discoveries. The guide listens as attentively to +the second-hand narrative as if it were quite new to him. + +The house that shelters us belongs to a gentleman of ancient Northern +lineage, whose name is Dunross. He has lived in unbroken retirement on +the barren island for twenty years past, with no other companion than a +daughter, who is his only child. He is generally believed to be one of +the most learned men living. The inhabitants of Shetland know him far +and wide, under a name in their dialect which means, being interpreted, +"The Master of Books." The one occasion on which he and his daughter +have been known to leave their island retreat was at a past time when +a terrible epidemic disease broke out among the villages in the +neighborhood. Father and daughter labored day and night among their poor +and afflicted neighbors, with a courage which no danger could shake, +with a tender care which no fatigue could exhaust. The father had +escaped infection, and the violence of the epidemic was beginning to +wear itself out, when the daughter caught the disease. Her life had been +preserved, but she never completely recovered her health. She is now an +incurable sufferer from some mysterious nervous disorder which +nobody understands, and which has kept her a prisoner on the island, +self-withdrawn from all human observation, for years past. Among the +poor inhabitants of the district, the father and daughter are worshiped +as semi-divine beings. Their names come after the Sacred Name in the +prayers which the parents teach to their children. + +Such is the household (so far as the guide's story goes) on whose +privacy we have intruded ourselves! The narrative has a certain interest +of its own, no doubt, but it has one defect--it fails entirely to +explain the continued absence of Mr. Dunross. Is it possible that he is +not aware of our presence in the house? We apply the guide, and make a +few further inquiries of him. + +"Are we here," I ask, "by permission of Mr. Dunross?" + +The guide stares. If I had spoken to him in Greek or Hebrew, I could +hardly have puzzled him more effectually. My friend tries him with a +simpler form of words. + +"Did you ask leave to bring us here when you found your way to the +house?" + +The guide stares harder than ever, with every appearance of feeling +perfectly scandalized by the question. + +"Do you think," he asks, sternly, "'that I am fool enough to disturb the +Master over his books for such a little matter as bringing you and your +friend into this house?" + +"Do you mean that you have brought us here without first asking leave?" +I exclaim in amazement. + +The guide's face brightens; he has beaten the true state of the case +into our stupid heads at last! "That's just what I mean!" he says, with +an air of infinite relief. + +The door opens before we have recovered the shock inflicted on us by +this extraordinary discovery. A little, lean, old gentleman, shrouded +in a long black dressing-gown, quietly enters the room. The guide steps +forward, and respectfully closes the door for him. We are evidently in +the presence of The Master of Books! + +CHAPTER XVIII. THE DARKENED ROOM. + +THE little gentleman advances to my bedside. His silky white hair flows +over his shoulders; he looks at us with faded blue eyes; he bows with a +sad and subdued courtesy, and says, in the simplest manner, "I bid you +welcome, gentlemen, to my house." + +We are not content with merely thanking him; we naturally attempt to +apologize for our intrusion. Our host defeats the attempt at the outset +by making an apology on his own behalf. + +"I happened to send for my servant a minute since," he proceeds, "and +I only then heard that you were here. It is a custom of the house +that nobody interrupts me over my books. Be pleased, sir, to accept +my excuses," he adds, addressing himself to me, "for not having sooner +placed myself and my household at your disposal. You have met, as I am +sorry to hear, with an accident. Will you permit me to send for medical +help? I ask the question a little abruptly, fearing that time may be of +importance, and knowing that our nearest doctor lives at some distance +from this house." + +He speaks with a certain quaintly precise choice of words--more like a +man dictating a letter than holding a conversation. The subdued sadness +of his manner is reflected in the subdued sadness of his face. He and +sorrow have apparently been old acquaintances, and have become used to +each other for years past. The shadow of some past grief rests quietly +and impenetrably over the whole man; I see it in his faded blue eyes, on +his broad forehead, on his delicate lips, on his pale shriveled cheeks. +My uneasy sense of committing an intrusion on him steadily increases, +in spite of his courteous welcome. I explain to him that I am capable of +treating my own case, having been myself in practice as a medical man; +and this said, I revert to my interrupted excuses. I assure him that it +is only within the last few moments that my traveling companion and +I have become aware of the liberty which our guide has taken in +introducing us, on his own sole responsibility, to the house. Mr. +Dunross looks at me, as if he, like the guide, failed entirely to +understand what my scruples and excuses mean. After a while the truth +dawns on him. A faint smile flickers over his face; he lays his hand in +a gentle, fatherly way on my shoulder. + +"We are so used here to our Shetland hospitality," he says, "that we +are slow to understand the hesitation which a stranger feels in taking +advantage of it. Your guide is in no respect to blame, gentlemen. Every +house in these islands which is large enough to contain a spare room has +its Guests' Chamber, always kept ready for occupation. When you travel +my way, you come here as a matter of course; you stay here as long as +you like; and, when you go away, I only do my duty as a good Shetlander +in accompanying you on the first stage of your journey to bid you +godspeed. The customs of centuries past elsewhere are modern customs +here. I beg of you to give my servant all the directions which are +necessary to your comfort, just as freely as you could give them in your +own house." + +He turns aside to ring a hand-bell on the table as he speaks; and +notices in the guide's face plain signs that the man has taken offense +at my disparaging allusion to him. + +"Strangers cannot be expected to understand our ways, Andrew," says +The Master of Books. "But you and I understand one another--and that is +enough." + +The guide's rough face reddens with pleasure. If a crowned king on a +throne had spoken condescendingly to him, he could hardly have looked +more proud of the honor conferred than he looks now. He makes a clumsy +attempt to take the Master's hand and kiss it. Mr. Dunross gently repels +the attempt, and gives him a little pat on the head. The guide looks at +me and my friend as if he had been honored with the highest distinction +that an earthly being can receive. The Master's hand had touched him +kindly! + +In a moment more, the gardener-groom appears at the door to answer the +bell. + +"You will move the medicine-chest into this room, Peter," says Mr. +Dunross. "And you will wait on this gentleman, who is confined to his +bed by an accident, exactly as you would wait on me if I were ill. If +we both happen to ring for you together, you will answer his bell before +you answer mine. The usual changes of linen are, of course, ready in the +wardrobe there? Very good. Go now, and tell the cook to prepare a little +dinner; and get a bottle of the old Madeira out of the cellar. You will +least, in this room. These two gentlemen will be best pleased to dine +together. Return here in five minutes' time, in case you are wanted; and +show my guest, Peter, that I am right in believing you to be a good +nurse as well as a good servant." + +The silent and surly Peter brightens under the expression of the +Master's confidence in him, as the guide brightened under the influence +of the Master's caressing touch. The two men leave the room together. + +We take advantage of the momentary silence that follows to introduce +ourselves by name to our host, and to inform him of the circumstances +under which we happen to be visiting Shetland. He listens in his +subdued, courteous way; but he makes no inquiries about our relatives; +he shows no interest in the arrival of the Government yacht and the +Commissioner for Northern Lights. All sympathy with the doings of +the outer world, all curiosity about persons of social position and +notoriety, is evidently at an end in Mr. Dunross. For twenty years the +little round of his duties and his occupations has been enough for him. +Life has lost its priceless value to this man; and when Death comes to +him he will receive the king of terrors as he might receive the last of +his guests. + +"Is there anything else I can do," he says, speaking more to himself +than to us, "before I go back to my books?" + +Something else occurs to him, even as he puts the question. He addresses +my companion, with his faint, sad smile. "This will be a dull life, I am +afraid, sir, for you. If you happen to be fond of angling, I can offer +you some little amusement in that way. The lake is well stocked with +fish; and I have a boy employed in the garden, who will be glad to +attend on you in the boat." + +My friend happens to be fond of fishing, and gladly accepts the +invitation. The Master says his parting words to me before he goes back +to his books. + +"You may safely trust my man Peter to wait on you, Mr. Germaine, while +you are so unfortunate as to be confined to this room. He has the +advantage (in cases of illness) of being a very silent, undemonstrative +person. At the same time he is careful and considerate, in his own +reserved way. As to what I may term the lighter duties at your bedside +such as reading to you, writing your letters for you while your right +hand is still disabled, regulating the temperature in the room, and +so on--though I cannot speak positively, I think it likely that these +little services may be rendered to you by another person whom I have not +mentioned yet. We shall see what happens in a few hours' time. In the +meanwhile, sir, I ask permission to leave you to your rest." + +With those words, he walks out of the room as quietly as he walked +into it, and leaves his two guests to meditate gratefully on Shetland +hospitality. We both wonder what those last mysterious words of our host +mean; and we exchange more or less ingenious guesses on the subject of +that nameless "other person" who may possibly attend on me--until the +arrival of dinner turns our thoughts into a new course. + +The dishes are few in number, but cooked to perfection and admirably +served. I am too weary to eat much: a glass of the fine old Madeira +revives me. We arrange our future plans while we are engaged over the +meal. Our return to the yacht in Lerwick harbor is expected on the next +day at the latest. As things are, I can only leave my companion to go +back to the vessel, and relieve the minds of our friends of any needless +alarm about me. On the day after, I engage to send on board a written +report of the state of my health, by a messenger who can bring my +portmanteau back with him. + +These arrangements decided on, my friend goes away (at my own request) +to try his skill as an angler in the lake. Assisted by the silent Peter +and the well-stocked medicine-chest, I apply the necessary dressings to +my wound, wrap myself in the comfortable morning-gown which is always +kept ready in the Guests' Chamber, and lie down again on the bed to try +the restorative virtues of sleep. + +Before he leaves the room, silent Peter goes to the window, and asks +in fewest possible words if he shall draw the curtains. In fewer words +still--for I am feeling drowsy already--I answer No. I dislike shutting +out the cheering light of day. To my morbid fancy, at that moment, +it looks like resigning myself deliberately to the horrors of a long +illness. The hand-bell is on my bedside table; and I can always ring for +Peter if the light keeps me from sleeping. On this understanding, Peter +mutely nods his head, and goes out. + +For some minutes I lie in lazy contemplation of the companionable fire. +Meanwhile the dressings on my wound and the embrocation on my sprained +wrist steadily subdue the pains which I have felt so far. Little by +little, the bright fire seems to be fading. Little by little, sleep +steals on me, and all my troubles are forgotten. + +I wake, after what seems to have been a long repose--I wake, feeling the +bewilderment which we all experience on opening our eyes for the first +time in a bed and a room that are new to us. Gradually collecting my +thoughts, I find my perplexity considerably increased by a trifling but +curious circumstance. The curtains which I had forbidden Peter to touch +are drawn--closely drawn, so as to plunge the whole room in obscurity. +And, more surprising still, a high screen with folding sides stands +before the fire, and confines the light which it might otherwise give +exclusively to the ceiling. I am literally enveloped in shadows. Has +night come? + +In lazy wonder, I turn my head on the pillow, and look on the other side +of my bed. + +Dark as it is, I discover instantly that I am not alone. + +A shadowy figure stands by my bedside. The dim outline of the dress +tells me that it is the figure of a woman. Straining my eyes, I fancy +I can discern a wavy black object covering her head and shoulders +which looks like a large veil. Her face is turned toward me, but no +distinguishing feature in it is visible. She stands like a statue, with +her hands crossed in front of her, faintly relieved against the dark +substance of her dress. This I can see--and this is all. + +There is a moment of silence. The shadowy being finds its voice, and +speaks first. + +"I hope you feel better, sir, after your rest?" + +The voice is low, with a certain faint sweetness or tone which falls +soothingly on my ear. The accent is unmistakably the accent of a refined +and cultivated person. After making my acknowledgments to the unknown +and half-seen lady, I venture to ask the inevitable question, "To whom +have I the honor of speaking?" + +The lady answers, "I am Miss Dunross; and I hope, if you have no +objection to it, to help Peter in nursing you." + +This, then, is the "other person" dimly alluded to by our host! I +think directly of the heroic conduct of Miss Dunross among her poor and +afflicted neighbors; and I do not forget the melancholy result of her +devotion to others which has left her an incurable invalid. My anxiety +to see this lady more plainly increases a hundred-fold. I beg her to add +to my grateful sense of her kindness by telling me why the room is so +dark "Surely," I say, "it cannot be night already?" + +"You have not been asleep," she answers, "for more than two hours. The +mist has disappeared, and the sun is shining." + +I take up the bell, standing on the table at my side. + +"May I ring for Peter, Miss Dunross?" + +"To open the curtains, Mr. Germaine?" + +"Yes--with your permission. I own I should like to see the sunlight." + +"I will send Peter to you immediately." + +The shadowy figure of my new nurse glides away. In another moment, +unless I say something to stop her, the woman whom I am so eager to see +will have left the room. + +"Pray don't go!" I say. "I cannot think of troubling you to take a +trifling message for me. The servant will come in, if I only ring the +bell." + +She pauses--more shadowy than ever--halfway between the bed and the +door, and answers a little sadly: + +"Peter will not let in the daylight while I am in the room. He closed +the curtains by my order." + +The reply puzzles me. Why should Peter keep the room dark while Miss +Dunross is in it? Are her eyes weak? No; if her eyes were weak, they +would be protected by a shade. Dark as it is, I can see that she does +not wear a shade. Why has the room been darkened--if not for me? I +cannot venture on asking the question--I can only make my excuses in due +form. + +"Invalids only think of themselves," I say. "I supposed that you had +kindly darkened the room on my account." + +She glides back to my bedside before she speaks again. When she does +answer, it is in these startling words: + +"You were mistaken, Mr. Germaine. Your room has been darkened--not on +your account, but on _mine_." + +CHAPTER XIX. THE CATS. + +MISS DUNROSS had so completely perplexed me, that I was at a loss what +to say next. + +To ask her plainly why it was necessary to keep the room in darkness +while she remained in it, might prove (for all I knew to the contrary) +to be an act of positive rudeness. To venture on any general expression +of sympathy with her, knowing absolutely nothing of the circumstances, +might place us both in an embarrassing position at the outset of our +acquaintance. The one thing I could do was to beg that the present +arrangement of the room might not be disturbed, and to leave her to +decide as to whether she should admit me to her confidence or exclude me +from it, at her own sole discretion. + +She perfectly understood what was going on in my mind. Taking a chair at +the foot of the bed, she told me simply and unreservedly the sad secret +of the darkened room. + +"If you wish to see much of me, Mr. Germaine," she began, "you must +accustom yourself to the world of shadows in which it is my lot to live. +Some time since, a dreadful illness raged among the people in our part +of this island; and I was so unfortunate as to catch the infection. When +I recovered--no! 'Recovery' is not the right word to use--let me say, +when I escaped death, I found myself afflicted by a nervous malady which +has defied medical help from that time to this. I am suffering (as the +doctors explain it to me) from a morbidly sensitive condition of the +nerves near the surface to the action of light. If I were to draw the +curtains, and look out of that window, I should feel the acutest pain +all over my face. If I covered my face, and drew the curtains with my +bare hands, I should feel the same pain in my hands. You can just see, +perhaps, that I have a very large and very thick veil on my head. I let +it fall over my face and neck and hands, when I have occasion to +pass along the corridors or to enter my father's study--and I find it +protection enough. Don't be too ready to deplore my sad condition, +sir! I have got so used to living in the dark that I can see quite well +enough for all the purposes of _my_ poor existence. I can read and write +in these shadows--I can see you, and be of use to you in many little +ways, if you will let me. There is really nothing to be distressed +about. My life will not be a long one--I know and feel that. But I hope +to be spared long enough to be my father's companion through the closing +years of his life. Beyond that, I have no prospect. In the meanwhile, +I have my pleasures; and I mean to add to my scanty little stack the +pleasure of attending on you. You are quite an event in my life. I +look forward to reading to you and writing for you, as some girls look +forward to a new dress, or a first ball. Do you think it very strange of +me to tell you so openly just what I have in my mind? I can't help it! I +say what I think to my father and to our poor neighbors hereabouts--and +I can't alter my ways at a moment's notice. I own it when I like people; +and I own it when I don't. I have been looking at you while you were +asleep; and I have read your face as I might read a book. There are +signs of sorrow on your forehead and your lips which it is strange to +see in so young a face as yours. I am afraid I shall trouble you with +many questions about yourself when we become better acquainted with each +other. Let me begin with a question, in my capacity as nurse. Are your +pillows comfortable? I can see they want shaking up. Shall I send for +Peter to raise you? I am unhappily not strong enough to be able to help +you in that way. No? You are able to raise yourself? Wait a little. +There! Now lie back--and tell me if I know how to establish the right +sort of sympathy between a tumbled pillow and a weary head." + +She had so indescribably touched and interested me, stranger as I was, +that the sudden cessation of her faint, sweet tones affected me almost +with a sense of pain. In trying (clumsily enough) to help her with the +pillows, I accidentally touched her hand. It felt so cold and so thin, +that even the momentary contact with it startled me. I tried vainly to +see her face, now that it was more within reach of my range of view. +The merciless darkness kept it as complete a mystery as ever. Had my +curiosity escaped her notice? Nothing escaped her notice. Her next words +told me plainly that I had been discovered. + +"You have been trying to see me," she said. "Has my hand warned you not +to try again? I felt that it startled you when you touched it just now." + +Such quickness of perception as this was not to be deceived; such +fearless candor demanded as a right a similar frankness on my side. I +owned the truth, and left it to her indulgence to forgive me. + +She returned slowly to her chair at the foot of the bed. + +"If we are to be friends," she said, "we must begin by understanding +one another. Don't associate any romantic ideas of invisible beauty +with _me_, Mr. Germaine. I had but one beauty to boast of before I fell +ill--my complexion--and that has gone forever. There is nothing to see +in me now but the poor reflection of my former self; the ruin of +what was once a woman. I don't say this to distress you--I say it to +reconcile you to the darkness as a perpetual obstacle, so far as your +eyes are concerned, between you and me. Make the best instead of the +worst of your strange position here. It offers you a new sensation +to amuse you while you are ill. You have a nurse who is an impersonal +creature--a shadow among shadows; a voice to speak to you, and a hand to +help you, and nothing more. Enough of myself!" she exclaimed, rising +and changing her tone. "What can I do to amuse you?" She considered +a little. "I have some odd tastes," she resumed; "and I think I may +entertain you if I make you acquainted with one of them. Are you like +most other men, Mr. Germaine? Do you hate cats?" + +The question startled me. However, I could honestly answer that, in this +respect at least, I was not like other men. + +"To my thinking," I added, "the cat is a cruelly misunderstood +creature--especially in England. Women, no doubt, generally do justice +to the affectionate nature of cats. But the men treat them as if they +were the natural enemies of the human race. The men drive a cat out of +their presence if it ventures upstairs, and set their dogs at it if it +shows itself in the street--and then they turn round and accuse the poor +creature (whose genial nature must attach itself to something) of being +only fond of the kitchen!" + +The expression of these unpopular sentiments appeared to raise me +greatly in the estimation of Miss Dunross. + +"We have one sympathy in common, at any rate," she said. "Now I can +amuse you! Prepare for a surprise." + +She drew her veil over her face as she spoke, and, partially opening the +door, rang my handbell. Peter appeared, and received his instructions. + +"Move the screen," said Miss Dunross. Peter obeyed; the ruddy firelight +streamed over the floor. Miss Dunross proceeded with her directions. +"Open the door of the cats' room, Peter; and bring me my harp. Don't +suppose that you are going to listen to a great player, Mr. Germaine," +she went on, when Peter had departed on his singular errand, "or that +you are likely to see the sort of harp to which you are accustomed, as +a man of the modern time. I can only play some old Scotch airs; and my +harp is an ancient instrument (with new strings)--an heirloom in our +family, some centuries old. When you see my harp, you will think of +pictures of St. Cecilia--and you will be treating my performance kindly +if you will remember, at the same time, that I am no saint!" + +She drew her chair into the firelight, and sounded a whistle which +she took from the pocket of her dress. In another moment the lithe +and shadowy figures of the cats appeared noiselessly in the red light, +answering their mistress's call. I could just count six of them, as the +creatures seated themselves demurely in a circle round the chair. Peter +followed with the harp, and closed the door after him as he went out. +The streak of daylight being now excluded from the room, Miss Dunross +threw back her veil, and took the harp on her knee; seating herself, I +observed, with her face turned away from the fire. + +"You will have light enough to see the cats by," she said, "without +having too much light for _me_. Firelight does not give me the acute +pain which I suffer when daylight falls on my face--I feel a certain +inconvenience from it, and nothing more." + +She touched the strings of her instrument--the ancient harp, as she had +said, of the pictured St. Cecilia; or, rather, as I thought, the ancient +harp of the Welsh bards. The sound was at first unpleasantly high in +pitch, to my untutored ear. At the opening notes of the melody--a slow, +wailing, dirgelike air--the cats rose, and circled round their mistress, +marching to the tune. Now they followed each other singly; now, at a +change in the melody, they walked two and two; and, now again, they +separated into divisions of three each, and circled round the chair in +opposite directions. The music quickened, and the cats quickened their +pace with it. Faster and faster the notes rang out, and faster and +faster in the ruddy firelight, the cats, like living shadows, whirled +round the still black figure in the chair, with the ancient harp on its +knee. Anything so weird, wild, and ghostlike I never imagined before +even in a dream! The music changed, and the whirling cats began to leap. +One perched itself at a bound on the pedestal of the harp. Four sprung +up together, and assumed their places, two on each of her shoulders. +The last and smallest of the cats took the last leap, and lighted on +her head! There the six creatures kept their positions, motionless as +statues! Nothing moved but the wan, white hands over the harp-strings; +no sound but the sound of the music stirred in the room. Once more the +melody changed. In an instant the six cats were on the floor again, +seated round the chair as I had seen them on their first entrance; the +harp was laid aside; and the faint, sweet voice said quietly, "I am soon +tired--I must leave my cats to conclude their performances tomorrow." + +She rose, and approached the bedside. + +"I leave you to see the sunset through your window," she said. "From +the coming of the darkness to the coming of breakfast-time, you must +not count on my services--I am taking my rest. I have no choice but to +remain in bed (sleeping when I can) for twelve hours or more. The long +repose seems to keep my life in me. Have I and my cats surprised you +very much? Am I a witch; and are they my familiar spirits? Remember how +few amusements I have, and you will not wonder why I devote myself to +teaching these pretty creatures their tricks, and attaching them to me +like dogs! They were slow at first, and they taught me excellent lessons +of patience. Now they understand what I want of them, and they learn +wonderfully well. How you will amuse your friend, when he comes back +from fishing, with the story of the young lady who lives in the dark, +and keeps a company of performing cats! I shall expect _you_ to amuse +_me_ to-morrow--I want you to tell me all about yourself, and how you +came to visit these wild islands of ours. Perhaps, as the days go on, +and we get better acquainted, you will take me a little more into your +confidence, and tell me the true meaning of that story of sorrow which I +read on your face while you were asleep? I have just enough of the woman +left in me to be the victim of curiosity, when I meet with a person who +interests me. Good-by till to-morrow! I wish you a tranquil night, and a +pleasant waking.--Come, my familiar spirits! Come, my cat children! it's +time we went back to our own side of the house." + +She dropped the veil over her face--and, followed by her train of cats, +glided out of the room. + +Immediately on her departure, Peter appeared and drew back the curtains. +The light of the setting sun streamed in at the window. At the same +moment my traveling companion returned in high spirits, eager to tell me +about his fishing in the lake. The contrast between what I saw and heard +now, and what I had seen and heard only a few minutes since, was so +extraordinary and so startling that I almost doubted whether the veiled +figure with the harp, and the dance of cats, were not the fantastic +creations of a dream. I actually asked my friend whether he had found me +awake or asleep when he came into the room! + +Evening merged into night. The Master of Books made his appearance, to +receive the latest news of my health. He spoke and listened absently +as if his mind were still pre-occupied by his studies--except when I +referred gratefully to his daughter's kindness to me. At her name his +faded blue eyes brightened; his drooping head became erect; his sad, +subdued voice strengthened in tone. + +"Do not hesitate to let her attend on you," he said. "Whatever interests +or amuses her, lengthens her life. In _her_ life is the breath of mine. +She is more than my daughter; she is the guardian-angel of the house. Go +where she may, she carries the air of heaven with her. When you say your +prayers, sir, pray God to leave my daughter here a little longer." + +He sighed heavily; his head dropped again on his breast--he left me. + +The hour advanced; the evening meal was set by my bedside. Silent Peter, +taking his leave for the night, developed into speech. "I sleep next +door," he said. "Ring when you want me." My traveling companion, taking +the second bed in the room, reposed in the happy sleep of youth. In +the house there was dead silence. Out of the house, the low song of the +night-wind, rising and falling over the lake and the moor, was the one +sound to be heard. So the first day ended in the hospitable Shetland +house. + +CHAPTER XX. THE GREEN FLAG. + +"I CONGRATULATE you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of painting in words. +Your description gives me a vivid idea of Mrs. Van Brandt." + +"Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross?" + +"May I speak as plainly as usual?" + +"Certainly!" + +"Well, then, plainly, I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt." + +Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had made her way into my +confidence already! + +By what means had she induced me to trust her with those secret and +sacred sorrows of my life which I had hitherto kept for my mother's +ear alone? I can easily recall the rapid and subtle manner in which her +sympathies twined themselves round mine; but I fail entirely to trace +the infinite gradations of approach by which she surprised and conquered +my habitual reserve. The strongest influence of all, the influence of +the eye, was not hers. When the light was admitted into the room she was +shrouded in her veil. At all other times the curtains were drawn, the +screen was before the fire--I could see dimly the outline of her face, +and I could see no more. The secret of her influence was perhaps partly +attributable to the simple and sisterly manner in which she spoke to me, +and partly to the indescribable interest which associated itself with +her mere presence in the room. Her father had told me that she "carried +the air of heaven with her." In my experience, I can only say that she +carried something with her which softly and inscrutably possessed itself +of my will, and made me as unconsciously obedient to her wishes as if I +had been her dog. The love-story of my boyhood, in all its particulars, +down even to the gift of the green flag; the mystic predictions of Dame +Dermody; the loss of every trace of my little Mary of former days; the +rescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from the river; the apparition of her in the +summer-house; the after-meetings with her in Edinburgh and in London; +the final parting which had left its mark of sorrow on my face--all +these events, all these sufferings, I confided to her as unreservedly +as I have confided them to these pages. And the result, as she sat by me +in the darkened room, was summed up, with a woman's headlong impetuosity +of judgment, in the words that I have just written--"I don't like your +Mrs. Van Brandt!" + +"Why not?" I asked. + +She answered instantly, "Because you ought to love nobody but Mary." + +"But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen." + +"Be patient, and you will find her again. Mary is patient--Mary is +waiting for you. When you meet her, you will be ashamed to remember that +you ever loved Mrs. Van Brandt--you will look on your separation from +that woman as the happiest event of your life. I may not live to hear of +it--but _you_ will live to own that I was right." + +Her perfectly baseless conviction that time would yet bring about my +meeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused me. + +"You seem to agree with Dame Dermody," I said. "You believe that our two +destinies are one. No matter what time may elapse, or what may happen in +the time, you believe my marriage with Mary is still a marriage delayed, +and nothing more?" + +"I firmly believe it." + +"Without knowing why--except that you dislike the idea of my marrying +Mrs. Van Brandt?" + +She knew that this view of her motive was not far from being the right +one--and, womanlike, she shifted the discussion to new ground. + +"Why do you call her Mrs. Van Brandt?" she asked. "Mrs. Van Brandt is +the namesake of your first love. If you are so fond of her, why don't +you call her Mary?" + +I was ashamed to give the true reason--it seemed so utterly unworthy of +a man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hesitation, she insisted on my +answering her; she forced me to make my humiliating confession. + +"The man who has parted us," I said, "called her Mary. I hate him with +such a jealous hatred that he has even disgusted me with the name! It +lost all its charm for me when it passed _his_ lips." + +I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No! She suddenly raised +her head as if she were looking at me intently in the dark. + +"How fond you must be of that woman!" she said. "Do you dream of her +now?" + +"I never dream of her now." + +"Do you expect to see the apparition of her again?" + +"It may be so--if a time comes when she is in sore need of help, and +when she has no friend to look to but me." + +"Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary?" + +"Never!" + +"But you used once to see her--as Dame Dermody predicted--in dreams?" + +"Yes--when I was a lad." + +"And, in the after-time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van Brandt who came +to you in dreams--who appeared to you in the spirit, when she was far +away from you in the body? Poor old Dame Dermody. She little thought, +in her life-time, that her prediction would be fullfilled by the wrong +woman!" + +To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her! If she had +only pressed them a little further--if she had not unconsciously led +me astray again by the very next question that fell from her lips--she +_must_ have communicated to _my_ mind the idea obscurely germinating in +hers--the idea of a possible identity between the Mary of my first love +and Mrs. Van Brandt! + +"Tell me," she went on. "If you met with your little Mary now, what +would she be like? What sort of woman would you expect to see?" + +I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoined, "at this +distance of time?" + +"Try!" she said. + +Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, I +searched my memory for the image of the frail and delicate child of my +remembrance: and I drew the picture of a frail and delicate woman--the +most absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt! + +The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunross dropped +out of it instantly, expelled by the substantial conclusion which the +contrast implied. Alike ignorant of the aftergrowth of health, strength, +and beauty which time and circumstances had developed in the Mary of +my youthful days, we had alike completely and unconsciously misled one +another. Once more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missed +it by a hair-breadth! + +"I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dunross, "to +your portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea of what a really +attractive woman ought to be. How you can have felt any sorrow for +the loss of that other person (I detest buxom women!) passes my +understanding. I can't tell you how interested I am in Mary! I want to +know more about her. Where is that pretty present of needle-work which +the poor little thing embroidered for you so industriously? Do let me +see the green flag!" + +She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! I felt a +little confused as I answered her. + +"I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in my house +in Perthshire." + +"You have not got it with you?" she exclaimed. "You leave her keepsake +lying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeed forgotten Mary! +A woman, in your place, would have parted with her life rather than part +with the one memorial left of the time when she first loved!" + +She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness--with such agitation, I +might almost say--that she quite startled me. + +"Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not lost." + +"I should hope not!" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose the green +flag, you lose the last relic of Mary--and more than that, if _my_ +belief is right." + +"What do you believe?" + +"You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading of +your face was wrong--I am afraid you are a hard man." + +"Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me as frankly as +usual. What do I lose in losing the last relic of Mary?" + +"You lose the one hope I have for you," she answered, gravely--"the hope +of your meeting and your marriage with Mary in the time to come. I was +sleepless last night, and I was thinking of your pretty love story by +the banks of the bright English lake. The longer I thought, the more +firmly I felt the conviction that the poor child's green flag is +destined to have its innocent influence in forming your future life. +Your happiness is waiting for you in that artless little keepsake! +I can't explain or justify this belief of mine. It is one of my +eccentricities, I suppose--like training my cats to perform to the music +of my harp. But, if I were your old friend, instead of being only +your friend of a few days, I would leave you no peace--I would beg and +entreat and persist, as only a woman _can_ persist--until I had made +Mary's gift as close a companion of yours, as your mother's portrait in +the locket there at your watch-chain. While the flag is with you, Mary's +influence is with you; Mary's love is still binding you by the dear old +tie; and Mary and you, after years of separation, will meet again!" + +The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestness which had +given expression to it would have had its influence over a man of a far +harder nature than mine. I confess she had made me ashamed, if she had +done nothing more, of my neglect of the green flag. + +"I will look for it the moment I am at home again," I said; "and I will +take care that it is carefully preserved for the future." + +"I want more than that," she rejoined. "If you can't wear the flag about +you, I want it always to be _with_ you--to go wherever you go. When +they brought your luggage here from the vessel at Lerwick, you +were particularly anxious about the safety of your traveling +writing-desk--the desk there on the table. Is there anything very +valuable in it?" + +"It contains my money, and other things that I prize far more highly--my +mother's letters, and some family relics which I should be very sorry +to lose. Besides, the desk itself has its own familiar interest as my +constant traveling companion of many years past." + +Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I was sitting. + +"Let Mary's flag be your constant traveling companion," she said. "You +have spoken far too gratefully of my services here as your nurse. +Reward me beyond my deserts. Make allowances, Mr. Germaine, for the +superstitious fancies of a lonely, dreamy woman. Promise me that the +green flag shall take its place among the other little treasures in your +desk!" + +It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave the +promise--gave it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For the first +time since I had known her, she put her poor, wasted hand in mine, +and pressed it for a moment. Acting heedlessly under my first grateful +impulse, I lifted her hand to my lips before I released it. She +started--trembled--and suddenly and silently passed out of the room. + +CHAPTER XXI. SHE COMES BETWEEN US. + +WHAT emotion had I thoughtlessly aroused in Miss Dunross? Had I offended +or distressed her? Or had I, without meaning it, forced on her inner +knowledge some deeply seated feeling which she had thus far resolutely +ignored? + +I looked back through the days of my sojourn in the house; I questioned +my own feelings and impressions, on the chance that they might serve me +as a means of solving the mystery of her sudden flight from the room. + +What effect had she produced on me? + +In plain truth, she had simply taken her place in my mind, to the +exclusion of every other person and every other subject. In ten days she +had taken a hold on my sympathies of which other women would have failed +to possess themselves in so many years. I remembered, to my shame, that +my mother had but seldom occupied my thoughts. Even the image of Mrs. +Van Brandt--except when the conversation had turned on her--had become +a faint image in my mind! As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir James +downward, they had all kindly come to see me--and I had secretly and +ungratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene free for the +return of my nurse. In two days more the Government vessel was to sail +on the return voyage. My wrist was still painful when I tried to use it; +but the far more serious injury presented by the re-opened wound was +no longer a subject of anxiety to myself or to any one about me. I was +sufficiently restored to be capable of making the journey to Lerwick, +if I rested for one night at a farm half-way between the town and Mr. +Dunross's house. Knowing this, I had nevertheless left the question of +rejoining the vessel undecided to the very latest moment. The motive +which I pleaded to my friends was--uncertainty as to the sufficient +recovery of my strength. The motive which I now confessed to myself was +reluctance to leave Miss Dunross. + +What was the secret of her power over me? What emotion, what passion, +had she awakened in me? Was it love? + +No: not love. The place which Mary had once held in my heart, the place +which Mrs. Van Brandt had taken in the after-time, was not the place +occupied by Miss Dunross. How could I (in the ordinary sense of the +word) be in love with a woman whose face I had never seen? whose beauty +had faded, never to bloom again? whose wasted life hung by a thread +which the accident of a moment might snap? The senses have their share +in all love between the sexes which is worthy of the name. They had no +share in the feeling with which I regarded Miss Dunross. What _was_ the +feeling, then? I can only answer the question in one way. The feeling +lay too deep in me for my sounding. + +What impression had I produced on her? What sensitive chord had I +ignorantly touched, when my lips touched her hand? + +I confess I recoiled from pursuing the inquiry which I had deliberately +set myself to make. I thought of her shattered health; of her melancholy +existence in shadow and solitude; of the rich treasures of such a heart +and such a mind as hers, wasted with her wasting life; and I said to +myself, Let her secret be sacred! let me never again, by word or deed, +bring the trouble which tells of it to the surface! let her heart be +veiled from me in the darkness which veils her face! + +In this frame of mind toward her, I waited her return. + +I had no doubt of seeing her again, sooner or later, on that day. The +post to the south went out on the next day; and the early hour of the +morning at which the messenger called for our letters made it a matter +of ordinary convenience to write overnight. In the disabled state of my +hand, Miss Dunross had been accustomed to write home for me, under my +dictation: she knew that I owed a letter to my mother, and that I relied +as usual on her help. Her return to me, under these circumstances, was +simply a question of time: any duty which she had once undertaken was an +imperative duty in her estimation, no matter how trifling it might be. + +The hours wore on; the day drew to its end--and still she never +appeared. + +I left my room to enjoy the last sunny gleam of the daylight in the +garden attached to the house; first telling Peter where I might be +found, if Miss Dunross wanted me. The garden was a wild place, to my +southern notions; but it extended for some distance along the shore +of the island, and it offered some pleasant views of the lake and the +moorland country beyond. Slowly pursuing my walk, I proposed to myself +to occupy my mind to some useful purpose by arranging beforehand the +composition of the letter which Miss Dunross was to write. + +To my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix my mind on +the subject. Try as I might, my thoughts persisted in wandering from +the letter to my mother, and concentrated themselves instead--on Miss +Dunross? No. On the question of my returning, or not returning, to +Perthshire by the Government vessel? No. By some capricious revulsion of +feeling which it seemed impossible to account for, my whole mind was now +absorbed on the one subject which had been hitherto so strangely absent +from it--the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt! + +My memory went back, in defiance of all exercise of my own will, to my +last interview with her. I saw her again; I heard her again. I tasted +once more the momentary rapture of our last kiss; I felt once more the +pang of sorrow that wrung me when I had parted with her and found myself +alone in the street. Tears--of which I was ashamed, though nobody was +near to see them--filled my eyes when I thought of the months that had +passed since we had last looked on one another, and of all that she +might have suffered, must have suffered, in that time. Hundreds on +hundreds of miles were between us--and yet she was now as near me as if +she were walking in the garden by my side! + +This strange condition of my mind was matched by an equally strange +condition of my body. A mysterious trembling shuddered over me faintly +from head to foot. I walked without feeling the ground as I trod on it; +I looked about me with no distinct consciousness of what the objects +were on which my eyes rested. My hands were cold--and yet I hardly felt +it. My head throbbed hotly--and yet I was not sensible of any pain. It +seemed as if I were surrounded and enwrapped in some electric atmosphere +which altered all the ordinary conditions of sensation. I looked up +at the clear, calm sky, and wondered if a thunderstorm was coming. I +stopped, and buttoned my coat round me, and questioned myself if I had +caught a cold, or if I was going to have a fever. The sun sank below the +moorland horizon; the gray twilight trembled over the dark waters of the +lake. I went back to the house; and the vivid memory of Mrs. Van Brandt, +still in close companionship, went back with me. + +The fire in my room had burned low in my absence. One of the closed +curtains had been drawn back a few inches, so as to admit through the +window a ray of the dying light. On the boundary limit where the light +was crossed by the obscurity which filled the rest of the room, I saw +Miss Dunross seated, with her veil drawn and her writing-case on her +knee, waiting my return. + +I hastened to make my excuses. I assured her that I had been careful to +tell the servant where to find me. She gently checked me before I could +say more. + +"It's not Peter's fault," she said. "I told him not to hurry your return +to the house. Have you enjoyed your walk?" + +She spoke very quietly. The faint, sad voice was fainter and sadder than +ever. She kept her head bent over her writing-case, instead of turning +it toward me as usual while we were talking. I still felt the mysterious +trembling which had oppressed me in the garden. Drawing a chair near +the fire, I stirred the embers together, and tried to warm myself. Our +positions in the room left some little distance between us. I could only +see her sidewise, as she sat by the window in the sheltering darkness of +the curtain which still remained drawn. + +"I think I have been too long in the garden," I said. "I feel chilled by +the cold evening air." + +"Will you have some more wood put on the fire?" she asked. "Can I get +you anything?" + +"No, thank you. I shall do very well here. I see you are kindly ready to +write for me." + +"Yes," she said, "at your own convenience. When you are ready, my pen is +ready." + +The unacknowledged reserve that had come between us since we had last +spoken together, was, I believe, as painfully felt by her as by me. We +were no doubt longing to break through it on either side--if we had only +known how. The writing of the letter would occupy us, at any rate. I +made another effort to give my mind to the subject--and once more it was +an effort made in vain. Knowing what I wanted to say to my mother, my +faculties seemed to be paralyzed when I tried to say it. I sat cowering +by the fire--and she sat waiting, with her writing-case on her lap. + +CHAPTER XXII. SHE CLAIMS ME AGAIN. + +THE moments passed; the silence between us continued. Miss Dunross made +an attempt to rouse me. + +"Have you decided to go back to Scotland with your friends at Lerwick?" +she asked. + +"It is no easy matter," I replied, "to decide on leaving my friends in +this house." + +Her head drooped lower on her bosom; her voice sunk as she answered me. + +"Think of your mother," she said. "The first duty you owe is your +duty to her. Your long absence is a heavy trial to her--your mother is +suffering." + +"Suffering?" I repeated. "Her letters say nothing--" + +"You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters," Miss Dunross +interposed. "I see the unwritten and unconscious confession of anxiety +in every line that she writes to you. You know, as well as I do, that +there is cause for her anxiety. Make her happy by telling her that you +sail for home with your friends. Make her happier still by telling her +that you grieve no more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. May I write +it, in your name and in those words?" + +I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in those terms, +or in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The unhappy love-story of my +manhood had never been a forbidden subject between us on former +occasions. Why did I feel as if it had become a forbidden subject now? +Why did I evade giving her a direct reply? + +"We have plenty of time before us," I said. "I want to speak to you +about yourself." + +She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, as if +to protest against the topic to which I had returned. I persisted, +nevertheless, in returning to it. + +"If I must go back," I went on, "I may venture to say to you at parting +what I have not said yet. I cannot, and will not, believe that you are +an incurable invalid. My education, as I have told you, has been the +education of a medical man. I am well acquainted with some of the +greatest living physicians, in Edinburgh as well as in London. Will you +allow me to describe your malady (as I understand it) to men who are +accustomed to treat cases of intricate nervous disorder? And will you +let me write and tell you the result?" + +I waited for her reply. Neither by word nor sign did she encourage the +idea of any future communication with her. I ventured to suggest another +motive which might induce her to receive a letter from me. + +"In any case, I may find it necessary to write to you," I went on. "You +firmly believe that I and my little Mary are destined to meet again. If +your anticipations are realized, you will expect me to tell you of it, +surely?" + +Once more I waited. She spoke--but it was not to reply: it was only to +change the subject. + +"The time is passing," was all she said. "We have not begun your letter +to your mother yet." + +It would have been cruel to contend with her any longer. Her voice +warned me that she was suffering. The faint gleam of light through +the parted curtains was fading fast. It was time, indeed, to write the +letter. I could find other opportunities of speaking to her before I +left the house. + +"I am ready," I answered. "Let us begin." + +The first sentence was easily dictated to my patient secretary. I +informed my mother that my sprained wrist was nearly restored to use, +and that nothing prevented my leaving Shetland when the lighthouse +commissioner was ready to return. This was all that it was necessary +to say on the subject of my health; the disaster of my re-opened wound +having been, for obvious reasons, concealed from my mother's knowledge. +Miss Dunross silently wrote the opening lines of the letter, and waited +for the words that were to follow. + +In my next sentence, I announced the date at which the vessel was to +sail on the return voyage; and I mentioned the period at which my mother +might expect to see me, weather permitting. Those words, also, Miss +Dunross wrote--and waited again. I set myself to consider what I should +say next. To my surprise and alarm, I found it impossible to fix my mind +on the subject. My thoughts wandered away, in the strangest manner, from +my letter to Mrs. Van Brandt. I was ashamed of myself; I was angry +with myself--I resolved, no matter what I said, that I would positively +finish the letter. No! try as I might, the utmost effort of my will +availed me nothing. Mrs. Van Brandt's words at our last interview were +murmuring in my ears--not a word of my own would come to me! + +Miss Dunross laid down her pen, and slowly turned her head to look at +me. + +"Surely you have something more to add to your letter?" she said. + +"Certainly," I answered. "I don't know what is the matter with me. The +effort of dictating seems to be beyond my power this evening." + +"Can I help you?" she asked. + +I gladly accepted the suggestion. "There are many things," I said, +"which my mother would be glad to hear, if I were not too stupid to +think of them. I am sure I may trust your sympathy to think of them for +me." + +That rash answer offered Miss Dunross the opportunity of returning +to the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt. She seized the opportunity with +a woman's persistent resolution when she has her end in view, and is +determined to reach it at all hazards. + +"You have not told your mother yet," she said, "that your infatuation +for Mrs. Van Brandt is at an end. Will you put it in your own words? Or +shall I write it for you, imitating your language as well as I can?" + +In the state of my mind at that moment, her perseverance conquered me. I +thought to myself indolently, "If I say No, she will only return to the +subject again, and she will end (after all I owe to her kindness) +in making me say Yes." Before I could answer her she had realized my +anticipations. She returned to the subject; and she made me say Yes. + +"What does your silence mean?" she said. "Do you ask me to help you, and +do you refuse to accept the first suggestion I offer?" + +"Take up your pen," I rejoined. "It shall be as you wish." + +"Will you dictate the words?" + +"I will try." + +I tried; and this time I succeeded. With the image of Mrs. Van Brandt +vividly present to my mind, I arranged the first words of the sentence +which was to tell my mother that my "infatuation" was at an end! + +"You will be glad to hear," I began, "that time and change are doing +their good work." + +Miss Dunross wrote the words, and paused in anticipation of the next +sentence. The light faded and faded; the room grew darker and darker. I +went on. + +"I hope I shall cause you no more anxiety, my dear mother, on the +subject of Mrs. Van Brandt." + +In the deep silence I could hear the pen of my secretary traveling +steadily over the paper while it wrote those words. + +"Have you written?" I asked, as the sound of the pen ceased. + +"I have written," she answered, in her customary quiet tones. + +I went on again with my letter. + +"The days pass now, and I seldom or never think of her; I hope I am +resigned at last to the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt." + +As I reached the end of the sentence, I heard a faint cry from Miss +Dunross. Looking instantly toward her, I could just see, in the +deepening darkness, t hat her head had fallen on the back of the chair. +My first impulse was, of course, to rise and go to her. I had barely got +to my feet, when some indescribable dread paralyzed me on the instant. +Supporting myself against the chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapable +of advancing a step. The effort to speak was the one effort that I could +make. + +"Are you ill?" I asked. + +She was hardly able to answer me; speaking in a whisper, without raising +her head. + +"I am frightened," she said. + +"What has frightened you?" + +I heard her shudder in the darkness. Instead of answering me, she +whispered to herself: "What am I to say to him?" + +"Tell me what has frightened you?" I repeated. "You know you may trust +me with the truth." + +She rallied her sinking strength. She answered in these strange words: + +"Something has come between me and the letter that I am writing for +you." + +"What is it?" + +"I can't tell you." + +"Can you see it?" + +"No." + +"Can you feel it?" + +"Yes!" + +"What is it like?" + +"Like a breath of cold air between me and the letter." + +"Has the window come open?" + +"The window is close shut." + +"And the door?" + +"The door is shut also--as well as I can see. Make sure of it for +yourself. Where are you? What are you doing?" + +I was looking toward the window. As she spoke her last words, I was +conscious of a change in that part of the room. + +In the gap between the parted curtains there was a new light shining; +not the dim gray twilight of Nature, but a pure and starry radiance, a +pale, unearthly light. While I watched it, the starry radiance quivered +as if some breath of air had stirred it. When it was still again, there +dawned on me through the unearthly luster the figure of a woman. By fine +and slow gradations, it became more and more distinct. I knew the noble +figure; I knew the sad and tender smile. For the second time I stood in +the presence of the apparition of Mrs. Van Brandt. + +She was robed, not as I had last seen her, but in the dress which she +had worn on the memorable evening when we met on the bridge--in the +dress in which she had first appeared to me, by the waterfall in +Scotland. The starry light shone round her like a halo. She looked at +me with sorrowful and pleading eyes, as she had looked when I saw +the apparition of her in the summer-house. She lifted her hand--not +beckoning me to approach her, as before, but gently signing to me to +remain where I stood. + +I waited--feeling awe, but no fear. My heart was all hers as I looked at +her. + +She moved; gliding from the window to the chair in which Miss Dunross +sat; winding her way slowly round it, until she stood at the back. By +the light of the pale halo that encircled the ghostly Presence, and +moved with it, I could see the dark figure of the living woman seated +immovable in the chair. The writing-case was on her lap, with the letter +and the pen lying on it. Her arms hung helpless at her sides; her veiled +head was now bent forward. She looked as if she had been struck to stone +in the act of trying to rise from her seat. + +A moment passed--and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop over the +living woman. It lifted the writing-case from her lap. It rested the +writing-case on her shoulder. Its white fingers took the pen and wrote +on the unfinished letter. It put the writing-case back on the lap of the +living woman. Still standing behind the chair, it turned toward me. It +looked at me once more. And now it beckoned--beckoned to me to approach. + +Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved when I first +saw her in the summer-house--drawn nearer and nearer by an irresistible +power--I approached and stopped within a few paces of her. She advanced +and laid her hand on my bosom. Again I felt those strangely mingled +sensations of rapture and awe, which had once before filled me when I +was conscious, spiritually, of her touch. Again she spoke, in the low, +melodious tones which I recalled so well. Again she said the words: +"Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale +light in which she stood quivered, sunk, vanished. I saw the twilight +glimmering between the curtains--and I saw no more. She had spoken. She +had gone. + +I was near Miss Dunross--near enough, when I put out my hand, to touch +her. + +She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awakened from a +dreadful dream. + +"Speak to me!" she whispered. "Let me know that it is _you_ who touched +me." + +I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her. + +"Have you seen anything in the room?" + +She answered. "I have been filled with a deadly fear. I have seen +nothing but the writing-case lifted from my lap." + +"Did you see the hand that lifted it?" + +"No." + +"Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in it?" + +"No." + +"Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from your lap?" + +"I saw it resting on my shoulder." + +"Did you see writing on the letter, which was not _your_ writing?" + +"I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in which I am +sitting." + +"Did it move?" + +"It moved across the paper." + +"As a pen moves in writing?" + +"Yes. As a pen moves in writing." + +"May I take the letter?" + +She handed it to me. + +"May I light a candle?" + +She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed in silence. + +I lighted the candle on the mantel-piece, and looked for the writing. + +There, on the blank space in the letter, as I had seen it before on the +blank space in the sketch-book--there were the written words which the +ghostly Presence had left behind it; arranged once more in two lines, as +I copy them here: + +At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's. + +CHAPTER XXIII. THE KISS. + +SHE had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I felt all the old +love, all the old devotion owning her power once more. Whatever had +mortified or angered me at our last interview was forgiven and forgotten +now. My whole being still thrilled with the mingled awe and rapture of +beholding the Vision of her that had come to me for the second time. The +minutes passed--and I stood by the fire like a man entranced; thinking +only of her spoken words, "Remember me. Come to me;" looking only at her +mystic writing, "At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's." + +The month's end was still far off; the apparition of her had shown +itself to me, under some subtle prevision of trouble that was still in +the future. Ample time was before me for the pilgrimage to which I was +self-dedicated already--my pilgrimage to the shadow of Saint Paul's. +Other men, in my position, might have hesitated as to the right +understanding of the place to which they were bidden. Other men might +have wearied their memories by recalling the churches, the institutions, +the streets, the towns in foreign countries, all consecrated to +Christian reverence by the great apostle's name, and might have +fruitlessly asked themselves in which direction they were first to turn +their steps. No such difficulty troubled me. My first conclusion was the +one conclusion that was acceptable to my mind. "Saint Paul's" meant the +famous Cathedral of London. Where the shadow of the great church fell, +there, at the month's end, I should find her, or the trace of her. In +London once more, and nowhere else, I was destined to see the woman I +loved, in the living body, as certainly as I had just seen her in the +ghostly presence. + +Who could interpret the mysterious sympathies that still united us, in +defiance of distance, in defiance of time? Who could predict to what end +our lives were tending in the years that were to come? + +Those questions were still present to my thoughts; my eyes were still +fixed on the mysterious writing--when I became instinctively aware of +the strange silence in the room. Instantly the lost remembrance of +Miss Dunross came back to me. Stung by my own sense of self-reproach, I +turned with a start, and looked toward her chair by the window. + +The chair was empty. I was alone in the room. + +Why had she left me secretly, without a word of farewell? Because she +was suffering, in mind or body? Or because she resented, naturally +resented, my neglect of her? + +The bare suspicion that I had given her pain was intolerable to me. I +rang my bell, to make inquiries. + +The bell was answered, not, as usual, by the silent servant Peter, but +by a woman of middle age, very quietly and neatly dressed, whom I had +once or twice met on the way to and from my room, and of whose exact +position in the house I was still ignorant. + +"Do you wish to see Peter?" she asked. + +"No. I wish to know where Miss Dunross is." + +"Miss Dunross is in her room. She has sent me with this letter." + +I took the letter, feeling some surprise and uneasiness. It was the +first time Miss Dunross had communicated with me in that formal way. I +tried to gain further information by questioning her messenger. + +"Are you Miss Dunross's maid?" I asked. + +"I have served Miss Dunross for many years," was the answer, spoken very +ungraciously. + +"Do you think she would receive me if I sent you with a message to her?" + +"I can't say, sir. The letter may tell you. You will do well to read the +letter." + +We looked at each other. The woman's preconceived impression of me +was evidently an unfavorable one. Had I indeed pained or offended Miss +Dunross? And had the servant--perhaps the faithful servant who loved +her--discovered and resented it? The woman frowned as she looked at me. +It would be a mere waste of words to persist in questioning her. I let +her go. + +Left by myself again, I read the letter. It began, without any form of +address, in these lines: + + +"I write, instead of speaking to you, because my self-control has +already been severely tried, and I am not strong enough to bear more. +For my father's sake--not for my own--I must take all the care I can of +the little health that I have left. + +"Putting together what you have told me of the visionary creature whom +you saw in the summer-house in Scotland, and what you said when you +questioned me in your room a little while since, I cannot fail to infer +that the same vision has shown itself to you, for the second time. The +fear that I felt, the strange things that I saw (or thought I saw), may +have been imperfect reflections in my mind of what was passing in yours. +I do not stop to inquire whether we are both the victims of a delusion, +or whether we are the chosen recipients of a supernatural communication. +The result, in either case, is enough for me. You are once more under +the influence of Mrs. Van Brandt. I will not trust myself to tell you +of the anxieties and forebodings by which I am oppressed: I will only +acknowledge that my one hope for you is in your speedy reunion with the +worthier object of your constancy and devotion. I still believe, and I +am consoled in believing, that you and your first love will meet again. + +"Having written so far, I leave the subject--not to return to it, except +in my own thoughts. + +"The necessary preparations for your departure to-morrow are all made. +Nothing remains but to wish you a safe and pleasant journey home. Do +not, I entreat you, think me insensible of what I owe to you, if I say +my farewell words here. + +"The little services which you have allowed me to render you have +brightened the closing days of my life. You have left me a treasury +of happy memories which I shall hoard, when you are gone, with miserly +care. Are you willing to add new claims to my grateful remembrance? I +ask it of you, as a last favor--do not attempt to see me again! Do not +expect me to take a personal leave of you! The saddest of all words +is 'Good-by': I have fortitude enough to write it, and no more. God +preserve and prosper you--farewell! + +"One more request. I beg that you will not forget what you promised me, +when I told you my foolish fancy about the green flag. Wherever you go, +let Mary's keepsake go with you. No written answer is necessary--I would +rather not receive it. Look up, when you leave the house to-morrow, at +the center window over the doorway--that will be answer enough." + + +To say that these melancholy lines brought the tears into my eyes is +only to acknowledge that I had sympathies which could be touched. When I +had in some degree recovered my composure, the impulse which urged me to +write to Miss Dunross was too strong to be resisted. I did not trouble +her with a long letter; I only entreated her to reconsider her decision +with all the art of persuasion which I could summon to help me. The +answer was brought back by the servant who waited on Miss Dunross, in +four resolute words: "It can not be." This time the woman spoke out +before she left me. "If you have any regard for my mistress," she said +sternly, "don't make her write to you again." She looked at me with a +last lowering frown, and left the room. + +It is needless to say that the faithful servant's words only increased +my anxiety to see Miss Dunross once more before we parted--perhaps +forever. My one last hope of success in attaining this object lay in +approaching her indirectly through the intercession of her father. + +I sent Peter to inquire if I might be permitted to pay my respects to +his master that evening. My messenger returned with an answer that was a +new disappointment to me. Mr. Dunross begged that I would excuse him, +if he deferred the proposed interview until the next morning. The next +morning was the morning of my departure. Did the message mean that he +had no wish to see me again until the time had come to take leave of +him? I inquired of Peter whether his master was particularly occupied +that evening. He was unable to tell me. "The Master of Books" was not in +his study, as usual. When he sent his message to me, he was sitting by +the sofa in his daughter's room. + +Having answered in those terms, the man left me by myself until the next +morning. I do not wish my bitterest enemy a sadder time in his life +than the time I passed during the last night of my residence under Mr. +Dunross's roof. + +After walking to and fro in the room until I was weary, I thought of +trying to divert my mind from the sad thoughts that oppressed it by +reading. The one candle which I had lighted failed to sufficiently +illuminate the room. Advancing to the mantel-piece to light the second +candle which stood there, I noticed the unfinished letter to my mother +lying where I had placed it, when Miss Dunross's servant first presented +herself before me. Having lighted the second candle, I took up the +letter to put it away among my other papers. Doing this (while my +thoughts were still dwelling on Miss Dunross), I mechanically looked at +the letter again--and instantly discovered a change in it. + +The written characters traced by the hand of the apparition had +vanished! Below the last lines written by Miss Dunross nothing met my +eyes now but the blank white paper! + +My first impulse was to look at my watch. + +When the ghostly presence had written in my sketch-book, the characters +had disappeared after an interval of three hours. On this occasion, as +nearly as I could calculate, the writing had vanished in one hour only. + +Reverting to the conversation which I had held with Mrs. Van Brandt when +we met at Saint Anthony's Well, and to the discoveries which followed at +a later period of my life, I can only repeat that she had again been the +subject of a trance or dream, when the apparition of her showed itself +to me for the second time. As before, she had freely trusted me and +freely appealed to me to help her, in the dreaming state, when her +spirit was free to recognize my spirit. When she had come to herself, +after an interval of an hour, she had again felt ashamed of the familiar +manner in which she had communicated with me in the trance--had again +unconsciously counteracted by her waking-will the influence of her +sleeping-will; and had thus caused the writing once more to disappear, +in an hour from the moment when the pen had traced (or seemed to trace) +it. + +This is still the one explanation that I can offer. At the time when the +incident happened, I was far from being fully admitted to the confidence +of Mrs. Van Brandt; and I was necessarily incapable of arriving at +any solution of the mystery, right or wrong. I could only put away the +letter, doubting vaguely whether my own senses had not deceived me. +After the distressing thoughts which Miss Dunross's letter had roused in +my mind, I was in no humor to employ my ingenuity in finding a clew to +the mystery of the vanished writing. My nerves were irritated; I felt a +sense of angry discontent with myself and with others. "Go where I may" +(I thought impatiently), "the disturbing influence of women seems to be +the only influence that I am fated to feel." As I still paced backward +and forward in my room--it was useless to think now of fixing my +attention on a book--I fancied I understood the motives which made men +as young as I was retire to end their lives in a monastery. I drew aside +the window curtains, and looked out. The only prospect that met my view +was the black gulf of darkness in which the lake lay hidden. I could +see nothing; I could do nothing; I could think of nothing. The one +alternative before me was that of trying to sleep. My medical knowledge +told me plainly that natural sleep was, in my nervous condition, one +of the unattainable luxuries of life for that night. The medicine-chest +which Mr. Dunross had placed at my disposal remained in the room. I +mixed for myself a strong sleeping draught, and sullenly took refuge +from my troubles in bed. + +It is a peculiarity of most of the soporific drugs that they not only +act in a totally different manner on different constitutions, but that +they are not even to be depended on to act always in the same manner on +the same person. I had taken care to extinguish the candles before I got +into my bed. Under ordinary circumstances, after I had lain quietly in +the darkness for half an hour, the draught that I had taken would +have sent me to sleep. In the present state of my nerves the draught +stupefied me, and did no more. + +Hour after hour I lay perfectly still, with my eyes closed, in the +semi-sleeping, semi-wakeful state which is so curiously characteristic +of the ordinary repose of a dog. As the night wore on, such a sense of +heaviness oppressed my eyelids that it was literally impossible for me +to open them--such a masterful languor possessed all my muscles that I +could no more move on my pillow than if I had been a corpse. And yet, +in this somnolent condition, my mind was able to pursue lazy trains of +pleasant thought. My sense of hearing was so acute that it caught the +faintest sounds made by the passage of the night-breeze through the +rushes of the lake. Inside my bed-chamber, I was even more keenly +sensible of those weird night-noises in the heavy furniture of a room, +of those sudden settlements of extinct coals in the grate, so familiar +to bad sleepers, so startling to overwrought nerves! It is not a +scientifically correct statement, but it exactly describes my condition, +that night, to say that one half of me was asleep and the other half +awake. + +How many hours of the night had passed, when my irritable sense of +hearing became aware of a new sound in the room, I cannot tell. I can +only relate that I found myself on a sudden listening intently, with +fast-closed eyes. The sound that disturbed me was the faintest sound +imaginable, as of something soft and light traveling slowly over the +surface of the carpet, and brushing it just loud enough to be heard. + +Little by little, the sound came nearer and nearer to my bed--and then +suddenly stopped just as I fancied it was close by me. + +I still lay immovable, with closed eyes; drowsily waiting for the next +sound that might reach my ears; drowsily content with the silence, if +the silence continued. My thoughts (if thoughts they could be called) +were drifting back again into their former course, when I became +suddenly conscious of soft breathing just above me. The next moment I +felt a touch on my forehead--light, soft, tremulous, like the touch of +lips that had kissed me. There was a momentary pause. Then a low sigh +trembled through the silence. Then I heard again the still, small sound +of something brushing its way over the carpet; traveling this time +_from_ my bed, and moving so rapidly that in a moment more it was lost +in the silence of the night. + +Still stupefied by the drug that I had taken, I could lazily wonder what +had happened, and I could do no more. Had living lips really touched me? +Was the sound that I had heard really the sound of a sigh? Or was it all +delusion, beginning and ending in a dream? The time passed without my +deciding, or caring to decide, those questions. Minute by minute, the +composing influence of the draught began at last to strengthen its +hold on my brain. A cloud seemed to pass softly over my last waking +impressions. One after another, the ties broke gently that held me to +conscious life. I drifted peacefully into perfect sleep. + + +Shortly after sunrise, I awoke. When I regained the use of my memory, +my first clear recollection was the recollection of the soft breathing +which I had felt above me--then of the touch on my forehead, and of +the sigh which I had heard after it. Was it possible that some one had +entered my room in the night? It was quite possible. I had not locked +the door--I had never been in the habit of locking the door during my +residence under Mr. Dunross's roof. + +After thinking it over a little, I rose to examine my room. + +Nothing in the shape of a discovery rewarded me, until I reached the +door. Though I had not locked it overnight, I had certainly satisfied +myself that it was closed before I went to bed. It was now ajar. Had +it opened again, through being imperfectly shut? or had a person, after +entering and leaving my room, forgotten to close it? + +Accidentally looking downward while I was weighing these probabilities, +I noticed a small black object on the carpet, lying just under the key, +on the inner side of the door. I picked the thing up, and found that it +was a torn morsel of black lace. + +The instant I saw the fragment, I was reminded of the long black veil, +hanging below her waist, which it was the habit of Miss Dunross to wear. +Was it _her_ dress, then, that I had heard softly traveling over the +carpet; _her_ kiss that had touched my forehead; _her_ sigh that had +trembled through the silence? Had the ill-fated and noble creature taken +her last leave of me in the dead of night, trusting the preservation of +her secret to the deceitful appearances which persuaded her that I was +asleep? I looked again at the fragment of black lace. Her long veil +might easily have been caught, and torn, by the projecting key, as she +passed rapidly through the door on her way out of my room. Sadly and +reverently I laid the morsel of lace among the treasured memorials which +I had brought with me from home. To the end of her life, I vowed it, she +should be left undisturbed in the belief that her secret was safe in her +own breast! Ardently as I still longed to take her hand at parting, I +now resolved to make no further effort to see her. I might not be master +of my own emotions; something in my face or in my manner might betray me +to her quick and delicate perception. Knowing what I now knew, the last +sacrifice I could make to her would be to obey her wishes. I made the +sacrifice. + +In an hour more Peter informed me that the ponies were at the door, and +that the Master was waiting for me in the outer hall. + +I noticed that Mr. Dunross gave me his hand, without looking at me. His +faded blue eyes, during the few minutes while we were together, were not +once raised from the ground. + +"God speed you on your journey, sir, and guide you safely home," he +said. "I beg you to forgive me if I fail to accompany you on the first +few miles of your journey. There are reasons which oblige me to remain +with my daughter in the house." + +He was scrupulously, almost painfully, courteous; but there was +something in his manner which, for the first time in my experience, +seemed designedly to keep me at a distance from him. Knowing the +intimate sympathy, the perfect confidence, which existed between the +father and daughter, a doubt crossed my mind whether the secret of the +past night was entirely a secret to Mr. Dunross. His next words set that +doubt at rest, and showed me the truth. + +In thanking him for his good wishes, I attempted also to express to him +(and through him to Miss Dunross) my sincere sense of gratitude for the +kindness which I had received under his roof. He stopped me, politely +and resolutely, speaking with that quaintly precise choice of language +which I h ad remarked as characteristic of him at our first interview. + +"It is in your power, sir," he said, "to return any obligation which you +may think you have incurred on leaving my house. If you will be pleased +to consider your residence here as an unimportant episode in your life, +which ends--_absolutely_ ends--with your departure, you will more than +repay any kindness that you may have received as my guest. In saying +this, I speak under a sense of duty which does entire justice to you as +a gentleman and a man of honor. In return, I can only trust to you +not to misjudge my motives, if I abstain from explaining myself any +further." + +A faint color flushed his pale cheeks. He waited, with a certain proud +resignation, for my reply. I respected her secret, respected it more +resolutely than ever, before her father. + +"After all that I owe to you, sir," I answered, "your wishes are my +commands." Saying that, and saying no more, I bowed to him with marked +respect, and left the house. + +Mounting my pony at the door, I looked up at the center window, as she +had bidden me. It was open; but dark curtains, jealously closed, kept +out the light from the room within. At the sound of the pony's hoofs on +the rough island road, as the animal moved, the curtains were parted +for a few inches only. Through the gap in the dark draperies a wan white +hand appeared; waved tremulously a last farewell; and vanished from +my view. The curtains closed again on her dark and solitary life. The +dreary wind sounded its long, low dirge over the rippling waters of the +lake. The ponies took their places in the ferryboat which was kept +for the passage of animals to and from the island. With slow, regular +strokes the men rowed us to the mainland and took their leave. I looked +back at the distant house. I thought of her in the dark room, waiting +patiently for death. Burning tears blinded me. The guide took my bridle +in his hand: "You're not well, sir," he said; "I will lead the pony." + +When I looked again at the landscape round me, we had descended in the +interval from the higher ground to the lower. The house and the lake had +disappeared, to be seen no more. + +CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE SHADOW OF ST. PAUL'S. + +In ten days I was at home again--and my mother's arms were round me. + +I had left her for my sea-voyage very unwillingly--seeing that she was +in delicate health. On my return, I was grieved to observe a change for +the worse, for which her letters had not prepared me. Consulting our +medical friend, Mr. MacGlue, I found that he, too, had noticed my +mother's failing health, but that he attributed it to an easily +removable cause--to the climate of Scotland. My mother's childhood and +early life had been passed on the southern shores of England. The change +to the raw, keen air of the North had been a trying change to a person +at her age. In Mr. MacGlue's opinion, the wise course to take would be +to return to the South before the autumn was further advanced, and +to make our arrangements for passing the coming winter at Penzance or +Torquay. + +Resolved as I was to keep the mysterious appointment which summoned +me to London at the month's end, Mr. MacGlue's suggestion met with no +opposition on my part. It had, to my mind, the great merit of obviating +the necessity of a second separation from my mother--assuming that she +approved of the doctor's advice. I put the question to her the same day. +To my infinite relief, she was not only ready, but eager to take the +journey to the South. The season had been unusually wet, even for +Scotland; and my mother reluctantly confessed that she "did feel a +certain longing" for the mild air and genial sunshine of the Devonshire +coast. + +We arranged to travel in our own comfortable carriage by post--resting, +of course, at inns on the road at night. In the days before railways +it was no easy matter for an invalid to travel from Perthshire to +London--even with a light carriage and four horses. Calculating our rate +of progress from the date of our departure, I found that we had just +time, and no more, to reach London on the last day of the month. + +I shall say nothing of the secret anxieties which weighed on my mind, +under these circumstances. Happily for me, on every account, my mother's +strength held out. The easy and (as we then thought) the rapid rate of +traveling had its invigorating effect on her nerves. She slept better +when we rested for the night than she had slept at home. After twice +being delayed on the road, we arrived in London at three o'clock on the +afternoon of the last day of the month. Had I reached my destination in +time? + +As I interpreted the writing of the apparition, I had still some hours +at my disposal. The phrase, "at the month's end," meant, as I understood +it, at the last hour of the last day in the month. If I took up my +position "under the shadow of Saint Paul's," say, at ten that night, I +should arrive at the place of meeting with two hours to spare, before +the last stroke of the clock marked the beginning of the new month. + +At half-past nine, I left my mother to rest after her long journey, and +privately quit the house. Before ten, I was at my post. The night was +fine and clear; and the huge shadow of the cathedral marked distinctly +the limits within which I had been bid to wait, on the watch for events. + +The great clock of Saint Paul's struck ten--and nothing happened. + +The next hour passed very slowly. I walked up and down; at one time +absorbed in my own thoughts; at another, engaged in watching the gradual +diminution in the number of foot passengers who passed me as the night +advanced. The City (as it is called) is the most populous part of +London in the daytime; but at night, when it ceases to be the center of +commerce, its busy population melts away, and the empty streets assume +the appearance of a remote and deserted quarter of the metropolis. As +the half hour after ten struck--then the quarter to eleven--then the +hour--the pavement steadily became more and more deserted. I could count +the foot passengers now by twos and threes; and I could see the places +of public refreshment within my view beginning already to close for the +night. + +I looked at the clock; it pointed to ten minutes past eleven. At that +hour, could I hope to meet Mrs. Van Brandt alone in the public street? + +The more I thought of it, the less likely such an event seemed to be. +The more reasonable probability was that I might meet her once more, +accompanied by some friend--perhaps under the escort of Van Brandt +himself. I wondered whether I should preserve my self-control, in the +presence of that man, for the second time. + +While my thoughts were still pursuing this direction, my attention was +recalled to passing events by a sad little voice, putting a strange +little question, close at my side. + +"If you please, sir, do you know where I can find a chemist's shop open +at this time of night?" + +I looked round, and discovered a poorly clad little boy, with a basket +over his arm, and a morsel of paper in his hand. + +"The chemists' shops are all shut," I said. "If you want any medicine, +you must ring the night-bell." + +"I dursn't do it, sir," replied the small stranger. "I am such a little +boy, I'm afraid of their beating me if I ring them up out of their beds, +without somebody to speak for me." + +The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with such a +forlorn experience of being beaten for trifling offenses in his face, +that it was impossible to resist the impulse to help him. + +"Is it a serious case of illness?" I asked. + +"I don't know, sir." + +"Have you got a doctor's prescription?" + +He held out his morsel of paper. + +"I have got this," he said. + +I took the paper from him, and looked at it. + +It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I looked first at +the doctor's signature; it was the name of a perfectly obscure person +in the profession. Below it was written the name of the patient for whom +the medicine had been prescribed. I started as I read it. The name was +"Mrs. Brand." + +The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound went, at any +rate) was the English equivalent of Van Brandt. + +"Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?" I asked. + +"Oh yes, sir! She lodges with mother--and she owes for rent. I have +done everything she told me, except getting the physic. I've pawned her +ring, and I've bought the bread and butter and eggs, and I've taken +care of the change. Mother looks to the change for her rent. It isn't my +fault, sir, that I've lost myself. I am but ten years old--and all the +chemists' shops are shut up!" + +Here my little friend's sense of his unmerited misfortunes overpowered +him, and he began to cry. + +"Don't cry, my man!" I said; "I'll help you. Tell me something more +about the lady first. Is she alone?" + +"She's got her little girl with her, sir." + +My heart quickened its beat. The boy's answer reminded me of that other +little girl whom my mother had once seen. + +"Is the lady's husband with her?" I asked next. + +"No, sir--not now. He was with her; but he went away--and he hasn't come +back yet." + +I put a last conclusive question. + +"Is her husband an Englishman?" I inquired. + +"Mother says he's a foreigner," the boy answered. + +I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might have noticed +it! + +Passing under the name of "Mrs. Brand"--poor, so poor that she was +obliged to pawn her ring--left, by a man who was a foreigner, alone with +her little girl--was I on the trace of her at that moment? Was this lost +child destined to be the innocent means of leading me back to the woman +I loved, in her direst need of sympathy and help? The more I thought of +it, the more strongly the idea of returning with the boy to the house +in which his mother's lodger lived fastened itself on my mind. The clock +struck the quarter past eleven. If my anticipations ended in misleading +me, I had still three-quarters of an hour to spare before the month +reached its end. + +"Where do you live?" I asked. + +The boy mentioned a street, the name of which I then heard for the first +time. All he could say, when I asked for further particulars, was that +he lived close by the river--in which direction, he was too confused and +too frightened to be able to tell me. + +While we were still trying to understand each other, a cab passed slowly +at some little distance. I hailed the man, and mentioned the name of +the street to him. He knew it perfectly well. The street was rather +more than a mile away from us, in an easterly direction. He undertook +to drive me there and to bring me back again to Saint Paul's (if +necessary), in less than twenty minutes. I opened the door of the cab, +and told my little friend to get in. The boy hesitated. + +"Are we going to the chemist's, if you please, sir?" he asked. + +"No. You are going home first, with me." + +The boy began to cry again. + +"Mother will beat me, sir, if I go back without the medicine." + +"I will take care that your mother doesn't beat you. I am a doctor +myself; and I want to see the lady before we get the medicine." + +The announcement of my profession appeared to inspire the boy with a +certain confidence. But he still showed no disposition to accompany me +to his mother's house. + +"Do you mean to charge the lady anything?" he asked. "The money I've +got on the ring isn't much. Mother won't like having it taken out of her +rent." + +"I won't charge the lady a farthing," I answered. + +The boy instantly got into the cab. "All right," he said, "as long as +mother gets her money." + +Alas for the poor! The child's education in the sordid anxieties of life +was completed already at ten years old! + +We drove away. + +CHAPTER XXV. I KEEP MY APPOINTMENT. + +THE poverty-stricken aspect of the street when we entered it, the dirty +and dilapidated condition of the house when we drew up at the door, +would have warned most men, in my position, to prepare themselves for +a distressing discovery when they were admitted to the interior of the +dwelling. The first impression which the place produced on _my_ mind +suggested, on the contrary, that the boy's answers to my questions had +led me astray. It was simply impossible to associate Mrs. Van Brandt (as +_I_ remembered her) with the spectacle of such squalid poverty as I +now beheld. I rang the door-bell, feeling persuaded beforehand that my +inquiries would lead to no useful result. + +As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion's dread of a +beating revived in full force. He hid himself behind me; and when I +asked what he was about, he answered, confidentially: "Please stand +between us, sir, when mother opens the door!" + +A tall and truculent woman answered the bell. No introduction was +necessary. Holding a cane in her hand, she stood self-proclaimed as my +small friend's mother. + +"I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine," she explained, as an +apology for the exhibition of the cane. "He has been gone on an errand +more than two hours. What did you please to want, sir?" + +I interceded for the unfortunate boy before I entered on my own +business. + +"I must beg you to forgive your son this time," I said. "I found him +lost in the streets; and I have brought him home." + +The woman's astonishment when she heard what I had done, and discovered +her son behind me, literally struck her dumb. The language of the +eye, superseding on this occasion the language of the tongue, plainly +revealed the impression that I had produced on her: "You bring my lost +brat home in a cab! Mr. Stranger, you are mad." + +"I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging in the house," I went +on. "I dare say I am mistaken in supposing her to be a lady of the same +name whom I know. But I should like to make sure whether I am right or +wrong. Is it too late to disturb your lodger to-night?" + +The woman recovered the use of her tongue. + +"My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who doesn't know his +way about London yet!" She emphasized those words by shaking her brawny +fist at her son--who instantly returned to his place of refuge behind +the tail of my coat. "Have you got the money?" inquired the terrible +person, shouting at her hidden offspring over my shoulder. "Or have you +lost _that_ as well as your own stupid little self?" + +The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his mother's knotty +hand. She counted it, with eyes which satisfied themselves fiercely that +each coin was of genuine silver--and then became partially pacified. + +"Go along upstairs," she growled, addressing her son; "and don't keep +the lady waiting any longer. They're half starved, she and her child," +the woman proceeded, turning to me. "The food my boy has got for them +in his basket will be the first food the mother has tasted today. She's +pawned everything by this time; and what she's to do unless you help +her is more than I can say. The doctor does what he can; but he told me +today, if she wasn't better nourished, it was no use sending for _him_. +Follow the boy; and see for yourself if it's the lady you know." + +I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had acted under +a delusion in going to her house. How was it possible to associate +the charming object of my heart's worship with the miserable story +of destitution which I had just heard? I stopped the boy on the first +landing, and told him to announce me simply as a doctor, who had been +informed of Mrs. Brand's illness, and who had called to see her. + +We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived now at the +top of the house, the boy knocked at the door that was nearest to us +on the landing. No audible voice replied. He opened the door without +ceremony, and went in. I waited outside to hear what was said. The door +was left ajar. If the voice of "Mrs. Brand" was (as I believed it would +prove to be) the voice of a stranger, I resolved to offer her delicately +such help as lay within my power, and to return forthwith to my post +under "the shadow of Saint Paul's." + +The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a child. + +"I'm so hungry, Jemmy--I'm so hungry!" + +"All right, missy--I've got you something to eat." + +"Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!" + +There was a momentary pause; and then I heard the boy's voice once more. + +"There's a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait for your egg +till I can boil it. Don't you eat too fast, or you'll choke yourself. +What's the matter with your mamma? Are you asleep, ma'am?" + +I could barely hear the answering voice--it was so faint; and it +uttered but one word: "No!" + +The boy spoke again. + +"Cheer up, missus. There's a doctor outside waiting to see you." + +This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself to me at +the door. "Please to come in, sir. _I_ can't make anything of her." + +It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated any longer to +enter the room. I went in. + +There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed-chamber, +lying back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was one more among the +thousands of forlorn creatures, starving that night in the great city. +A white handkerchief was laid over her face as if to screen it from the +flame of the fire hard by. She lifted the handkerchief, startled by the +sound of my footsteps as I entered the room. I looked at her, and saw in +the white, wan, death-like face the face of the woman I loved! + +For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint and giddy. In +another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm was round her--her +head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking, past crying out: she +trembled silently, and that was all. I said nothing. No words passed my +lips, no tears came to my relief. I held her to me; and she let me hold +her. The child, devouring its bread-and-butter at a little round table, +stared at us. The boy, on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, +stared at us. And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly +in a corner was the only sound in the room. + +The instincts of the profession to which I had been trained, rather than +any active sense of the horror of the situation in which I was placed, +roused me at last. She was starving! I saw it in the deadly color of her +skin; I felt it in the faint, quick flutter of her pulse. I called +the boy to me, and sent him to the nearest public-house for wine and +biscuits. "Be quick about it," I said; "and you shall have more money +for yourself than ever you had in your life!" The boy looked at me, spit +on the coins in his hand, said, "That's for luck!" and ran out of the +room as never boy ran yet. + +I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. The cry of +the child stopped me. + +"I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!" + +I set more food before the famished child and kissed her. She looked up +at me with wondering eyes. + +"Are you a new papa?" the little creature asked. "My other papa never +kisses me." + +I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed; the tears flowed slowly +over her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail hand in mine. "Happier +days are coming," I said; "you are _my_ care now." There was no answer. +She still trembled silently, and that was all. + +In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned his promised +reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting his treasure, the one +happy creature in the room. I soaked some crumbled morsels of biscuit +in the wine, and, little by little, I revived her failing strength by +nourishment administered at intervals in that cautious form. After a +while she raised her head, and looked at me with wondering eyes that +were pitiably like the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate flush began +to show itself in her face. She spoke to me, for the first time, in +whispering tones that I could just hear as I sat close at her side. + +"How did you find me? Who showed you the way to this place?" + +She paused; painfully recalling the memory of something that was slow +to come back. Her color deepened; she found the lost remembrance, and +looked at me with a timid curiosity. "What brought you here?" she asked. +"Was it my dream?" + +"Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you all." + +I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The child +followed us, and climbing to the bedstead with my help, nestled at her +mother's side. I sent the boy away to tell the mistress of the house +that I should remain with my patient, watching her progress toward +recovery, through the night. He went out, jingling his money joyfully in +his pocket. We three were left together. + +As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals into a +broken sleep; waking with a start, and looking at me wildly as if I had +been a stranger at her bedside. Toward morning the nourishment which I +still carefully administered wrought its healthful change in her pulse, +and composed her to quieter slumbers. When the sun rose she was sleeping +as peacefully as the child at her side. I was able to leave her, until +my return later in the day, under the care of the woman of the house. +The magic of money transformed this termagant and terrible person into +a docile and attentive nurse--so eager to follow my instructions exactly +that she begged me to commit them to writing before I went away. For a +moment I still lingered alone at the bedside of the sleeping woman, and +satisfied myself for the hundredth time that her life was safe, before +I left her. It was the sweetest of all rewards to feel sure of this--to +touch her cool forehead lightly with my lips--to look, and look again, +at the poor worn face, always dear, always beautiful, to _my_ eyes. +change as it might. I closed the door softly and went out in the bright +morning, a happy man again. So close together rise the springs of joy +and sorrow in human life! So near in our heart, as in our heaven, is the +brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud! + +CHAPTER XXVI. CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER. + +I REACHED my own house in time to snatch two or three hours of repose, +before I paid my customary morning visit to my mother in her own room. I +observed, in her reception of me on this occasion, certain peculiarities +of look and manner which were far from being familiar in my experience +of her. + +When our eyes first met, she regarded me with a wistful, questioning +look, as if she were troubled by some doubt which she shrunk from +expressing in words. And when I inquired after her health, as usual, she +surprised me by answering as impatiently as if she resented my having +mentioned the subject. For a moment, I was inclined to think these +changes signified that she had discovered my absence from home during +the night, and that she had some suspicion of the true cause of it. But +she never alluded, even in the most distant manner, to Mrs. Van +Brandt; and not a word dropped from her lips which implied, directly or +indirectly, that I had pained or disappointed her. I could only conclude +that she had something important to say in relation to herself or to +me--and that for reasons of her own she unwillingly abstained from +giving expression to it at that time. + +Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touched on the +subject (always interesting to my mother) of my visit to Shetland. +Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also of Miss Dunross. Here, again, +when I least expected it, there was another surprise in store for me. + +"You were talking the other day," said my mother, "of the green flag +which poor Dermody's daughter worked for you, when you were both +children. Have you really kept it all this time?" + +"Yes." + +"Where have you left it? In Scotland?" + +"I have brought it with me to London." + +"Why?" + +"I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, wherever I +might go." + +My mother smiled. + +"Is it possible, George, that you think about this as the young lady in +Shetland thinks? After all the years that have passed, you believe in +the green flag being the means of bringing Mary Dermody and yourself +together again?" + +"Certainly not! I am only humoring one of the fancies of poor Miss +Dunross. Could I refuse to grant her trifling request, after all I owed +to her kindness?" + +The smile left my mother's face. She looked at me attentively. + +"Miss Dunross seems to have produced a very favorable impression on +you," she said. + +"I own it. I feel deeply interested in her." + +"If she had not been an incurable invalid, George, I too might have +become interested in Miss Dunross--perhaps in the character of my +daughter-in-law?" + +"It is useless, mother, to speculate on what _might_ have happened. The +sad reality is enough." + +My mother paused a little before she put her next question to me. + +"Did Miss Dunross always keep her veil drawn in your presence, when +there happened to be light in the room?" + +"Always." + +"She never even let you catch a momentary glance at her face?" + +"Never." + +"And the only reason she gave you was that the light caused her a +painful sensation if it fell on her uncovered skin?" + +"You say that, mother, as if you doubt whether Miss Dunross told me the +truth." + +"No, George. I only doubt whether she told you _all_ the truth." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Don't be offended, my dear. I believe Miss Dunross has some more +serious reason for keeping her face hidden than the reason that she gave +_you_." + +I was silent. The suspicion which those words implied had never occurred +to my mind. I had read in medical books of cases of morbid nervous +sensitiveness exactly similar to the case of Miss Dunross, as described +by herself--and that had been enough for me. Now that my mother's idea +had found its way from her mind to mine, the impression produced on +me was painful in the last degree. Horrible imaginings of deformity +possessed my brain, and profaned all that was purest and dearest in my +recollections of Miss Dunross. It was useless to change the subject--the +evil influence that was on me was too potent to be charmed away by talk. +Making the best excuse that I could think of for leaving my mother's +room, I hurried away to seek a refuge from myself, where alone I could +hope to find it, in the presence of Mrs. Van Brandt. + +CHAPTER XXVII. CONVERSATION WITH MRS. VAN BRANDT. + +THE landlady was taking the air at her own door when I reached +the house. Her reply to my inquiries justified my most hopeful +anticipations. The poor lodger looked already "like another woman"; +and the child was at that moment posted on the stairs, watching for the +return of her "new papa." + +"There's one thing I should wish to say to you, sir, before you go +upstairs," the woman went on. "Don't trust the lady with more money at +a time than the money that is wanted for the day's housekeeping. If +she has any to spare, it's as likely as not to be wasted on her +good-for-nothing husband." + +Absorbed in the higher and dearer interests that filled my mind, I had +thus far forgotten the very existence of Mr. Van Brandt. + +"Where is he?" I asked. + +"Where he ought to be," was the answer. "In prison for debt." + +In those days a man imprisoned for debt was not infrequently a man +imprisoned for life. There was little fear of my visit being shortened +by the appearance on the scene of Mr. Van Brandt. + +Ascending the stairs, I found the child waiting for me on the upper +landing, with a ragged doll in her arms. I had bought a cake for her on +my way to the house. She forthwith turned over the doll to my care, and, +trotting before me into the room with her cake in her arms, announced my +arrival in these words: + +"Mamma, I like this papa better than the other. You like him better, +too." + +The mother's wasted face reddened for a moment, then turned pale again, +as she held out her hand to me. I looked at her anxiously, and discerned +the welcome signs of recovery, clearly revealed. Her grand gray eyes +rested on me again with a glimmer of their old light. The hand that had +lain so cold in mine on the past night had life and warmth in it now. + +"Should I have died before the morning if you had not come here?" she +asked, softly. "Have you saved my life for the second time? I can well +believe it." + +Before I was aware of her, she bent her head over my hand, and +touched it tenderly with her lips. "I am not an ungrateful woman," she +murmured--"and yet I don't know how to thank you." + +The child looked up quickly from her cake. "Why don't you kiss him?" the +quaint little creature asked, with a broad stare of astonishment. + +Her head sunk on her breast. She sighed bitterly. + +"No more of Me!" she said, suddenly recovering her composure, and +suddenly forcing herself to look at me again. "Tell me what happy chance +brought you here last night?" + +"The same chance," I answered, "which took me to Saint Anthony's Well." + +She raised herself eagerly in the chair. + +"You have seen me again--as you saw me in the summer-house by the +waterfall!" she exclaimed. "Was it in Scotland once more?" + +"No. Further away than Scotland--as far away as Shetland." + +"Tell me about it! Pray, pray tell me about it!" + +I related what had happened as exactly as I could, consistently with +maintaining the strictest reserve on one point. Concealing from her the +very existence of Miss Dunross, I left her to suppose that the master +of the house was the one person whom I had found to receive me during my +sojourn under Mr. Dunross's roof. + +"That is strange!" she exclaimed, after she had heard me attentively to +the end. + +"What is strange?" I asked. + +She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large grave eyes. + +"I hardly like speaking of it," she said. "And yet I ought to have no +concealments in such a matter from you. I understand everything that you +have told me--with one exception. It seems strange to me that you should +only have had one old man for your companion while you were at the house +in Shetland." + +"What other companion did you expect to hear of?" I inquired. + +"I expected," she answered, "to hear of a lady in the house." + +I cannot positively say that the reply took me by surprise: it forced me +to reflect before I spoke again. I knew, by my past experience, that +she must have seen me, in my absence from her, while I was spiritually +present to her mind in a trance or dream. Had she also seen the daily +companion of my life in Shetland--Miss Dunross? + +I put the question in a form which left me free to decide whether I +should take her unreservedly into my confidence or not. + +"Am I right," I began, "in supposing that you dreamed of me in Shetland, +as you once before dreamed of me while I was at my house in Perthshire?" + +"Yes," she answered. "It was at the close of evening, this time. I fell +asleep, or became insensible--I cannot say which. And I saw you again, +in a vision or a dream." + +"Where did you see me?" + +"I first saw you on the bridge over the Scotch river--just as I met you +on the evening when you saved my life. After a while the stream and +the landscape about it faded, and you faded with them, into darkness. +I waited a little, and the darkness melted away slowly. I stood, as it +seemed to me, in a circle of starry lights; fronting a window, with a +lake behind me, and before me a darkened room. And I looked into the +room, and the starry light showed you to me again." + +"When did this happen? Do you remember the date?" + +"I remember that it was at the beginning of the month. The misfortunes +which have since brought me so low had not then fallen on me; and yet, +as I stood looking at you, I had the strangest prevision of calamity +that was to come. I felt the same absolute reliance on your power to +help me that I felt when I first dreamed of you in Scotland. And I did +the same familiar things. I laid my hand on your bosom. I said to you: +'Remember me. Come to me.' I even wrote--" + +She stopped, shuddering as if a sudden fear had laid its hold on +her. Seeing this, and dreading the effect of any violent agitation, I +hastened to suggest that we should say no more, for that day, on the +subject of her dream. + +"No," she answered, firmly. "There is nothing to be gained by giving me +time. My dream has left one horrible remembrance on my mind. As long as +I live, I believe I shall tremble when I think of what I saw near you in +that darkened room." + +She stopped again. Was she approaching the subject of the shrouded +figure, with the black veil over its head? Was she about to describe her +first discovery, in the dream, of Miss Dunross? + +"Tell me one thing first," she resumed. "Have I been right in what I +have said to you, so far? Is it true that you were in a darkened room +when you saw me?" + +"Quite true." + +"Was the date the beginning of the month? and was the hour the close of +evening?" + +"Yes." + +"Were you alone in the room? Answer me truly!" + +"I was not alone." + +"Was the master of the house with you? or had you some other companion?" + +It would have been worse than useless (after what I had now heard) to +attempt to deceive her. + +"I had another companion," I answered. "The person in the room with me +was a woman." + +Her face showed, as I spoke, that she was again shaken by the terrifying +recollection to which she had just alluded. I had, by this time, some +difficulty myself in preserving my composure. Still, I was determined +not to let a word escape me which could operate as a suggestion on the +mind of my companion. + +"Have you any other question to ask me?" was all I said. + +"One more," she answered. "Was there anything unusual in the dress of +your companion?" + +"Yes. She wore a long black veil, which hung over her head and face, and +dropped to below her waist." + +Mrs. Van Brandt leaned back in her chair, and covered her eyes with her +hands. + +"I understand your motive for concealing from me the presence of that +miserable woman in the house," she said. "It is good and kind, like +all your motives; but it is useless. While I lay in the trance I saw +everything exactly as it was in the reality; and I, too, saw that +frightful face!" + +Those words literally electrified me. + +My conversation of that morning with my mother instantly recurred to my +memory. I started to my feet. + +"Good God!" I exclaimed, "what do you mean?" + +"Don't you understand yet?" she asked in amazement on her side. "Must I +speak more plainly still? When you saw the apparition of me, did you see +me write?" + +"Yes. On a letter that the lady was writing for me. I saw the words +afterward; the words that brought me to you last night: 'At the month's +end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's.'" + +"How did I appear to write on the unfinished letter?" + +"You lifted the writing-case, on which the letter and the pen lay, +off the lady's lap; and, while you wrote, you rested the case on her +shoulder." + +"Did you notice if the lifting of the case produced any effect on her?" + +"I saw no effect produced," I answered. "She remained immovable in her +chair." + +"I saw it differently in my dream. She raised her hand--not the +hand that was nearest to you, but nearest to me. As _I_ lifted the +writing-case, _she_ lifted her hand, and parted the folds of the veil +from off her face--I suppose to see more clearly. It was only for a +moment; and in that moment I saw what the veil hid. Don't let us speak +of it! You must have shuddered at that frightful sight in the reality, +as I shuddered at it in the dream. You must have asked yourself, as +I did: 'Is there nobody to poison the terrible creature, and hide her +mercifully in the grave?'" + +At those words, she abruptly checked herself. I could say nothing--my +face spoke for me. She saw it, and guessed the truth. + +"Good heavens!" she cried, "you have not seen her! She must have kept +her face hidden from you behind the veil! Oh, why, why did you cheat +me into talking of it! I will never speak of it again. See, we are +frightening the child! Come here, darling; there is nothing to be afraid +of. Come, and bring your cake with you. You shall be a great lady, +giving a grand dinner; and we will be two friends whom you have invited +to dine with you; and the doll shall be the little girl who comes in +after dinner, and has fruit at dessert!" So she ran on, trying vainly +to forget the shock that she had inflicted on me in talking nursery +nonsense to the child. + +Recovering my composure in some degree, I did my best to second the +effort that she had made. My quieter thoughts suggested that she might +well be self-deceived in believing the horrible spectacle presented to +her in the vision to be an actual reflection of the truth. In common +justice toward Miss Dunross I ought surely not to accept the conviction +of her deformity on no better evidence than the evidence of a dream? +Reasonable as it undoubtedly was, this view left certain doubts still +lingering in my mind. The child's instinct soon discovered that her +mother and I were playfellows who felt no genuine enjoyment of the game. +She dismissed her make-believe guests without ceremony, and went back +with her doll to the favorite play-ground on which I had met her--the +landing outside the door. No persuasion on her mother's part or on mine +succeeded in luring her back to us. We were left together, to face +each other as best we might--with the forbidden subject of Miss Dunross +between us. + +CHAPTER XXVIII. LOVE AND MONEY. + +FEELING the embarrassment of the moment most painfully on her side, Mrs. +Van Brandt spoke first. + +"You have said nothing to me about yourself," she began. "Is your life a +happier one than it was when we last met?" + +"I cannot honestly say that it is," I answered. + +"Is there any prospect of your being married?" + +"My prospect of being married still rests with you." + +"Don't say that!" she exclaimed, with an entreating look at me. "Don't +spoil my pleasure in seeing you again by speaking of what can never be! +Have you still to be told how it is that you find me here alone with my +child?" + +I forced myself to mention Van Brandt's name, rather than hear it pass +_her_ lips. + +"I have been told that Mr. Van Brandt is in prison for debt," I said. +"And I saw for myself last night that he had left you helpless." + +"He left me the little money he had with him when he was arrested," she +rejoined, sadly. "His cruel creditors are more to blame than he is for +the poverty that has fallen on us." + +Even this negative defense of Van Brandt stung me to the quick. + +"I ought to have spoken more guardedly of him," I said, bitterly. "I +ought to have remembered that a woman can forgive almost any wrong that +a man can inflict on her--when he is the man whom she loves." + +She put her hand on my mouth, and stopped me before I could say any +more. + +"How can you speak so cruelly to me?" she asked. "You know--to my shame +I confessed it to you the last time we met--you know that my heart, in +secret, is all yours. What 'wrong' are you talking of? Is it the wrong I +suffered when Van Brandt married me, with a wife living at the time (and +living still)? Do you think I can ever forget the great misfortune of my +life--the misfortune that has made me unworthy of you? It is no fault of +mine, God knows; but it is not the less true that I am not married, and +that the little darling who is playing out there with her doll is my +child. And you talk of my being your wife--knowing that!" + +"The child accepts me as her second father," I said. "It would be better +and happier for us both if you had as little pride as the child." + +"Pride?" she repeated. "In such a position as mine? A helpless woman, +with a mock-husband in prison for debt! Say that I have not fallen +quite so low yet as to forget what is due to you, and you will pay me +a compliment that will be nearer to the truth. Am I to marry you for my +food and shelter? Am I to marry you, because there is no lawful tie that +binds me to the father of my child? Cruelly as he has behaved, he has +still _that_ claim upon me. Bad as he is, he has not forsaken me; he +has been forced away. My only friend, is it possible that you think +me ungrateful enough to consent to be your wife? The woman (in my +situation) must be heartless indeed who could destroy your place in the +estimation of the world and the regard of your friends! The wretchedest +creature that walks the streets would shrink from treating you in that +way. Oh, what are men made of? How _can_ you--how _can_ you speak of +it!" + +I yielded---and spoke of it no more. Every word she uttered only +increased my admiration of the noble creature whom I had loved, and +lost. What refuge was now left to me? But one refuge; I could still +offer to her the sacrifice of myself. Bitterly as I hated the man who +had parted us, I loved her dearly enough to be even capable of helping +him for her sake. Hopeless infatuation! I don't deny it; I don't excuse +it--hopeless infatuation! + +"You have forgiven me," I said. "Let me deserve to be forgiven. It is +something to be your only friend. You must have plans for the future; +tell me unreservedly how I can help you." + +"Complete the good work that you have begun," she answered, gratefully. +"Help me back to health. Make me strong enough to submit to a doctor's +estimate of my chances of living for some years yet." + +"A doctor's estimate of your chances of living?" I repeated. "What do +you mean?" + +"I hardly know how to tell you," she said, "without speaking again of +Mr. Van Brandt." + +"Does speaking of him again mean speaking of his debts?" I asked. "Why +need you hesitate? You know that there is nothing I will not do to +relieve _your_ anxieties." + +She looked at me for a moment, in silent distress. + +"Oh! do you think I would let you give your money to Van Brandt?" +she asked, as soon as she could speak. "I, who owe everything to your +devotion to me? Never! Let me tell you the plain truth. There is +a serious necessity for his getting out of prison. He must pay his +creditors; and he has found out a way of doing it--with my help." + +"Your help?" I exclaimed. + +"Yes. This is his position, in two words: A little while since, he +obtained an excellent offer of employment abroad, from a rich relative +of his, and he had made all his arrangements to accept it. Unhappily, +he returned to tell me of his good fortune, and the same day he was +arrested for debt. His relative has offered to keep the situation open +for a certain time, and the time has not yet expired. If he can pay +a dividend to his creditors, they will give him his freedom; and he +believes he can raise the money if I consent to insure my life." + +To insure her life! The snare that had been set for her was plainly +revealed in those four words. + +In the eye of the law she was, of course, a single woman: she was of +age; she was, to all intents and purposes, her own mistress. What was +there to prevent her from insuring her life, if she pleased, and from +so disposing of the insurance as to give Van Brandt a direct interest +in her death? Knowing what I knew of him--believing him, as I did, to be +capable of any atrocity--I trembled at the bare idea of what might have +happened if I had failed to find my way back to her until a later date. +Thanks to the happy accident of my position, the one certain way of +protecting her lay easily within my reach. I could offer to lend the +scoundrel the money that he wanted at an hour's notice, and he was the +man to accept my proposal quite as easily as I could make it. + +"You don't seem to approve of our idea," she said, noticing, in +evident perplexity, the effect which she had produced on me. "I am very +unfortunate; I seem to have innocently disturbed and annoyed you for the +second time." + +"You are quite mistaken," I replied. "I am only doubting whether your +plan for relieving Mr. Van Brandt of his embarrassments is quite so +simple as you suppose. Are you aware of the delays that are likely to +take place before it will be possible to borrow money on your policy of +insurance?" + +"I know nothing about it," she said, sadly. + +"Will you let me ask the advice of my lawyers? They are trustworthy and +experienced men, and I am sure they can be of use to you." + +Cautiously as I had expressed myself, her delicacy took the alarm. + +"Promise that you won't ask me to borrow money of you for Mr. Van +Brandt," she rejoined, "and I will accept your help gratefully." + +I could honestly promise that. My one chance of saving her lay in +keeping from her knowledge the course that I had now determined to +pursue. I rose to go, while my resolution still sustained me. The sooner +I made my inquiries (I reminded her) the more speedily our present +doubts and difficulties would be resolved. + +She rose, as I rose--with the tears in her eyes, and the blush on her +cheeks. + +"Kiss me," she whispered, "before you go! And don't mind my crying. I am +quite happy now. It is only your goodness that overpowers me." + +I pressed her to my heart, with the unacknowledged tenderness of a +parting embrace. It was impossible to disguise the position in which I +had now placed myself. I had, so to speak, pronounced my own sentence of +banishment. When my interference had restored my unworthy rival to his +freedom, could I submit to the degrading necessity of seeing her in his +presence, of speaking to her under his eyes? _That_ sacrifice of myself +was beyond me--and I knew it. "For the last time!" I thought, as I held +her to me for a moment longer--"for the last time!" + +The child ran to meet me with open arms when I stepped out on the +landing. My manhood had sustained me through the parting with the +mother. It was only when the child's round, innocent little face laid +itself lovingly against mine that my fortitude gave way. I was past +speaking; I put her down gently in silence, and waited on the lower +flight of stairs until I was fit to face the world outside. + +CHAPTER XXIX. OUR DESTINIES PART US. + +DESCENDING to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to request a +moment's interview with the landlady. I had yet to learn in which of the +London prisons Van Brandt was confined; and she was the only person to +whom I could venture to address the question. + +Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own sordid construction +on my motive for visiting the prisoner. + +"Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy pockets already?" +she asked. "If I was as rich as you are, I should let it go. In your +place, I wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs!" + +The woman's coarse warning actually proved useful to me; it started +a new idea in my mind! Before she spoke, I had been too dull or too +preoccupied to see that it was quite needless to degrade myself by +personally communicating with Van Brandt in his prison. It only now +occurred to me that my legal advisers were, as a matter of course, +the proper persons to represent me in the matter--with this additional +advantage, that they could keep my share in the transaction a secret +even from Van Brandt himself. + +I drove at once to the office of my lawyers. The senior partner--the +tried friend and adviser of our family--received me. + +My instructions, naturally enough, astonished him. He was immediately +to satisfy the prisoner's creditors, on my behalf, without mentioning +my name to any one. And he was gravely to accept as security for +repayment--Mr. Van Brandt's note of hand! + +"I thought I was well acquainted with the various methods by which a +gentleman can throw away his money," the senior partner remarked. "I +congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, on having discovered an entirely new +way of effectually emptying your purse. Founding a newspaper, taking a +theater, keeping race-horses, gambling at Monaco, are highly efficient +as modes of losing money. But they all yield, sir, to paying the debts +of Mr. Van Brandt!" + +I left him, and went home. + +The servant who opened the door had a message for me from my mother. She +wished to see me as soon as I was at leisure to speak to her. + +I presented myself at once in my mother's sitting-room. + +"Well, George?" she said, without a word to prepare me for what was +coming. "How have you left Mrs. Van Brandt?" + +I was completely thrown off my guard. + +"Who has told you that I have seen Mrs. Van Brandt?" I asked. + +"My dear, your face has told me. Don't I know by this time how you look +and how you speak when Mrs. Van Brandt is in your mind. Sit down by me. +I have something to say to you which I wanted to say this morning; but, +I hardly know why, my heart failed me. I am bolder now, and I can say +it. My son, you still love Mrs. Van Brandt. You have my permission to +marry her." + +Those were the words! Hardly an hour had elapsed since Mrs. Van Brandt's +own lips had told me that our union was impossible. Not even half an +hour had passed since I had given the directions which would restore to +liberty the man who was the one obstacle to my marriage. And this was +the time that my mother had innocently chosen for consenting to receive +as her daughter-in-law Mrs. Van Brandt! + +"I see that I surprise you," she resumed. "Let me explain my motive as +plainly as I can. I should not be speaking the truth, George, if I told +you that I have ceased to feel the serious objections that there are to +your marrying this lady. The only difference in my way of thinking is, +that I am now willing to set my objections aside, out of regard for your +happiness. I am an old woman, my dear. In the course of nature, I cannot +hope to be with you much longer. When I am gone, who will be left to +care for you and love you, in the place of your mother? No one will +be left, unless you marry Mrs. Van Brandt. Your happiness is my first +consideration, and the woman you love (sadly as she has been led astray) +is a woman worthy of a better fate. Marry her." + +I could not trust myself to speak. I could only kneel at my mother's +feet, and hide my face on her knees, as if I had been a boy again. + +"Think of it, George," she said. "And come back to me when you are +composed enough to speak as quietly of the future as I do." + +She lifted my head and kissed me. As I rose to leave her, I saw +something in the dear old eyes that met mine so tenderly, which struck a +sudden fear through me, keen and cutting, like a stroke from a knife. + +The moment I had closed the door, I went downstairs to the porter in the +hall. + +"Has my mother left the house," I asked, "while I have been away?" + +"No, sir." + +"Have any visitors called?" + +"One visitor has called, sir." + +"Do you know who it was?" + +The porter mentioned the name of a celebrated physician--a man at the +head of his profession in those days. I instantly took my hat and went +to his house. + +He had just returned from his round of visits. My card was taken to him, +and was followed at once by my admission to his consulting-room. + +"You have seen my mother," I said. "Is she seriously ill? and have you +not concealed it from her? For God's sake, tell me the truth; I can bear +it." + +The great man took me kindly by the hand. + +"Your mother stands in no need of any warning; she is herself aware of +the critical state of her health," he said. "She sent for me to confirm +her own conviction. I could not conceal from her--I must not conceal +from you--that the vital energies are sinking. She may live for some +months longer in a milder air than the air of London. That is all I can +say. At her age, her days are numbered." + +He gave me time to steady myself under the blow; and then he placed his +vast experience, his matured and consummate knowledge, at my disposal. +From his dictation, I committed to writing the necessary instructions +for watching over the frail tenure of my mother's life. + +"Let me give you one word of warning," he said, as we parted. "Your +mother is especially desirous that you should know nothing of the +precarious condition of her health. Her one anxiety is to see you +happy. If she discovers your visit to me, I will not answer for the +consequences. Make the best excuse you can think of for at once taking +her away from London, and, whatever you may feel in secret, keep up an +appearance of good spirits in her presence." + +That evening I made my excuse. It was easily found. I had only to tell +my poor mother of Mrs. Van Brandt's refusal to marry me, and there was +an intelligible motive assigned for my proposing to leave London. The +same night I wrote to inform Mrs. Van Brandt of the sad event which was +the cause of my sudden departure, and to warn her that there no longer +existed the slightest necessity for insuring her life. "My lawyers" (I +wrote) "have undertaken to arrange Mr. Van Brandt's affairs immediately. +In a few hours he will be at liberty to accept the situation that has +been offered to him." The last lines of the letter assured her of my +unalterable love, and entreated her to write to me before she left +England. + +This done, all was done. I was conscious, strange to say, of no acutely +painful suffering at this saddest time of my life. There is a limit, +morally as well as physically, to our capacity for endurance. I can only +describe my sensations under the calamities that had now fallen on me in +one way: I felt like a man whose mind had been stunned. + +The next day my mother and I set forth on the first stage of our journey +to the south coast of Devonshire. + +CHAPTER XXX. THE PROSPECT DARKENS. + +THREE days after my mother and I had established ourselves at Torquay, +I received Mrs. Van Brandt's answer to my letter. After the opening +sentences (informing me that Van Brandt had been set at liberty, under +circumstances painfully suggestive to the writer of some unacknowledged +sacrifice on my part), the letter proceeded in these terms: + +"The new employment which Mr. Van Brandt is to undertake secures to us +the comforts, if not the luxuries, of life. For the first time since my +troubles began, I have the prospect before me of a peaceful existence, +among a foreign people from whom all that is false in my position may be +concealed--not for my sake, but for the sake of my child. To more than +this, to the happiness which some women enjoy, I must not, I dare not, +aspire. + +"We leave England for the Continent early tomorrow morning. Shall I tell +you in what part of Europe my new residence is to be? + +"No! You might write to me again; and I might write back. The one poor +return I can make to the good angel of my life is to help him to forget +me. What right have I to cling to my usurped place in your regard? The +time will come when you will give your heart to a woman who is worthier +of it than I am. Let me drop out of your life--except as an occasional +remembrance, when you sometimes think of the days that have gone +forever. + +"I shall not be without some consolation on my side, when I too look +back at the past. I have been a better woman since I met with you. Live +as long as I may, I shall always remember that. + +"Yes! The influence that you have had over me has been from first to +last an influence for good. Allowing that I have done wrong (in my +position) to love you, and, worse even than that, to own it, still the +love has been innocent, and the effort to control it has been an honest +effort at least. But, apart from this, my heart tells me that I am the +better for the sympathy which has united us. I may confess to you what +I have never yet acknowledged--now that we are so widely parted, and +so little likely to meet again--whenever I have given myself up +unrestrainedly to my own better impulses, they have always seemed to +lead me to you. Whenever my mind has been most truly at peace, and I +have been able to pray with a pure and a penitent heart, I have felt +as if there was some unseen tie that was drawing us nearer and nearer +together. And, strange to say, this has always happened (just as my +dreams of you have always come to me) when I have been separated from +Van Brandt. At such times, thinking or dreaming, it has always appeared +to me that I knew you far more familiarly than I know you when we meet +face to face. Is there really such a thing, I wonder, as a former state +of existence? And were we once constant companions in some other sphere, +thousands of years since? These are idle guesses. Let it be enough for +me to remember that I have been the better for knowing you--without +inquiring how or why. + +"Farewell, my beloved benefactor, my only friend! The child sends you a +kiss; and the mother signs herself your grateful and affectionate + +"M. VAN BRANDT." + + +When I first read those lines, they once more recalled to my +memory--very strangely, as I then thought--the predictions of Dame +Dermody in the days of my boyhood. Here were the foretold sympathies +which were spiritually to unite me to Mary, realized by a stranger whom +I had met by chance in the later years of my life! + +Thinking in this direction, did I advance no further? Not a step +further! Not a suspicion of the truth presented itself to my mind even +yet. + +Was my own dullness of apprehension to blame for this? Would another man +in my position have discovered what I had failed to see? + +I look back along the chain of events which runs through my narrative, +and I ask myself, Where are the possibilities to be found (in my case, +or in the case of any other man) of identifying the child who was Mary +Dermody with the woman who was Mrs. Van Brandt? Was there anything left +in our faces, when we met again by the Scotch river, to remind us of our +younger selves? We had developed, in the interval, from boy and girl to +man and woman: no outward traces were discernible in us of the George +and Mary of other days. Disguised from each other by our faces, we were +also disguised by our names. Her mock-marriage had changed her surname. +My step-father's will had changed mine. Her Christian name was the +commonest of all names of women; and mine was almost as far from being +remarkable among the names of men. Turning next to the various occasions +on which we had met, had we seen enough of each other to drift into +recognition on either side, in the ordinary course of talk? We had met +but four times in all; once on the bridge, once again in Edinburgh, +twice more in London. On each of these occasions, the absorbing +anxieties and interests of the passing moment had filled her mind and +mine, had inspired her words and mine. When had the events which had +brought us together left us with leisure enough and tranquillity +enough to look back idly through our lives, and calmly to compare the +recollections of our youth? Never! From first to last, the course of +events had borne us further and further away from any results that could +have led even to a suspicion of the truth. She could only believe when +she wrote to me on leaving England--and I could only believe when I read +her letter--that we had first met at the river, and that our divergent +destinies had ended in parting us forever. + +Reading her farewell letter in later days by the light of my matured +experience, I note how remarkably Dame Dermody's faith in the purity of +the tie that united us as kindred spirits was justified by the result. + +It was only when my unknown Mary was parted from Van Brandt--in +other words, it was only when she was a pure spirit--that she felt my +influence over her as a refining influence on her life, and that the +apparition of her communicated with me in the visible and perfect +likeness of herself. On my side, when was it that I dreamed of her +(as in Scotland), or felt the mysterious warning of her presence in my +waking moments (as in Shetland)? Always at the time when my heart opened +most tenderly toward her and toward others--when my mind was most free +from the bitter doubts, the self-seeking aspirations, which degrade the +divinity within us. Then, and then only, my sympathy with her was the +perfect sympathy which holds its fidelity unassailable by the chances +and changes, the delusions and temptations, of mortal life. + + +I am writing prematurely of the time when the light came to me. My +narrative must return to the time when I was still walking in darkness. + +Absorbed in watching over the closing days of my mother's life, I found +in the performance of this sacred duty my only consolation under the +overthrow of my last hope of marriage with Mrs. Van Brandt. By slow +degrees my mother felt the reviving influences of a quiet life and a +soft, pure air. The improvement in her health could, as I but too well +knew, be only an improvement for a time. Still, it was a relief to see +her free from pain, and innocently happy in the presence of her son. +Excepting those hours of the day and night which were dedicated to +repose, I was never away from her. To this day I remember, with a +tenderness which attaches to no other memories of mine, the books that I +read to her, the sunny corner on the seashore where I sat with her, the +games of cards that we played together, the little trivial gossip that +amused her when she was strong enough for nothing else. These are my +imperishable relics; these are the deeds of my life that I shall love +best to look back on, when the all-infolding shadows of death are +closing round me. + +In the hours when I was alone, my thoughts--occupying themselves mostly +among the persons and events of the past--wandered back, many and many a +time, to Shetland and Miss Dunross. + +My haunting doubt as to what the black veil had really hidden from me +was no longer accompanied by a feeling of horror when it now recurred +to my mind. The more vividly my later remembrances of Miss Dunross were +associated with the idea of an unutterable bodily affliction, the higher +the noble nature of the woman seemed to rise in my esteem. For the +first time since I had left Shetland, the temptation now came to me to +disregard the injunction which her father had laid on me at parting. +When I thought again of the stolen kiss in the dead of night; when I +recalled the appearance of the frail white hand, waving to me through +the dark curtains its last farewell; and when there mingled with these +memories the later remembrance of what my mother had suspected, and of +what Mrs. Van Brandt had seen in her dream--the longing in me to find a +means of assuring Miss Dunross that she still held her place apart in my +memory and my heart was more than mortal fortitude could resist. I was +pledged in honor not to return to Shetland, and not to write. How to +communicate with her secretly, in some other way, was the constant +question in my mind as the days went on. A hint to enlighten me was all +that I wanted; and, as the irony of circumstances ordered it, my mother +was the person who gave me the hint. + +We still spoke, at intervals, of Mrs. Van Brandt. Watching me on those +occasions when we were in the company of friends and acquaintances at +Torquay, my mother plainly discerned that no other woman, whatever her +attractions might be, could take the place in my heart of the woman whom +I had lost. Seeing but one prospect of happiness for me, she steadily +refused to abandon the idea of my marriage. When a woman has owned that +she loves a man (so my mother used to express her opinion), it is that +man's fault, no matter what the obstacles may be, if he fails to make +her his wife. Reverting to this view in various ways, she pressed it on +my consideration one day in these words: + +"There is one drawback, George, to my happiness in being here with you. +I am an obstacle in the way of your communicating with Mrs. Van Brandt." + +"You forget," I said, "that she has left England without telling me +where to find her." + +"If you were free from the incumbrance of your mother, my dear, you +would easily find her. Even as things are, you might surely write +to her. Don't mistake my motives, George. If I had any hope of your +forgetting her--if I saw you only moderately attracted by one or other +of the charming women whom we know here--I should say, let us never +speak again or think again of Mrs. Van Brandt. But, my dear, your heart +is closed to every woman but one. Be happy in your own way, and let +me see it before I die. The wretch to whom that poor creature is +sacrificing her life will, sooner or later, ill-treat her or desert her +and then she must turn to you. Don't let her think that you are +resigned to the loss of her. The more resolutely you set her scruples at +defiance, the more she will love you and admire you in secret. Women are +like that. Send her a letter, and follow it with a little present. You +talked of taking me to the studio of the young artist here who left +his card the other day. I am told that he paints admirable portraits in +miniatures. Why not send your portrait to Mrs. Van Brandt?" + +Here was the idea of which I had been vainly in search! Quite +superfluous as a method of pleading my cause with Mrs. Van Brandt, +the portrait offered the best of all means of communicating with Miss +Dunross, without absolutely violating the engagement to which her +father had pledged me. In this way, without writing a word, without even +sending a message, I might tell her how gratefully she was remembered; I +might remind her of me tenderly in the bitterest moments of her sad and +solitary life. + +The same day I went to the artist privately. The sittings were afterward +continued during the hours while my mother was resting in her room, +until the portrait was completed. I caused it to be inclosed in a plain +gold locket, with a chain attached; and I forwarded my gift, in the +first instance, to the one person whom I could trust to assist me in +arranging for the conveyance of it to its destination. This was the old +friend (alluded to in these pages as "Sir James") who had taken me with +him to Shetland in the Government yacht. + +I had no reason, in writing the necessary explanations, to express +myself to Sir James with any reserve. On the voyage back we had more +than once spoken together confidentially of Miss Dunross. Sir James had +heard her sad story from the resident medical man at Lerwick, who had +been an old companion of his in their college days. Requesting him to +confide my gift to this gentleman, I did not hesitate to acknowledge the +doubt that oppressed me in relation to the mystery of the black veil. It +was, of course, impossible to decide whether the doctor would be able +to relieve that doubt. I could only venture to suggest that the question +might be guardedly put, in making the customary inquiries after the +health of Miss Dunross. + +In those days of slow communication, I had to wait, not for days, but +for weeks, before I could expect to receive Sir James's answer. His +letter only reached me after an unusually long delay. For this, or +for some other reason that I cannot divine, I felt so strongly the +foreboding of bad news that I abstained from breaking the seal in my +mother's presence. I waited until I could retire to my own room, and +then I opened the letter. My presentiment had not deceived me. + +Sir James's reply contained these words only: "The letter inclosed tells +its own sad story, without help from me. I cannot grieve for her; but I +can feel sorry for you." + +The letter thus described was addressed to Sir James by the doctor at +Lerwick. I copy it (without comment) in these words: + +"The late stormy weather has delayed the vessel by means of which we +communicate with the mainland. I have only received your letter to-day. +With it, there has arrived a little box, containing a gold locket and +chain; being the present which you ask me to convey privately to Miss +Dunross, from a friend of yours whose name you are not at liberty to +mention. + +"In transmitting these instructions, you have innocently placed me in a +position of extreme difficulty. + +"The poor lady for whom the gift is intended is near the end of her +life--a life of such complicated and terrible suffering that death +comes, in her case, literally as a mercy and a deliverance. Under these +melancholy circumstances, I am, I think, not to blame if I hesitate to +give her the locket in secret; not knowing with what associations this +keepsake may be connected, or of what serious agitation it may not +possibly be the cause. + +"In this state of doubt I have ventured on opening the locket, and +my hesitation is naturally increased. I am quite ignorant of the +remembrances which my unhappy patient may connect with the portrait. I +don't know whether it will give her pleasure or pain to receive it, in +her last moments on earth. I can only decide to take it with me, when +I see her to-morrow, and to let circumstances determine whether I shall +risk letting her see it or not. Our post to the South only leaves this +place in three days' time. I can keep my letter open, and let you know +the result. + +"I have seen her; and I have just returned to my own house. My distress +of mind is great. But I will do my best to write intelligibly and fully +of what has happened. + +"Her sinking energies, when I first saw her this morning, had rallied +for the moment. The nurse informed me that she had slept during the +early hours of the new day. Previously to this, there were symptoms of +fever, accompanied by some slight delirium. The words that escaped her +in this condition appear to have related mainly to an absent person whom +she spoke of by the name of 'George.' Her one anxiety, I am told, was to +see 'George' again before she died. + +"Hearing this, it struck me as barely possible that the portrait in the +locket might be the portrait of the absent person. I sent her nurse +out of the room, and took her hand in mine. Trusting partly to her own +admirable courage and strength of mind, and partly to the confidence +which I knew she placed in me as an old friend and adviser, I adverted +to the words which had fallen from her in the feverish state. And then I +said, 'You know that any secret of yours is safe in my keeping. Tell me, +do you expect to receive any little keepsake or memorial from 'George'? + +"It was a risk to run. The black veil which she always wears was over +her face. I had nothing to tell me of the effect which I was producing +on her, except the changing temperature, or the partial movement, of her +hand, as it lay in mine, just under the silk coverlet of the bed. + +"She said nothing at first. Her hand turned suddenly from cold to +hot, and closed with a quick pressure on mine. Her breathing became +oppressed. When she spoke, it was with difficulty. She told me nothing; +she only put a question: + +"'Is he here?' she asked. + +"I said, 'Nobody is here but myself.' + +"'Is there a letter?' + +"I said 'No.' + +"She was silent for a while. Her hand turned cold; the grasp of her +fingers loosened. She spoke again: 'Be quick, doctor! Whatever it is, +give it to me, before I die.' + +"I risked the experiment; I opened the locket, and put it into her hand. + +"So far as I could discover, she refrained from looking at it at first. +She said, 'Turn me in the bed, with my face to the wall.' I obeyed +her. With her back turned toward me she lifted her veil; and then (as I +suppose) she looked at the portrait. A long, low cry--not of sorrow or +pain: a cry of rapture and delight--burst from her. I heard her kiss +the portrait. Accustomed as I am in my profession to piteous sights and +sounds, I never remember so completely losing my self-control as I lost +it at that moment. I was obliged to turn away to the window. + +"Hardly a minute can have passed before I was back again at the bedside. +In that brief interval she had changed. Her voice had sunk again; it +was so weak that I could only hear what she said by leaning over her and +placing my ear close to her lips. + +"'Put it round my neck,' she whispered. + +"I clasped the chain of the locket round her neck. She tried to lift her +hand to it, but her strength failed her. + +"'Help me to hide it,' she said. + +"I guided her hand. She hid the locket in her bosom, under the white +dressing-gown which she wore that day. The oppression in her breathing +increased. I raised her on the pillow. The pillow was not high enough. +I rested her head on my shoulder, and partially opened her veil. She was +able to speak once more, feeling a momentary relief. + +"'Promise,' she said, 'that no stranger's hand shall touch me. Promise +to bury me as I am now.' + +"I gave her my promise. + +"Her failing breath quickened. She was just able to articulate the next +words: + +"'Cover my face again.' + +"I drew the veil over her face. She rested a while in silence. Suddenly +the sound of her laboring respiration ceased. She started, and raised +her head from my shoulder. + +"'Are you in pain?' I asked. + +"'I am in heaven!' she answered. + +"Her head dropped back on my breast as she spoke. In that last outburst +of joy her last breath had passed. The moment of her supreme happiness +and the moment of her death were one. The mercy of God had found her at +last. + +"I return to my letter before the post goes out. + +"I have taken the necessary measures for the performance of my promise. +She will be buried with the portrait hidden in her bosom, and with the +black veil over her face. No nobler creature ever breathed the breath of +life. Tell the stranger who sent her his portrait that her last moments +were joyful moments, through his remembrance of her as expressed by his +gift. + +"I observe a passage in your letter to which I have not yet replied. You +ask me if there was any more serious reason for the persistent hiding of +her face under the veil than the reason which she was accustomed to give +to the persons about her. It is true that she suffered under a morbid +sensitiveness to the action of light. It is also true that this was not +the only result, or the worst result, of the malady that afflicted her. +She had another reason for keeping her face hidden--a reason known +to two persons only: to the doctor who lives in the village near her +father's house, and to myself. We are both pledged never to divulge +to any living creature what our eyes alone have seen. We have kept our +terrible secret even from her father; and we shall carry it with us +to our graves. I have no more to say on this melancholy subject to the +person in whose interest you write. When he thinks of her now, let him +think of the beauty which no bodily affliction can profane--the beauty +of the freed spirit, eternally happy in its union with the angels of +God. + +"I may add, before I close my letter, that the poor old father will +not be left in cheerless solitude at the lake house. He will pass the +remainder of his days under my roof, with my good wife to take care of +him, and my children to remind him of the brighter side of life." + + +So the letter ended. I put it away, and went out. The solitude of my +room forewarned me unendurably of the coming solitude in my own life. +My interests in this busy world were now narrowed to one object--to the +care of my mother's failing health. Of the two women whose hearts had +once beaten in loving sympathy with mine, one lay in her grave and the +other was lost to me in a foreign land. On the drive by the sea I met my +mother, in her little pony-chaise, moving slowly under the mild wintry +sunshine. I dismissed the man who was in attendance on her, and walked +by the side of the chaise, with the reins in my hand. We chatted quietly +on trivial subjects. I closed my eyes to the dreary future that was +before me, and tried, in the intervals of the heart-ache, to live +resignedly in the passing hour. + +CHAPTER XXXI. THE PHYSICIAN'S OPINION. + +SIX months have elapsed. Summer-time has come again. + +The last parting is over. Prolonged by my care, the days of my mother's +life have come to their end. She has died in my arms: her last words +have been spoken to me, her last look on earth has been mine. I am now, +in the saddest and plainest meaning of the words, alone in the world. + +The affliction which has befallen me has left certain duties to be +performed that require my presence in London. My house is let; I am +staying at a hotel. My friend, Sir James (also in London on business), +has rooms near mine. We breakfast and dine together in my sitting-room. +For the moment solitude is dreadful to me, and yet I cannot go into +society; I shrink from persons who are mere acquaintances. At Sir +James's suggestion, however, one visitor at the hotel has been asked to +dine with us, who claims distinction as no ordinary guest. The physician +who first warned me of the critical state of my mother's health is +anxious to hear what I can tell him of her last moments. His time is too +precious to be wasted in the earlier hours of the day, and he joins +us at the dinner-table when his patients leave him free to visit his +friends. + +The dinner is nearly at an end. I have made the effort to preserve my +self-control; and in few words have told the simple story of my mother's +last peaceful days on earth. The conversation turns next on topics of +little interest to me: my mind rests after the effort that it has made; +my observation is left free to exert itself as usual. + +Little by little, while the talk goes on, I observe something in the +conduct of the celebrated physician which first puzzles me, and then +arouses my suspicion of some motive for his presence which has not been +acknowledged, and in which I am concerned. + +Over and over again I discover that his eyes are resting on me with a +furtive interest and attention which he seems anxious to conceal. Over +and over again I notice that he contrives to divert the conversation +from general topics, and to lure me into talking of myself; and, +stranger still (unless I am quite mistaken), Sir James understands and +encourages him. Under various pretenses I am questioned about what I +have suffered in the past, and what plans of life I have formed for the +future. Among other subjects of personal interest to me, the subject +of supernatural appearances is introduced. I am asked if I believe +in occult spiritual sympathies, and in ghostly apparitions of dead or +distant persons. I am dexterously led into hinting that my views on +this difficult and debatable question are in some degree influenced by +experiences of my own. Hints, however, are not enough to satisfy the +doctor's innocent curiosity; he tries to induce me to relate in detail +what I have myself seen and felt. But by this time I am on my guard; +I make excuses; I steadily abstain from taking my friend into my +confidence. It is more and more plain to me that I am being made the +subject of an experiment, in which Sir James and the physician are +equally interested. Outwardly assuming to be guiltless of any suspicion +of what is going on, I inwardly determine to discover the true motive +for the doctor's presence that evening, and for the part that Sir James +has taken in inviting him to be my guest. + +Events favor my purpose soon after the dessert has been placed on the +table. + +The waiter enters the room with a letter for me, and announces that the +bearer waits to know if there is any answer. I open the envelope, and +find inside a few lines from my lawyers, announcing the completion of +some formal matter of business. I at once seize the opportunity that is +offered to me. Instead of sending a verbal message downstairs, I make my +apologies, and use the letter as a pretext for leaving the room. + +Dismissing the messenger who waits below, I return to the corridor in +which my rooms are situated, and softly open the door of my bed-chamber. +A second door communicates with the sitting-room, and has a ventilator +in the upper part of it. I have only to stand under the ventilator, +and every word of the conversation between Sir James and the physician +reaches my ears. + +"Then you think I am right?" are the first words I hear, in Sir James's +voice. + +"Quite right," the doctor answers. + +"I have done my best to make him change his dull way of life," Sir James +proceeds. "I have asked him to pay a visit to my house in Scotland; I +have proposed traveling with him on the Continent; I have offered +to take him with me on my next voyage in the yacht. He has but one +answer--he simply says No to everything that I can suggest. You have +heard from his own lips that he has no definite plans for the future. +What is to become of him? What had we better do?" + +"It is not easy to say," I hear the physician reply. "To speak plainly, +the man's nervous system is seriously deranged. I noticed something +strange in him when he first came to consult me about his mother's +health. The mischief has not been caused entirely by the affliction of +her death. In my belief, his mind has been--what shall I say?--unhinged, +for some time past. He is a very reserved person. I suspect he has been +oppressed by anxieties which he has kept secret from every one. At his +age, the unacknowledged troubles of life are generally troubles caused +by women. It is in his temperament to take the romantic view of love; +and some matter-of-fact woman of the present day may have bitterly +disappointed him. Whatever may be the cause, the effect is plain--his +nerves have broken down, and his brain is necessarily affected by +whatever affects his nerves. I have known men in his condition who have +ended badly. He may drift into insane delusions, if his present course +of life is not altered. Did you hear what he said when we talked about +ghosts?" + +"Sheer nonsense!" Sir James remarks. + +"Sheer delusion would be the more correct form of expression," the +doctor rejoins. "And other delusions may grow out of it at any moment." + +"What is to be done?" persists Sir James. "I may really say for myself, +doctor, that I feel a fatherly interest in the poor fellow. His mother +was one of my oldest and dearest friends, and he has inherited many of +her engaging and endearing qualities. I hope you don't think the case is +bad enough to be a case for restraint?" + +"Certainly not--as yet," answers the doctor. "So far there is no +positive brain disease; and there is accordingly no sort of reason +for placing him under restraint. It is essentially a difficult and a +doubtful case. Have him privately looked after by a competent person, +and thwart him in nothing, if you can possibly help it. The merest +trifle may excite his suspicions; and if that happens, we lose all +control over him." + +"You don't think he suspects us already, do you, doctor?" + +"I hope not. I saw him once or twice look at me very strangely; and he +has certainly been a long time out of the room." + +Hearing this, I wait to hear no more. I return to the sitting-room (by +way of the corridor) and resume my place at the table. + +The indignation that I feel--naturally enough, I think, under the +circumstances--makes a good actor of me for once in my life. I invent +the necessary excuse for my long absence, and take my part in the +conversation, keeping the strictest guard on every word that escapes me, +without betraying any appearance of restraint in my manner. Early in the +evening the doctor leaves us to go to a scientific meeting. For half an +hour or more Sir James remains with me. By way (as I suppose) of farther +testing the state of my mind, he renews the invitation to his house in +Scotland. I pretend to feel flattered by his anxiety to secure me as +his guest. I undertake to reconsider my first refusal, and to give him a +definite answer when we meet the next morning at breakfast. Sir James is +delighted. We shake hands cordially, and wish each other good-night. At +last I am left alone. + +My resolution as to my next course of proceeding is formed without a +moment's hesitation. I determine to leave the hotel privately the next +morning before Sir James is out of his bedroom. + +To what destination I am to betake myself is naturally the next question +that arises, and this also I easily decide. During the last days of my +mother's life we spoke together frequently of the happy past days when +we were living together on the banks of the Greenwater lake. The longing +thus inspired to look once more at the old scenes, to live for a while +again among the old associations, has grown on me since my mother's +death. I have, happily for myself, not spoken of this feeling to Sir +James or to any other person. When I am missed at the hotel, there will +be no suspicion of the direction in which I have turned my steps. To the +old home in Suffolk I resolve to go the next morning. Wandering among +the scenes of my boyhood, I can consider with myself how I may best bear +the burden of the life that lies before me. + +After what I have heard that evening, I confide in nobody. For all I +know to the contrary, my own servant may be employed to-morrow as the +spy who watches my actions. When the man makes his appearance to take +his orders for the night, I tell him to wake me at six the next morning, +and release him from further attendance. + +I next employ myself in writing two letters. They will be left on the +table, to speak for themselves after my departure. + +In the first letter I briefly inform Sir James that I have discovered +his true reason for inviting the doctor to dinner. While I thank him for +the interest he takes in my welfare, I decline to be made the object of +any further medical inquiries as to the state of my mind. In due +course of time, when my plans are settled, he will hear from me again. +Meanwhile, he need feel no anxiety about my safety. It is one among my +other delusions to believe that I am still perfectly capable of taking +care of myself. My second letter is addressed to the landlord of the +hotel, and simply provides for the disposal of my luggage and the +payment of my bill. + +I enter my bedroom next, and pack a traveling-bag with the few things +that I can carry with me. My money is in my dressing-case. Opening it, I +discover my pretty keepsake--the green flag! Can I return to "Greenwater +Broad," can I look again at the bailiff's cottage, without the one +memorial of little Mary that I possess? Besides, have I not promised +Miss Dunross that Mary's gift shall always go with me wherever I go? and +is the promise not doubly sacred now that she is dead? For a while I sit +idly looking at the device on the flag--the white dove embroidered on +the green ground, with the golden olive-branch in its beak. The innocent +love-story of my early life returns to my memory, and shows me in +horrible contrast the life that I am leading now. I fold up the flag and +place it carefully in my traveling-bag. This done, all is done. I may +rest till the morning comes. + +No! I lie down on my bed, and I discover that there is no rest for me +that night. + +Now that I have no occupation to keep my energies employed, now that +my first sense of triumph in the discomfiture of the friends who have +plotted against me has had time to subside, my mind reverts to the +conversation that I have overheard, and considers it from a new point +of view. For the first time, the terrible question confronts me: The +doctor's opinion on my case has been given very positively. How do I +know that the doctor is not right? + +This famous physician has risen to the head of his profession entirely +by his own abilities. He is one of the medical men who succeed by +means of an ingratiating manner and the dexterous handling of good +opportunities. Even his enemies admit that he stands unrivaled in the +art of separating the true conditions from the false in the discovery of +disease, and in tracing effects accurately to their distant and hidden +cause. Is such a man as this likely to be mistaken about me? Is it not +far more probable that I am mistaken in my judgment of myself? + +When I look back over the past years, am I quite sure that the strange +events which I recall may not, in certain cases, be the visionary +product of my own disordered brain--realities to me, and to no one else? +What are the dreams of Mrs. Van Brandt? What are the ghostly apparitions +of her which I believe myself to have seen? Delusions which have been +the stealthy growth of years? delusions which are leading me, by slow +degrees, nearer and nearer to madness in the end? Is it insane suspicion +which has made me so angry with the good friends who have been trying to +save my reason? Is it insane terror which sets me on escaping from the +hotel like a criminal escaping from prison? + +These are the questions which torment me when I am alone in the dead of +night. My bed becomes a place of unendurable torture. I rise and dress +myself, and wait for the daylight, looking through my open window into +the street. + +The summer night is short. The gray light of dawn comes to me like a +deliverance; the glow of the glorious sunrise cheers my soul once more. +Why should I wait in the room that is still haunted by my horrible +doubts of the night? I take up my traveling-bag; I leave my letters on +the sitting-room table; and I descend the stairs to the house door. The +night-porter at the hotel is slumbering in his chair. He wakes as I pass +him; and (God help me!) he too looks as if he thought I was mad. + +"Going to leave us already, sir?" he says, looking at the bag in my +hand. + +Mad or sane, I am ready with my reply. I tell him I am going out for a +day in the country, and to make it a long day, I must start early. + +The man still stares at me. He asks if he shall find some one to carry +my bag. I decline to let anybody be disturbed. He inquires if I have any +messages to leave for my friend. I inform him that I have left written +messages upstairs for Sir James and the landlord. Upon this he draws the +bolts and opens the door. To the last he looks at me as if he thought I +was mad. + +Was he right or wrong? Who can answer for himself? How can I tell? + +CHAPTER XXXII. A LAST LOOK AT GREENWATER BROAD. + +MY spirits rose as I walked through the bright empty streets, and +breathed the fresh morning air. + +Taking my way eastward through the great city, I stopped at the first +office that I passed, and secured my place by the early coach to +Ipswich. Thence I traveled with post-horses to the market-town which was +nearest to Greenwater Broad. A walk of a few miles in the cool evening +brought me, through well-remembered by-roads, to our old house. By the +last rays of the setting sun I looked at the familiar row of windows in +front, and saw that the shutters were all closed. Not a living creature +was visible anywhere. Not even a dog barked as I rang the great bell at +the door. The place was deserted; the house was shut up. + +After a long delay, I heard heavy footsteps in the hall. An old man +opened the door. + +Changed as he was, I remembered him as one of our tenants in the by-gone +time. To his astonishment, I greeted him by his name. On his side, he +tried hard to recognize me, and tried in vain. No doubt I was the more +sadly changed of the two: I was obliged to introduce myself. The poor +fellow's withered face brightened slowly and timidly, as if he were half +incapable, half afraid, of indulging in the unaccustomed luxury of a +smile. In his confusion he bid me welcome home again, as if the house +had been mine. + +Taking me into the little back-room which he inhabited, the old man +gave me all he had to offer--a supper of bacon and eggs and a glass +of home-brewed beer. He was evidently puzzled to understand me when I +informed him that the only object of my visit was to look once more +at the familiar scenes round my old home. But he willingly placed his +services at my disposal; and he engaged to do his best, if I wished it, +to make me up a bed for the night. + +The house had been closed and the establishment of servants had been +dismissed for more than a year past. A passion for horse-racing, +developed late in life, had ruined the rich retired tradesman who had +purchased the estate at the time of our family troubles. He had gone +abroad with his wife to live on the little income that had been saved +from the wreck of his fortune; and he had left the house and lands in +such a state of neglect that no new purchaser had thus far been found to +take them. My old friend, "now past his work," had been put in charge of +the place. As for Dermody's cottage, it was empty, like the house. I was +at perfect liberty to look over it if I liked. There was the key of the +door on the bunch with the others; and here was the old man, with his +old hat on his head, ready to accompany me wherever I pleased to go. +I declined to trouble him to accompany me or to make up a bed in the +lonely house. The night was fine, the moon was rising. I had supped; I +had rested. When I had seen what I wanted to see, I could easily walk +back to the market-town and sleep at the inn. Taking the key in my hand, +I set forth alone on the way through the grounds which led to Dermody's +cottage. + +Again I followed the woodland paths along which I had once idled so +happily with my little Mary. At every step I saw something that reminded +me of her. Here was the rustic bench on which we had sat together under +the shadow of the old cedar-tree, and vowed to be constant to each other +to the end of our lives. There was the bright little water spring, from +which we drank when we were weary and thirsty in sultry summer days, +still bubbling its way downward to the lake as cheerily as ever. As I +listened to the companionable murmur of the stream, I almost expected to +see her again, in her simple white frock and straw hat, singing to the +music of the rivulet, and freshening her nosegay of wild flowers by +dipping it in the cool water. A few steps further on and I reached a +clearing in the wood and stood on a little promontory of rising ground +which commanded the prettiest view of Greenwater lake. A platform +of wood was built out from the bank, to be used for bathing by good +swimmers who were not afraid of a plunge into deep water. I stood on the +platform and looked round me. The trees that fringed the shore on either +hand murmured their sweet sylvan music in the night air; the moonlight +trembled softly on the rippling water. Away on my right hand I could +just see the old wooden shed that once sheltered my boat in the days +when Mary went sailing with me and worked the green flag. On my left +was the wooden paling that followed the curves of the winding creek, and +beyond it rose the brown arches of the decoy for wild fowl, now falling +to ruin for want of use. Guided by the radiant moonlight, I could see +the very spot on which Mary and I had stood to watch the snaring of the +ducks. Through the hole in the paling before which the decoy-dog had +shown himself, at Dermody's signal, a water-rat now passed, like a +little black shadow on the bright ground, and was lost in the waters +of the lake. Look where I might, the happy by-gone time looked back +in mockery, and the voices of the past came to me with their burden of +reproach: See what your life was once! Is your life worth living now? + +I picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. I watched the circling +ripples round the place at which it had sunk. I wondered if a practiced +swimmer like myself had ever tried to commit suicide by drowning, and +had been so resolute to die that he had resisted the temptation to let +his own skill keep him from sinking. Something in the lake itself, or +something in connection with the thought that it had put into my mind, +revolted me. I turned my back suddenly on the lonely view, and took the +path through the wood which led to the bailiff's cottage. + +Opening the door with my key, I groped my way into the well-remembered +parlor; and, unbarring the window-shutters, I let in the light of the +moon. + +With a heavy heart I looked round me. The old furniture--renewed, +perhaps, in one or two places--asserted its mute claim to my recognition +in every part of the room. The tender moonlight streamed slanting +into the corner in which Mary and I used to nestle together while Dame +Dermody was at the window reading her mystic books. Overshadowed by the +obscurity in the opposite corner, I discovered the high-backed arm-chair +of carved wood in which the Sibyl of the cottage sat on the memorable +day when she warned us of our coming separation, and gave us her +blessing for the last time. Looking next round the walls of the room, +I recognized old friends wherever my eyes happened to rest--the gaudily +colored prints; the framed pictures in fine needle-work, which we +thought wonderful efforts of art; the old circular mirror to which +I used to lift Mary when she wanted "to see her face in the glass." +Whenever the moonlight penetrated there, it showed me some familiar +object that recalled my happiest days. Again the by-gone time looked +back in mockery. Again the voices of the past came to me with their +burden of reproach: See what your life was once! Is your life worth +living now? + +I sat down at the window, where I could just discover, here and there +between the trees, the glimmer of the waters of the lake. I thought +to myself: "Thus far my mortal journey has brought me. Why not end it +here?" + +Who would grieve for me if my death were reported to-morrow? Of all +living men, I had perhaps the smallest number of friends, the fewest +duties to perform toward others, the least reason to hesitate at leaving +a world which had no place in it for my ambition, no creature in it for +my love. + +Besides, what necessity was there for letting it be known that my death +was a death of my own seeking? It could easily be left to represent +itself as a death by accident. + +On that fine summer night, and after a long day of traveling, might I +not naturally take a bath in the cool water before I went to bed? +And, practiced as I was in the exercise of swimming, might it not +nevertheless be my misfortune to be attacked by cramp? On the lonely +shores of Greenwater Broad the cry of a drowning man would bring no help +at night. The fatal accident would explain itself. There was literally +but one difficulty in the way--the difficulty which had already +occurred to my mind. Could I sufficiently master the animal instinct of +self-preservation to deliberately let myself sink at the first plunge? + +The atmosphere in the room felt close and heavy. I went out, and walked +to and fro--now in the shadow, and now in the moonlight--under the trees +before the cottage door. + +Of the moral objections to suicide, not one had any influence over me +now. I, who had once found it impossible to excuse, impossible even +to understand, the despair which had driven Mrs. Van Brandt to attempt +self-destruction--I now contemplated with composure the very act which +had horrified me when I saw it committed by another person. Well may we +hesitate to condemn the frailties of our fellow-creatures, for the +one unanswerable reason that we can never feel sure how soon similar +temptations may not lead us to be guilty of the same frailties +ourselves. Looking back at the events of the night, I can recall but one +consideration that stayed my feet on the fatal path which led back +to the lake. I still doubted whether it would be possible for such a +swimmer as I was to drown himself. This was all that troubled my mind. +For the rest, my will was made, and I had few other affairs which +remained unsettled. No lingering hope was left in me of a reunion in the +future with Mrs. Van Brandt. She had never written to me again; I had +(forgiven) her for having forgotten me. My thoughts of her and of others +were the forbearing thoughts of a man whose mind was withdrawn already +from the world, whose views were narrowing fast to the one idea of his +own death. + +I grew weary of walking up and down. The loneliness of the place began +to oppress me. The sense of my own indecision irritated my nerves. +After a long look at the lake through the trees, I came to a positive +conclusion at last. I determined to try if a good swimmer could drown +himself. + +CHAPTER XXXIII. A VISION OF THE NIGHT. + +RETURNING to the cottage parlor, I took a chair by the window and opened +my pocket-book at a blank page. I had certain directions to give to my +representatives, which might spare them some trouble and uncertainty +in the event of my death. Disguising my last instructions under the +commonplace heading of "Memoranda on my return to London," I began to +write. + +I had filled one page of the pocket-book, and had just turned to the +next, when I became conscious of a difficulty in fixing my attention on +the subject that was before it. I was at once reminded of the similar +difficulty which I felt in Shetland, when I had tried vainly to arrange +the composition of the letter to my mother which Miss Dunross was to +write. By way of completing the parallel, my thoughts wandered now, as +they had wandered then, to my latest remembrance of Mrs. Van Brandt. +In a minute or two I began to feel once more the strange physical +sensations which I had first experienced in the garden at Mr. Dunross's +house. The same mysterious trembling shuddered through me from head to +foot. I looked about me again, with no distinct consciousness of what +the objects were on which my eyes rested. My nerves trembled, on that +lovely summer night, as if there had been an electric disturbance in the +atmosphere and a storm coming. I laid my pocket-book and pencil on +the table, and rose to go out again under the trees. Even the trifling +effort to cross the room was an effort made in vain. I stood rooted to +the spot, with my face turned toward the moonlight streaming in at the +open door. + +An interval passed, and as I still looked out through the door, I became +aware of something moving far down among the trees that fringed the +shore of the lake. The first impression produced on me was of two gray +shadows winding their way slowly toward me between the trunks of the +trees. By fine degrees the shadows assumed a more and more marked +outline, until they presented themselves in the likeness of two robed +figures, one taller than the other. While they glided nearer and nearer, +their gray obscurity of hue melted away. They brightened softly with an +inner light of their own as they slowly approached the open space before +the door. For the third time I stood in the ghostly presence of Mrs. +Van Brandt; and with her, holding her hand, I beheld a second apparition +never before revealed to me, the apparition of her child. + +Hand-in-hand, shining in their unearthly brightness through the bright +moonlight itself, the two stood before me. The mother's face looked at +me once more with the sorrowful and pleading eyes which I remembered so +well. But the face of the child was innocently radiant with an angelic +smile. I waited in unutterable expectation for the word that was to be +spoken, for the movement that was to come. The movement came first. +The child released its hold on the mother's hand, and floating slowly +upward, remained poised in midair--a softly glowing presence shining out +of the dark background of the trees. The mother glided into the room, +and stopped at the table on which I had laid my pocket-book and pencil +when I could no longer write. As before, she took the pencil and wrote +on the blank page. As before, she beckoned to me to step nearer to her. +I approached her outstretched hand, and felt once more the mysterious +rapture of her touch on my bosom, and heard once more her low, melodious +tones repeating the words: "Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped +from my bosom. The pale light which revealed her to me quivered, sunk, +vanished. She had spoken. She had gone. + +I drew to me the open pocket-book. And this time I saw, in the writing +of the ghostly hand, these words only: + + _"Follow the Child."_ + +I looked out again at the lonely night landscape. + +There, in mid-air, shining softly out of the dark background of the +trees, still hovered the starry apparition of the child. + +Advancing without conscious will of my own, I crossed the threshold of +the door. The softly glowing vision of the child moved away before me +among the trees. I followed, like a man spellbound. The apparition, +floating slowly onward, led me out of the wood, and past my old home, +back to the lonely by-road along which I had walked from the market-town +to the house. From time to time, as we two went on our way, the bright +figure of the child paused, hovering low in the cloudless sky. Its +radiant face looked down smiling on me; it beckoned with its little +hand, and floated on again, leading me as the Star led the Eastern sages +in the olden time. + +I reached the town. The airy figure of the child paused, hovering over +the house at which I had left my traveling-carriage in the evening. +I ordered the horses to be harnessed again for another journey. The +postilion waited for his further directions. I looked up. The child's +hand was pointing southward, along the road that led to London. I gave +the man his instructions to return to the place at which I had hired +the carriage. At intervals, as we proceeded, I looked out through +the window. The bright figure of the child still floated on before me +gliding low in the cloudless sky. Changing the horses stage by stage, I +went on till the night ended--went on till the sun rose in the eastern +heaven. And still, whether it was dark or whether it was light, the +figure of the child floated on before me in its changeless and mystic +light. Mile after mile, it still led the way southward, till we left the +country behind us, and passing through the din and turmoil of the great +city, stopped under the shadow of the ancient Tower, within view of the +river that runs by it. + +The postilion came to the carriage door to ask if I had further need of +his services. I had called to him to stop, when I saw the figure of the +child pause on its airy course. I looked upward again. The child's hand +pointed toward the river. I paid the postilion and left the carriage. +Floating on before me, the child led the way to a wharf crowded with +travelers and their luggage. A vessel lay along-side of the wharf ready +to sail. The child led me on board the vessel and paused again, hovering +over me in the smoky air. + +I looked up. The child looked back at me with its radiant smile, and +pointed eastward down the river toward the distant sea. While my eyes +were still fixed on the softly glowing figure, I saw it fade away upward +and upward into the higher light, as the lark vanishes upward and +upward in the morning sky. I was alone again with my earthly +fellow-beings--left with no clew to guide me but the remembrance of the +child's hand pointing eastward to the distant sea. + +A sailor was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on the deck. I +asked him to what port the vessel was bound. The man looked at me in +surly amazement, and answered: + +"To Rotterdam." + +CHAPTER XXXIV. BY LAND AND SEA. + +IT mattered little to me to what port the vessel was bound. Go where I +might, I knew that I was on my way to Mrs. Van Brandt. She had need +of me again; she had claimed me again. Where the visionary hand of the +child had pointed, thither I was destined to go. Abroad or at home, +it mattered nothing: when I next set my foot on the land, I should be +further directed on the journey which lay before me. I believed this as +firmly as I believed that I had been guided, thus far, by the vision of +the child. + +For two nights I had not slept--my weariness overpowered me. I descended +to the cabin, and found an unoccupied corner in which I could lie down +to rest. When I awoke, it was night already, and the vessel was at sea. + +I went on deck to breathe the fresh air. Before long the sensation of +drowsiness returned; I slept again for hours together. My friend, the +physician, would no doubt have attributed this prolonged need of repose +to the exhausted condition of my brain, previously excited by delusions +which had lasted uninterruptedly for many hours together. Let the cause +be what it might, during the greater part of the voyage I was awake at +intervals only. The rest of the time I lay like a weary animal, lost in +sleep. + +When I stepped on shore at Rotterdam, my first proceeding was to ask my +way to the English Consulate. I had but a small sum of money with me; +and, for all I knew to the contrary, it might be well, before I did +anything else, to take the necessary measures for replenishing my purse. + +I had my traveling-bag with me. On the journey to Greenwater Broad I had +left it at the inn in the market-town, and the waiter had placed it in +the carriage when I started on my return to London. The bag contained my +checkbook, and certain letters which assisted me in proving my identity +to the consul. He kindly gave me the necessary introduction to the +correspondents at Rotterdam of my bankers in London. + +Having obtained my money, and having purchased certain necessaries of +which I stood in need, I walked slowly along the street, knowing nothing +of what my next proceeding was to be, and waiting confidently for the +event which was to guide me. I had not walked a hundred yards before +I noticed the name of "Van Brandt" inscribed on the window-blinds of a +house which appeared to be devoted to mercantile purposes. + +The street door stood open. A second door, on one side of the passage, +led into the office. I entered the room and inquired for Mr. Van Brandt. +A clerk who spoke English was sent for to communicate with me. He told +me there were three partners of that name in the business, and inquired +which of them I wished to see. I remembered Van Brandt's Christian name, +and mentioned it. No such person as "Mr. Ernest Van Brandt" was known at +the office. + +"We are only the branch house of the firm of Van Brandt here," the clerk +explained. "The head office is at Amsterdam. They may know where Mr. +Ernest Van Brandt is to be found, if you inquire there." + +It mattered nothing to me where I went, so long as I was on my way to +Mrs. Van Brandt. It was too late to travel that day; I slept at a hotel. +The night passed quietly and uneventfully. The next morning I set forth +by the public conveyance for Amsterdam. + +Repeating my inquiries at the head office on my arrival, I was referred +to one of the partners in the firm. He spoke English perfectly; and +he received me with an appearance of interest which I was at a loss to +account for at first. + +"Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is well known to me," he said. "May I ask if you +are a relative or friend of the English lady who has been introduced +here as his wife?" + +I answered in the affirmative; adding, "I am here to give any assistance +to the lady of which she may stand in need." + +The merchant's next words explained the appearance of interest with +which he had received me. + +"You are most welcome," he said. "You relieve my partners and myself +of a great anxiety. I can only explain what I mean by referring for +a moment to the business affairs of my firm. We have a fishing +establishment in the ancient city of Enkhuizen, on the shores of the +Zuyder Zee. Mr. Ernest Van Brandt had a share in it at one time, which +he afterward sold. Of late years our profits from this source have been +diminishing; and we think of giving up the fishery, unless our prospects +in that quarter improve after a further trial. In the meantime, having +a vacant situation in the counting-house at Enkhuizen, we thought of +Mr. Ernest Van Brandt, and offered him the opportunity of renewing his +connection with us, in the capacity of a clerk. He is related to one of +my partners; but I am bound in truth to tell you that he is a very bad +man. He has awarded us for our kindness to him by embezzling our +money; and he has taken to flight--in what direction we have not +yet discovered. The English lady and her child are left deserted at +Enkhuizen; and until you came here to-day we were quite at a loss to +know what to do with them. I don't know whether you are already aware +of it, sir; but the lady's position is made doubly distressing by doubts +which we entertain of her being really Mr. Ernest Van Brandt's wife. To +our certain knowledge, he was privately married to another woman some +years since; and we have no evidence whatever that the first wife +is dead. If we can help you in any way to assist your unfortunate +country-woman, pray believe that our services are at your disposal." + +With what breathless interest I listened to these words it is needless +to say. Van Brandt had deserted her! Surely (as my poor mother had once +said) "she must turn to me now." The hopes that had abandoned me filled +my heart once more; the future which I had so long feared to contemplate +showed itself again bright with the promise of coming happiness to my +view. I thanked the good merchant with a fervor that surprised him. +"Only help me to find my way to Enkhuizen," I said, "and I will answer +for the rest." + +"The journey will put you to some expense," the merchant replied. +"Pardon me if I ask the question bluntly. Have you money?" + +"Plenty of money." + +"Very good. The rest will be easy enough. I will place you under the +care of a countryman of yours, who has been employed in our office for +many years. The easiest way for you, as a stranger, will be to go by +sea; and the Englishman will show you where to hire a boat." + +In a few minutes more the clerk and I were on our way to the harbor. + +Difficulties which I had not anticipated occurred in finding the boat +and in engaging a crew. This done, it was next necessary to purchase +provisions for the voyage. Thanks to the experience of my companion, and +to the hearty good-will with which he exerted it, my preparations were +completed before night-fall. I was able to set sail for my destination +on the next day. + +The boat had the double advantage, in navigating the Zuyder Zee, of +being large, and of drawing very little water; the captain's cabin was +at the stern; and the two or three men who formed his crew were berthed +forward, in the bows. The whole middle of the boat, partitioned off +on the one side and on the other from the captain and the crew, was +assigned to me for my cabin. Under these circumstances, I had no reason +to complain of want of space; the vessel measuring between fifty and +sixty tons. I had a comfortable bed, a table, and chairs. The kitchen +was well away from me, in the forward part of the boat. At my own +request, I set forth on the voyage without servant or interpreter. I +preferred being alone. The Dutch captain had been employed, at a former +period of his life, in the mercantile navy of France; and we could +communicate, whenever it was necessary or desirable, in the French +language. + +We left the spires of Amsterdam behind us, and sailed over the smooth +waters of the lake on our way to the Zuyder Zee. + +The history of this remarkable sea is a romance in itself. In the days +when Rome was mistress of the world, it had no existence. Where the +waves now roll, vast tracts of forest surrounded a great inland lake, +with but one river to serve it as an outlet to the sea. Swelled by a +succession of tempests, the lake overflowed its boundaries: its furious +waters, destroying every obstacle in their course, rested only when they +reached the furthest limits of the land. + +The Northern Ocean beyond burst its way in through the gaps of ruin; +and from that time the Zuyder Zee existed as we know it now. The years +advanced, the generations of man succeeded each other; and on the shores +of the new ocean there rose great and populous cities, rich in commerce, +renowned in history. For centuries their prosperity lasted, before +the next in this mighty series of changes ripened and revealed itself. +Isolated from the rest of the world, vain of themselves and their good +fortune, careless of the march of progress in the nations round them, +the inhabitants of the Zuyder Zee cities sunk into the fatal torpor of +a secluded people. The few members of the population who still preserved +the relics of their old energy emigrated, while the mass left behind +resignedly witnessed the diminution of their commerce and the decay of +their institutions. As the years advanced to the nineteenth century, the +population was reckoned by hundreds where it had once been numbered by +thousands. Trade disappeared; whole streets were left desolate. Harbors, +once filled with shipping, were destroyed by the unresisted accumulation +of sand. In our own times the decay of these once flourishing cities is +so completely beyond remedy, that the next great change in contemplation +is the draining of the now dangerous and useless tract of water, and +the profitable cultivation of the reclaimed land by generations that are +still to come. Such, briefly told, is the strange story of the Zuyder +Zee. + +As we advanced on our voyage, and left the river, I noticed the tawny +hue of the sea, caused by sand-banks which color the shallow water, and +which make the navigation dangerous to inexperienced seamen. We found +our moorings for the night at the fishing island of Marken--a low, +lost, desolate-looking place, as I saw it under the last gleams of the +twilight. Here and there, the gabled cottages, perched on hillocks, rose +black against the dim gray sky. Here and there, a human figure appeared +at the waterside, standing, fixed in contemplation of the strange boat. +And that was all I saw of the island of Marken. + +Lying awake in the still night, alone on a strange sea, there were +moments when I found myself beginning to doubt the reality of my own +position. + +Was it all a dream? My thoughts of suicide; my vision of the mother and +daughter; my journey back to the metropolis, led by the apparition +of the child; my voyage to Holland; my night anchorage in the unknown +sea--were these, so to speak, all pieces of the same morbid mental +puzzle, all delusions from which I might wake at any moment, and find +myself restored to my senses again in the hotel at London? Bewildered by +doubts which led me further and further from any definite conclusion, +I left my bed and went on deck to change the scene. It was a still and +cloudy night. In the black void around me, the island was a blacker +shadow yet, and nothing more. The one sound that reached my ears was the +heavy breathing of the captain and his crew sleeping on either side of +me. I waited, looking round and round the circle of darkness in which I +stood. No new vision showed itself. When I returned again to the cabin, +and slumbered at last, no dreams came to me. All that was mysterious, +all that was marvelous, in the later events of my life seemed to have +been left behind me in England. Once in Holland, my course had been +influenced by circumstances which were perfectly natural, by commonplace +discoveries which might have revealed themselves to any man in my +position. What did this mean? Had my gifts as a seer of visions departed +from me in the new land and among the strange people? Or had my destiny +led me to the place at which the troubles of my mortal pilgrimage were +to find their end? Who could say? + +Early the next morning we set sail once more. + +Our course was nearly northward. On one side of me was the tawny sea, +changing under certain conditions of the weather to a dull pearl-gray. +On the other side was the flat, winding coast, composed alternately of +yellow sand and bright-green meadow-lands; diversified at intervals by +towns and villages, whose red-tiled roofs and quaint church-steeples +rose gayly against the clear blue sky. The captain suggested to me +to visit the famous towns of Edam and Hoorn; but I declined to go on +shore. My one desire was to reach the ancient city in which Mrs. Van +Brandt had been left deserted. As we altered our course, to make for the +promontory on which Enkhuizen is situated, the wind fell, then shifted +to another quarter, and blew with a force which greatly increased the +difficulties of navigation. I still insisted, as long as it was possible +to do so, on holding on our course. After sunset, the strength of the +wind abated. The night came without a cloud, and the starry firmament +gave us its pale and glittering light. In an hour more the capricious +wind shifted back again in our favor. Toward ten o'clock we sailed into +the desolate harbor of Enkhuizen. + +The captain and crew, fatigued by their exertions, ate their frugal +suppers and went to their beds. In a few minutes more, I was the only +person left awake in the boat. + +I ascended to the deck, and looked about me. + +Our boat was moored to a deserted quay. Excepting a few fishing vessels +visible near us, the harbor of this once prosperous place was a vast +solitude of water, varied here and there by dreary banks of sand. +Looking inland, I saw the lonely buildings of the Dead City--black, +grim, and dreadful under the mysterious starlight. Not a human creature, +not even a stray animal, was to be seen anywhere. The place might have +been desolated by a pestilence, so empty and so lifeless did it +now appear. Little more than a hundred years ago, the record of its +population reached sixty thousand. The inhabitants had dwindled to a +tenth of that number when I looked at Enkhuizen now! + +I considered with myself what my next course of proceeding was to be. + +The chances were certainly against my discovering Mrs. Van Brandt if I +ventured alone and unguided into the city at night. On the other hand, +now that I had reached the place in which she and her child were living, +friendless and deserted, could I patiently wait through the weary +interval that must elapse before the morning came and the town was +astir? I knew my own self-tormenting disposition too well to accept this +latter alternative. Whatever came of it, I determined to walk through +Enkhuizen on the bare chance of meeting some one who might inform me of +Mrs. Van Brandt's address. + +First taking the precaution of locking my cabin door, I stepped from the +bulwark of the vessel to the lonely quay, and set forth upon my night +wanderings through the Dead City. + +CHAPTER XXXV. UNDER THE WINDOW. + +I SET the position of the harbor by my pocket-compass, and then followed +the course of the first street that lay before me. + +On either side, as I advanced, the desolate old houses frowned on me. +There were no lights in the windows, no lamps in the streets. For a +quarter of an hour at least I penetrated deeper and deeper into the +city, without encountering a living creature on my way--with only the +starlight to guide me. Turning by chance into a street broader than +the rest, I at last saw a moving figure, just visible ahead, under the +shadows of the houses. I quickened my pace, and found myself following +a man in the dress of a peasant. Hearing my footsteps behind him, he +turned and looked at me. Discovering that I was a stranger, he lifted +a thick cudgel that he carried with him, shook it threateningly, and +called to me in his own language (as I gathered by his actions) to +stand back. A stranger in Eukhuizen at that time of night was evidently +reckoned as a robber in the estimation of this citizen! I had learned on +the voyage, from the captain of the boat, how to ask my way in Dutch, +if I happened to be by myself in a strange town; and I now repeated +my lesson, asking my way to the fishing office of Messrs. Van Brandt. +Either my foreign accent made me unintelligible, or the man's suspicions +disinclined him to trust me. Again he shook his cudgel, and again he +signed to me to stand back. It was useless to persist. I crossed to the +opposite side of the way, and soon afterward lost sight of him under the +portico of a house. + +Still following the windings of the deserted streets, I reached what I +at first supposed to be the end of the town. + +Before me, for half a mile or more (as well as I could guess), rose a +tract of meadow-land, with sheep dotted over it at intervals reposing +for the night. I advanced over the grass, and observed here and there, +where the ground rose a little, some moldering fragments of brickwork. +Looking onward as I reached the middle of the meadow, I perceived on +its further side, towering gaunt and black in the night, a lofty arch or +gateway, without walls at its sides, without a neighboring building +of any sort, far or near. This (as I afterward learned) was one of +the ancient gates of the city. The walls, crumbling to ruin, had been +destroyed as useless obstacles that cumbered the ground. On the waste +meadow-land round me had once stood the shops of the richest merchants, +the palaces of the proudest nobles of North Holland. I was actually +standing on what had been formerly the wealthy quarter of Enkhuizen! And +what was left of it now? A few mounds of broken bricks, a pasture-land +of sweet-smelling grass, and a little flock of sheep sleeping. + +The mere desolation of the view (apart altogether from its history) +struck me with a feeling of horror. My mind seemed to lose its balance +in the dreadful stillness that was round me. I felt unutterable +forebodings of calamities to come. For the first time, I repented having +left England. My thoughts turned regretfully to the woody shores of +Greenwater Broad. If I had only held to my resolution, I might have been +at rest now in the deep waters of the lake. For what had I lived and +planned and traveled since I left Dermody's cottage? Perhaps only to +find that I had lost the woman whom I loved--now that I was in the same +town with her! + +Regaining the outer rows of houses still left standing, I looked about +me, intending to return by the street which was known to me already. +Just as I thought I had discovered it, I noticed another living creature +in the solitary city. A man was standing at the door of one of the +outermost houses on my right hand, looking at me. + +At the risk of meeting with another rough reception, I determined to +make a last effort to discover Mrs. Van Brandt before I returned to the +boat. + +Seeing that I was approaching him, the stranger met me midway. His dress +and manner showed plainly that I had not encountered this time a person +in the lower ranks of life. He answered my question civilly in his own +language. Seeing that I was at a loss to understand what he said, he +invited me by signs to follow him. After walking for a few minutes in +a direction which was quite new to me, we stopped in a gloomy little +square, with a plot of neglected garden-ground in the middle of it. +Pointing to a lower window in one of the houses, in which a light dimly +appeared, my guide said in Dutch: "Office of Van Brandt, sir," bowed, +and left me. + +I advanced to the window. It was open, and it was just high enough to be +above my head. The light in the room found its way outward through the +interstices of closed wooden shutters. Still haunted by misgivings of +trouble to come, I hesitated to announce my arrival precipitately by +ringing the house-bell. How did I know what new calamity might not +confront me when the door was opened? I waited under the window and +listened. + +Hardly a minute passed before I heard a woman's voice in the room. There +was no mistaking the charm of those tones. It was the voice of Mrs. Van +Brandt. + +"Come, darling," she said. "It is very late--you ought to have been in +bed two hours ago." + +The child's voice answered, "I am not sleepy, mamma." + +"But, my dear, remember you have been ill. You may be ill again if you +keep out of bed so late as this. Only lie down, and you will soon fall +asleep when I put the candle out." + +"You must _not_ put the candle out!" the child returned, with strong +emphasis. "My new papa is coming. How is he to find his way to us, if +you put out the light?" + +The mother answered sharply, as if the child's strange words had +irritated her. + +"You are talking nonsense," she said; "and you must go to bed. Mr. +Germaine knows nothing about us. Mr. Germaine is in England." + +I could restrain myself no longer. I called out under the window: + +"Mr. Germaine is here!" + +CHAPTER XXXVI. LOVE AND PRIDE. + +A CRY of terror from the room told me that I had been heard. For a +moment more nothing happened. Then the child's voice reached me, wild +and shrill: "Open the shutters, mamma! I said he was coming--I want to +see him!" + +There was still an interval of hesitation before the mother opened the +shutters. She did it at last. I saw her darkly at the window, with the +light behind her, and the child's head just visible above the lower part +of the window-frame. The quaint little face moved rapidly up and down, +as if my self-appointed daughter were dancing for joy! + +"Can I trust my own senses?" said Mrs. Van Brandt. "Is it really Mr. +Germaine?" + +"How do you do, new papa?" cried the child. "Push open the big door and +come in. I want to kiss you." + +There was a world of difference between the coldly doubtful tone of the +mother and the joyous greeting of the child. Had I forced myself too +suddenly on Mrs. Van Brandt? Like all sensitively organized persons, she +possessed that inbred sense of self-respect which is pride under another +name. Was her pride wounded at the bare idea of my seeing her, deserted +as well as deceived--abandoned contemptuously, a helpless burden on +strangers--by the man for whom she had sacrificed and suffered so much? +And that man a thief, flying from the employers whom he had cheated! I +pushed open the heavy oaken street-door, fearing that this might be the +true explanation of the change which I had already remarked in her. My +apprehensions were confirmed when she unlocked the inner door, leading +from the courtyard to the sitting-room, and let me in. + +As I took her by both hands and kissed her, she turned her head, so that +my lips touched her cheek only. She flushed deeply; her eyes looked away +from me as she spoke her few formal words of welcome. When the child +flew into my arms, she cried out, irritably, "Don't trouble Mr. +Germaine!" I took a chair, with the little one on my knee. Mrs. Van +Brandt seated herself at a distance from me. "It is needless, I suppose, +to ask you if you know what has happened," she said, turning pale +again as suddenly as she had turned red, and keeping her eyes fixed +obstinately on the floor. + +Before I could answer, the child burst out with the news of her father's +disappearance in these words: + +"My other papa has run away! My other papa has stolen money! It's time I +had a new one, isn't it?" She put her arms round my neck. "And now I've +got him!" she cried, at the shrillest pitch of her voice. + +The mother looked at us. For a while, the proud, sensitive woman +struggled successfully with herself; but the pang that wrung her was not +to be endured in silence. With a low cry of pain, she hid her face in +her hands. Overwhelmed by the sense of her own degradation, she was even +ashamed to let the man who loved her see that she was in tears. + +I took the child off my knee. There was a second door in the +sitting-room, which happened to be left open. It showed me a bed-chamber +within, and a candle burning on the toilet-table. + +"Go in there and play," I said. "I want to talk to your mamma." + +The child pouted: my proposal did not appear to tempt her. "Give me +something to play with," she said. "I'm tired of my toys. Let me see +what you have got in your pockets." + +Her busy little hands began to search in my coat-pockets. I let her take +what she pleased, and so bribed her to run away into the inner room. As +soon as she was out of sight, I approached the poor mother and seated +myself by her side. + +"Think of it as I do," I said. "Now that he has forsaken you, he has +left you free to be mine." + +She lifted her head instantly; her eyes flashed through her tears. + +"Now that he has forsaken me," she answered, "I am more unworthy of you +than ever!" + +"Why?" I asked. + +"Why!" she repeated, passionately. "Has a woman not reached the lowest +depths of degradation when she has lived to be deserted by a thief?" + +It was hopeless to attempt to reason with her in her present frame of +mind. I tried to attract her attention to a less painful subject by +referring to the strange succession of events which had brought me to +her for the third time. She stopped me impatiently at the outset. + +"It seems useless to say once more what we have said on other +occasions," she answered. "I understand what has brought you here. I +have appeared to you again in a vision, just as I appeared to you twice +before." + +"No," I said. "Not as you appeared to me twice before. This time I saw +you with the child by your side." + +That reply roused her. She started, and looked nervously toward the +bed-chamber door. + +"Don't speak loud!" she said. "Don't let the child hear us! My dream +of you this time has left a painful impression on my mind. The child is +mixed up in it--and I don't like that. Then the place in which I saw +you is associated--" She paused, leaving the sentence unfinished. "I am +nervous and wretched to-night," she resumed; "and I don't want to speak +of it. And yet, I should like to know whether my dream has misled me, or +whether you really were in that cottage, of all places in the world?" + +I was at a loss to understand the embarrassment which she appeared to +feel in putting her question. There was nothing very wonderful, to my +mind, in the discovery that she had been in Suffolk, and that she was +acquainted with Greenwater Broad. The lake was known all over the county +as a favorite resort of picnic parties; and Dermody's pretty cottage +used to be one of the popular attractions of the scene. What really +surprised me was to see, as I now plainly saw, that she had some painful +association with my old home. I decided on answering her question in +such terms as might encourage her to take me into her confidence. In a +moment more I should have told her that my boyhood had been passed +at Greenwater Broad--in a moment more, we should have recognized each +other--when a trivial interruption suspended the words on my lips. The +child ran out of the bed-chamber, with a quaintly shaped key in her +hand. It was one of the things she had taken out of my pockets and it +belonged to the cabin door on board the boat. A sudden fit of curiosity +(the insatiable curiosity of a child) had seized her on the subject of +this key. She insisted on knowing what door it locked; and, when I had +satisfied her on that point, she implored me to take her immediately to +see the boat. This entreaty led naturally to a renewal of the disputed +question of going, or not going, to bed. By the time the little creature +had left us again, with permission to play for a few minutes longer, +the conversation between Mrs. Van Brandt and myself had taken a new +direction. Speaking now of the child's health, we were led naturally to +the kindred subject of the child's connection with her mother's dream. + +"She had been ill with fever," Mrs. Van Brandt began; "and she was +just getting better again on the day when I was left deserted in this +miserable place. Toward evening, she had another attack that frightened +me dreadfully. She became perfectly insensible--her little limbs were +stiff and cold. There is one doctor here who has not yet abandoned the +town. Of course I sent for him. He thought her insensibility was caused +by a sort of cataleptic seizure. At the same time, he comforted me by +saying that she was in no immediate danger of death; and he left me +certain remedies to be given, if certain symptoms appeared. I took her +to bed, and held her to me, with the idea of keeping her warm. +Without believing in mesmerism, it has since struck me that we might +unconsciously have had some influence over each other, which may explain +what followed. Do you think it likely?" + +"Quite likely. At the same time, the mesmeric theory (if you could +believe in it) would carry the explanation further still. Mesmerism +would assert, not only that you and the child influenced each other, but +that--in spite of the distance--you both influenced _me_. And in that +way, mesmerism would account for my vision as the necessary result of a +highly developed sympathy between us. Tell me, did you fall asleep with +the child in your arms?" + +"Yes. I was completely worn out; and I fell asleep, in spite of my +resolution to watch through the night. In my forlorn situation, forsaken +in a strange place, I dreamed of you again, and I appealed to you again +as my one protector and friend. The only new thing in the dream was, +that I thought I had the child with me when I approached you, and that +the child put the words into my mind when I wrote in your book. You saw +the words, I suppose? and they vanished, as before, no doubt, when I +awoke? I found the child still lying, like a dead creature, in my arms. +All through the night there was no change in her. She only recovered +her senses at noon the next day. Why do you start? What have I said that +surprises you?" + +There was good reason for my feeling startled, and showing it. On the +day and at the hour when the child had come to herself, I had stood on +the deck of the vessel, and had seen the apparition of her disappear +from my view. + +"Did she say anything," I asked, "when she recovered her senses?" + +"Yes. She too had been dreaming--dreaming that she was in company with +you. She said: 'He is coming to see us, mamma; and I have been showing +him the way.' I asked her where she had seen you. She spoke confusedly +of more places than one. She talked of trees, and a cottage, and a lake; +then of fields and hedges, and lonely lanes; then of a carriage and +horses, and a long white road; then of crowded streets and houses, and +a river and a ship. As to these last objects, there is nothing very +wonderful in what she said. The houses, the river, and the ship which +she saw in her dream, she saw in the reality when we took her from +London to Rotterdam, on our way here. But as to the other places, +especially the cottage and the lake (as she described them) I can only +suppose that her dream was the reflection of mine. _I_ had been dreaming +of the cottage and the lake, as I once knew them in years long gone by; +and--Heaven only knows why--I had associated you with the scene. Never +mind going into that now! I don't know what infatuation it is that makes +me trifle in this way with old recollections, which affect me painfully +in my present position. We were talking of the child's health; let us go +back to that." + +It was not easy to return to the topic of her child's health. She had +revived my curiosity on the subject of her association with Greenwater +Broad. The child was still quietly at play in the bedchamber. My second +opportunity was before me. I took it. + +"I won't distress you," I began. "I will only ask leave, before we +change the subject, to put one question to you about the cottage and the +lake." + +As the fatality that pursued us willed it, it was _her_ turn now to be +innocently an obstacle in the way of our discovering each other. + +"I can tell you nothing more to-night," she interposed, rising +impatiently. "It is time I put the child to bed--and, besides, I can't +talk of things that distress me. You must wait for the time--if it ever +comes!--when I am calmer and happier than I am now." + +She turned to enter the bed-chamber. Acting headlong on the impulse of +the moment, I took her by the hand and stopped her. + +"You have only to choose," I said, "and the calmer and happier time is +yours from this moment." + +"Mine?" she repeated. "What do you mean?" + +"Say the word," I replied, "and you and your child have a home and a +future before you." + +She looked at me half bewildered, half angry. + +"Do you offer me your protection?" she asked. + +"I offer you a husband's protection," I answered. "I ask you to be my +wife." + +She advanced a step nearer to me, with her eyes riveted on my face. + +"You are evidently ignorant of what has really happened," she said. "And +yet, God knows, the child spoke plainly enough!" + +"The child only told me," I rejoined, "what I had heard already, on my +way here." + +"All of it?" + +"All of it." + +"And you still ask me to be your wife?" + +"I can imagine no greater happiness than to make you my wife." + +"Knowing what you know now?" + +"Knowing what I know now, I ask you confidently to give me your hand. +Whatever claim that man may once have had, as the father of your child, +he has now forfeited it by his infamous desertion of you. In every sense +of the word, my darling, you are a free woman. We have had sorrow enough +in our lives. Happiness is at last within our reach. Come to me, and say +Yes." + +I tried to take her in my arms. She drew back as if I had frightened +her. + +"Never!" she said, firmly. + +I whispered my next words, so that the child in the inner room might not +hear us. + +"You once said you loved me!" + +"I do love you!" + +"As dearly as ever?" + +"_More_ dearly than ever!" + +"Kiss me!" + +She yielded mechanically; she kissed me--with cold lips, with big tears +in her eyes. + +"You don't love me!" I burst out, angrily. "You kiss me as if it were a +duty. Your lips are cold--your heart is cold. You don't love me!" + +She looked at me sadly, with a patient smile. + +"One of us must remember the difference between your position and mine," +she said. "You are a man of stainless honor, who holds an undisputed +rank in the world. And what am I? I am the deserted mistress of a thief. +One of us must remember that. You have generously forgotten it. I must +bear it in mind. I dare say I am cold. Suffering has that effect on me; +and, I own it, I am suffering now." + +I was too passionately in love with her to feel the sympathy on which +she evidently counted in saying those words. A man can respect a woman's +scruples when they appeal to him mutely in her looks or in her tears; +but the formal expression of them in words only irritates or annoys him. + +"Whose fault is it that you suffer?" I retorted, coldly. "I ask you to +make my life a happy one, and your life a happy one. You are a cruelly +wronged woman, but you are not a degraded woman. You are worthy to be +my wife, and I am ready to declare it publicly. Come back with me to +England. My boat is waiting for you; we can set sail in two hours." + +She dropped into a chair; her hands fell helplessly into her lap. + +"How cruel!" she murmured, "how cruel to tempt me!" She waited a little, +and recovered her fatal firmness. "No!" she said. "If I die in doing it, +I can still refuse to disgrace you. Leave me, Mr. Germaine. You can show +me that one kindness more. For God's sake, leave me!" + +I made a last appeal to her tenderness. + +"Do you know what my life is if I live without you?" I asked. "My mother +is dead. There is not a living creature left in the world whom I love +but you. And you ask me to leave you! Where am I to go to? what am I +to do? You talk of cruelty! Is there no cruelty in sacrificing +the happiness of my life to a miserable scruple of delicacy, to an +unreasoning fear of the opinion of the world? I love you and you love +me. There is no other consideration worth a straw. Come back with me to +England! come back and be my wife!" + +She dropped on her knees, and taking my hand put it silently to her +lips. I tried to raise her. It was useless: she steadily resisted me. + +"Does this mean No?" I asked. + +"It means," she said in faint, broken tones, "that I prize your honor +beyond my happiness. If I marry you, your career is destroyed by your +wife; and the day will come when you will tell me so. I can suffer--I +can die; but I can _not_ face such a prospect as that. Forgive me and +forget me. I can say no more!" + +She let go of my hand, and sank on the floor. The utter despair of that +action told me, far more eloquently than the words which she had +just spoken, that her resolution was immovable. She had deliberately +separated herself from me; her own act had parted us forever. + +CHAPTER XXXVII. THE TWO DESTINIES. + +I MADE no movement to leave the room; I let no sign of sorrow escape me. +At last, my heart was hardened against the woman who had so obstinately +rejected me. I stood looking down at her with a merciless anger, the +bare remembrance of which fills me at this day with a horror of myself. +There is but one excuse for me. The shock of that last overthrow of the +one hope that held me to life was more than my reason could endure. On +that dreadful night (whatever I may have been at other times), I myself +believe it, I was a maddened man. + +I was the first to break the silence. + +"Get up," I said coldly. + +She lifted her face from the floor, and looked at me as if she doubted +whether she had heard aright. + +"Put on your hat and cloak," I resumed. "I must ask you to go back with +me as far as the boat." + +She rose slowly. Her eyes rested on my face with a dull, bewildered +look. + +"Why am I to go with you to the boat?" she asked. + +The child heard her. The child ran up to us with her little hat in one +hand, and the key of the cabin in the other. + +"I'm ready," she said. "I will open the cabin door." + +Her mother signed to her to go back to the bed-chamber. She went back +as far as the door which led into the courtyard, and waited there, +listening. I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt with immovable composure, and +answered the question which she had addressed to me. + +"You are left," I said, "without the means of getting away from this +place. In two hours more the tide will be in my favor, and I shall sail +at once on the return voyage. We part, this time, never to meet again. +Before I go I am resolved to leave you properly provided for. My money +is in my traveling-bag in the cabin. For that reason, I am obliged to +ask you to go with me as far as the boat." + +"I thank you gratefully for your kindness," she said. "I don't stand in +such serious need of help as you suppose." + +"It is useless to attempt to deceive me," I proceeded. "I have spoken +with the head partner of the house of Van Brandt at Amsterdam, and I +know exactly what your position is. Your pride must bend low enough to +take from my hands the means of subsistence for yourself and your child. +If I had died in England--" + +I stopped. The unexpressed idea in my mind was to tell her that she +would inherit a legacy under my will, and that she might quite as +becomingly take money from me in my life-time as take it from my +executors after my death. In forming this thought into words, the +associations which it called naturally into being revived in me the +memory of my contemplated suicide in the Greenwater lake. Mingling with +the remembrance thus aroused, there rose in me unbidden, a temptation so +overpoweringly vile, and yet so irresistible in the state of my mind at +the moment, that it shook me to the soul. "You have nothing to live for, +now that she has refused to be yours," the fiend in me whispered. "Take +your leap into the next world, and make the woman whom you love take it +with you!" While I was still looking at her, while my last words to her +faltered on my lips, the horrible facilities for the perpetration of +the double crime revealed themselves enticingly to my view. My boat was +moored in the one part of the decaying harbor in which deep water still +lay at the foot of the quay. I had only to induce her to follow me when +I stepped on the deck, to seize her in my arms, and to jump overboard +with her before she could utter a cry for help. My drowsy sailors, as I +knew by experience, were hard to wake, and slow to move even when they +were roused at last. We should both be drowned before the youngest and +the quickest of them could get up from his bed and make his way to the +deck. Yes! We should both be struck together out of the ranks of the +living at one and the same moment. And why not? She who had again and +again refused to be my wife--did she deserve that I should leave her +free to go back, perhaps, for the second time to Van Brandt? On the +evening when I had saved her from the waters of the Scotch river, I +had made myself master of her fate. She had tried to destroy herself +by drowning; she should drown now, in the arms of the man who had once +thrown himself between her and death! + +Self-abandoned to such atrocious reasoning as this, I stood face to face +with her, and returned deliberately to my unfinished sentence. + +"If I had died in England, you would have been provided for by my will. +What you would have taken from me then, you may take from me now. Come +to the boat." + +A change passed over her face as I spoke; a vague doubt of me began +to show itself in her eyes. She drew back a little, without making any +reply. + +"Come to the boat," I reiterated. + +"It is too late." With that answer, she looked across the room at the +child, still waiting by the door. "Come, Elfie," she said, calling the +little creature by one of her favorite nicknames. "Come to bed." + +I too looked at Elfie. Might she not, I asked myself, be made the +innocent means of forcing her mother to leave the house? Trusting to the +child's fearless character, and her eagerness to see the boat, I +suddenly opened the door. As I had anticipated, she instantly ran out. +The second door, leading into the square, I had not closed when I +entered the courtyard. In another moment Elfie was out in the square, +triumphing in her freedom. The shrill little voice broke the death-like +stillness of the place and hour, calling to me again and again to take +her to the boat. + +I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. The stratagem had succeeded. Elfie's mother +could hardly refuse to follow when Elfie led the way. + +"Will you go with us?" I asked. "Or must I send the money back by the +child?" + +Her eyes rested on me for a moment with a deepening expression of +distrust, then looked away again. She began to turn pale. "You are not +like yourself to-night," she said. Without a word more, she took her +hat and cloak and went out before me into the square. I followed her, +closing the doors behind me. She made an attempt to induce the child to +approach her. "Come, darling," she said, enticingly--"come and take my +hand." + +But Elfie was not to be caught: she took to her heels, and answered from +a safe distance. "No," said the child; "you will take me back and put me +to bed." She retreated a little further, and held up the key: "I shall +go first," she cried, "and open the door." + +She trotted off a few steps in the direction of the harbor, and waited +for what was to happen next. Her mother suddenly turned, and looked +close at me under the light of the stars. + +"Are the sailors on board the boat?" she asked. + +The question startled me. Had she any suspicion of my purpose? Had +my face warned her of lurking danger if she went to the boat? It was +impossible. The more likely motive for her inquiry was to find a new +excuse for not accompanying me to the harbor. If I told her that the men +were on board, she might answer, "Why not employ one of your sailors +to bring the money to me at the house?" I took care to anticipate the +suggestion in making my reply. + +"They may be honest men," I said, watching her carefully; "but I don't +know them well enough to trust them with money." + +To my surprise, she watched me just as carefully on her side, and +deliberately repeated her question: + +"Are the sailors on board the boat?" + +I informed her that the captain and crew slept in the boat, and paused +to see what would follow. My reply seemed to rouse her resolution. After +a moment's consideration, she turned toward the place at which the child +was waiting for us. "Let us go, as you insist on it," she said, quietly. +I made no further remark. Side by side, in silence we followed Elfie on +our way to the boat. + +Not a human creature passed us in the streets; not a light glimmered +on us from the grim black houses. Twice the child stopped, and (still +keeping slyly out of her mother's reach) ran back to me, wondering at +my silence. "Why don't you speak?" she asked. "Have you and mamma +quarreled?" + +I was incapable of answering her--I could think of nothing but my +contemplated crime. Neither fear nor remorse troubled me. Every better +instinct, every nobler feeling that I had once possessed, seemed to +be dead and gone. Not even a thought of the child's future troubled my +mind. I had no power of looking on further than the fatal leap from the +boat: beyond that there was an utter blank. For the time being--I can +only repeat it, my moral sense was obscured, my mental faculties were +thrown completely off their balance. The animal part of me lived and +moved as usual; the viler animal instincts in me plotted and planned, +and that was all. Nobody, looking at me, would have seen anything but a +dull quietude in my face, an immovable composure in my manner. And yet +no madman was fitter for restraint, or less responsible morally for his +own actions, than I was at that moment. + +The night air blew more freshly on our faces. Still led by the child, we +had passed through the last street--we were out on the empty open space +which was the landward boundary of the harbor. In a minute more we +stood on the quay, within a step of the gunwale of the boat. I noticed +a change in the appearance of the harbor since I had seen it last. +Some fishing-boats had come in during my absence. They moored, some +immediately astern and some immediately ahead of my own vessel. I looked +anxiously to see if any of the fishermen were on board and stirring. Not +a living being appeared anywhere. The men were on shore with their wives +and their families. + +Elfie held out her arms to be lifted on board my boat. Mrs. Van Brandt +stepped between us as I stooped to take her up. + +"We will wait here," she said, "while you go into the cabin and get the +money." + +Those words placed it beyond all doubt that she had her suspicions of +me--suspicions, probably, which led her to fear not for her life, but +for her freedom. She might dread being kept a prisoner in the boat, and +being carried away by me against her will. More than this she could not +thus far possibly apprehend. The child saved me the trouble of making +any remonstrance. She was determined to go with me. "I must see the +cabin," she cried, holding up the key. "I must open the door myself." + +She twisted herself out of her mother's hands, and ran round to the +other side of me. I lifted her over the gunwale of the boat in an +instant. Before I could turn round, her mother had followed her, and was +standing on the deck. + +The cabin door, in the position which she now occupied, was on her left +hand. The child was close behind her. I was on her right. Before us +was the open deck, and the low gunwale of the boat overlooking the deep +water. In a moment we might step across; in a moment we might take the +fatal plunge. The bare thought of it brought the mad wickedness in me to +its climax. I became suddenly incapable of restraining myself. I threw +my arm round her waist with a loud laugh. "Come," I said, trying to drag +her across the deck--"come and look at the water." + +She released herself by a sudden effort of strength that astonished me. +With a faint cry of horror, she turned to take the child by the hand and +get back to the quay. I placed myself between her and the sides of the +boat, and cut off her retreat in that way. Still laughing, I asked her +what she was frightened about. She drew back, and snatched the key of +the cabin door out of the child's hand. The cabin was the one place of +refuge now left, to which she could escape from the deck of the boat. +In the terror of the moment, she never hesitated. She unlocked the door, +and hurried down the two or three steps which led into the cabin, taking +the child with her. I followed them, conscious that I had betrayed +myself, yet still obstinately, stupidly, madly bent on carrying out my +purpose. "I have only to behave quietly," I thought to myself, "and I +shall persuade her to go on deck again." + +My lamp was burning as I had left it; my traveling-bag was on the table. +Still holding the child, she stood, pale as death, waiting for me. +Elfie's wondering eyes rested inquiringly on my face as I approached +them. She looked half inclined to cry; the suddenness of the mother's +action had frightened the child. I did my best to compose Elfie before +I spoke to her mother. I pointed out the different objects which were +likely to interest her in the cabin. "Go and look at them," I said, "go +and amuse yourself." + +The child still hesitated. "Are you angry with me?" she asked. + +"No, no!" + +"Are you angry with mamma?" + +"Certainly not." I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. "Tell Elfie if I am angry +with you," I said. + +She was perfectly aware, in her critical position, of the necessity of +humoring me. Between us, we succeeded in composing the child. She turned +away to examine, in high delight, the new and strange objects which +surrounded her. Meanwhile her mother and I stood together, looking at +each other by the light of the lamp, with an assumed composure which hid +our true faces like a mask. In that horrible situation, the grotesque +and the terrible, always together in this strange life of ours, came +together now. On either side of us, the one sound that broke the +sinister and threatening silence was the lumpish snoring of the sleeping +captain and crew. + +She was the first to speak. + +"If you wish to give me the money," she said, trying to propitiate me in +that way, "I am ready to take it now." + +I unlocked my traveling-bag. As I looked into it for the leather case +which held my money, my overpowering desire to get her on deck again, +my mad impatience to commit the fatal act, became too strong to be +controlled. + +"We shall be cooler on deck," I said. "Let us take the bag up there." + +She showed wonderful courage. I could almost see the cry for help rising +to her lips. She repressed it; she had still presence of mind enough to +foresee what might happen before she could rouse the sleeping men. + +"We have a light here to count the money by," she answered. "I don't +feel at all too warm in the cabin. Let us stay here a little longer. See +how Elfie is amusing herself!" + +Her eyes rested on me as she spoke. Something in the expression of them +quieted me for the time. I was able to pause and think. I might take +her on deck by force before the men could interfere. But her cries would +rouse them; they would hear the splash in the water, and they might be +quick enough to rescue us. It would be wiser, perhaps, to wait a little +and trust to my cunning to delude her into leaving the cabin of her own +accord. I put the bag back on the table, and began to search for the +leather money-case. My hands were strangely clumsy and helpless. I could +only find the case after scattering half the contents of the bag on the +table. The child was near me at the time, and noticed what I was doing. + +"Oh, how awkward you are!" she burst out, in her frankly fearless way. +"Let me put your bag tidy. Do, please!" + +I granted the request impatiently. Elfie's restless desire to be always +doing something, instead of amusing me, as usual, irritated me now. The +interest that I had once felt in the charming little creature was all +gone. An innocent love was a feeling that was stifled in the poisoned +atmosphere of my mind that night. + +The money I had with me was mostly composed of notes of the Bank of +England. Carefully keeping up appearances, I set aside the sum that +would probably be required to take a traveler back to London; and I put +all that remained into the hands of Mrs. Van Brandt. Could she suspect +me of a design on her life now? + +"That will do for the present," I said. "I can communicate with you in +the future through Messrs. Van Brandt, of Amsterdam." + +She took the money mechanically. Her hand trembled; her eyes met mine +with a look of piteous entreaty. She tried to revive my old tenderness +for her; she made a last appeal to my forbearance and consideration. + +"We may part friends," she said, in low, trembling tones. "And as +friends we may meet again, when time has taught you to think forgivingly +of what has passed between us, to-night." + +She offered me her hand. I looked at her without taking it. I penetrated +her motive in appealing to my old regard for her. Still suspecting me, +she had tried her last chance of getting safely on shore. + +"The less we say of the past, the better," I answered, with ironical +politeness. "It is getting late. And you will agree with me that Elfie +ought to be in her bed." I looked round at the child. "Be quick, Elfie," +I said; "your mamma is going away." I opened the cabin door, and offered +my arm to Mrs. Van Brandt. "This boat is my house for the time being," +I resumed. "When ladies take leave of me after a visit, I escort them to +the dock. Pray take my arm." + +She started back. For the second time she was on the point of crying for +help, and for the second time she kept that last desperate alternative +in reserve. + +"I haven't seen your cabin yet," she said, her eyes wild with fear, a +forced smile on her lips, as she spoke. "There are several little things +here that interest me. Give me another minute or two to look at them." + +She turned away to get nearer to the child, under pretense of looking +round the cabin. I stood on guard before the open door, watching her. +She made a second pretense: she noisily overthrew a chair as if by +accident, and then waited to discover whether her trick had succeeded in +waking the men. + +The heavy snoring went on; not a sound of a person moving was audible on +either side of us. + +"My men are heavy sleepers," I said, smiling significantly. "Don't be +alarmed; you have not disturbed them. Nothing wakes these Dutch sailors +when they are once safe in port." + +She made no reply. My patience was exhausted. I left the door and +advanced toward her. She retreated in speechless terror, passing behind +the table to the other end of the cabin. I followed her until she had +reached the extremity of the room and could get no further. She met the +look I fixed on her; she shrunk into a corner, and called for help. In +the deadly terror that possessed her, she lost the use of her voice. A +low moaning, hardly louder than a whisper, was all that passed her lips. +Already, in imagination, I stood with her on the gunwale, already I felt +the cold contact of the water--when I was startled by a cry behind me. +I turned round. The cry had come from Elfie. She had apparently just +discovered some new object in the bag, and she was holding it up in +admiration, high above her head. "Mamma! mamma!" the child cried, +excitedly, "look at this pretty thing! Oh, do, do ask him if I may have +it!" + +Her mother ran to her, eager to seize the poorest excuse for getting +away from me. I followed; I stretched out my hands to seize her. She +suddenly turned round on me, a woman transformed. A bright flush was +on her face, an eager wonder sparkled in her eyes. Snatching Elfie's +coveted object out of the child's hand, she held it up before me. I saw +it under the lamp-light. It was my little forgotten keepsake--the Green +Flag! + +"How came you by this?" she asked, in breathless anticipation of my +reply. Not the slightest trace was left in her face of the terror that +had convulsed it barely a minute since! "How came you by this?" she +repeated, seizing me by the arm and shaking me, in the ungovernable +impatience that possessed her. + +My head turned giddy, my heart beat furiously under the conflict of +emotions that she had roused in me. My eyes were riveted on the green +flag. The words that I wanted to speak were words that refused to come +to me. I answered, mechanically: "I have had it since I was a boy." + +She dropped her hold on me, and lifted her hands with a gesture of +ecstatic gratitude. A lovely, angelic brightness flowed like light from +heaven over her face. For one moment she stood enraptured. The next she +clasped me passionately to her bosom, and whispered in my ear: "I am +Mary Dermody! I made it for You!" + +The shock of discovery, following so closely on all that I had suffered +before it, was too much for me. I sank, fainting, in her arms. + +When I came to myself I was lying on my bed in the cabin. Elfie was +playing with the green flag, and Mary was sitting by me with my hand in +hers. One long look of love passed silently from her eyes to mine--from +mine to hers. In that look the kindred spirits were united; The Two +Destinies were fulfilled. + +THE END OF THE STORY. + + + +The Finale. + + + + +THE WIFE WRITES, AND CLOSES THE STORY. + +THERE was a little introductory narrative prefixed to "The Two +Destinies," which you may possibly have forgotten by this time. + +The narrative was written by myself--a citizen of the United States, +visiting England with his wife. It described a dinner-party at which we +were present, given by Mr. and Mrs. Germaine, in celebration of their +marriage; and it mentioned the circumstances under which we were +intrusted with the story which has just come to an end in these pages. +Having read the manuscript, Mr. and Mrs. Germaine left it to us to +decide whether we should continue our friendly intercourse with them or +not. + +At 3 o'clock P.M. we closed the last leaf of the story. Five minutes +later I sealed it up in its cover; my wife put her bonnet on, and there +we were, bound straight for Mr. Germaine's house, when the servant +brought a letter into the room, addressed to my wife. + +She opened it, looked at the signature, and discovered that it was "Mary +Germaine." Seeing this, we sat down side by side to read the letter +before we did anything else. + +On reflection, it strikes me that you may do well to read it, too. Mrs. +Germaine is surely by this time a person in whom you feel some interest. +And she is on that account, as I think, the fittest person to close the +story. Here is her letter: + + +"DEAR MADAM (or may I say--'dear friend'?)--Be prepared, if you please, +for a little surprise. When you read these lines we shall have left +London for the Continent. + +"After you went away last night, my husband decided on taking this +journey. Seeing how keenly he felt the insult offered to me by the +ladies whom we had asked to our table, I willingly prepared for our +sudden departure. When Mr. Germaine is far away from his false friends, +my experience of him tells me that he will recover his tranquillity. +That is enough for me. + +"My little daughter goes with us, of course. Early this morning I drove +to the school in the suburbs at which she is being educated, and took +her away with me. It is needless to say that she was delighted at the +prospect of traveling. She shocked the schoolmistress by waving her hat +over her head and crying 'Hooray,' like a boy. The good lady was very +careful to inform me that my daughter could not possibly have learned to +cry 'Hooray' in _her_ house. + +"You have probably by this time read the narrative which I have +committed to your care. I hardly dare ask how I stand in your estimation +now. Is it possible that I might have seen you and your good husband if +we had not left London so suddenly? As things are, I must now tell you +in writing what I should infinitely have preferred saying to you with +your friendly hand in mine. + +"Your knowledge of the world has no doubt already attributed the absence +of the ladies at our dinner-table to some report affecting my character. +You are quite right. While I was taking Elfie away from her school, my +husband called on one of his friends who dined with us (Mr. Waring), and +insisted on an explanation. Mr. Waring referred him to the woman who +is known to you by this time as Mr. Van Brandt's lawful wife. In her +intervals of sobriety she possesses some musical talent; Mrs. Waring had +met with her at a concert for a charity, and had been interested in +the story of her wrongs, as she called them. My name was, of course, +mentioned. I was described as a 'cast-off mistress' of Van Brandt, who +had persuaded Mr. Germaine into disgracing himself by marrying her, +and becoming the step-father of her child. Mrs. Waring thereupon +communicated what she had heard to other ladies who were her friends. +The result you saw for yourselves when you dined at our house. + +"I inform you of what has happened without making any comment. Mr. +Germaine's narrative has already told you that I foresaw the deplorable +consequences which might follow our marriage, and that I over and over +again (God knows at what cost of misery to myself) refused to be his +wife. It was only when my poor little green flag had revealed us to each +other that I lost all control over myself. The old time on the banks of +the lake came back to me; my heart hungered for its darling of happier +days; and I said Yes, when (as you may think) I ought to have still said +No. Will you take poor old Dame Dermody's view of it, and believe that +the kindred spirits, once reunited, could be parted no more? Or will you +take my view, which is simpler still? I do love him so dearly, and he is +so fond of me! + +"In the meantime, our departure from England seems to be the wisest +course that we can adopt. As long as this woman lives she will say again +of me what she has said already, whenever she can find the opportunity. +My child might hear the reports about her mother, and might be injured +by them when she gets older. We propose to take up our abode, for a time +at least, in the neighborhood of Naples. Here, or further away yet, we +may hope to live without annoyance among a people whose social law +is the law of mercy. Whatever may happen, we have always one last +consolation to sustain us--we have love. + +"You talked of traveling on the Continent when you dined with us. If you +should wander our way, the English consul at Naples is a friend of my +husband's, and he will have our address. I wonder whether we shall ever +meet again? It does seem hard to charge the misfortunes of my life on +me, as if they were my faults. + +"Speaking of my misfortunes, I may say, before I close this letter, that +the man to whom I owe them is never likely to cross my path again. The +Van Brandts of Amsterdam have received certain information that he is +now on his way to New Zealand. They are determined to prosecute him if +he returns. He is little likely to give them the opportunity. + +"The traveling-carriage is at the door: I must say good-by. My husband +sends to you both his kindest regards and best wishes. His manuscript +will be quite safe (when you leave London) if you send it to his +bankers, at the address inclosed. Think of me sometimes--and think of me +kindly. I appeal confidently to _your_ kindness, for I don't forget that +you kissed me at parting. Your grateful friend (if you will let her be +your friend), + + "MARY GERMAINE." + +We are rather impulsive people in the United States, and we decide on +long journeys by sea or land without making the slightest fuss about +it. My wife and I looked at each other when we had read Mrs. Germaine's +letter. + +"London is dull," I remarked, and waited to see what came of it. + +My wife read my remark the right way directly. + +"Suppose we try Naples?" she said. + +That is all. Permit us to wish you good-by. We are off to Naples. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Two Destinies, by Wilkie Collins + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWO DESTINIES *** + +***** This file should be named 1624.txt or 1624.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/2/1624/ + +Produced by James Rusk + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Italics are +indicated by the underscore character.] + + + + + +THE TWO DESTINIES + +by Wilkie Collins + + + + +The Prelude. + +THE GUEST WRITES AND TELLS THE STORY OF THE DINNER PARTY. + +MANY years have passed since my wife and I left the United States +to pay our first visit to England. + +We were provided with letters of introduction, as a matter of +course. Among them there was a letter which had been written for +us by my wife's brother. It presented us to an English gentleman +who held a high rank on the list of his old and valued friends. + +"You will become acquainted with Mr. George Germaine," my +brother-in-law said, when we took leave of him, "at a very +interesting period of his life. My last news of him tells me that +he is just married. I know nothing of the lady, or of the +circumstances under which my friend first met with her. But of +this I am certain: married or single, George Germaine will give +you and your wife a hearty welcome to England, for my sake." + +The day after our arrival in London, we left our letter of +introduction at the house of Mr. Germaine. + +The next morning we went to see a favorite object of American +interest, in the metropolis of England--the Tower of London. The +citizens of the United States find this relic of the good old +times of great use in raising their national estimate of the +value of republican institutions. On getting back to the hotel, +the cards of Mr. and Mrs. Germaine told us that they had already +returned our visit. The same evening we received an invitation to +dine with the newly married couple. It was inclosed in a little +note from Mrs. Germaine to my wife, warning us that we were not +to expect to meet a large party. "It is the first dinner we give, +on our return from our wedding tour" (the lady wrote); "and you +will only be introduced to a few of my husband's old friends." + +In America, and (as I hear) on the continent of Europe also, when +your host invites you to dine at a given hour, you pay him the +compliment of arriving punctually at his house. In England alone, +the incomprehensible and discourteous custom prevails of keeping +the host and the dinner waiting for half an hour or more--without +any assignable reason and without any better excuse than the +purely formal apology that is implied in the words, "Sorry to be +late." + +Arriving at the appointed time at the house of Mr. and Mrs. +Germaine, we had every reason to congratulate ourselves on the +ignorant punctuality which had brought us into the drawing-room +half an hour in advance of the other guests. + +In the first place, there was so much heartiness, and so little +ceremony, in the welcome accorded to us, that we almost fancied +ourselves back in our own country. In the second place, both +husband and wife interested us the moment we set eyes on them. +The lady, especially, although she was not, strictly speaking, a +beautiful woman, quite fascinated us. There was an artless charm +in her face and manner, a simple grace in all her movements, a +low, delicious melody in her voice, which we Americans felt to be +simply irresistible. And then, it was so plain (and so pleasant) +to see that here at least was a happy marriage! Here were two +people who had all their dearest hopes, wishes, and sympathies in +common--who looked, if I may risk the expression, born to be man +and wife. By the time when the fashionable delay of the half hour +had expired, we were talking together as familiarly and as +confidentially as if we had been all four of us old friends. + +Eight o'clock struck, and the first of the English guests +appeared. + +Having forgotten this gentleman's name, I must beg leave to +distinguish him by means of a letter of the alphabet. Let me call +him Mr. A. When he entered the room alone, our host and hostess +both started, and both looked surprised. Apparently they expected +him to be accompanied by some other person. Mr. Germaine put a +curious question to his friend. + +"Where is your wife?" he asked. + +Mr. A answered for the absent lady by a neat little apology, +expressed in these words: + +"She has got a bad cold. She is very sorry. She begs me to make +her excuses." + +He had just time to deliver his message, before another +unaccompanied gentleman appeared. Reverting to the letters of the +alphabet, let me call him Mr. B. Once more, I noticed that our +host and hostess started when they saw him enter the room alone. +And, rather to my surprise, I heard Mr. Germaine put his curious +question again to the new guest: + +"Where is your wife?" + +The answer--with slight variations--was Mr. A's neat little +apology, repeated by Mr. B. + +"I am very sorry. Mrs. B has got a bad headache. She is subject +to bad headaches. She begs me to make her excuses." + +Mr. and Mrs. Germaine glanced at one another. The husband's face +plainly expressed the suspicion which this second apology had +roused in his mind. The wife was steady and calm. An interval +passed--a silent interval. Mr. A and Mr. B retired together +guiltily into a corner. My wife and I looked at the pictures. + +Mrs. Germaine was the first to relieve us from our own +intolerable silence. Two more guests, it appeared, were still +wanting to complete the party. "Shall we have dinner at once, +George?" she said to her husband. "Or shall we wait for Mr. and +Mrs. C?" + +"We will wait five minutes," he answered, shortly--with his eye +on Mr. A and Mr. B, guiltily secluded in their corner. + +The drawing-room door opened. We all knew that a third married +lady was expected; we all looked toward the door in unutterable +anticipation. Our unexpressed hopes rested silently on the +possible appearance of Mrs. C. Would that admirable, but unknown, +woman, at once charm and relieve us by her presence? I shudder as +I write it. Mr. C walked into the room--and walked in, _alone_. + +Mr. Germaine suddenly varied his formal inquiry in receiving the +new guest. + +"Is your wife ill?" he asked. + +Mr. C was an elderly man; Mr. C had lived (judging by +appearances) in the days when the old-fashioned laws of +politeness were still in force. He discovered his two married +brethren in their corner, unaccompanied by _their_ wives; and he +delivered his apology for _his_ wife with the air of a man who +felt unaffectedly ashamed of it: + +"Mrs. C is so sorry. She has got such a bad cold. She does so +regret not being able to accompany me." + +At this third apology, Mr. Germaine's indignation forced its way +outward into expression in words. + +"Two bad colds and one bad headache," he said, with ironical +politeness. "I don't know how your wives agree, gentlemen, when +they are well. But when they are ill, their unanimity is +wonderful!" + +The dinner was announced as that sharp saying passed his lips. + +I had the honor of taking Mrs. Germaine to the dining-room. Her +sense of the implied insult offered to her by the wives of her +husband's friends only showed itself in a trembling, a very +slight trembling, of the hand that rested on my arm. My interest +in her increased tenfold. Only a woman who had been accustomed to +suffer, who had been broken and disciplined to self-restraint, +could have endured the moral martyrdom inflicted on her as _this_ +woman endured it, from the beginning of the evening to the end. + +Am I using the language of exaggeration when I write of my +hostess in these terms? Look at the circumstances as they struck +two strangers like my wife and myself. + +Here was the first dinner party which Mr. and Mrs. Germaine had +given since their marriage. Three of Mr. Germaine's friends, all +married men, had been invited with their wives to meet Mr. +Germaine's wife, and had (evidently) accepted the invitation +without reserve. What discoveries had taken place between the +giving of the invitation and the giving of the dinner it was +impossible to say. The one thing plainly discernible was, that in +the interval the three wives had agreed in the resolution to +leave their husbands to represent them at Mrs. Germaine's table; +and, more amazing still, the husbands had so far approved of the +grossly discourteous conduct of the wives as to consent to make +the most insultingly trivial excuses for their absence. Could any +crueler slur than this have been cast on a woman at the outs et +of her married life, before the face of her husband, and in the +presence of two strangers from another country? Is "martyrdom" +too big a word to use in describing what a sensitive person must +have suffered, subjected to such treatment as this? Well, I think +not. + +We took our places at the dinner-table. Don't ask me to describe +that most miserable of mortal meetings, that weariest and +dreariest of human festivals! It is quite bad enough to remember +that evening--it is indeed. + +My wife and I did our best to keep the conversation moving as +easily and as harmlessly as might be. I may say that we really +worked hard. Nevertheless, our success was not very encouraging. +Try as we might to overlook them, there were the three empty +places of the three absent women, speaking in their own dismal +language for themselves. Try as we might to resist it, we all +felt the one sad conclusion which those empty places persisted in +forcing on our minds. It was surely too plain that some terrible +report, affecting the character of the unhappy woman at the head +of the table, had unexpectedly come to light, and had at one blow +destroyed her position in the estimation of her husband's +friends. In the face of the excuses in the drawing-room, in the +face of the empty places at the dinner-table, what could the +friendliest guests do, to any good purpose, to help the husband +and wife in their sore and sudden need? They could say good-night +at the earliest possible opportunity, and mercifully leave the +married pair to themselves. + +Let it at least be recorded to the credit of the three gentlemen, +designated in these pages as A, B, and C, that they were +sufficiently ashamed of themselves and their wives to be the +first members of the dinner party who left the house. In a few +minutes more we rose to follow their example. Mrs. Germaine +earnestly requested that we would delay our departure. + +"Wait a few minutes," she whispered, with a glance at her +husband. "I have something to say to you before you go." + +She left us, and, taking Mr. Germaine by the arm, led him away to +the opposite side of the room. The two held a little colloquy +together in low voices. The husband closed the consultation by +lifting the wife's hand to his lips. + +"Do as you please, my love," he said to her. "I leave it entirely +to you." + +He sat down sorrowfully, lost in his thoughts. Mrs. Germaine +unlocked a cabinet at the further end of the room, and returned +to us, alone, carrying a small portfolio in her hand. + +"No words of mine can tell you how gratefully I feel your +kindness," she said, with perfect simplicity, and with perfect +dignity at the same time. "Under very trying circumstances, you +have treated me with the tenderness and the sympathy which you +might have shown to an old friend. The one return I can make for +all that I owe to you is to admit you to my fullest confidence, +and to leave you to judge for yourselves whether I deserve the +treatment which I have received to-night." + +Her eyes filled with tears. She paused to control herself. We +both begged her to say no more. Her husband, joining us, added +his entreaties to ours. She thanked us, but she persisted. Like +most sensitively organized persons, she could be resolute when +she believed that the occasion called for it. + +"I have a few words more to say," she resumed, addressing my +wife. "You are the only married woman who has come to our little +dinner party. The marked absence of the other wives explains +itself. It is not for me to say whether they are right or wrong +in refusing to sit at our table. My dear husband--who knows my +whole life as well as I know it myself--expressed the wish that +we should invite these ladies. He wrongly supposed that _his_ +estimate of me would be the estimate accepted by his friends; and +neither he nor I anticipated that the misfortunes of my past life +would be revealed by some person acquainted with them, whose +treachery we have yet to discover. The least I can do, by way of +acknowledging your kindness, is to place you in the same position +toward me which the other ladies now occupy. The circumstances +under which I have become the wife of Mr. Germaine are, in some +respects, very remarkable. They are related, without suppression +or reserve, in a little narrative which my husband wrote, at the +time of our marriage, for the satisfaction of one of his absent +relatives, whose good opinion he was unwilling to forfeit. The +manuscript is in this portfolio. After what has happened, I ask +you both to read it, as a personal favor to me. It is for you to +decide, when you know all, whether I am a fit person for an +honest woman to associate with or not." + +She held out her hand, with a sweet, sad smile, and bid us good +night. My wife, in her impulsive way, forgot the formalities +proper to the occasion, and kissed her at parting. At that one +little act of sisterly sympathy, the fortitude which the poor +creature had preserved all through the evening gave way in an +instant. She burst into tears. + +I felt as fond of her and as sorry for her as my wife. But +(unfortunately) I could not take my wife's privilege of kissing +her. On our way downstairs, I found the opportunity of saying a +cheering word to her husband as he accompanied us to the door. + +"Before I open this," I remarked, pointing to the portfolio under +my arm, "my mind is made up, sir, about one thing. If I wasn't +married already, I tell you this--I should envy you your wife." + +He pointed to the portfolio in his turn. + +"Read what I have written there," he said; "and you will +understand what those false friends of mine have made me suffer +to-night." + +The next morning my wife and I opened the portfolio, and read the +strange story of George Germaine's marriage. + +The Narrative. + +GEORGE GERMAINE WRITES, AND TELLS HIS OWN LOVE STORY. + +CHAPTER I. + +GREENWATER BROAD + +LOOK back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the past, +through the mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. Rise +again, my boyhood's days, by the winding green shores of the +little lake. Come to me once more, my child-love, in the innocent +beauty of your first ten years of life. Let us live again, my +angel, as we lived in our first paradise, before sin and sorrow +lifted their flaming swords and drove us out into the world. + + +The month was March. The last wild fowl of the season were +floating on the waters of the lake which, in our Suffolk tongue, +we called Greenwater Broad. + +Wind where it might, the grassy banks and the overhanging trees +tinged the lake with the soft green reflections from which it +took its name. In a creek at the south end, the boats were +kept--my own pretty sailing boat having a tiny natural harbor all +to itself. In a creek at the north end stood the great trap +(called a "decoy"), used for snaring the wild fowl which flocked +every winter, by thousands and thousands, to Greenwater Broad. + +My little Mary and I went out together, hand in hand, to see the +last birds of the season lured into the decoy. + +The outer part of the strange bird-trap rose from the waters of +the lake in a series of circular arches, formed of elastic +branches bent to the needed shape, and covered with folds of fine +network, making the roof. Little by little diminishing in size, +the arches and their net-work followed the secret windings of the +creek inland to its end. Built back round the arches, on their +landward side, ran a wooden paling, high enough to hide a man +kneeling behind it from the view of the birds on the lake. At +certain intervals a hole was broken in the paling just large +enough to allow of the passage through it of a dog of the terrier +or the spaniel breed. And there began and ended the simple yet +sufficient mechanism of the decoy. + +In those days I was thirteen, and Mary was ten years old. Walking +on our way to the lake we had Mary's father with us for guide and +companion. The good man served as bailiff on my father's estate. +He was, besides, a skilled master in the art of decoying ducks. +The dog that helped him (we used no tame ducks as decoys in +Suffolk) was a little black terrier; a skilled master also, in +his way; a creature who possessed, in equal proportions, the +enviable advantages of perfect good-humor a nd perfect common +sense. + +The dog followed the bailiff, and we followed the dog. + +Arrived at the paling which surrounded the decoy, the dog sat +down to wait until he was wanted. The bailiff and the children +crouched behind the paling, and peeped through the outermost +dog-hole, which commanded a full view of the lake. It was a day +without wind; not a ripple stirred the surface of the water; the +soft gray clouds filled all the sky, and hid the sun from view. + +We peeped through the hole in the paling. There were the wild +ducks--collected within easy reach of the decoy--placidly +dressing their feathers on the placid surface of the lake. + +The bailiff looked at the dog, and made a sign. The dog looked at +the bailiff; and, stepping forward quietly, passed through the +hole, so as to show himself on the narrow strip of ground +shelving down from the outer side of the paling to the lake. + +First one duck, then another, then half a dozen together, +discovered the dog. + +A new object showing itself on the solitary scene instantly +became an object of all-devouring curiosity to the ducks. The +outermost of them began to swim slowly toward the strange +four-footed creature, planted motionless on the bank. By twos and +threes, the main body of the waterfowl gradually followed the +advanced guard. Swimming nearer and nearer to the dog, the wary +ducks suddenly came to a halt, and, poised on the water, viewed +from a safe distance the phenomenon on the land. + +The bailiff, kneeling behind the paling, whispered, "Trim!" + +Hearing his name, the terrier turned about, and retiring through +the hole, became lost to the view of the ducks. Motionless on the +water, the wild fowl wondered and waited. In a minute more, the +dog had trotted round, and had shown himself through the next +hole in the paling, pierced further inward where the lake ran up +into the outermost of the windings of the creek. + +The second appearance of the terrier instantly produced a second +fit of curiosity among the ducks. With one accord, they swam +forward again, to get another and a nearer view of the dog; then, +judging their safe distance once more, they stopped for the +second time, under the outermost arch of the decoy. Again the dog +vanished, and the puzzled ducks waited. An interval passed, and +the third appearance of Trim took place, through a third hole in +the paling, pierced further inland up the creek. For the third +time irresistible curiosity urged the ducks to advance further +and further inward, under the fatal arches of the decoy. A fourth +and a fifth time the game went on, until the dog had lured the +water-fowl from point to point into the inner recesses of the +decoy. There a last appearance of Trim took place. A last +advance, a last cautious pause, was made by the ducks. The +bailiff touched the strings, the weighed net-work fell vertically +into the water, and closed the decoy. There, by dozens and +dozens, were the ducks, caught by means of their own +curiosity--with nothing but a little dog for a bait! In a few +hours afterward they were all dead ducks on their way to the +London market. + +As the last act in the curious comedy of the decoy came to its +end, little Mary laid her hand on my shoulder, and, raising +herself on tiptoe, whispered in my ear: + +"George, come home with me. I have got something to show you that +is better worth seeing than the ducks." + +"What is it?" + +"It's a surprise. I won't tell you." + +"Will you give me a kiss?" + +The charming little creature put her slim sun-burned arms round +my neck, and answered: + +"As many kisses as you like, George." + +It was innocently said, on her side. It was innocently done, on +mine. The good easy bailiff, looking aside at the moment from his +ducks, discovered us pursuing our boy-and-girl courtship in each +other's arms. He shook his big forefinger at us, with something +of a sad and doubting smile. + +"Ah, Master George, Master George!" he said. "When your father +comes home, do you think he will approve of his son and heir +kissing his bailiff's daughter?" + +"When my father comes home," I answered, with great dignity, "I +shall tell him the truth. I shall say I am going to marry your +daughter." + +The bailiff burst out laughing, and looked back again at his +ducks. + +"Well, well!" we heard him say to himself. "They're only +children. There's no call, poor things, to part them yet awhile." + +Mary and I had a great dislike to be called children. Properly +understood, one of us was a lady aged ten, and the other was a +gentleman aged thirteen. We left the good bailiff indignantly, +and went away together, hand in hand, to the cottage. + +CHAPTER II. + +TWO YOUNG HEARTS. + +"HE is growing too fast," said the doctor to my mother; "and he +is getting a great deal too clever for a boy at his age. Remove +him from school, ma'am, for six months; let him run about in the +open air at home; and if you find him with a book in his hand, +take it away directly. There is my prescription." + +Those words decided my fate in life. + +In obedience to the doctor's advice, I was left an idle +boy--without brothers, sisters, or companions of my own age--to +roam about the grounds of our lonely country-house. The bailiff's +daughter, like me, was an only child; and, like me, she had no +playfellows. We met in our wanderings on the solitary shores of +the lake. Beginning by being inseparable companions, we ripened +and developed into true lovers. Our preliminary courtship +concluded, we next proposed (before I returned to school) to +burst into complete maturity by becoming man and wife. + +I am not writing in jest. Absurd as it may appear to "sensible +people," we two children were lovers, if ever there were lovers +yet. + +We had no pleasures apart from the one all-sufficient pleasure +which we found in each other's society. We objected to the night, +because it parted us. We entreated our parents, on either side, +to let us sleep in the same room. I was angry with my mother, and +Mary was disappointed in her father, when they laughed at us, and +wondered what we should want next. Looking onward, from those +days to the days of my manhood, I can vividly recall such hours +of happiness as have fallen to my share. But I remember no +delights of that later time comparable to the exquisite and +enduring pleasure that filled my young being when I walked with +Mary in the woods; when I sailed with Mary in my boat on the +lake; when I met Mary, after the cruel separation of the night, +and flew into her open arms as if we had been parted for months +and months together. + +What was the attraction that drew us so closely one to the other, +at an age when the sexual sympathies lay dormant in her and in +me? + +We neither knew nor sought to know. We obeyed the impulse to love +one another, as a bird obeys the impulse to fly. + +Let it not be supposed that we possessed any natural gifts, or +advantages which singled us out as differing in a marked way from +other children at our time of life. We possessed nothing of the +sort. I had been called a clever boy at school; but there were +thousands of other boys, at thousands of other schools, who +headed their classes and won their prizes, like me. Personally +speaking, I was in no way remarkable--except for being, in the +ordinary phrase, "tall for my age." On her side, Mary displayed +no striking attractions. She was a fragile child, with mild gray +eyes and a pale complexion; singularly undemonstrative, +singularly shy and silent, except when she was alone with me. +Such beauty as she had, in those early days, lay in a certain +artless purity and tenderness of expression, and in the charming +reddish-brown color of her hair, varying quaintly and prettily in +different lights. To all outward appearance two perfectly +commonplace children, we were mysteriously united by some kindred +association of the spirit in her and the spirit in me, which not +only defied discovery by our young selves, but which lay too deep +for investigation by far older and far wiser heads than ours. + +You will naturally wonder whether anything was done by our elders +to check our precocious attachment, while it was still an +innocent love union between a boy and a girl. + +Nothing was done by my father, for the simple reason that he was +away from home. + +He was a man of a restless and speculative turn of mind. +Inheriting his estate burdened with debt, his grand ambition was +to increase his small available income by his own exertions; to +set up an establishment in London; and to climb to political +distinction by the ladder of Parliament. An old friend, who had +emigrated to America, had proposed to him a speculation in +agriculture, in one of the Western States, which was to make both +their fortunes. My father's eccentric fancy was struck by the +idea. For more than a year past he had been away from us in the +United States; and all we knew of him (instructed by his letters) +was, that he might be shortly expected to return to us in the +enviable character of one of the richest men in England. + +As for my poor mother--the sweetest and softest-hearted of +women--to see me happy was all that she desired. + +The quaint little love romance of the two children amused and +interested her. She jested with Mary's father about the coming +union between the two families, without one serious thought of +the future--without even a foreboding of what might happen when +my father returned. "Sufficient for the day is the evil (or the +good) thereof," had been my mother's motto all her life. She +agreed with the easy philosophy of the bailiff, already recorded +in these pages: "They're only children. There's no call, poor +things, to part them yet a while." + +There was one member of the family, however, who took a sensible +and serious view of the matter. + +My father's brother paid us a visit in our solitude; discovered +what was going on between Mary and me; and was, at first, +naturally enough, inclined to laugh at us. Closer investigation +altered his way of thinking. He became convinced that my mother +was acting like a fool; that the bailiff (a faithful servant, if +ever there was one yet) was cunningly advancing his own interests +by means of his daughter; and that I was a young idiot, who had +developed his native reserves of imbecility at an unusually early +period of life. Speaking to my mother under the influence of +these strong impressions, my uncle offered to take me back with +him to London, and keep me there until I had been brought to my +senses by association with his own children, and by careful +superintendence under his own roof. + +My mother hesitated about accepting this proposal; she had the +advantage over my uncle of understanding my disposition. While +she was still doubting, while my uncle was still impatiently +waiting for her decision, I settled the question for my elders by +running away. + +I left a letter to represent me in my absence; declaring that no +mortal power should part me from Mary, and promising to return +and ask my mother's pardon as soon as my uncle had left the +house. The strictest search was made for me without discovering a +trace of my place of refuge. My uncle departed for London, +predicting that I should live to be a disgrace to the family, and +announcing that he should transmit his opinion of me to my father +in America by the next mail. + +The secret of the hiding-place in which I contrived to defy +discovery is soon told. I was hidden (without the bailiff's +knowledge) in the bedroom of the bailiff's mother. And did the +bailiff's mother know it? you will ask. To which I answer: the +bailiff's mother did it. And, what is more, gloried in doing +it--not, observe, as an act of hostility to my relatives, but +simply as a duty that lay on her conscience. + +What sort of old woman, in the name of all that is wonderful, was +this? Let her appear, and speak for herself--the wild and weird +grandmother of gentle little Mary; the Sibyl of modern times, +known, far and wide, in our part of Suffolk, as Dame Dermody. + +I see her again, as I write, sitting in her son's pretty cottage +parlor, hard by the window, so that the light fell over her +shoulder while she knitted or read. A little, lean, wiry old +woman was Dame Dermody--with fierce black eyes, surmounted by +bushy white eyebrows, by a high wrinkled forehead, and by thick +white hair gathered neatly under her old-fashioned "mob-cap." +Report whispered (and whispered truly) that she had been a lady +by birth and breeding, and that she had deliberately closed her +prospects in life by marrying a man greatly her inferior in +social rank. Whatever her family might think of her marriage, she +herself never regretted it. In her estimation her husband's +memory was a sacred memory; his spirit was a guardian spirit, +watching over her, waking or sleeping, morning or night. + +Holding this faith, she was in no respect influenced by those +grossly material ideas of modern growth which associate the +presence of spiritual beings with clumsy conjuring tricks and +monkey antics performed on tables and chairs. Dame Dermody's +nobler superstition formed an integral part of her religious +convictions--convictions which had long since found their chosen +resting-place in the mystic doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg. The +only books which she read were the works of the Swedish Seer. She +mixed up Swedenborg's teachings on angels and departed spirits, +on love to one's neighbor and purity of life, with wild fancies, +and kindred beliefs of her own; and preached the visionary +religious doctrines thus derived, not only in the bailiff's +household, but also on proselytizing expeditions to the +households of her humble neighbors, far and near. + +Under her son's roof--after the death of his wife--she reigned a +supreme power; priding herself alike on her close attention to +her domestic duties, and on her privileged communications with +angels and spirits. She would hold long colloquys with the spirit +of her dead husband before anybody who happened to be +present--colloquys which struck the simple spectators mute with +terror. To her mystic view, the love union between Mary and me +was something too sacred and too beautiful to be tried by the +mean and matter-of-fact tests set up by society. She wrote for us +little formulas of prayer and praise, which we were to use when +we met and when we parted, day by day. She solemnly warned her +son to look upon us as two young consecrated creatures, walking +unconsciously on a heavenly path of their own, whose beginning +was on earth, but whose bright end was among the angels in a +better state of being. Imagine my appearing before such a woman +as this, and telling her with tears of despair that I was +determined to die, rather than let my uncle part me from little +Mary, and you will no longer be astonished at the hospitality +which threw open to me the sanctuary of Dame Dermody's own room. + +When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I committed +a serious mistake. In thanking the old woman at parting, I said +to her (with a boy's sense of honor), "I won't tell upon you, +Dame. My mother shan't know that you hid me in your bedroom." + +The Sibyl laid her dry, fleshless hand on my shoulder, and forced +me roughly back into the chair from which I had just risen. + +"Boy!" she said, looking through and through me with her fierce +black eyes. "Do you dare suppose that I ever did anything that I +was ashamed of? Do you think I am ashamed of what I have done +now? Wait there. Your mother may mistake me too. I shall write to +your mother." + +She put on her great round spectacles with tortoise-shell rims +and sat down to her letter. Whenever her thoughts flagged, +whenever she was at a loss for an expression, she looked over her +shoulder, as if some visible creature were stationed behind her, +watching what she wrote; consulted the spirit of her husband, +exactly as she might have consulted a living man; smiled softly +to herself, and went on with her writing. + +"There!" she said, handing me the completed letter with an +imperial gesture of indulgence. "_His_ mind and _my_ mind are +written there. Go, boy. I pardon you. Give my letter to your +mother." + +So she always spoke, with the same formal and measured dignity of +manner and language. + +I gave the letter to my mother. We read it, and marveled over it +together. Thus, counseled by the ever-present spirit of her +husband, Dame Dermody wrote: + + +"MADAM--I have taken what you may be inclined to think a great +liberty. I have assisted your son George in se tting his uncle's +authority at defiance. I have encouraged your son George in his +resolution to be true, in time and in eternity, to my grandchild, +Mary Dermody. + +"It is due to you and to me that I should tell you with what +motive I have acted in doing these things. + +"I hold the belief that all love that is true is foreordained and +consecrated in heaven. Spirits destined to be united in the +better world are divinely commissioned to discover each other and +to begin their union in this world. The only happy marriages are +those in which the two destined spirits have succeeded in meeting +one another in this sphere of life. + +"When the kindred spirits have once met, no human power can +really part them. Sooner or later, they must, by divine law, find +each other again and become united spirits once more. Worldly +wisdom may force them into widely different ways of life; worldly +wisdom may delude them, or may make them delude themselves, into +contracting an earthly and a fallible union. It matters nothing. +The time will certainly come when that union will manifest itself +as earthly and fallible; and the two disunited spirits, finding +each other again, will become united here for the world beyond +this--united, I tell you, in defiance of all human laws and of +all human notions of right and wrong. + +"This is my belief. I have proved it by my own life. Maid, wife, +and widow, I have held to it, and I have found it good. + +"I was born, madam, in the rank of society to which you belong. I +received the mean, material teaching which fulfills the worldly +notion of education. Thanks be to God, my kindred spirit met _my_ +spirit while I was still young. I knew true love and true union +before I was twenty years of age. I married, madam, in the rank +from which Christ chose his apostles--I married a laboring-man. +No human language can tell my happiness while we lived united +here. His death has not parted us. He helps me to write this +letter. In my last hours I shall see him standing among the +angels, waiting for me on the banks of the shining river. + +"You will now understand the view I take of the tie which unites +the young spirits of our children at the bright outset of their +lives. + +"Believe me, the thing which your husband's brother has proposed +to you to do is a sacrilege and a profanation. I own to you +freely that I look on what I have done toward thwarting your +relative in this matter as an act of virtue. You cannot expect +_me_ to think it a serious obstacle to a union predestined in +heaven, that your son is the squire's heir, and that my +grandchild is only the bailiff's daughter. Dismiss from your +mind, I implore you, the unworthy and unchristian prejudices of +rank. Are we not all equal before God? Are we not all equal (even +in this world) before disease and death? Not your son's happiness +only, but your own peace of mind, is concerned in taking heed to +my words. I warn you, madam, you cannot hinder the destined union +of these two child-spirits, in after-years, as man and wife. Part +them now--and YOU will be responsible for the sacrifices, +degradations and distresses through which your George and my Mary +may be condemned to pass on their way back to each other in later +life. + +"Now my mind is unburdened. Now I have said all. + +"If I have spoken too freely, or have in any other way +unwittingly offended, I ask your pardon, and remain, madam, your +faithful servant and well-wisher, + HELEN DERMODY." + +So the letter ended. + +To me it is something more than a mere curiosity of epistolary +composition. I see in it the prophecy--strangely fulfilled in +later years--of events in Mary's life, and in mine, which future +pages are now to tell. + +My mother decided on leaving the letter unanswered. Like many of +her poorer neighbors, she was a little afraid of Dame Dermody; +and she was, besides, habitually averse to all discussions which +turned on the mysteries of spiritual life. I was reproved, +admonished, and forgiven; and there was the end of it. + +For some happy weeks Mary and I returned, without hinderance or +interruption, to our old intimate companionship The end was +coming, however, when we least expected it. My mother was +startled, one morning, by a letter from my father, which informed +her that he had been unexpectedly obliged to sail for England at +a moment's notice; that he had arrived in London, and that he was +detained there by business which would admit of no delay. We were +to wait for him at home, in daily expectation of seeing him the +moment he was free. + +This news filled my mother's mind with foreboding doubts of the +stability of her husband's grand speculation in America. The +sudden departure from the United States, and the mysterious delay +in London, were ominous, to her eyes, of misfortune to come. I am +now writing of those dark days in the past, when the railway and +the electric telegraph were still visions in the minds of +inventors. Rapid communication with my father (even if he would +have consented to take us into his confidence) was impossible. We +had no choice but to wait and hope. + +The weary days passed; and still my father's brief letters +described him as detained by his business. The morning came when +Mary and I went out with Dermody, the bailiff, to see the last +wild fowl of the season lured into the decoy; and still the +welcome home waited for the master, and waited in vain. + +CHAPTER III. + +SWEDENBORG AND THE SIBYL. + +MY narrative may move on again from the point at which it paused +in the first chapter. + +Mary and I (as you may remember) had left the bailiff alone at +the decoy, and had set forth on our way together to Dermody's +cottage. + +As we approached the garden gate, I saw a servant from the house +waiting there. He carried a message from my mother--a message for +me. + +"My mistress wishes you to go home, Master George, as soon as you +can. A letter has come by the coach. My master means to take a +post-chaise from London, and sends word that we may expect him in +the course of the day." + +Mary's attentive face saddened when she heard those words. + +"Must you really go away, George," she whispered, "before you see +what I have got waiting for you at home?" + +I remembered Mary's promised "surprise," the secret of which was +only to be revealed to me when we got to the cottage. How could I +disappoint her? My poor little lady-love looked ready to cry at +the bare prospect of it. + +I dismissed the servant with a message of the temporizing sort. +My love to my mother--and I would be back at the house in half an +hour. + +We entered the cottage. + +Dame Dermody was sitting in the light of the window, as usual, +with one of the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg open on her +lap. She solemnly lifted her hand on our appearance, signing to +us to occupy our customary corner without speaking to her. It was +an act of domestic high treason to interrupt the Sibyl at her +books. We crept quietly into our places. Mary waited until she +saw her grandmother's gray head bend down, and her grandmother's +bushy eyebrows contract attentively, over her reading. Then, and +then only, the discreet child rose on tiptoe, disappeared +noiselessly in the direction of her bedchamber, and came back to +me carrying something carefully wrapped up in her best cambric +handkerchief. + +"Is that the surprise?" I whispered. + +Mary whispered back: "Guess what it is?" + +"Something for me?" + +"Yes. Go on guessing. What is it?" + +I guessed three times, and each guess was wrong. Mary decided on +helping me by a hint. + +"Say your letters," she suggested; "and go on till I stop you." + +I began: "A, B, C, D, E, F--" There she stopped me. + +"It's the name of a Thing," she said; "and it begins with F." + +I guessed, "Fern," "Feather," "Fife." And here my resources +failed me. + +Mary sighed, and shook her head. "You don't take pains," she +said. "You are three whole years older than I am. After all the +trouble I have taken to please you, you may be too big to care +for my present when you see it. Guess again." + +"I can't guess." + +"You must!" + +"I give it up." + +Mary refused to let me give it up. She helped me by another hint. + +"What did you once say you wished you had in your boat?" she +asked. + +"Was i t long ago?" I inquired, at a loss for an answer. + +"Long, long ago! Before the winter. When the autumn leaves were +falling, and you took me out one evening for a sail. Ah, George, +_ you_ have forgotten!" + +Too true, of me and of my brethren, old and young alike! It is +always _his_ love that forgets, and _her_ love that remembers. We +were only two children, and we were types of the man and the +woman already. + +Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the terrible presence of +her grandmother, she jumped up, and snatched the concealed object +out of her handkerchief. + +"There! " she cried, briskly, "_now_ do you know what it is?" + +I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my boat, all +those months ago, was a new flag. And here was the flag, made for +me in secret by Mary's own hand! The ground was green silk, with +a dove embroidered on it in white, carrying in its beak the +typical olive-branch, wrought in gold thread. The work was the +tremulous, uncertain work of a child's fingers. But how +faithfully my little darling had remembered my wish! how +patiently she had plied the needle over the traced lines of the +pattern! how industriously she had labored through the dreary +winter days! and all for my sake! What words could tell my pride, +my gratitude, my happiness? + +I too forgot the presence of the Sibyl bending over her book. I +took the little workwoman in my arms, and kissed her till I was +fairly out of breath and could kiss no longer. + +"Mary!" I burst out, in the first heat of my enthusiasm, "my +father is coming home to-day. I will speak to him to-night. And I +will marry you to-morrow!" + +"Boy!" said the awful voice at the other end of the room. "Come +here." + +Dame Dermody's mystic book was closed; Dame Dermody's weird black +eyes were watching us in our corner. I approached her; and Mary +followed me timidly, by a footstep at a time. + +The Sibyl took me by the hand, with a caressing gentleness which +was new in my experience of her. + +"Do you prize that toy?" she inquired, looking at the flag. "Hide +it!" she cried, before I could answer. "Hide it--or it may be +taken from you!" + +"Why should I hide it?" I asked. "I want to fly it at the mast of +my boat." + +"You will never fly it at the mast of your boat!" With that +answer she took the flag from me and thrust it impatiently into +the breast-pocket of my jacket. + +"Don't crumple it, grandmother!" said Mary, piteously. + +I repeated my question: + +"Why shall I never fly it at the mast of my boat?" + +Dame Dermody laid her hand on the closed volume of Swedenborg +lying in her lap. + +"Three times I have opened this book since the morning," she +said. "Three times the words of the prophet warn me that there is +trouble coming. Children, it is trouble that is coming to You. I +look there," she went on, pointing to the place where a ray of +sunlight poured slanting into the room, "and I see my husband in +the heavenly light. He bows his head in grief, and he points his +unerring hand at You. George and Mary, you are consecrated to +each other! Be always worthy of your consecration; be always +worthy of yourselves." She paused. Her voice faltered. She looked +at us with softening eyes, as those look who know sadly that +there is a parting at hand. "Kneel!" she said, in low tones of +awe and grief. "It may be the last time I bless you--it may be +the last time I pray over you, in this house. Kneel!" + +We knelt close together at her feet. I could feel Mary's heart +throbbing, as she pressed nearer and nearer to my side. I could +feel my own heart quickening its beat, with a fear that was a +mystery to me. + +"God bless and keep George and Mary, here and hereafter! God +prosper, in future days, the union which God's wisdom has willed! +Amen. So be it. Amen." + +As the last words fell from her lips the cottage door was thrust +open. My father--followed by the bailiff--entered the room. + +Dame Dermody got slowly on her feet, and looked at him with a +stern scrutiny. + +"It has come," she said to herself. "It looks with the eyes--it +will speak with the voice--of that man." + +My father broke the silence that followed, addressing himself to +the bailiff. + +"You see, Dermody," he said, "here is my son in your +cottage--when he ought to be in my house." He turned, and looked +at me as I stood with my arm round little Mary, patiently waiting +for my opportunity to speak. "George," he said, with the hard +smile which was peculiar to him, when he was angry and was trying +to hide it, "you are making a fool of yourself there. Leave that +child, and come to me." + +Now, or never, was my time to declare myself. Judging by +appearances, I was still a boy. Judging by my own sensations, I +had developed into a man at a moment's notice. + +"Papa," I said, "I am glad to see you home again. This is Mary +Dermody. I am in love with her, and she is in love with me. I +wish to marry her as soon as it is convenient to my mother and +you." + +My father burst out laughing. Before I could speak again, his +humor changed. He had observed that Dermody, too, presumed to be +amused. He seemed to become mad with anger, all in a moment. + +"I have been told of this infernal tomfoolery," he said, "but I +didn't believe it till now. Who has turned the boy's weak head? +Who has encouraged him to stand there hugging that girl? If it's +you, Dermody, it shall be the worst day's work you ever did in +your life." He turned to me again, before the bailiff could +defend himself. "Do you hear what I say? I tell you to leave +Dermody's girl, and come home with me." + +"Yes, papa," I answered. "But I must go back to Mary, if you +please, after I have been with you." + +Angry as he was, my father was positively staggered by my +audacity. + +"You young idiot, your insolence exceeds belief!" he burst out. +"I tell you this: you will never darken these doors again! You +have been taught to disobey me here. You have had things put into +your head, here, which no boy of your age ought to know--I'll say +more, which no decent people would have let you know." + +"I beg your pardon, sir," Dermody interposed, very respectfully +and very firmly at the same time. "There are many things which a +master in a hot temper is privileged to say to the man who serves +him. But you have gone beyond your privilege. You have shamed me, +sir, in the presence of my mother, in the hearing of my child--" + +My father checked him there. + +"You may spare the rest of it," he said. "We are master and +servant no longer. When my son came hanging about your cottage, +and playing at sweethearts with your girl there, your duty was to +close the door on him. You have failed in your duty. I trust you +no longer. Take a month's notice, Dermody. You leave my service." + +The bailiff steadily met my father on his ground. He was no +longer the easy, sweet-tempered, modest man who was the man of my +remembrance. + +"I beg to decline taking your month's notice, sir," he answered. +"You shall have no opportunity of repeating what you have just +said to me. I will send in my accounts to-night. And I will leave +your service to-morrow." + +"We agree for once," retorted my father. "The sooner you go, the +better." + +He stepped across the room and put his hand on my shoulder. + +"Listen to me," he said, making a last effort to control himself. +"I don't want to quarrel with you before a discarded servant. +There must be an end to this nonsense. Leave these people to pack +up and go, and come back to the house with me." + +His heavy hand, pressing on my shoulder, seemed to press the +spirit of resistance out of me. I so far gave way as to try to +melt him by entreaties. + +"Oh, papa! papa!" I cried. "Don't part me from Mary! See how +pretty and good she is! She has made me a flag for my boat. Let +me come here and see her sometimes. I can't live without her" + +I could say no more. My poor little Mary burst out crying. Her +tears and my entreaties were alike wasted on my father. + +"Take your choice," he said, "between coming away of your own +accord, or obliging me to take you away by force. I mean to part +you and Dermody's girl." + +"Neither you nor any man can part them," interposed a voice, +speaking behind us. "Rid your mind of that notion, master, before +it is too late." + +My father looked round quickly, and discovere d Dame Dermody +facing him in the full light of the window. She had stepped back, +at the outset of the dispute, into the corner behind the +fireplace. There she had remained, biding her time to speak, +until my father's last threat brought her out of her place of +retirement. + +They looked at each other for a moment. My father seemed to think +it beneath his dignity to answer her. He went on with what he had +to say to me. + +"I shall count three slowly," he resumed. "Before I get to the +last number, make up your mind to do what I tell you, or submit +to the disgrace of being taken away by force." + +"Take him where you may," said Dame Dermody, "he will still be on +his way to his marriage with my grandchild." + +"And where shall I be, if you please?" asked my father, stung +into speaking to her this time. + +The answer followed instantly in these startling words: + +"_You_ will be on your way to your ruin and your death." + +My father turned his back on the prophetess with a smile of +contempt. + +"One!" he said, beginning to count. + +I set my teeth, and clasped both arms round Mary as he spoke. I +had inherited some of his temper, and he was now to know it. + +"Two!" proceeded my father, after waiting a little. + +Mary put her trembling lips to my ear, and whispered: "Let me go, +George! I can't bear to see it. Oh, look how he frowns! I know +he'll hurt you." + +My father lifted his forefinger as a preliminary warning before +he counted Three. + +"Stop!" cried Dame Dermody. + +My father looked round at her again with sardonic astonishment. + +"I beg your pardon, ma'am--have you anything particular to say to +me?" he asked. + +"Man!" returned the Sibyl, "you speak lightly. Have I spoken +lightly to You? I warn you to bow your wicked will before a Will +that is mightier than yours. The spirits of these children are +kindred spirits. For time and for eternity they are united one to +the other. Put land and sea between them--they will still be +together; they will communicate in visions, they will be revealed +to each other in dreams. Bind them by worldly ties; wed your son, +in the time to come, to another woman, and my grand-daughter to +another man. In vain! I tell you, in vain! You may doom them to +misery, you may drive them to sin--the day of their union on +earth is still a day predestined in heaven. It will come! it will +come! Submit, while the time for submission is yours. You are a +doomed man. I see the shadow of disaster, I see the seal of +death, on your face. Go; and leave these consecrated ones to walk +the dark ways of the world together, in the strength of their +innocence, in the light of their love. Go--and God forgive you!" +In spite of himself, my father was struck by the irresistible +strength of conviction which inspired those words. The bailiff's +mother had impressed him as a tragic actress might have impressed +him on the stage. She had checked the mocking answer on his lips, +but she had not shaken his iron will. His face was as hard as +ever when he turned my way once more. + +"The last chance, George, " he said, and counted the last number: +"Three!" + +I neither moved nor answered him. + +"You _will_ have it?" he said, as he fastened his hold on my arm. + +I fastened _my_ hold on Mary; I whispered to her, "I won't leave +you!" She seemed not to hear me. She trembled from head to foot +in my arms. A faint cry of terror fluttered from her lips. +Dermody instantly stepped forward. Before my father could wrench +me away from her, he had said in my ear, "You can give her to +_me_, Master George," and had released his child from my embrace. +She stretched her little frail hands out yearningly to me, as she +lay in Dermody's arms. "Good-by, dear," she said, faintly. I saw +her head sink on her father's bosom as I was dragged to the door. +In my helpless rage and misery, I struggled against the cruel +hands that had got me with all the strength I had left. I cried +out to her, "I love you, Mary! I will come back to you, Mary! I +will never marry any one but you!" Step by step, I was forced +further and further away. The last I saw of her, my darling's +head was still resting on Dermody's breast. Her grandmother stood +near, and shook her withered hands at my father, and shrieked her +terrible prophecy, in the hysteric frenzy that possessed her when +she saw the separation accomplished. "Go!--you go to your ruin! +you go to your death!" While her voice still rang in my ears, the +cottage door was opened and closed again. It was all over. The +modest world of my boyish love and my boyish joy disappeared like +the vision of a dream. The empty outer wilderness, which was my +father's world, opened before me void of love and void of joy. +God forgive me--how I hated him at that moment! + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE CURTAIN FALLS. + +FOR the rest of the day, and through the night, I was kept a +close prisoner in my room, watched by a man on whose fidelity my +father could depend. + +The next morning I made an effort to escape, and was discovered +before I had got free of the house. Confined again to my room, I +contrived to write to Mary, and to slip my note into the willing +hand of the housemaid who attended on me. Useless! The vigilance +of my guardian was not to be evaded. The woman was suspected and +followed, and the letter was taken from her. My father tore it up +with his own hands. + +Later in the day, my mother was permitted to see me. + +She was quite unfit, poor soul, to intercede for me, or to serve +my interests in any way. My father had completely overwhelmed her +by announcing that his wife and his son were to accompany him, +when he returned to America. + +"Every farthing he has in the world," said my mother, "is to be +thrown into that hateful speculation. He has raised money in +London; he has let the house to some rich tradesman for seven +years; he has sold the plate, and the jewels that came to me from +his mother. The land in America swallows it all up. We have no +home, George, and no choice but to go with him." + +An hour afterward the post-chaise was at the door. + +My father himself took me to the carriage. I broke away from him, +with a desperation which not even his resolution could resist. I +ran, I flew, along the path that led to Dermody's cottage. The +door stood open; the parlor was empty. I went into the kitchen; I +went into the upper rooms. Solitude everywhere. The bailiff had +left the place; and his mother and his daughter had gone with +him. No friend or neighbor lingered near with a message; no +letter lay waiting for me; no hint was left to tell me in what +direction they had taken their departure. After the insulting +words which his master had spoken to him, Dermody's pride was +concerned in leaving no trace of his whereabouts; my father might +consider it as a trace purposely left with the object of +reuniting Mary and me. I had no keepsake to speak to me of my +lost darling but the flag which she had embroidered with her own +hand. The furniture still remained in the cottage. I sat down in +our customary corner, by Mary's empty chair, and looked again at +the pretty green flag, and burst out crying. + +A light touch roused me. My father had so far yielded as to leave +to my mother the responsibility of bringing me back to the +traveling carriage. + +"We shall not find Mary here, George," she said, gently. "And we +_ may_ hear of her in London. Come with me." + +I rose and silently gave her my hand. Something low down on the +clean white door-post caught my eye as we passed it. I stooped, +and discovered some writing in pencil. I looked closer--it was +writing in Mary's hand! The unformed childish characters traced +these last words of farewell: + +"Good-by, dear. Don't forget Mary." + +I knelt down and kissed the writing. It comforted me--it was like +a farewell touch from Mary's hand. I followed my mother quietly +to the carriage. + +Late that night we were in London. + +My good mother did all that the most compassionate kindness could +do (in her position) to comfort me. She privately wrote to the +solicitors employed by her family, inclosing a description of +Dermody and his mother and daughter and directing inquiries to be +made at the various coach-offices in London. She also referred +the lawyers to two of Dermody's relatives, who lived in the city, +a nd who might know something of his movements after he left my +father's service. When she had done this, she had done all that +lay in her power. We neither of us possessed money enough to +advertise in the newspapers. + +A week afterward we sailed for the United States. Twice in that +interval I communicated with the lawyers; and twice I was +informed that the inquiries had led to nothing. + + +With this the first epoch in my love story comes to an end. + +For ten long years afterward I never again met with my little +Mary; I never even heard whether she had lived to grow to +womanhood or not. I still kept the green flag, with the dove +worked on it. For the rest, the waters of oblivion had closed +over the old golden days at Greenwater Broad. + +CHAPTER V. + +MY STORY. + +WHEN YOU last saw me, I was a boy of thirteen. You now see me a +man of twenty-three. + +The story of my life, in the interval between these two ages, is +a story that can be soon told. + +Speaking of my father first, I have to record that the end of his +career did indeed come as Dame Dermody had foretold it. Before we +had been a year in America, the total collapse of his land +speculation was followed by his death. The catastrophe was +complete. But for my mother's little income (settled on her at +her marriage) we should both have been left helpless at the mercy +of the world. + +We made some kind friends among the hearty and hospitable people +of the United States, whom we were unaffectedly sorry to leave. +But there were reasons which inclined us to return to our own +country after my father's death; and we did return accordingly. + +Besides her brother-in-law (already mentioned in the earlier +pages of my narrative), my mother had another relative--a cousin +named Germaine--on whose assistance she mainly relied for +starting me, when the time came, in a professional career. I +remember it as a family rumor, that Mr. Germaine had been an +unsuccessful suitor for my mother's hand in the days when they +were young people together. He was still a bachelor at the later +period when his eldest brother's death without issue placed him +in possession of a handsome fortune. The accession of wealth made +no difference in his habits of life: he was a lonely old man, +estranged from his other relatives, when my mother and I returned +to England. If I could only succeed in pleasing Mr. Germaine, I +might consider my prospects (in some degree, at least) as being +prospects assured. + +This was one consideration that influenced us in leaving America. +There was another--in which I was especially interested--that +drew me back to the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad. + +My only hope of recovering a trace of Mary was to make inquiries +among the cottagers in the neighborhood of my old home. The good +bailiff had been heartily liked and respected in his little +sphere. It seemed at least possible that some among his many +friends in Suffolk might have discovered traces of him, in the +year that had passed since I had left England. In my dreams of +Mary--and I dreamed of her constantly--the lake and its woody +banks formed a frequent background in the visionary picture of my +lost companion. To the lake shores I looked, with a natural +superstition, as to my way back to the one life that had its +promise of happiness for _me_--my life with Mary. + +On our arrival in London, I started for Suffolk alone--at my +mother's request. At her age she naturally shrank from revisiting +the home scenes now occupied by the strangers to whom our house +had been let. + +Ah, how my heart ached (young as I was) when I saw the familiar +green waters of the lake once more! It was evening. The first +object that caught my eye was the gayly painted boat, once mine, +in which Mary and I had so often sailed together. The people in +possession of our house were sailing now. The sound of their +laughter floated toward me merrily over the still water. _Their_ +flag flew at the little mast-head, from which Mary's flag had +never fluttered in the pleasant breeze. I turned my eyes from the +boat; it hurt me to look at it. A few steps onward brought me to +a promontory on the shore, and revealed the brown archways of the +decoy on the opposite bank. There was the paling behind which we +had knelt to watch the snaring of the ducks; there was the hole +through which "Trim," the terrier, had shown himself to rouse the +stupid curiosity of the water-fowl; there, seen at intervals +through the trees, was the winding woodland path along which Mary +and I had traced our way to Dermody's cottage on the day when my +father's cruel hand had torn us from each other. How wisely my +good mother had shrunk from looking again at the dear old scenes! +I turned my back on the lake, to think with calmer thoughts in +the shadowy solitude of the woods. + +An hour's walk along the winding banks brought me round to the +cottage which had once been Mary's home. + +The door was opened by a woman who was a stranger to me. She +civilly asked me to enter the parlor. I had suffered enough +already; I made my inquiries, standing on the doorstep. They were +soon at an end. The woman was a stranger in our part of Suffolk; +neither she nor her husband had ever heard of Dermody's name. + +I pursued my investigations among the peasantry, passing from +cottage to cottage. The twilight came; the moon rose; the lights +began to vanish from the lattice-windows; and still I continued +my weary pilgrimage; and still, go where I might, the answer to +my questions was the same. Nobody knew anything of Dermody. +Everybody asked if I had not brought news of him myself. It pains +me even now to recall the cruelly complete defeat of every effort +which I made on that disastrous evening. I passed the night in +one of the cottages; and I returned to London the next day, +broken by disappointment, careless what I did, or where I went +next. + +Still, we were not wholly parted. I saw Mary--as Dame Dermody +said I should see her--in dreams. + +Sometimes she came to me with the green flag in her hand, and +repeated her farewell words--"Don't forget Mary!" Sometimes she +led me to our well-remembered corner in the cottage parlor, and +opened the paper on which her grandmother had written our prayers +for us. We prayed together again, and sung hymns together again, +as if the old times had come back. Once she appeared to me, with +tears in her eyes, and said, "We must wait, dear: our time has +not come yet." Twice I saw her looking at me, like one disturbed +by anxious thoughts; and twice I heard her say, "Live patiently, +live innocently, George, for my sake." + +We settled in London, where my education was undertaken by a +private tutor. Before we had been long in our new abode, an +unexpected change in our prospects took place. To my mother's +astonishment she received an offer of marriage (addressed to her +in a letter) from Mr. Germaine. + +"I entreat you not to be startled by my proposal!" (the old +gentleman wrote). "You can hardly have forgotten that I was once +fond of you, in the days when we were both young and both poor. +No return to the feelings associated with that time is possible +now. At my age, all I ask of you is to be the companion of the +closing years of my life, and to give me something of a father's +interest in promoting the future welfare of your son. Consider +this, my dear, and tell me whether you will take the empty chair +at an old man's lonely fireside." + +My mother (looking almost as confused, poor soul! as if she had +become a young girl again) left the whole responsibility of +decision on the shoulders of her son! I was not long in making up +my mind. If she said Yes, she would accept the hand of a man of +worth and honor, who had been throughout his whole life devoted +to her; and she would recover the comfort, the luxury, the social +prosperity and position of which my father's reckless course of +life had deprived her. Add to this, that I liked Mr. Germaine, +and that Mr. Germaine liked me. Under these circumstances, why +should my mother say No? She could produce no satisfactory answer +to that question when I put it. As the necessary consequence, she +became, in due course of time, Mrs. Germaine. + +I have only to add that, to the end of her life, my good mother +congratulated he rself (in this case at least) on having taken +her son's advice. + +The years went on, and still Mary and I were parted, except in my +dreams. The years went on, until the perilous time which comes in +every man's life came in mine. I reached the age when the +strongest of all the passions seizes on the senses, and asserts +its mastery over mind and body alike. + +I had hitherto passively endured the wreck of my earliest and +dearest hopes: I had lived patiently, and lived innocently, for +Mary's sake. Now my patience left me; my innocence was numbered +among the lost things of the past. My days, it is true, were +still devoted to the tasks set me by my tutor; but my nights were +given, in secret, to a reckless profligacy, which (in my present +frame of mind) I look back on with disgust and dismay. I profaned +my remembrances of Mary in the company of women who had reached +the lowest depths of degradation. I impiously said to myself: "I +have hoped for her long enough; I have waited for her long +enough. The one thing now to do is to enjoy my youth and to +forget her." + +From the moment when I dropped into this degradation, I might +sometimes think regretfully of Mary--at the morning time, when +penitent thoughts mostly come to us; but I ceased absolutely to +see her in my dreams. We were now, in the completest sense of the +word, parted. Mary's pure spirit could hold no communion with +mine; Mary's pure spirit had left me. + +It is needless to say that I failed to keep the secret of my +depravity from the knowledge of my mother. The sight of her grief +was the first influence that sobered me. In some degree at least +I restrained myself: I made the effort to return to purer ways of +life. Mr. Germaine, though I had disappointed him, was too just a +man to give me up as lost. He advised me, as a means of +self-reform, to make my choice of a profession, and to absorb +myself in closer studies than any that I had yet pursued. + +I made my peace with this good friend and second father, not only +by following his advice, but by adopting the profession to which +he had been himself attached before he inherited his fortune--the +profession of medicine. Mr. Germaine had been a surgeon: I +resolved on being a surgeon too. + +Having entered, at rather an earlier age than usual, on my new +way of life, I may at least say for myself that I worked hard. I +won, and kept, the interest of the professors under whom I +studied. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that my +reformation was, morally speaking, far from being complete. I +worked; but what I did was done selfishly, bitterly, with a hard +heart. In religion and morals I adopted the views of a +materialist companion of my studies--a worn-out man of more than +double my age. I believed in nothing but what I could see, or +taste, or feel. I lost all faith in humanity. With the one +exception of my mother, I had no respect for women. My +remembrances of Mary deteriorated until they became little more +than a lost link of association with the past. I still preserved +the green flag as a matter of habit; but it was no longer kept +about me; it was left undisturbed in a drawer of my writing-desk. +Now and then a wholesome doubt, whether my life was not utterly +unworthy of me, would rise in my mind. But it held no long +possession of my thoughts. Despising others, it was in the +logical order of things that I should follow my conclusions to +their bitter end, and consistently despise myself. + +The term of my majority arrived. I was twenty-one years old; and +of the illusions of my youth not a vestige remained. + +Neither my mother nor Mr. Germaine could make any positive +complaint of my conduct. But they were both thoroughly uneasy +about me. After anxious consideration, my step-father arrived at +a conclusion. He decided that the one chance of restoring me to +my better and brighter self was to try the stimulant of a life +among new people and new scenes. + +At the period of which I am now writing, the home government had +decided on sending a special diplomatic mission to one of the +native princes ruling over a remote province of our Indian +empire. In the disturbed state of the province at that time, the +mission, on its arrival in India, was to be accompanied to the +prince's court by an escort, including the military as well as +the civil servants of the crown. The surgeon appointed to sail +with the expedition from England was an old friend of Mr. +Germaine's, and was in want of an assistant on whose capacity he +could rely. Through my stepfather's interest, the post was +offered to me. I accepted it without hesitation. My only pride +left was the miserable pride of indifference. So long as I +pursued my profession, the place in which I pursued it was a +matter of no importance to my mind. + +It was long before we could persuade my mother even to +contemplate the new prospect now set before me. When she did at +length give way, she yielded most unwillingly. I confess I left +her with the tears in my eyes--the first I had shed for many a +long year past. + +The history of our expedition is part of the history of British +India. It has no place in this narrative. + +Speaking personally, I have to record that I was rendered +incapable of performing my professional duties in less than a +week from the time when the mission reached its destination. We +were encamped outside the city; and an attack was made on us, +under cover of darkness, by the fanatical natives. The attempt +was defeated with little difficulty, and with only a trifling +loss on our side. I was among the wounded, having been struck by +a javelin, or spear, while I was passing from one tent to +another. + +Inflicted by a European weapon, my injury would have been of no +serious consequence. But the tip of the Indian spear had been +poisoned. I escaped the mortal danger of lockjaw; but, through +some peculiarity in the action of the poison on my constitution +(which I am quite unable to explain), the wound obstinately +refused to heal. + +I was invalided and sent to Calcutta, where the best surgical +help was at my disposal. To all appearance, the wound healed +there--then broke out again. Twice this happened; and the medical +men agreed that the best course to take would be to send me home. +They calculated on the invigorating effect of the sea voyage, +and, failing this, on the salutary influence of my native air. In +the Indian climate I was pronounced incurable. + +Two days before the ship sailed a letter from my mother brought +me startling news. My life to come--if I _had_ a life to +come--had been turned into a new channel. Mr. Germaine had died +suddenly, of heart-disease. His will, bearing date at the time +when I left England, bequeathed an income for life to my mother, +and left the bulk of his property to me, on the one condition +that I adopted his name. I accepted the condition, of course, and +became George Germaine. + +Three months later, my mother and I were restored to each other. + +Except that I still had some trouble with my wound, behold me now +to all appearance one of the most enviable of existing mortals; +promoted to the position of a wealthy gentleman; possessor of a +house in London and of a country-seat in Perthshire; and, +nevertheless, at twenty-three years of age, one of the most +miserable men living! + + +And Mary? + +In the ten years that had now passed over, what had become of +Mary? + +You have heard my story. Read the few pages that follow, and you +will hear hers. + +CHAPTER VI. + +HER STORY. + +WHAT I have now to tell you of Mary is derived from information +obtained at a date in my life later by many years than any date +of which I have written yet. Be pleased to remember this. + + +Dermody, the bailiff, possessed relatives in London, of whom he +occasionally spoke, and relatives in Scotland, whom he never +mentioned. My father had a strong prejudice against the Scotch +nation. Dermody knew his master well enough to be aware that the +prejudice might extend to _him_, if he spoke of his Scotch +kindred. He was a discreet man, and he never mentioned them. + +On leaving my father's service, he had made his way, partly by +land and partly by sea, to Glasgow--in which city his friends +resided. With his character and his experience, Dermody was a man +in a + thousand to any master who was lucky enough to discover him. His +friends bestirred themselves. In six weeks' time he was placed in +charge of a gentleman's estate on the eastern coast of Scotland, +and was comfortably established with his mother and his daughter +in a new home. + +The insulting language which my father had addressed to him had +sunk deep in Dermody's mind. He wrote privately to his relatives +in London, telling them that he had found a new situation which +suited him, and that he had his reasons for not at present +mentioning his address. In this way he baffled the inquiries +which my mother's lawyers (failing to discover a trace of him in +other directions) addressed to his London friends. Stung by his +old master's reproaches, he sacrificed his daughter and he +sacrificed me--partly to his own sense of self-respect, partly to +his conviction that the difference between us in rank made it his +duty to check all further intercourse before it was too late. + +Buried in their retirement in a remote part of Scotland, the +little household lived, lost to me, and lost to the world. + +In dreams, I had seen and heard Mary. In dreams, Mary saw and +heard me. The innocent longings and wishes which filled my heart +while I was still a boy were revealed to her in the mystery of +sleep. Her grandmother, holding firmly to her faith in the +predestined union between us, sustained the girl's courage and +cheered her heart. She could hear her father say (as my father +had said) that we were parted to meet no more, and could +privately think of her happy dreams as the sufficient promise of +another future than the future which Dermody contemplated. So she +still lived with me in the spirit--and lived in hope. + +The first affliction that befell the little household was the +death of the grandmother, by the exhaustion of extreme old age. +In her last conscious moments, she said to Mary, "Never forget +that you and George are spirits consecrated to each other. +Wait--in the certain knowledge that no human power can hinder +your union in the time to come." + +While those words were still vividly present to Mary's mind, our +visionary union by dreams was abruptly broken on her side, as it +had been abruptly broken on mine. In the first days of my +self-degradation, I had ceased to see Mary. Exactly at the same +period Mary ceased to see me. + +The girl's sensitive nature sunk under the shock. She had now no +elder woman to comfort and advise her; she lived alone with her +father, who invariably changed the subject whenever she spoke of +the old times. The secret sorrow that preys on body and mind +alike preyed on _her_. A cold, caught at the inclement season, +turned to fever. For weeks she was in danger of death. When she +recovered, her head had been stripped of its beautiful hair by +the doctor's order. The sacrifice had been necessary to save her +life. It proved to be, in one respect, a cruel sacrifice--her +hair never grew plentifully again. When it did reappear, it had +completely lost its charming mingled hues of deep red and brown; +it was now of one monotonous light-brown color throughout. At +first sight, Mary's Scotch friends hardly knew her again. + +But Nature made amends for what the head had lost by what the +face and the figure gained. + +In a year from the date of her illness, the frail little child of +the old days at Greenwater Broad had ripened, in the bracing +Scotch air and the healthy mode of life, into a comely young +woman. Her features were still, as in her early years, not +regularly beautiful; but the change in her was not the less +marked on that account. The wan face had filled out, and the pale +complexion had found its color. As to her figure, its remarkable +development was perceived even by the rough people about her. +Promising nothing when she was a child, it had now sprung into +womanly fullness, symmetry, and grace. It was a strikingly +beautiful figure, in the strictest sense of the word. + +Morally as well as physically, there were moments, at this period +of their lives, when even her own father hardly recognized his +daughter of former days. She had lost her childish vivacity--her +sweet, equable flow of good humor. Silent and self-absorbed, she +went through the daily routine of her duties enduringly. The hope +of meeting me again had sunk to a dead hope in her by this time. +She made no complaint. The bodily strength that she had gained in +these later days had its sympathetic influence in steadying her +mind. When her father once or twice ventured to ask if she was +still thinking of me, she answered quietly that she had brought +herself to share his opinions. She could not doubt that I had +long since ceased to think of her. Even if I had remained +faithful to her, she was old enough now to know that the +difference between us in rank made our union by marriage an +impossibility. It would be best (she thought) not to refer any +more to the past, best to forget me, as I had forgotten her. So +she spoke now. So, tried by the test of appearances, Dame +Dermody's confident forecast of our destinies had failed to +justify itself, and had taken its place among the predictions +that are never fulfilled. + +The next notable event in the family annals which followed Mary's +illness happened when she had attained the age of nineteen years. +Even at this distance of time my heart sinks, my courage fails +me, at the critical stage in my narrative which I have now +reached. + +A storm of unusual severity burst over the eastern coast of +Scotland. Among the ships that were lost in the tempest was a +vessel bound from Holland, which was wrecked on the rocky shore +near Dermody's place of abode. Leading the way in all good +actions, the bailiff led the way in rescuing the passengers and +crew of the lost ship. He had brought one man alive to land, and +was on his way back to the vessel, when two heavy seas, following +in close succession, dashed him against the rocks. He was +rescued, at the risk of their own lives, by his neighbors. The +medical examination disclosed a broken bone and severe bruises +and lacerations. So far, Dermody's sufferings were easy of +relief. But, after a lapse of time, symptoms appeared in the +patient which revealed to his medical attendant the presence of +serious internal injury. In the doctor's opinion, he could never +hope to resume the active habits of his life. He would be an +invalid and a crippled man for the rest of his days. + +Under these melancholy circumstances, the bailiff's employer did +all that could be strictly expected of him, He hired an assistant +to undertake the supervision of the farm work, and he permitted +Dermody to occupy his cottage for the next three months. This +concession gave the poor man time to recover such relics of +strength as were still left to him, and to consult his friends in +Glasgow on the doubtful question of his life to come. + +The prospect was a serious one. Dermody was quite unfit for any +sedentary employment; and the little money that he had saved was +not enough to support his daughter and himself. The Scotch +friends were willing and kind; but they had domestic claims on +them, and they had no money to spare. + +In this emergency, the passenger in the wrecked vessel (whose +life Dermody had saved) came forward with a proposal which took +father and daughter alike by surprise. He made Mary an offer of +marriage; on the express understanding (if she accepted him) that +her home was to be her father's home also to the end of his life. + +The person who thus associated himself with the Dermodys in the +time of their trouble was a Dutch gentleman, named Ernest Van +Brandt. He possessed a share in a fishing establishment on the +shores of the Zuyder Zee; and he was on his way to establish a +correspondence with the fisheries in the North of Scotland when +the vessel was wrecked. Mary had produced a strong impression on +him when they first met. He had lingered in the neighborhood, in +the hope of gaining her favorable regard, with time to help him. +Personally he was a handsome man, in the prime of life; and he +was possessed of a sufficient income to marry on. In making his +proposal, he produced references to persons of high social +position in Holland, who could answer for hi m, so far as the +questions of character and position were concerned. + +Mary was long in considering which course it would be best for +her helpless father, and best for herself, to adopt. + +The hope of a marriage with me had been a hope abandoned by her +years since. No woman looks forward willingly to a life of +cheerless celibacy. In thinking of her future, Mary naturally +thought of herself in the character of a wife. Could she fairly +expect in the time to come to receive any more attractive +proposal than the proposal now addressed to her? Mr. Van Brandt +had every personal advantage that a woman could desire; he was +devotedly in love with her; and he felt a grateful affection for +her father as the man to whom he owed his life. With no other +hope in her heart--with no other prospect in view--what could she +do better than marry Mr. Van Brandt? + +Influenced by these considerations, she decided on speaking the +fatal word. She said, "Yes." + +At the same time, she spoke plainly to Mr. Van Brandt, +unreservedly acknowledging that she had contemplated another +future than the future now set before her. She did not conceal +that there had once been an old love in her heart, and that a new +love was more than she could command. Esteem, gratitude, and +regard she could honestly offer; and, with time, love might come. +For the rest, she had long since disassociated herself from the +past, and had definitely given up all the hopes and wishes once +connected with it. Repose for her father, and tranquil happiness +for herself, were the only favors that she asked of fortune now. +These she might find under the roof of an honorable man who loved +and respected her. She could promise, on her side, to make him a +good and faithful wife, if she could promise no more. It rested +with Mr. Van Brandt to say whether he really believed that he +would be consulting his own happiness in marrying her on these +terms. + +Mr. Van Brandt accepted the terms without a moment's hesitation. + +They would have been married immediately but for an alarming +change for the worse in the condition of Dermody's health. +Symptoms showed themselves, which the doctor confessed that he +had not anticipated when he had given his opinion on the case. He +warned Mary that the end might be near. A physician was summoned +from Edinburgh, at Mr. Van Brandt's expense. He confirmed the +opinion entertained by the country doctor. For some days longer +the good bailiff lingered. On the last morning, he put his +daughter's hand in Van Brandt's hand. "Make her happy, sir," he +said, in his simple way, "and you will be even with me for saving +your life." The same day he died quietly in his daughter's arms. + +Mary's future was now entirely in her lover's hands. The +relatives in Glasgow had daughters of their own to provide for. +The relatives in London resented Dermody's neglect of them. Van +Brandt waited, delicately and considerately, until the first +violence of the girl's grief had worn itself out, and then he +pleaded irresistibly for a husband's claim to console her. + +The time at which they were married in Scotland was also the time +at which I was on my way home from India. Mary had then reached +the age of twenty years. + + +The story of our ten years' separation is now told; the narrative +leaves us at the outset of our new lives. + +I am with my mother, beginning my career as a country gentleman +on the estate in Perthshire which I have inherited from Mr. +Germaine. Mary is with her husband, enjoying her new privileges, +learning her new duties, as a wife. She, too, is living in +Scotland--living, by a strange fatality, not very far distant +from my country-house. I have no suspicion that she is so near to +me: the name of Mrs. Van Brandt (even if I had heard it) appeals +to no familiar association in my mind. Still the kindred spirits +are parted. Still there is no idea on her side, and no idea on +mine, that we shall ever meet again. + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE. + +MY mother looked in at the library door, and disturbed me over my +books. + +"I have been hanging a little picture in my room," she said. +"Come upstairs, my dear, and give me your opinion of it." + +I rose and followed her. She pointed to a miniature portrait, +hanging above the mantelpiece. + +"Do you know whose likeness that is?" she asked, half sadly, half +playfully. "George! Do you really not recognize yourself at +thirteen years old?" + +How should I recognize myself? Worn by sickness and sorrow; +browned by the sun on my long homeward voyage; my hair already +growing thin over my forehead; my eyes already habituated to +their one sad and weary look; what had I in common with the fair, +plump, curly-headed, bright-eyed boy who confronted me in the +miniature? The mere sight of the portrait produced the most +extraordinary effect on my mind. It struck me with an +overwhelming melancholy; it filled me with a despair of myself +too dreadful to be endured. Making the best excuse I could to my +mother, I left the room. In another minute I was out of the +house. + +I crossed the park, and left my own possessions behind me. +Following a by-road, I came to our well-known river; so beautiful +in itself, so famous among trout-fishers throughout Scotland. It +was not then the fishing season. No human being was in sight as I +took my seat on the bank. The old stone bridge which spanned the +stream was within a hundred yards of me; the setting sun still +tinged the swift-flowing water under the arches with its red and +dying light. + +Still the boy's face in the miniature pursued me. Still the +portrait seemed to reproach me in a merciless language of its +own: "Look at what you were once; think of what you are now!" + +I hid my face in the soft, fragrant grass. I thought of the +wasted years of my life between thirteen and twenty-three. + +How was it to end? If I lived to the ordinary life of man, what +prospect had I before me? + +Love? Marriage? I burst out laughing as the idea crossed my mind. +Since the innocently happy days of my boyhood I had known no more +of love than the insect that now crept over my hand as it lay on +the grass. My money, to be sure, would buy me a wife; but would +my money make her dear to me? dear as Mary had once been, in the +golden time when my portrait was first painted? + +Mary! Was she still living? Was she married? Should I know her +again if I saw her? Absurd! I had not seen her since she was ten +years old: she was now a woman, as I was a man. Would she know +_me_ if we met? The portrait, still pursuing me, answered the +question: "Look at what you were once; think of what you are +now!" + +I rose and walked backward and forward, and tried to turn the +current of my thoughts in some new direction. + +It was not to be done. After a banishment of years, Mary had got +back again into my mind. I sat down once more on the river bank. +The sun was sinking fast. Black shadows hovered under the arches +of the old stone bridge. The red light had faded from the +swift-flowing water, and had left it overspread with one +monotonous hue of steely gray. The first stars looked down +peacefully from the cloudless sky. The first shiverings of the +night breeze were audible among the trees, and visible here and +there in the shallow places of the stream. And still, the darker +it grew, the more persistently my portrait led me back to the +past, the more vividly the long-lost image of the child Mary +showed itself to me in my thoughts. + +Was this the prelude of her coming back to me in dreams; in her +perfected womanhood, in the young prime of her life? + +It might be so. + +I was no longer unworthy of her, as I had once been. The effect +produced on me by the sight of my portrait was in itself due to +moral and mental changes in me for the better, which had been +steadily proceeding since the time when my wound had laid me +helpless among strangers in a strange land. Sickness, which has +made itself teacher and friend to many a man, had made itself +teacher and friend to me. I looked back with horror at the vices +of my youth; at the fruitless after-days when I had impiously +doubted all that is most noble, all that is most consoling in +human life. Consecrated by sorrow, purified by repentance, was it +vain in me to hope that her spirit a nd my spirit might yet be +united again? Who could tell? + +I rose once more. It could serve no good purpose to linger until +night by the banks of the river. I had left the house, feeling +the impulse which drives us, in certain excited conditions of the +mind, to take refuge in movement and change. The remedy had +failed; my mind was as strangely disturbed as ever. My wisest +course would be to go home, and keep my good mother company over +her favorite game of piquet. + +I turned to take the road back, and stopped, struck by the +tranquil beauty of the last faint light in the western sky, +shining behind the black line formed by the parapet of the +bridge. + +In the grand gathering of the night shadows, in the deep +stillness of the dying day, I stood alone and watched the sinking +light. + +As I looked, there came a change over the scene. Suddenly and +softly a living figure glided into view on the bridge. It passed +behind the black line of the parapet, in the last long rays of +the western light. It crossed the bridge. It paused, and crossed +back again half-way. Then it stopped. The minutes passed, and +there the figure stood, a motionless black object, behind the +black parapet of the bridge. + +I advanced a little, moving near enough to obtain a closer view +of the dress in which the figure was attired. The dress showed me +that the solitary stranger was a woman. + +She did not notice me in the shadow which the trees cast on the +bank. She stood with her arms folded in her cloak, looking down +at the darkening river. + +Why was she waiting there at the close of evening alone? + +As the question occurred to me, I saw her head move. She looked +along the bridge, first on one side of her, then on the other. +Was she waiting for some person who was to meet her? Or was she +suspicious of observation, and anxious to make sure that she was +alone? + +A sudden doubt of her purpose in seeking that solitary place, a +sudden distrust of the lonely bridge and the swift-flowing river, +set my heart beating quickly and roused me to instant action. I +hurried up the rising ground which led from the river-bank to the +bridge, determined on speaking to her while the opportunity was +still mine. + +She neither saw nor heard me until I was close to her. I +approached with an irrepressible feeling of agitation; not +knowing how she might receive me when I spoke to her. The moment +she turned and faced me, my composure came back. It was as if, +expecting to see a stranger, I had unexpectedly encountered a +friend. + +And yet she _was_ a stranger. I had never before looked on that +grave and noble face, on that grand figure whose exquisite grace +and symmetry even her long cloak could not wholly hide. She was +not, perhaps, a strictly beautiful woman. There were defects in +her which were sufficiently marked to show themselves in the +fading light. Her hair, for example, seen under the large garden +hat that she wore, looked almost as short as the hair of a man; +and the color of it was of that dull, lusterless brown hue which +is so commonly seen in English women of the ordinary type. Still, +in spite of these drawbacks, there was a latent charm in her +expression, there was an inbred fascination in her manner, which +instantly found its way to my sympathies and its hold on my +admiration. She won me in the moment when I first looked at her. + +"May I inquire if you have lost your way?" I asked. + +Her eyes rested on my face with a strange look of inquiry in +them. She did not appear to be surprised or confused at my +venturing to address her. + +"I know this part of the country well," I went on. "Can I be of +any use to you?" + +She still looked at me with steady, inquiring eyes. For a moment, +stranger as I was, my face seemed to trouble her as if it had +been a face that she had seen and forgotten again. If she really +had this idea, she at once dismissed it with a little toss of her +head, and looked away at the river as if she felt no further +interest in me. + +"Thank you. I have not lost my way. I am accustomed to walking +alone. Good-evening." + +She spoke coldly, but courteously. Her voice was delicious; her +bow, as she left me, was the perfection of unaffected grace. She +left the bridge on the side by which I had first seen her +approach it, and walked slowly away along the darkening track of +the highroad. + +Still I was not quite satisfied. There was something underlying +the charming expression and the fascinating manner which my +instinct felt to be something wrong. As I walked away toward the +opposite end of the bridge, the doubt began to grow on me whether +she had spoken the truth. In leaving the neighborhood of the +river, was she simply trying to get rid of me? + +I at once resolved to put this suspicion of her to the test. +Leaving the bridge, I had only to cross the road beyond, and to +enter a plantation on the bank of the river. Here, concealed +behind the first tree which was large enough to hide me, I could +command a view of the bridge, and I could fairly count on +detecting her, if she returned to the river, while there was a +ray of light to see her by. It was not easy walking in the +obscurity of the plantation: I had almost to grope my way to the +nearest tree that suited my purpose. + +I had just steadied my foothold on the uneven ground behind the +tree, when the stillness of the twilight hour was suddenly broken +by the distant sound of a voice. + +The voice was a woman's. It was not raised to any high pitch; its +accent was the accent of prayer, and the words it uttered were +these: + +"Christ, have mercy on me!" + +There was silence again. A nameless fear crept over me, as I +looked out on the bridge. + +She was standing on the parapet. Before I could move, before I +could cry out, before I could even breathe again freely, she +leaped into the river. + +The current ran my way. I could see her, as she rose to the +surface, floating by in the light on the mid-stream. I ran +headlong down the bank. She sank again, in the moment when I +stopped to throw aside my hat and coat and to kick off my shoes. +I was a practiced swimmer. The instant I was in the water my +composure came back to me--I felt like myself again. + +The current swept me out into the mid-stream, and greatly +increased the speed at which I swam. I was close behind her when +she rose for the second time--a shadowy thing, just visible a few +inches below the surface of the river. One more stroke, and my +left arm was round her; I had her face out of the water. She was +insensible. I could hold her in the right way to leave me master +of all my movements; I could devote myself, without flurry or +fatigue, to the exertion of taking her back to the shore. + +My first attempt satisfied me that there was no reasonable hope, +burdened as I now was, of breasting the strong current running +toward the mid-river from either bank. I tried it on one side, +and I tried it on the other, and gave it up. The one choice left +was to let myself drift with her down the stream. Some fifty +yards lower, the river took a turn round a promontory of land, on +which stood a little inn much frequented by anglers in the +season. As we approached the place, I made another attempt (again +an attempt in vain) to reach the shore. Our last chance now was +to be heard by the people of the inn. I shouted at the full pitch +of my voice as we drifted past. The cry was answered. A man put +off in a boat. In five minutes more I had her safe on the bank +again; and the man and I were carrying her to the inn by the +river-side. + +The landlady and her servant-girl were equally willing to be of +service, and equally ignorant of what they were to do. +Fortunately, my medical education made me competent to direct +them. A good fire, warm blankets, hot water in bottles, were all +at my disposal. I showed the women myself how to ply the work of +revival. They persevered, and I persevered; and still there she +lay, in her perfect beauty of form, without a sign of life +perceptible; there she lay, to all outward appearance, dead by +drowning. + +A last hope was left--the hope of restoring her (if I could +construct the apparatus in time) by the process called +"artificial respiration." I was just endeavoring to tell the +landlady what I wanted and was just conscious o f a strange +difficulty in expressing myself, when the good woman started +back, and looked at me with a scream of terror. + +"Good God, sir, you're bleeding!" she cried. "What's the matter? +Where are you hurt?" + +In the moment when she spoke to me I knew what had happened. The +old Indian wound (irritated, doubtless, by the violent exertion +that I had imposed on myself) had opened again. I struggled +against the sudden sense of faintness that seized on me; I tried +to tell the people of the inn what to do. It was useless. I +dropped to my knees; my head sunk on the bosom of the woman +stretched senseless upon the low couch beneath me. The +death-in-life that had got _her_ had got _me_. Lost to the world +about us, we lay, with my blood flowing on her, united in our +deathly trance. + +Where were our spirits at that moment? Were they together and +conscious of each other? United by a spiritual bond, undiscovered +and unsuspected by us in the flesh, did we two, who had met as +strangers on the fatal bridge, know each other again in the +trance? You who have loved and lost--you whose one consolation it +has been to believe in other worlds than this--can you turn from +my questions in contempt? Can you honestly say that they have +never been _your_ questions too? + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE KINDRED SPIRITS + +THE morning sunlight shining in at a badly curtained window; a +clumsy wooden bed, with big twisted posts that reached to the +ceiling; on one side of the bed, my mother's welcome face; on the +other side, an elderly gentleman unremembered by me at that +moment--such were the objects that presented themselves to my +view, when I first consciously returned to the world that we live +in. + +"Look, doctor, look! He has come to his senses at last." + +"Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this." My mother was +rejoicing over me on one side of the bed; and the unknown +gentleman, addressed as "doctor," was offering me a spoonful of +whisky-and-water on the other. He called it the "elixir of life"; +and he bid me remark (speaking in a strong Scotch accent) that he +tasted it himself to show he was in earnest. + +The stimulant did its good work. My head felt less giddy, my mind +became clearer. I could speak collectedly to my mother; I could +vaguely recall the more marked events of the previous evening. A +minute or two more, and the image of the person in whom those +events had all centered became a living image in my memory. I +tried to raise myself in the bed; I asked, impatiently, "Where is +she?" + +The doctor produced another spoonful of the elixir of life, and +gravely repeated his first address to me. + +"Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this." + +I persisted in repeating my question: + +"Where is she?" + +The doctor persisted in repeating his formula: + +"Take a sup of this." + +I was too weak to contest the matter; I obeyed. My medical +attendant nodded across the bed to my mother, and said, "Now, +he'll do." My mother had some compassion on me. She relieved my +anxiety in these plain words: + +"The lady has quite recovered, George, thanks to the doctor +here." + +I looked at my professional colleague with a new interest. He was +the legitimate fountainhead of the information that I was dying +to have poured into my mind. + +"How did you revive her?" I asked. "Where is she now?" + +The doctor held up his hand, warning me to stop. + +"We shall do well, sir, if we proceed systematically," he began, +in a very positive manner. "You will understand, that every time +you open your mouth, it will be to take a sup of this, and not to +speak. I shall tell you, in due course, and the good lady, your +mother, will tell you, all that you have any need to know. As I +happen to have been first on what you may call the scene of +action, it stands in the fit order of things that I should speak +first. You will just permit me to mix a little more of the elixir +of life, and then, as the poet says, my plain unvarnished tale I +shall deliver." + +So he spoke, pronouncing in his strong Scotch accent the most +carefully selected English I had ever heard. A hard-headed, +square-shouldered, pertinaciously self-willed man--it was plainly +useless to contend with him. I turned to my mother's gentle face +for encouragement; and I let my doctor have his own way. + +"My name," he proceeded, "is MacGlue. I had the honor of +presenting my respects at your house yonder when you first came +to live in this neighborhood. You don't remember me at present, +which is natural enough in the unbalanced condition of your mind, +consequent, you will understand (as a professional person +yourself) on copious loss of blood." + +There my patience gave way. + +"Never mind me!" I interposed. "Tell me about the lady!" + +"You have opened your mouth, sir!" cried Mr. MacGlue, severely. +"You know the penalty--take a sup of this. I told you we should +proceed systematically," he went on, after he had forced me to +submit to the penalty. "Everything in its place, Mr. +Germaine--everything in its place. I was speaking of your bodily +condition. Well, sir, and how did I discover your bodily +condition? Providentially for _you_ I was driving home yesterday +evening by the lower road (which is the road by the river bank), +and, drawing near to the inn here (they call it a hotel; it's +nothing but an inn), I heard the screeching of the landlady half +a mile off. A good woman enough, you will understand, as times +go; but a poor creature in any emergency. Keep still, I'm coming +to it now. Well, I went in to see if the screeching related to +anything wanted in the medical way; and there I found you and the +stranger lady in a position which I may truthfully describe as +standing in some need of improvement on the score of propriety. +Tut! tut! I speak jocosely--you were both in a dead swoon. Having +heard what the landlady had to tell me, and having, to the best +of my ability, separated history from hysterics in the course of +the woman's narrative, I found myself, as it were, placed between +two laws. The law of gallantry, you see, pointed to the lady as +the first object of my professional services, while the law of +humanity (seeing that you were still bleeding) pointed no less +imperatively to you. I am no longer a young man: I left the lady +to wait. My word! it was no light matter, Mr. Germaine, to deal +with your case, and get you carried up here out of the way. That +old wound of yours, sir, is not to be trifled with. I bid you +beware how you open it again. The next time you go out for an +evening walk and you see a lady in the water, you will do well +for your own health to leave her there. What's that I see? Are +you opening your mouth again? Do you want another sup already?" + +"He wants to hear more about the lady," said my mother, +interpreting my wishes for me. + +"Oh, the lady," resumed Mr. MacGlue, with the air of a man who +found no great attraction in the subject proposed to him. +"There's not much that I know of to be said about the lady. A +fine woman, no doubt. If you could strip the flesh off her bones, +you would find a splendid skeleton underneath. For, mind this! +there's no such thing as a finely made woman without a good bony +scaffolding to build her on at starting. I don't think much of +this lady--morally speaking, you will understand. If I may be +permitted to say so in your presence, ma'am, there's a man in the +background of that dramatic scene of hers on the bridge. However, +not being the man myself, I have nothing to do with that. My +business with the lady was just to set her vital machinery going +again. And, Heaven knows, she proved a heavy handful! It was even +a more obstinate case to deal with, sir, than yours. I never, in +all my experience, met with two people more unwilling to come +back to this world and its troubles than you two were. And when I +had done the business at last, when I was wellnigh swooning +myself with the work and the worry of it, guess--I give you leave +to speak for this once--guess what were the first words the, lady +said to me when she came to herself again." + +I was too much excited to be able to exercise my ingenuity. "I +give it up!" I said, impatiently. + +"You may well give it up," remarked Mr. MacGlue. "The first words +she addressed, sir, to the man who had dragged her + out of the very jaws of death were these: 'How dare you meddle +with me? why didn't you leave me to die?' Her exact +language--I'll take my Bible oath of it. I was so provoked that I +gave her the change back (as the saying is) in her own coin. +'There's the river handy, ma'am,' I said; 'do it again. I, for +one, won't stir a hand to save you; I promise you that.' She +looked up sharply. 'Are you the man who took me out of the +river?' she said. 'God forbid!' says I. 'I'm only the doctor who +was fool enough to meddle with you afterward.' She turned to the +landlady. 'Who took me out of the river?' she asked. The landlady +told her, and mentioned your name. 'Germaine?' she said to +herself; 'I know nobody named Germaine; I wonder whether it was +the man who spoke to me on the bridge?' 'Yes,' says the landlady; +'Mr. Germaine said he met you on the bridge.' Hearing that, she +took a little time to think; and then she asked if she could see +Mr. Germaine. 'Whoever he is,' she says, 'he has risked his life +to save me, and I ought to thank him for doing that.' 'You can't +thank him tonight,' I said; 'I've got him upstairs between life +and death, and I've sent for his mother: wait till to-morrow.' +She turned on me, looking half frightened, half angry. 'I can't +wait,' she says; 'you don't know what you have done among you in +bringing me back to life. I must leave this neighborhood; I must +be out of Perthshire to-morrow: when does the first coach +southward pass this way?' Having nothing to do with the first +coach southward, I referred her to the people of the inn. My +business (now I had done with the lady) was upstairs in this +room, to see how you were getting on. You were getting on as well +as I could wish, and your mother was at your bedside. I went home +to see what sick people might be waiting for me in the regular +way. When I came back this morning, there was the foolish +landlady with a new tale to tell 'Gone!' says she. 'Who's gone?' +says I. 'The lady,' says she, 'by the first coach this morning!' +" + +"You don't mean to tell me that she has left the house?" I +exclaimed. + +"Oh, but I do!" said the doctor, as positively as ever. "Ask +madam your mother here, and she'll certify it to your heart's +content. I've got other sick ones to visit, and I'm away on my +rounds. You'll see no more of the lady; and so much the better, +I'm thinking. In two hours' time I'll be back again; and if I +don't find you the worse in the interim, I'll see about having +you transported from this strange place to the snug bed that +knows you at home. Don't let him talk, ma'am, don't let him +talk." + +With those parting words, Mr. MacGlue left us to ourselves. + +"Is it really true?" I said to my mother. "Has she left the inn, +without waiting to see me?" + +"Nobody could stop her, George," my mother answered. "The lady +left the inn this morning by the coach for Edinburgh." + +I was bitterly disappointed. Yes: "bitterly" is the word--though +she _was_ a stranger to me. + +"Did you see her yourself?" I asked. + +"I saw her for a few minutes, my dear, on my way up to your +room." + +"What did she say?" + +"She begged me to make her excuses to you. She said, 'Tell Mr. +Germaine that my situation is dreadful; no human creature can +help me. I must go away. My old life is as much at an end as if +your son had left me to drown in the river. I must find a new +life for myself, in a new place. Ask Mr. Germaine to forgive me +for going away without thanking him. I daren't wait! I may be +followed and found out. There is a person whom I am determined +never to see again--never! never! never! Good-by; and try to +forgive me!' She hid her face in her hands, and said no more. I +tried to win her confidence; it was not to be done; I was +compelled to leave her. There is some dreadful calamity, George, +in that wretched woman's life. And such an interesting creature, +too! It was impossible not to pity her, whether she deserved it +or not. Everything about her is a mystery, my dear. She speaks +English without the slightest foreign accent, and yet she has a +foreign name." + +"Did she give you her name?" + +"No, and I was afraid to ask her to give it. But the landlady +here is not a very scrupulous person. She told me she looked at +the poor creature's linen while it was drying by the fire. The +name marked on it was, 'Van Brandt.' " + +"Van Brandt?" I repeated. "That sounds like a Dutch name. And yet +you say she spoke like an Englishwoman. Perhaps she was born in +England." + +"Or perhaps she may be married," suggested my mother; "and Van +Brandt may be the name of her husband." + +The idea of her being a married woman had something in it +repellent to me. I wished my mother had not thought of that last +suggestion. I refused to receive it. I persisted in my own belief +that the stranger was a single woman. In that character, I could +indulge myself in the luxury of thinking of her; I could consider +the chances of my being able to trace this charming fugitive, who +had taken so strong a hold on my interest--whose desperate +attempt at suicide had so nearly cost me my own life. + +If she had gone as far as Edinburgh (which she would surely do, +being bent on avoiding discovery), the prospect of finding her +again--in that great city. and in my present weak state of +health--looked doubtful indeed. Still, there was an underlying +hopefulness in me which kept my spirits from being seriously +depressed. I felt a purely imaginary (perhaps I ought to say, a +purely superstitious) conviction that we who had nearly died +together, we who had been brought to life together, were surely +destined to be involved in some future joys or sorrows common to +us both. "I fancy I shall see her again," was my last thought +before my weakness overpowered me, and I sunk into a peaceful +sleep. + +That night I was removed from the inn to my own room at home; and +that night I saw her again in a dream. + +The image of her was as vividly impressed on me as the far +different image of the child Mary, when I used to see it in the +days of old. The dream-figure of the woman was robed as I had +seen it robed on the bridge. She wore the same broad-brimmed +garden-hat of straw. She looked at me as she had looked when I +approached her in the dim evening light. After a little her face +brightened with a divinely beautiful smile; and she whispered in +my ear, "Friend, do you know me?" + +I knew her, most assuredly; and yet it was with an +incomprehensible after-feeling of doubt. Recognizing her in my +dream as the stranger who had so warmly interested me, I was, +nevertheless, dissatisfied with myself, as if it had not been the +right recognition. I awoke with this idea; and I slept no more +that night. + +In three days' time I was strong enough to go out driving with my +mother, in the comfortable, old-fashioned, open carriage which +had once belonged to Mr. Germaine. + +On the fourth day we arranged to make an excursion to a little +waterfall in our neighborhood. My mother had a great admiration +of the place, and had often expressed a wish to possess some +memorial of it. I resolved to take my sketch-book: with me, on +the chance that I might be able to please her by making a drawing +of her favorite scene. + +Searching for the sketch-book (which I had not used for years), I +found it in an old desk of mine that had remained unopened since +my departure for India. In the course of my investigation, I +opened a drawer in the desk, and discovered a relic of the old +times--my poor little Mary's first work in embroidery, the green +flag! + +The sight of the forgotten keepsake took my mind back to the +bailiff's cottage, and reminded me of Dame Dermody, and her +confident prediction about Mary and me. + +I smiled as I recalled the old woman's assertion that no human +power could "hinder the union of the kindred spirits of the +children in the time to come." What had become of the prophesied +dreams in which we were to communicate with each other through +the term of our separation? Years had passed; and, sleeping or +waking, I had seen nothing of Mary. Years had passed; and the +first vision of a woman that had come to me had been my dream a +few nights since of the stranger whom I had saved from drowning. +I thought of these chances and changes in my life, but not +contemptuously or bitterly. The new love that was now stealing +its way into my heart had softened and humanized me. I said to +myself, "Ah, poor little Mary!" and I kissed the green flag, in +grateful memory of the days that were gone forever. + +We drove to the waterfall. + +It was a beautiful day; the lonely sylvan scene was at its +brightest and best. A wooden summer-house, commanding a prospect +of the falling stream, had been built for the accommodation of +pleasure parties by the proprietor of the place. My mother +suggested that I should try to make a sketch of the view from +this point. I did my best to please her, but I was not satisfied +with the result; and I abandoned my drawing before it was half +finished. Leaving my sketch-book and pencil on the table of the +summer-house, I proposed to my mother to cross a little wooden +bridge which spanned the stream, below the fall, and to see how +the landscape looked from a new point of view. + +The prospect of the waterfall, as seen from the opposite bank, +presented even greater difficulties, to an amateur artist like +me, than the prospect which he had just left. We returned to the +summer-house. + +I was the first to approach the open door. I stopped, checked in +my advance by an unexpected discovery. The summer-house was no +longer empty as we had left it. A lady was seated at the table +with my pencil in her hand, writing in my sketch-book! + +After waiting a moment, I advanced a few steps nearer to the +door, and stopped again in breathless amazement. The stranger in +the summer-house was now plainly revealed to me as the woman who +had attempted to destroy herself from the bridge! + +There was no doubt about it. There was the dress; there was the +memorable face which I had seen in the evening light, which I had +dreamed of only a few nights since! The woman herself--I saw her +as plainly as I saw the sun shining on the waterfall--the woman +herself, with my pencil in her hand, writing in my book! + +My mother was close behind me. She noticed my agitation. +"George!" she exclaimed, "what is the matter with you?" + +I pointed through the open door of the summer-house. + +"Well?" said my mother. "What am I to look at?" + +"Don't you see somebody sitting at the table and writing in my +sketch-book?" + +My mother eyed me quickly. "Is he going to be ill again?" I heard +her say to herself. + +At the same moment the woman laid down the pencil and rose slowly +to her feet. + +She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes: she lifted her +hand and beckoned me to approach her. I obeyed. Moving without +conscious will of my own, drawn nearer and nearer to her by an +irresistible power, I ascended the short flight of stairs which +led into the summer-house. Within a few paces of her I stopped. +She advanced a step toward me, and laid her hand gently on my +bosom. Her touch filled me with strangely united sensations of +rapture and awe. After a while, she spoke in low melodious tones, +which mingled in my ear with the distant murmur of the falling +water, until the two sounds became one. I heard in the murmur, I +heard in the voice, these words: "Remember me. Come to me." Her +hand dropped from my bosom; a momentary obscurity passed like a +flying shadow over the bright daylight in the room. I looked for +her when the light came back. She was gone. + +My consciousness of passing events returned. + +I saw the lengthening shadows outside, which told me that the +evening was at hand. I saw the carriage approaching the +summerhouse to take us away. I felt my mother's hand on my arm, +and heard her voice speaking to me anxiously. I was able to reply +by a sign entreating her not to be uneasy about me, but I could +do no more. I was absorbed, body and soul, in the one desire to +look at the sketch-book. As certainly as I had seen the woman, so +certainly I had seen her, with my pencil in her hand, writing in +my book. + +I advanced to the table on which the book was lying open. I +looked at the blank space on the lower part of the page, under +the foreground lines of my unfinished drawing. My mother, +following me, looked at the page too. + +There was the writing! The woman had disappeared, but there were +her written words left behind her: visible to my mother as well +as to me, readable by my mother's eyes as well as by mine! + +These were the words we saw, arranged in two lines, as I copy +them here: + + When the full moon shines + On Saint Anthony's Well. + + +CHAPTER IX. + +NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL. + +I POINTED to the writing in the sketch book, and looked at my +mother. I was not mistaken. She _had_ seen it, as I had seen it. +But she refused to acknowledge that anything had happened to +alarm her--plainly as I could detect it in her face. + +"Somebody has been playing a trick on you, George," she said. + +I made no reply. It was needless to say anything. My poor mother +was evidently as far from being satisfied with her own shallow +explanation as I was. The carriage waited for us at the door. We +set forth in silence on our drive home. + +The sketch-book lay open on my knee. My eyes were fastened on it; +my mind was absorbed in recalling the moment when the apparition +beckoned me into the summer-house and spoke. Putting the words +and the writing together, the conclusion was too plain to be +mistaken. The woman whom I had saved from drowning had need of me +again. + +And this was the same woman who, in her own proper person, had +not hesitated to seize the first opportunity of leaving the house +in which we had been sheltered together--without stopping to say +one grateful word to the man who had preserved her from death! +Four days only had elapsed since she had left me, never (to all +appearance) to see me again. And now the ghostly apparition of +her had returned as to a tried and trusted friend; had commanded +me to remember her and to go to her; and had provided against all +possibility of my memory playing me false, by writing the words +which invited me to meet her "when the full moon shone on Saint +Anthony's Well." + +What had happened in the interval? What did the supernatural +manner of her communication with me mean? What ought my next +course of action to be? + +My mother roused me from my reflections. She stretched out her +hand, and suddenly closed the open book on my knee, as if the +sight of the writing in it were unendurable to her. + +"Why don't you speak to me, George?" she said. "Why do you keep +your thoughts to yourself?" + +"My mind is lost in confusion," I answered. "I can suggest +nothing and explain nothing. My thoughts are all bent on the one +question of what I am to do next. On that point I believe I may +say that my mind is made up." I touched the sketch-book as I +spoke. "Come what may of it," I said, "I mean to keep the +appointment." + +My mother looked at me as if she doubted the evidence of her own +senses. + +"He talks as if it were a real thing!" she exclaimed. "George, +you don't really believe that you saw somebody in the +summer-house? The place was empty. I tell you positively, when +you pointed into the summer-house, the place was empty. You have +been thinking and thinking of this woman till you persuade +yourself that you have actually seen her." + +I opened the sketch-book again. "I thought I saw her writing on +this page," I answered. "Look at it, and tell me if I was wrong." + +My mother refused to look at it. Steadily as she persisted in +taking the rational view, nevertheless the writing frightened +her. + +"It is not a week yet," she went on, "since I saw you lying +between life and death in your bed at the inn. How can you talk +of keeping the appointment, in your state of health? An +appointment with a shadowy Something in your own imagination, +which appears and disappears, and leaves substantial writing +behind it! It's ridiculous, George; I wonder you can help +laughing at yourself." + +She tried to set the example of laughing at me--with the tears in +her eyes, poor soul! as she made the useless effort. I began to +regret having opened my mind so freely to her. + +"Don't take the matter too seriously, mother," I said. "Perhaps I +may not be able to find the place. I never heard of Saint +Anthony's Well; I have not the least idea where it is. Suppose I +make the discovery, and suppose the journey turns out to be an +easy one, would you like to go with me?" + +"God forbid" cried my mother, fervently. "I will have nothing to +do with it, George. You are in a state of delusion; I shall speak +to the doctor." + +"By all means, my dear mother. Mr. MacGlue is a sensible person. +We pass his house on our way home, and we will ask him to dinner. +In the meantime, let us say no more on the subject till we see +the doctor." + +I spoke lightly, but I really meant what I said. My mind was +sadly disturbed; my nerves were so shaken that the slightest +noises on the road startled me. The opinion of a man like Mr. +MacGlue, who looked at all mortal matters from the same immovably +practical point of view, might really have its use, in my case, +as a species of moral remedy. + + +We waited until the dessert was on the table, and the servants +had left the dining-room. Then I told my story to the Scotch +doctor as I have told it here; and, that done, I opened the +sketch-book to let him see the writing for himself. + +Had I turned to the wrong page? + +I started to my feet, and held the book close to the light of the +lamp that hung over the dining table. No: I had found the right +page. There was my half-finished drawing of the waterfall--but +where were the two lines of writing beneath? + +Gone! + +I strained my eyes; I looked and looked. And the blank white +paper looked back at me. + +I placed the open leaf before my mother. "You saw it as plainly +as I did," I said. "Are my own eyes deceiving me? Look at the +bottom of the page." + +My mother sunk back in her chair with a cry of terror. + +"Gone?" I asked. + +"Gone!" + +I turned to the doctor. He took me completely by surprise. No +incredulous smile appeared on his face; no jesting words passed +his lips. He was listening to us attentively. He was waiting +gravely to hear more. + +"I declare to you, on my word of honor," I said to him, "that I +saw the apparition writing with my pencil at the bottom of that +page. I declare that I took the book in my hand, and saw these +words written in it, 'When the full moon shines on Saint +Anthony's Well.' Not more than three hours have passed since that +time; and, see for yourself, not a vestige of the writing +remains." + +"Not a vestige of the writing remains, " Mr. MacGlue repeated, +quietly. + +"If you feel the slightest doubt of what I have told you," I went +on, "ask my mother; she will bear witness that she saw the +writing too." + +"I don't doubt that you both saw the writing," answered Mr. +MacGlue, with a composure that surprised me. + +"Can you account for it?" I asked. + +"Well," said the impenetrable doctor, "if I set my wits at work, +I believe I might account for it to the satisfaction of some +people. For example, I might give you what they call the rational +explanation, to begin with. I might say that you are, to my +certain knowledge, in a highly excited nervous condition; and +that, when you saw the apparition (as you call it), you simply +saw nothing but your own strong impression of an absent woman, +who (as I greatly fear) has got on the weak or amatory side of +you. I mean no offense, Mr. Germaine--" + +"I take no offense, doctor. But excuse me for speaking +plainly--the rational explanation is thrown away on me." + +"I'll readily excuse you," answered Mr. MacGlue; "the rather that +I'm entirely of your opinion. I don't believe in the rational +explanation myself." + +This was surprising, to say the least of it. "What _do_ you +believe in?" I inquired. + +Mr. MacGlue declined to let me hurry him. + +"Wait a little," he said. "There's the _ir_rational explanation +to try next. Maybe it will fit itself to the present state of +your mind better than the other. We will say this time that you +have really seen the ghost (or double) of a living person. Very +good. If you can suppose a disembodied spirit to appear in +earthly clothing--of silk or merino, as the case may be--it's no +great stretch to suppose, next, that this same spirit is capable +of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing mortal words in a +mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost vanishes (which your +ghost did), it seems supernaturally appropriate that the writing +should follow the example and vanish too. And the reason of the +vanishment may be (if you want a reason), either that the ghost +does not like letting a stranger like me into its secrets, or +that vanishing is a settled habit of ghosts and of everything +associated with them, or that this ghost has changed its mind in +the course of three hours (being the ghost of a woman, I am sure +that's not wonderful), and doesn't care to see you 'when the full +moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' There's the _ir_rational +explanation for you. And, speaking for myself, I'm bound to add +that I don't set a pin's value on _that_ explanation either." + +Mr. MacGlue's sublime indifference to both sides of the question +began to irritate me. + +"In plain words, doctor," I said, "you don't think the +circumstances that I have mentioned to you worthy of serious +investigation?" + +"I don't think serious investigation capable of dealing with the +circumstances," answered the doctor. "Put it in that way, and you +put it right. Just look round you. Here we three persons are +alive and hearty at this snug table. If (which God forbid!) good +Mistress Germaine or yourself were to fall down dead in another +moment, I, doctor as I am, could no more explain what first +principle of life and movement had been suddenly extinguished in +you than the dog there sleeping on the hearth-rug. If I am +content to sit down ignorant in the face of such an impenetrable +mystery as this--presented to me, day after day, every time I see +a living creature come into the world or go out of it--why may I +not sit down content in the face of your lady in the +summer-house, and say she's altogether beyond my fathoming, and +there is an end of her?" + +At those words my mother joined in the conversation for the first +time. + +"Ah, sir," she said, "if you could only persuade my son to take +your sensible view, how happy I should be! Would you believe +it?--he positively means (if he can find the place) to go to +Saint Anthony's Well!" + +Even this revelation entirely failed to surprise Mr. MacGlue. + +"Ay, ay. He means to keep his appointment with the ghost, does +he? Well, I can be of some service to him if he sticks to his +resolution. I can tell him of another man who kept a written +appointment with a ghost, and what came of it." + +This was a startling announcement. Did he really mean what he +said? + +"Are you in jest or in earnest?" I asked. + +"I never joke, sir," said Mr. MacGlue. "No sick person really +believes in a doctor who jokes. I defy you to show me a man at +the head of our profession who has ever been discovered in high +spirits (in medical hours) by his nearest and dearest friend. You +may have wondered, I dare say, at seeing me take your strange +narrative as coolly as I do. It comes naturally, sir. Yours is +not the first story of a ghost and a pencil that I have heard." + +"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that you know of another man +who has seen what I have seen?" + +"That's just what I mean to tell you," rejoined the doctor. "The +man was a far-away Scots cousin of my late wife, who bore the +honorable name of Bruce, and followed a seafaring life. I'll take +another glass of the sherry wine, just to wet my whistle, as the +vulgar saying is, before I begin. Well, you must know, Bruce was +mate of a bark at the time I'm speaking of, and he was on a +voyage from Liverpool to New Brunswick. At noon one day, he and +the captain, having taken their observation of the sun, were hard +at it below, working out the latitude and longitude on their +slates. Bruce, in his cabin, looked across through the open door +of the captain's cabin opposite. 'What do you make it, sir?' says +Brace. The man in the captain's cabin looked up. And what did +Bruce see? The face of the captain? Devil a bit of it--the face +of a total stranger! Up jumps Bruce, with his heart going full +gallop all in a moment, and searches for the captain on deck, and +finds him much as usual, with his calculations done, and his +latitude and longitude off his mind for the day. 'There's +somebody at your des k, sir,' says Bruce. 'He's writing on your +slate; and he's a total stranger to me.' 'A stranger in my +cabin?' says the captain. 'Why, Mr. Bruce, the ship has been six +weeks out of port. How did he get on board?' Bruce doesn't know +how, but he sticks to his story. Away goes the captain, and +bursts like a whirlwind into his cabin, and finds nobody there. +Bruce himself is obliged to acknowledge that the place is +certainly empty. 'If I didn't know you were a sober man,' says +the captain, 'I should charge you with drinking. As it is, I'll +hold you accountable for nothing worse than dreaming. Don't do it +again, Mr. Bruce.' Bruce sticks to his story; Bruce swears he saw +the man writing on the captain's slate. The captain takes up the +slate and looks at it. 'Lord save us and bless us!' says he; +'here the writing is, sure enough !' Bruce looks at it too, and +sees the writing as plainly as can be, in these words: 'Steer to +the nor'-west.' That, and no more.--Ah, goodness me, narrating is +dry work, Mr. Germaine. With your leave, I'll take another drop +of the sherry wine. + +"Well (it's fine old wine, that; look at the oily drops running +down the glass)--well, steering to the north-west, you will +understand, was out of the captain's course. Nevertheless, +finding no solution of the mystery on board the ship, and the +weather at the time being fine, the captain determined, while the +daylight lasted, to alter his course, and see what came of it. +Toward three o'clock in the afternoon an iceberg came of it; with +a wrecked ship stove in, and frozen fast to the ice; and the +passengers and crew nigh to death with cold and exhaustion. +Wonderful enough, you will say; but more remains behind. As the +mate was helping one of the rescued passengers up the side of the +bark, who should he turn out to be but the very man whose ghostly +appearance Bruce had seen in the captain's cabin writing on the +captain's slate! And more than that--if your capacity for being +surprised isn't clean worn out by this time--the passenger +recognized the bark as the very vessel which he had seen in a +dream at noon that day. He had even spoken of it to one of the +officers on board the wrecked ship when he woke. 'We shall be +rescued to-day,' he had said; and he had exactly described the +rig of the bark hours and hours before the vessel herself hove in +view. Now you know, Mr. Germaine, how my wife's far-away cousin +kept an appointment with a ghost, and what came of it."* + +Concluding his story in these words, the doctor helped himself to +another glass of the "sherry wine." I was not satisfied yet; I +wanted to know more. + +"The writing on the slate," I said. "Did it remain there, or did +it vanish like the writing in my book?" + +Mr. MacGlue's answer disappointed me. He had never asked, and had +never heard, whether the writing had remained or not. He had told +me all that he knew, and he had but one thing more to say, and +that was in the nature of a remark with a moral attached to it. +"There's a marvelous resemblance, Mr. Germaine, between your +story and Bruce's story. The main difference, as I see it, is +this. The passenger's appointment proved to be the salvation of a +whole ship's company. I very much doubt whether the lady's +appointment will prove to be the salvation of You." + +I silently reconsidered the strange narrative which had just been +related to me. Another man had seen what I had seen--had done +what I proposed to do! My mother noticed with grave displeasure +the strong impression which Mr. MacGlue had produced on my mind. + +"I wish you had kept your story to yourself, doctor," she said, +sharply. + +"May I ask why, madam?" + +"You have confirmed my son, sir, in his resolution to go to Saint +Anthony's Well." + +Mr. MacGlue quietly consulted his pocket almanac before he +replied. + +"It's the full moon on the ninth of the month," he said. "That +gives Mr. Germaine some days of rest, ma'am,. before he takes the +journey. If he travels in his own comfortable carriage--whatever +I may think, morally speaking, of his enterprise--I can't say, +medically speaking, that I believe it will do him much harm." + +"You know where Saint Anthony's Well is?" I interposed. + +"I must be mighty ignorant of Edinburgh not to know that," +replied the doctor. + +"Is the Well in Edinburgh, then?" + +"It's just outside Edinburgh--looks down on it, as you may say. +You follow the old street called the Canongate to the end. You +turn to your right past the famous Palace of Holyrood; you cross +the Park and the Drive, and take your way upward to the ruins of +Anthony's Chapel, on the shoulder of the hill--and there you are! +There's a high rock behind the chapel, and at the foot of it you +will find the spring they call Anthony's Well. It's thought a +pretty view by moonlight; and they tell me it's no longer beset +at night by bad characters, as it used to be in the old time." + +My mother, in graver and graver displeasure, rose to retire to +the drawing-room. + +"I confess you have disappointed me," she said to Mr. MacGlue. "I +should have thought you would have been the last man to encourage +my son in an act of imprudence." + +"Craving your pardon, madam, your son requires no encouragement. +I can see for myself that his mind is made up. Where is the use +of a person like me trying to stop him? Dear madam, if he won't +profit by your advice, what hope can I have that he will take +mine?" + +Mr. MacGlue pointed this artful compliment by a bow of the +deepest respect, and threw open the door for my mother to pass +out. + +When we were left together over our wine, I asked the doctor how +soon I might safely start on my journey to Edinburgh. + +"Take two days to do the journey, and you may start, if you're +bent on it, at the beginning of the week. But mind this," added +the prudent doctor, "though I own I'm anxious to hear what comes +of your expedition--understand at the same time, so far as the +lady is concerned, that I wash my hands of the consequences." -- +* The doctor's narrative is not imaginary. It will be found +related in full detail, and authenticated by names and dates, in +Robert Dale Owen's very interesting work called "Footfalls on the +Boundary of Another World." The author gladly takes this +opportunity of acknowledging his obligations to Mr. Owen's +remarkable book. + + +CHAPTER X. + +SAINT ANTHONY'S WELL. + +I STOOD on the rocky eminence in front of the ruins of Saint +Anthony's Chapel, and looked on the magnificent view of Edinburgh +and of the old Palace of Holyrood, bathed in the light of the +full moon. + +The Well, as the doctor's instructions had informed me, was +behind the chapel. I waited for some minutes in front of the +ruin, partly to recover my breath after ascending the hill; +partly, I own, to master the nervous agitation which the sense of +my position at that moment had aroused in me. The woman, or the +apparition of the woman--it might be either--was perhaps within a +few yards of the place that I occupied. Not a living creature +appeared in front of the chapel. Not a sound caught my ear from +any part of the solitary hill. I tried to fix my whole attention +on the beauties of the moonlit view. It was not to be done. My +mind was far away from the objects on which my eyes rested. My +mind was with the woman whom I had seen in the summer-house +writing in my book. + +I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps more over +the broken ground brought me within view of the Well, and of the +high boulder or rock from the foot of which the waters gushed +brightly in the light of the moon. + +She was there. + +I recognized her figure as she stood leaning against the rock, +with her hands crossed in front of her, lost in thought. I +recognized her face as she looked up quickly, startled by the +sound of my footsteps in the deep stillness of the night. + +Was it the woman, or the apparition of the woman? I waited, +looking at her in silence. + +She spoke. The sound of her voice was not the mysterious sound +that I had heard in the summer-house. It was the sound I had +heard on the bridge when we first met in the dim evening light. + +"Who are you? What do you want?" + +As those words passed her lips, she recognized me. "_You_ here!" +she went on, advancing a step, in uncontrollable surprise . "What +does this mean?" + +"I am here," I answered, "to meet you, by your own appointment." + +She stepped back again, leaning against the rock. The moonlight +shone full upon her face. There was terror as well as +astonishment in her eyes while they now looked at me. + +"I don't understand you," she said. "I have not seen you since +you spoke to me on the bridge." + +"Pardon me," I replied. "I have seen you--or the appearance of +you--since that time. I heard you speak. I saw you write." + +She looked at me with the strangest expression of mingled +resentment and curiosity. "What did I say?" she asked. "What did +I write?" + +"You said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' You wrote, 'When the full +moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' " + +"Where?" she cried. "Where did I do that?" + +"In a summer-house which stands by a waterfall," I answered. "Do +you know the place?" + +Her head sunk back against the rock. A low cry of terror burst +from her. Her arm, resting on the rock, dropped at her side. I +hurriedly approached her, in the fear that she might fall on the +stony ground. + +She rallied her failing strength. "Don't touch me!" she +exclaimed. "Stand back, sir. You frighten me." + +I tried to soothe her. "Why do I frighten you? You know who I am. +Can you doubt my interest in you, after I have been the means of +saving your life?" + +Her reserve vanished in an instant. She advanced without +hesitation, and took me by the hand. + +"I ought to thank you," she said. "And I do. I am not so +ungrateful as I seem. I am not a wicked woman, sir--I was mad +with misery when I tried to drown myself. Don't distrust me! +Don't despise me!" She stopped; I saw the tears on her cheeks. +With a sudden contempt for herself, she dashed them away. Her +whole tone and manner altered once more. Her reserve returned; +she looked at me with a strange flash of suspicion and defiance +in her eyes. "Mind this!" she said, loudly and abruptly, "you +were dreaming when you thought you saw me writing. You didn't see +me; you never heard me speak. How could I say those familiar +words to a stranger like you? It's all your fancy--and you try to +frighten me by talking of it as if it was a real thing!" She +changed again; her eyes softened to the sad and tender look which +made them so irresistibly beautiful. She drew her cloak round her +with a shudder, as if she felt the chill of the night air. "What +is the matter with me?" I heard her say to herself. "Why do I +trust this man in my dreams? And why am I ashamed of it when I +wake?" + +That strange outburst encouraged me. I risked letting her know +that I had overheard her last words. + +"If you trust me in your dreams, you only do me justice," I said. +"Do me justice now; give me your confidence. You are alone--you +are in trouble--you want a friend's help. I am waiting to help +you." + +She hesitated. I tried to take her hand. The strange creature +drew it away with a cry of alarm: her one great fear seemed to be +the fear of letting me touch her. + +"Give me time to think of it," she said. "You don't know what I +have got to think of. Give me till to-morrow; and let me write. +Are you staying in Edinburgh?" + +I thought it wise to be satisfied--in appearance at least--with +this concession. Taking out my card, I wrote on it in pencil the +address of the hotel at which I was staying. She read the card by +the moonlight when I put it into her hand. + +"George!" she repeated to herself, stealing another look at me as +the name passed her lips. " 'George Germaine.' I never heard of +'Germaine.' But 'George' reminds me of old times." She smiled +sadly at some passing fancy or remembrance in which I was not +permitted to share. "There is nothing very wonderful in your +being called 'George,' " she went on, after a while. "The name is +common enough: one meets with it everywhere as a man's name And +yet--" Her eyes finished the sentence; her eyes said to me, "I am +not so much afraid of you, now I know that you are called +'George.' " + +So she unconsciously led me to the brink of discovery! + +If I had only asked her what associations she connected with my +Christian name--if I had only persuaded her to speak in the +briefest and most guarded terms of her past life--the barrier +between us, which the change in our names and the lapse of ten +years had raised, must have been broken down; the recognition +must have followed. But I never even thought of it; and for this +simple reason--I was in love with her. The purely selfish idea of +winning my way to her favorable regard by taking instant +advantage of the new interest that I had awakened in her was the +one idea which occurred to my mind. + +"Don't wait to write to me," I said. "Don't put it off till +to-morrow. Who knows what may happen before to-morrow? Surely I +deserve some little return for the sympathy that I feel with you? +I don't ask for much. Make me happy by making me of some service +to you before we part to-night." + +I took her hand, this time, before she was aware of me. The whole +woman seemed to yield at my touch. Her hand lay unresistingly in +mine; her charming figure came by soft gradations nearer and +nearer to me; her head almost touched my shoulder. She murmured +in faint accents, broken by sighs, "Don't take advantage of me. I +am so friendless; I am so completely in your power." Before I +could answer, before I could move, her hand closed on mine; her +head sunk on my shoulder: she burst into tears. + +Any man, not an inbred and inborn villain, would have respected +her at that moment. I put her hand on my arm and led her away +gently past the ruined chapel, and down the slope of the hill. + +"This lonely place is frightening you," I said. "Let us walk a +little, and you will soon be yourself again." + +She smiled through her tears like a child. + +"Yes," she said, eagerly. "But not that way." I had accidentally +taken the direction which led away from the city; she begged me +to turn toward the houses and the streets. We walked back toward +Edinburgh. She eyed me, as we went on in the moonlight, with +innocent, wondering looks. "What an unaccountable influence you +have over me!" she exclaimed. + +"Did you ever see me, did you ever hear my name, before we met +that evening at the river?" + +"Never." + +"And I never heard _your_ name, and never saw _you_ before. +Strange! very strange! Ah! I remember somebody--only an old +woman, sir--who might once have explained it. Where shall I find +the like of her now?" + +She sighed bitterly. The lost friend or relative had evidently +been dear to her. "A relation of yours?" I inquired--more to keep +her talking than because I felt any interest in any member of her +family but herself. + +We were again on the brink of discovery. And again it was decreed +that we were to advance no further. + +"Don't ask me about my relations!" she broke out. "I daren't +think of the dead and gone, in the trouble that is trying me now. +If I speak of the old times at home, I shall only burst out +crying again, and distress you. Talk of something else, sir--talk +of something else." + + +The mystery of the apparition in the summer-house was not cleared +up yet. I took my opportunity of approaching the subject. + +"You spoke a little while since of dreaming of me," I began. +"Tell me your dream." + +"I hardly know whether it was a dream or whether it was something +else," she answered. "I call it a dream for want of a better +word." + +"Did it happen at night?" + +"No. In the daytime--in the afternoon." + +"Late in the afternoon?" + +"Yes--close on the evening." + +My memory reverted to the doctor's story of the shipwrecked +passenger, whose ghostly "double" had appeared in the vessel that +was to rescue him, and who had himself seen that vessel in a +dream. + +"Do you remember the day of the month and the hour?" I asked. + +She mentioned the day, and she mentioned the hour. It was the day +when my mother and I had visited the waterfall. It was the hour +when I had seen the apparition in the summer-house writing in my +book! + +I stopped in irrepressible astonishment. We had walked by this +time nearly as far on the way back to the city as the old Palace +of Holyrood. My companion, after a glance at me, turned and +looked at the rugged old building, mellowed into quiet beauty by +the lovely moonlight. + +"This is my fa vorite walk," she said, simply, "since I have been +in Edinburgh. I don't mind the loneliness. I like the perfect +tranquillity here at night." She glanced at me again. "What is +the matter?" she asked. "You say nothing; you only look at me." + +"I want to hear more of your dream," I said. "How did you come to +be sleeping in the daytime?" + +"It is not easy to say what I was doing," she replied, as we +walked on again. "I was miserably anxious and ill. I felt my +helpless condition keenly on that day. It was dinner-time, I +remember, and I had no appetite. I went upstairs (at the inn +where I am staying), and lay down, quite worn out, on my bed. I +don't know whether I fainted or whether I slept; I lost all +consciousness of what was going on about me, and I got some other +consciousness in its place. If this was dreaming, I can only say +it was the most vivid dream I ever had in my life." + +"Did it begin by your seeing me?" I inquired. + +"It began by my seeing your drawing-book--lying open on a table +in a summer-house." + +"Can you describe the summer-house as you saw it?" + +She described not only the summer-house, but the view of the +waterfall from the door. She knew the size, she knew the binding, +of my sketch-book--locked up in my desk, at that moment, at home +in Perthshire! + +"And you wrote in the book," I went on. "Do you remember what you +wrote?" + +She looked away from me confusedly, as if she were ashamed to +recall this part of her dream. + +"You have mentioned it already," she said. There is no need for +me to go over the words again. Tell me one thing--when _you_ were +at the summer-house, did you wait a little on the path to the +door before you went in?" + +I _had_ waited, surprised by my first view of the woman writing +in my book. Having answered her to this effect, I asked what she +had done or dreamed of doing at the later moment when I entered +the summer-house. + +"I did the strangest things," she said, in low, wondering tones. +"If you had been my brother, I could hardly have treated you more +familiarly. I beckoned to you to come to me. I even laid my hand +on your bosom. I spoke to you as I might have spoken to my oldest +and dearest friend. I said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' Oh, I was +so ashamed of myself when I came to my senses again, and +recollected it. Was there ever such familiarity--even in a +dream--between a woman and a man whom she had only once seen, and +then as a perfect stranger?" + +"Did you notice how long it was," I asked, "from the time when +you lay down on the bed to the time when you found yourself awake +again?" + +"I think I can tell you," she replied. "It was the dinner-time of +the house (as I said just now) when I went upstairs. Not long +after I had come to myself I heard a church clock strike the +hour. Reckoning from one time to the other, it must have been +quite three hours from the time when I first lay down to the time +when I got up again." + +Was the clew to the mysterious disappearance of the writing to be +found here? + +Looking back by the light of later discoveries, I am inclined to +think that it was. In three hours the lines traced by the +apparition of her had vanished. In three hours she had come to +herself, and had felt ashamed of the familiar manner in which she +had communicated with me in her sleeping state. While she had +trusted me in the trance--trusted me because her spirit was then +free to recognize my spirit--the writing had remained on the +page. When her waking will counteracted the influence of her +sleeping will, the writing disappeared. Is this the explanation? +If it is not, where is the explanation to be found? + +We walked on until we reached that part of the Canongate street +in which she lodged. We stopped at the door. + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE LETTER OF INTRODUCTION. + +I LOOKED at the house. It was an inn, of no great size, but of +respectable appearance. If I was to be of any use to her that +night, the time had come to speak of other subjects than the +subject of dreams. + +"After all that you have told me," I said, "I will not ask you to +admit me any further into your confidence until we meet again. +Only let me hear how I can relieve your most pressing anxieties. +What are your plans? Can I do anything to help them before you go +to rest to-night?" + +She thanked me warmly, and hesitated, looking up the street and +down the street in evident embarrassment what to say next. + +"Do you propose staying in Edinburgh?" I asked. + +"Oh no! I don't wish to remain in Scotland. I want to go much +further away. I think I should do better in London; at some +respectable milliner's, if I could be properly recommended. I am +quick at my needle, and I understand cutting out. Or I could keep +accounts, if--if anybody would trust me." + +She stopped, and looked at me doubtingly, as if she felt far from +sure, poor soul, of winning my confidence to begin with. I acted +on that hint, with the headlong impetuosity of a man who was in +love. + +"I can give you exactly the recommendation you want," I said, +"whenever you like. Now, if you would prefer it." + +Her charming features brightened with pleasure. "Oh, you are +indeed a friend to me!" she said, impulsively. Her face clouded +again--she saw my proposal in a new light. "Have I any right," +she asked, sadly, "to accept what you offer me?" + +"Let me give you the letter," I answered, "and you can decide for +yourself whether you will use it or not." + +I put her arm again in mine, and entered the inn. + +She shrunk back in alarm. What would the landlady think if she +saw her lodger enter the house at night in company with a +stranger, and that stranger a gentleman? The landlady appeared as +she made the objection. Reckless what I said or what I did, I +introduced myself as her relative, and asked to be shown into a +quiet room in which I could write a letter. After one sharp +glance at me, the landlady appeared to be satisfied that she was +dealing with a gentleman. She led the way into a sort of parlor +behind the "bar," placed writing materials on the table, looked +at my companion as only one woman can look at another under +certain circumstances, and left us by ourselves. + +It was the first time I had ever been in a room with her alone. +The embarrassing sense of her position had heightened her color +and brightened her eyes. She stood, leaning one hand on the +table, confused and irresolute, her firm and supple figure +falling into an attitude of unsought grace which it was literally +a luxury to look at. I said nothing; my eyes confessed my +admiration; the writing materials lay untouched before me on the +table. How long the silence might have lasted I cannot say. She +abruptly broke it. Her instinct warned her that silence might +have its dangers, in our position. She turned to me with an +effort; she said, uneasily, "I don't think you ought to write +your letter to-night, sir." + +"Why not?" + +"You know nothing of me. Surely you ought not to recommend a +person who is a stranger to you? And I am worse than a stranger. +I am a miserable wretch who has tried to commit a great sin--I +have tried to destroy myself. Perhaps the misery I was in might +be some excuse for me, if you knew it. You ought to know it. But +it's so late to-night, and I am so sadly tired--and there are +some things, sir, which it is not easy for a woman to speak of in +the presence of a man." + +Her head sunk on her bosom; her delicate lips trembled a little; +she said no more. The way to reassure and console her lay plainly +enough before me, if I chose to take it. Without stopping to +think, I took it. + +Reminding her that she had herself proposed writing to me when we +met that evening, I suggested that she should wait to tell the +sad story of her troubles until it was convenient to her to send +me the narrative in the form of a letter. "In the mean time," I +added, "I have the most perfect confidence in you; and I beg as a +favor that you will let me put it to the proof. I can introduce +you to a dressmaker in London who is at the head of a large +establishment, and I will do it before I leave you to-night." + +I dipped my pen in the ink as I said the words. Let me confess +frankly the lengths to which my infatuation led me. The +dressmaker to whom I had alluded had been my mother's maid in f +ormer years, and had been established in business with money lent +by my late step-father, Mr. Germaine. I used both their names +without scruple; and I wrote my recommendation in terms which the +best of living women and the ablest of existing dressmakers could +never have hoped to merit. Will anybody find excuses for me? +Those rare persons who have been in love, and who have not +completely forgotten it yet, may perhaps find excuses for me. It +matters little; I don't deserve them. + +I handed her the open letter to read. + +She blushed delightfully; she cast one tenderly grateful look at +me, which I remembered but too well for many and many an +after-day. The next moment, to my astonishment, this changeable +creature changed again. Some forgotten consideration seemed to +have occurred to her. She turned pale; the soft lines of pleasure +in her face hardened, little by little; she regarded me with the +saddest look of confusion and distress. Putting the letter down +before me on the table, she said, timidly: + +"Would you mind adding a postscript, sir?" + +I suppressed all appearance of surprise as well as I could, and +took up the pen again. + +"Would you please say," she went on, "that I am only to be taken +on trial, at first? I am not to be engaged for more"--her voice +sunk lower and lower, so that I could barely hear the next +words--"for more than three months, certain." + +It was not in human nature--perhaps I ought to say it was not in +the nature of a man who was in my situation--to refrain from +showing some curiosity, on being asked to supplement a letter of +recommendation by such a postscript as this. + +"Have you some other employment in prospect?" I asked. + +"None," she answered, with her head down, and her eyes avoiding +mine. + +An unworthy doubt of her--the mean offspring of jealousy--found +its way into my mind. + +"Have you some absent friend," I went on, "who is likely to prove +a better friend than I am, if you only give him time?" + +She lifted her noble head. Her grand, guileless gray eyes rested +on me with a look of patient reproach. + +"I have not got a friend in the world," she said. "For God's +sake, ask me no more questions to-night!" + +I rose and gave her the letter once more--with the postscript +added, in her own words. + +We stood together by the table; we looked at each other in a +momentary silence. + +"How can I thank you?" she murmured, softly. "Oh, sir, I will +indeed be worthy of the confidence that you have shown in me!" +Her eyes moistened; her variable color came and went; her dress +heaved softly over the lovely outline of her bosom. I don't +believe the man lives who could have resisted her at that moment. +I lost all power of restraint; I caught her in my arms; I +whispered, "I love you!" I kissed her passionately. For a moment +she lay helpless and trembling on my breast; for a moment her +fragrant lips softly returned the kiss. In an instant more it was +over. She tore herself away with a shudder that shook her from +head to foot, and threw the letter that I had given to her +indignantly at my feet. + +"How dare you take advantage of me! How dare you touch me!" she +said. "Take your letter back, sir; I refuse to receive it; I will +never speak to you again. You don't know what you have done. You +don't know how deeply you have wounded me. Oh!" she cried, +throwing herself in despair on a sofa that stood near her, "shall +I ever recover my self-respect? shall I ever forgive myself for +what I have done to-night?" + +I implored her pardon; I assured her of my repentance and regret +in words which did really come from my heart. The violence of her +agitation more than distressed me--I was really alarmed by it. + +She composed herself after a while. She rose to her feet with +modest dignity, and silently held out her hand in token that my +repentance was accepted. + +"You will give me time for atonement?" I pleaded. "You will not +lose all confidence in me? Let me see you again, if it is only to +show that I am not quite unworthy of your pardon--at your own +time; in the presence of another person, if you like." + +"I will write to you," she said. + +"To-morrow?" + +"To-morrow." + +I took up the letter of recommendation from the floor. + +"Make your goodness to me complete," I said. "Don't mortify me by +refusing to take my letter." + +"I will take your letter," she answered, quietly. "Thank you for +writing it. Leave me now, please. Good-night." + +I left her, pale and sad, with my letter in her hand. I left her, +with my mind in a tumult of contending emotions, which gradually +resolved themselves into two master-feelings as I walked on: +Love, that adored her more fervently than ever; and Hope, that +set the prospect before me of seeing her again on the next day. + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE DISASTERS OF MRS. VAN BRANDT. + +A MAN who passes his evening as I had passed mine, may go to bed +afterward if he has nothing better to do. But he must not rank +among the number of his reasonable anticipations the expectation +of getting a night's rest. The morning was well advanced, and the +hotel was astir, before I at last closed my eyes in slumber. When +I awoke, my watch informed me that it was close on noon. + +I rang the bell. My servant appeared with a letter in his hand. +It had been left for me, three hours since, by a lady who had +driven to the hotel door in a carriage, and had then driven away +again. The man had found me sleeping when he entered my +bed-chamber, and, having received no orders to wake me overnight, +had left the letter on the sitting-room table until he heard my +bell. + +Easily guessing who my correspondent was, I opened the letter. An +inclosure fell out of it--to which, for the moment, I paid no +attention. I turned eagerly to the first lines. They announced +that the writer had escaped me for the second time: early that +morning she had left Edinburgh. The paper inclosed proved to be +my letter of introduction to the dressmaker returned to me. + +I was more than angry with her--I felt her second flight from me +as a downright outrage. In five minutes I had hurried on my +clothes and was on my way to the inn in the Canongate as fast as +a horse could draw me. + +The servants could give me no information. Her escape had been +effected without their knowledge. + +The landlady, to whom I next addressed myself, deliberately +declined to assist me in any way whatever. + +"I have given the lady my promise," said this obstinate person, +"to answer not one word to any question that you may ask me about +her. In my belief, she is acting as becomes an honest woman in +removing herself from any further communication with you. I saw +you through the keyhole last night, sir. I wish you +good-morning." + +Returning to my hotel, I left no attempt to discover her untried. +I traced the coachman who had driven her. He had set her down at +a shop, and had then been dismissed. I questioned the +shop-keeper. He remembered that he had sold some articles of +linen to a lady with her veil down and a traveling-bag in her +hand, and he remembered no more. I circulated a description of +her in the different coach offices. Three "elegant young ladies, +with their veils down, and with traveling-bags in their hands," +answered to the description; and which of the three was the +fugitive of whom I was in search, it was impossible to discover. +In the days of railways and electric telegraphs I might have +succeeded in tracing her. In the days of which I am now writing, +she set investigation at defiance. + +I read and reread her letter, on the chance that some slip of the +pen might furnish the clew which I had failed to find in any +other way. Here is the narrative that she addressed to me, copied +from the original, word for word: + + +"DEAR SIR--Forgive me for leaving you again as I left you in +Perthshire. After what took place last night, I have no other +choice (knowing my own weakness, and the influence that you seem +to have over me) than to thank you gratefully for your kindness, +and to bid you farewell. My sad position must be my excuse for +separating myself from you in this rude manner, and for venturing +to send you back your letter of introduction. If I use the +letter, I only offer you a means of communicating with me. For +your sake, as well as for mine, this mu st not be. I must never +give you a second opportunity of saying that you love me; I must +go away, leaving no trace behind by which you can possibly +discover me. + +"But I cannot forget that I owe my poor life to your compassion +and your courage. You, who saved me, have a right to know what +the provocation was that drove me to drowning myself, and what my +situation is, now that I am (thanks to you) still a living woman. +You shall hear my sad story, sir; and I will try to tell it as +briefly as possible. + +"I was married, not very long since, to a Dutch gentleman, whose +name is Van Brandt. Please excuse my entering into family +particulars. I have endeavored to write and tell you about my +dear lost father and my old home. But the tears come into my eyes +when I think of my happy past life. I really cannot see the lines +as I try to write them. + +"Let me, then, only say that Mr. Van Brandt was well recommended +to my good father before I married. I have only now discovered +that he obtained these recommendations from his friends under a +false pretense, which it is needless to trouble you by mentioning +in detail. Ignorant of what he had done, I lived with him +happily. I cannot truly declare that he was the object of my +first love, but he was the one person in the world whom I had to +look up to after my father's death. I esteemed him and respected +him, and, if I may say so without vanity, I did indeed make him a +good wife. + +"So the time went on, sir, prosperously enough, until the evening +came when you and I met on the bridge. + +"I was out alone in our garden, trimming the shrubs, when the +maid-servant came and told me there was a foreign lady in a +carriage at the door who desired to say a word to Mrs. Van +Brandt. I sent the maid on before to show her into the +sitting-room, and I followed to receive my visitor as soon as I +had made myself tidy. She was a dreadful woman, with a flushed, +fiery face and impudent, bright eyes. 'Are you Mrs. Van Brandt?' +she said. I answered, 'Yes.' 'Are you really married to him?' she +asked me. That question (naturally enough, I think) upset my +temper. I said, 'How dare you doubt it?' She laughed in my face. +'Send for Van Brandt,' she said. I went out into the passage and +called him down from the room upstairs in which he was writing. +'Ernest,' I said, 'here is a person who has insulted me. Come +down directly.' He left his room the moment he heard me. The +woman followed me out into the passage to meet him. She made him +a low courtesy. He turned deadly pale the moment he set eyes on +her. That frightened me. I said to him, 'For God's sake, what +does this mean?' He took me by the arm, and he answered: 'You +shall know soon. Go back to your gardening, and don't return to +the house till I send for you.' His looks were so shocking, he +was so unlike himself, that I declare he daunted me. I let him +take me as far as the garden door. He squeezed my hand. 'For my +sake, darling,' he whispered, 'do what I ask of you.' I went into +the garden and sat me down on the nearest bench, and waited +impatiently for what was to come. + +"How long a time passed I don't know. My anxiety got to such a +pitch at last that I could bear it no longer. I ventured back to +the house. + +"I listened in the passage, and heard nothing. I went close to +the parlor door, and still there was silence. I took courage, and +opened the door. + +"The room was empty. There was a letter on the table. It was in +my husband's handwriting, and it was addressed to me. I opened it +and read it. The letter told me that I was deserted, disgraced, +ruined. The woman with the fiery face and the impudent eyes was +Van Brandt's lawful wife. She had given him his choice of going +away with her at once or of being prosecuted for bigamy. He had +gone away with her--gone, and left me. + +"Remember, sir, that I had lost both father and mother. I had no +friends. I was alone in the world, without a creature near to +comfort or advise me. And please to bear in mind that I have a +temper which feels even the smallest slights and injuries very +keenly. Do you wonder at what I had it in my thoughts to do that +evening on the bridge? + +"Mind this: I believe I should never have attempted to destroy +myself if I could only have burst out crying. No tears came to +me. A dull, stunned feeling took hold like a vise on my head and +on my heart. I walked straight to the river. I said to myself, +quite calmly, as I went along, '_There_ is the end of it, and the +sooner the better.' + +"What happened after that, you know as well as I do. I may get on +to the next morning--the morning when I so ungratefully left you +at the inn by the river-side. + +"I had but one reason, sir, for going away by the first +conveyance that I could find to take me, and this was the fear +that Van Brandt might discover me if I remained in Perthshire. +The letter that he had left on the table was full of expressions +of love and remorse, to say nothing of excuses for his infamous +behavior to me. He declared that he had been entrapped into a +private marriage with a profligate woman when he was little more +than a lad. They had long since separated by common consent. When +he first courted me, he had every reason to believe that she was +dead. How he had been deceived in this particular, and how she +had discovered that he had married me, he had yet to find out. +Knowing her furious temper, he had gone away with her, as the one +means of preventing an application to the justices and a scandal +in the neighborhood. In a day or two he would purchase his +release from her by an addition to the allowance which she had +already received from him: he would return to me and take me +abroad, out of the way of further annoyance. I was his wife in +the sight of Heaven; I was the only woman he had ever loved; and +so on, and so on. + +"Do you now see, sir, the risk that I ran of his discovering me +if I remained in your neighborhood? The bare thought of it made +my flesh creep. I was determined never again to see the man who +had so cruelly deceived me. I am in the same mind still--with +this difference, that I might consent to see him, if I could be +positively assured first of the death of his wife. That is not +likely to happen. Let me get on with my letter, and tell you what +I did on my arrival in Edinburgh. + +"The coachman recommended me to the house in the Canongate where +you found me lodging. I wrote the same day to relatives of my +father, living in Glasgow, to tell them where I was, and in what +a forlorn position I found myself. + +"I was answered by return of post. The head of the family and his +wife requested me to refrain from visiting them in Glasgow. They +had business then in hand which would take them to Edinburgh, and +I might expect to see them both with the least possible delay. + +"They arrived, as they had promised, and they expressed +themselves civilly enough. Moreover, they did certainly lend me a +small sum of money when they found how poorly my purse was +furnished. But I don't think either husband or wife felt much for +me. They recommended me, at parting, to apply to my father's +other relatives, living in England. I may be doing them an +injustice, but I fancy they were eager to get me (as the common +phrase is) off their hands. + +"The day when the departure of my relatives left me friendless +was also the day, sir, when I had that dream or vision of you +which I have already related. I lingered on at the house in the +Canongate, partly because the landlady was kind to me, partly +because I was so depressed by my position that I really did not +know what to do next. + +"In this wretched condition you discovered me on that favorite +walk of mine from Holyrood to Saint Anthony's Well. Believe me, +your kind interest in my fortunes has not been thrown away on an +ungrateful woman. I could ask Providence for no greater blessing +than to find a brother and a friend in you. You have yourself +destroyed that hope by what you said and did when we were +together in the parlor. I don't blame you: I am afraid my manner +(without my knowing it) might have seemed to give you some +encouragement. I am only sorry--very, very sorry--to have no +honorable choice left but never to see you again. + +"After much thin king, I have made up my mind to speak to those +other relatives of my father to whom I have not yet applied. The +chance that they may help me to earn an honest living is the one +chance that I have left. God bless you, Mr. Germaine! I wish you +prosperity and happiness from the bottom of my heart; and remain, +your grateful servant, + + "M. VAN BRANDT. + +"P.S.--I sign my own name (or the name which I once thought was +mine) as a proof that I have honestly written the truth about +myself, from first to last. For the future I must, for safety's +sake, live under some other name. I should like to go back to my +name when I was a happy girl at home. But Van Brandt knows it; +and, besides, I have (no matter how innocently) disgraced it. +Good-by again, sir; and thank you again." + + +So the letter concluded. + +I read it in the temper of a thoroughly disappointed and +thoroughly unreasonable man. Whatever poor Mrs. Van Brandt had +done, she had done wrong. It was wrong of her, in the first +place, to have married at all. It was wrong of her to contemplate +receiving Mr. Van Brandt again, even if his lawful wife had died +in the interval. It was wrong of her to return my letter of +introduction, after I had given myself the trouble of altering it +to suit her capricious fancy. It was wrong of her to take an +absurdly prudish view of a stolen kiss and a tender declaration, +and to fly from me as if I were as great a scoundrel as Mr. Van +Brandt himself. And last, and more than all, it was wrong of her +to sign her Christian name in initial only. Here I was, +passionately in love with a woman, and not knowing by what fond +name to identify her in my thoughts! "M. Van Brandt!" I might +call her Maria, Margaret, Martha, Mabel, Magdalen, Mary--no, not +Mary. The old boyish love was dead and gone, but I owed some +respect to the memory of it. If the "Mary" of my early days were +still living, and if I had met her, would she have treated me as +this woman had treated me? Never! It was an injury to "Mary" to +think even of that heartless creature by her name. Why think of +her at all? Why degrade myself by trying to puzzle out a means of +tracing her in her letter? It was sheer folly to attempt to trace +a woman who had gone I knew not whither, and who herself informed +me that she meant to pass under an assumed name. Had I lost all +pride, all self-respect? In the flower of my age, with a handsome +fortune, with the world before me, full of interesting female +faces and charming female figures, what course did it become me +to take? To go back to my country-house, and mope over the loss +of a woman who had deliberately deserted me? or to send for a +courier and a traveling carriage, and forget her gayly among +foreign people and foreign scenes? In the state of my temper at +that moment, the idea of a pleasure tour in Europe fired my +imagination. I first astonished the people at the hotel by +ordering all further inquiries after the missing Mrs. Van Brandt +to be stopped; and then I opened my writing desk and wrote to +tell my mother frankly and fully of my new plans. + +The answer arrived by return of post. + +To my surprise and delight, my good mother was not satisfied with +only formally approving of my new resolution. With an energy +which I had not ventured to expect from her, she had made all her +arrangements for leaving home, and had started for Edinburgh to +join me as my traveling companion. "You shall not go away alone, +George," she wrote, "while I have strength and spirits to keep +you company." + +In three days from the time when I read those words our +preparations were completed, and we were on our way to the +Continent. + +CHAPTER XIII. + +NOT CURED YET. + +WE visited France, Germany, and Italy; and we were absent from +England nearly two years. + +Had time and change justified my confidence in them? Was the +image of Mrs. Van Brandt an image long since dismissed from my +mind? + +No! Do what I might, I was still (in the prophetic language of +Dame Dermody) taking the way to reunion with my kindred spirit in +the time to come. For the first two or three months of our +travels I was haunted by dreams of the woman who had so +resolutely left me. Seeing her in my sleep, always graceful, +always charming, always modestly tender toward me, I waited in +the ardent hope of again beholding the apparition of her in my +waking hours--of again being summoned to meet her at a given +place and time. My anticipations were not fulfilled; no +apparition showed itself. The dreams themselves grew less +frequent and less vivid and then ceased altogether. Was this a +sign that the days of her adversity were at an end? Having no +further need of help, had she no further remembrance of the man +who had tried to help her? Were we never to meet again? + +I said to myself: "I am unworthy of the name of man if I don't +forget her now!" She still kept her place in my memory, say what +I might. + +I saw all the wonders of Nature and Art which foreign countries +could show me. I lived in the dazzling light of the best society +that Paris, Rome, Vienna could assemble. I passed hours on hours +in the company of the most accomplished and most beautiful women +whom Europe could produce--and still that solitary figure at +Saint Anthony's Well, those grand gray eyes that had rested on me +so sadly at parting, held their place in my memory, stamped their +image on my heart. + +Whether I resisted my infatuation, or whether I submitted to it, +I still longed for her. I did all I could to conceal the state of +my mind from my mother. But her loving eyes discovered the +secret: she saw that I suffered, and suffered with me. More than +once she said: "George, the good end is not to be gained by +traveling; let us go home." More than once I answered, with the +bitter and obstinate resolution of despair: "No. Let us try more +new people and more new scenes." It was only when I found her +health and strength beginning to fail under the stress of +continual traveling that I consented to abandon the hopeless +search after oblivion, and to turn homeward at last. + +I prevailed on my mother to wait and rest at my house in London +before she returned to her favorite abode at the country-seat in +Perthshire. It is needless to say that I remained in town with +her. My mother now represented the one interest that held me +nobly and endearingly to life. Politics, literature, +agriculture--the customary pursuits of a man in my position--had +none of them the slightest attraction for me. + +We had arrived in London at what is called "the height of the +season." Among the operatic attractions of that year--I am +writing of the days when the ballet was still a popular form of +public entertainment--there was a certain dancer whose grace and +beauty were the objects of universal admiration. I was asked if I +had seen her, wherever I went, until my social position, as the +one man who was indifferent to the reigning goddess of the stage, +became quite unendurable. On the next occasion when I was invited +to take a seat in a friend's box, I accepted the proposal; and +(far from willingly) I went the way of the world--in other words, +I went to the opera. + +The first part of the performance had concluded when we got to +the theater, and the ballet had not yet begun. My friends amused +themselves with looking for familiar faces in the boxes and +stalls. I took a chair in a corner and waited, with my mind far +away from the theater, from the dancing that was to come. The +lady who sat nearest to me (like ladies in general) disliked the +neighborhood of a silent man. She determined to make me talk to +her. + +"Do tell me, Mr. Germaine," she said. "Did you ever see a theater +anywhere so full as this theater is to-night?" + +She handed me her opera-glass as she spoke. I moved to the front +of the box to look at the audience. + +It was certainty a wonderful sight. Every available atom of space +(as I gradually raised the glass from the floor to the ceiling of +the building) appeared to be occupied. Looking upward and upward, +my range of view gradually reached the gallery. Even at that +distance, the excellent glass which had been put into my hands +brought the faces of the audience close to me. I looked first at +the pe rsons who occupied the front row of seats in the gallery +stalls. + +Moving the opera-glass slowly along the semicircle formed by the +seats, I suddenly stopped when I reached the middle. + +My heart gave a great leap as if it would bound out of my body. +There was no mistaking _that_ face among the commonplace faces +near it. I had discovered Mrs. Van Brandt! + +She sat in front--but not alone. There was a man in the stall +immediately behind her, who bent over her and spoke to her from +time to time. She listened to him, so far as I could see, with +something of a sad and weary look. Who was the man? I might, or +might not, find that out. Under any circumstances, I determined +to speak to Mrs. Van Brandt. + +The curtain rose for the ballet. I made the best excuse I could +to my friends, and instantly left the box. + +It was useless to attempt to purchase my admission to the +gallery. My money was refused. There was not even standing room +left in that part of the theater. + +But one alternative remained. I returned to the street, to wait +for Mrs. Van Brandt at the gallery door until the performance was +over. + +Who was the man in attendance on her--the man whom I had seen +sitting behind her, and talking familiarly over her shoulder? +While I paced backward and forward before the door, that one +question held possession of my mind, until the oppression of it +grew beyond endurance. I went back to my friends in the box, +simply and solely to look at the man again. + +What excuses I made to account for my strange conduct I cannot +now remember. Armed once more with the lady's opera-glass (I +borrowed it and kept it without scruple), I alone, of all that +vast audience, turned my back on the stage, and riveted my +attention on the gallery stalls. + +There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearance +spell-bound by the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. Van +Brandt, on the contrary, seemed to find but little attraction in +the spectacle presented by the stage. She looked at the dancing +(so far as I could see) in an absent, weary manner. When the +applause broke out in a perfect frenzy of cries and clapping of +hands, she sat perfectly unmoved by the enthusiasm which pervaded +the theater. The man behind her (annoyed, as I supposed, by the +marked indifference which she showed to the performance) tapped +her impatiently on the shoulder, as if he thought that she was +quite capable of falling asleep in her stall. The familiarity of +the action--confirming the suspicion in my mind which had already +identified him with Van Brandt--so enraged me that I said or did +something which obliged one of the gentlemen in the box to +interfere. "If you can't control yourself," he whispered, "you +had better leave us." He spoke with the authority of an old +friend. I had sense enough left to take his advice, and return to +my post at the gallery door. + +A little before midnight the performance ended. The audience +began to pour out of the theater. + +I drew back into a corner behind the door, facing the gallery +stairs, and watched for her. After an interval which seemed to be +endless, she and her companion appeared, slowly descending the +stairs. She wore a long dark cloak; her head was protected by a +quaintly shaped hood, which looked (on _her_) the most becoming +head-dress that a woman could wear. As the two passed me, I heard +the man speak to her in a tone of sulky annoyance. + +"It's wasting money," he said, "to go to the expense of taking +_you_ to the opera." + +"I am not well," she answered with her head down and her eyes on +the ground. "I am out of spirits to-night." + +"Will you ride home or walk?" + +"I will walk, if you please." + +I followed them unperceived, waiting to present myself to her +until the crowd about them had dispersed. In a few minutes they +turned into a quiet by-street. I quickened my pace until I was +close at her side, and then I took off my hat and spoke to her. + +She recognized me with a cry of astonishment. For an instant her +face brightened radiantly with the loveliest expression of +delight that I ever saw on any human countenance. The moment +after, all was changed. The charming features saddened and +hardened. She stood before me like a woman overwhelmed by +shame--without uttering a word, without taking my offered hand. + +Her companion broke the silence. + +"Who is this gentleman?" he asked, speaking in a foreign accent, +with an under-bred insolence of tone and manner. + +She controlled herself the moment he addressed her. "This is Mr. +Germaine," she answered: "a gentleman who was very kind to me in +Scotland." She raised her eyes for a moment to mine, and took +refuge, poor soul, in a conventionally polite inquiry after my +health. "I hope you are quite well, Mr. Germaine," said the soft, +sweet voice, trembling piteously. + +I made the customary reply, and explained that I had seen her at +the opera. "Are you staying in London?" I asked. "May I have the +honor of calling on you?" + +Her companion answered for her before she could speak. + +"My wife thanks you, sir, for the compliment you pay her. She +doesn't receive visitors. We both wish you good-night." + +Saying those words, he took off his hat with a sardonic +assumption of respect; and, holding her arm in his, forced her to +walk on abruptly with him. Feeling certainly assured by this time +that the man was no other than Van Brandt, I was on the point of +answering him sharply, when Mrs. Van Brandt checked the rash +words as they rose to my lips. + +"For my sake!" she whispered, over her shoulder, with an +imploring look that instantly silenced me. After all, she was +free (if she liked) to go back to the man who had so vilely +deceived and deserted her. I bowed and left them, feeling with no +common bitterness the humiliation of entering into rivalry with +Mr. Van Brandt. + +I crossed to the other side of the street. Before I had taken +three steps away from her, the old infatuation fastened its hold +on me again. I submitted, without a struggle against myself, to +the degradation of turning spy and following them home. Keeping +well behind, on the opposite side of the way, I tracked them to +their own door, and entered in my pocket-book the name of the +street and the number of the house. + +The hardest critic who reads these lines cannot feel more +contemptuously toward me than I felt toward myself. Could I still +love a woman after she had deliberately preferred to me a +scoundrel who had married her while he was the husband of another +wife? Yes! Knowing what I now knew, I felt that I loved her just +as dearly as ever. It was incredible, it was shocking; but it was +true. For the first time in my life, I tried to take refuge from +my sense of my own degradation in drink. I went to my club, and +joined a convivial party at a supper table, and poured glass +after glass of champagne down my throat, without feeling the +slightest sense of exhilaration, without losing for an instant +the consciousness of my own contemptible conduct. I went to my +bed in despair; and through the wakeful night I weakly cursed the +fatal evening at the river-side when I had met her for the first +time. But revile her as I might, despise myself as I might, I +loved her--I loved her still! + +Among the letters laid on my table the next morning there were +two which must find their place in this narrative. + +The first letter was in a handwriting which I had seen once +before, at the hotel in Edinburgh. The writer was Mrs. Van +Brandt. + +"For your own sake" (the letter ran) "make no attempt to see me, +and take no notice of an invitation which I fear you will receive +with this note. I am living a degraded life. I have sunk beneath +your notice. You owe it to yourself, sir, to forget the miserable +woman who now writes to you for the last time, and bids you +gratefully a last farewell." + +Those sad lines were signed in initials only. It is needless to +say that they merely strengthened my resolution to see her at all +hazards. I kissed the paper on which her hand had rested, and +then I turned to the second letter. It contained the "invitation" +to which my correspondent had alluded, and it was expressed in +these terms: + +"Mr. Van Brandt presents his compliments to Mr. Germaine, and +begs to apologize for the somewhat abrupt manner in which he +received Mr. Germaine's polite advances. Mr. Van Brandt suffers +habitually from nervous irritability, and he felt particularly +ill last night. He trusts Mr. Germaine will receive this candid +explanation in the spirit in which it is offered; and he begs to +add that Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted to receive Mr. +Germaine whenever he may find it convenient to favor her with a +visit." + +That Mr. Van Brandt had some sordid interest of his own to serve +in writing this grotesquely impudent composition, and that the +unhappy woman who bore his name was heartily ashamed of the +proceeding on which he had ventured, were conclusions easily +drawn after reading the two letters. The suspicion of the man and +of his motives which I naturally felt produced no hesitation in +my mind as to the course which I had determined to pursue. On the +contrary, I rejoiced that my way to an interview with Mrs. Van +Brandt was smoothed, no matter with what motives, by Mr. Van +Brandt himself. + +I waited at home until noon, and then I could wait no longer. +Leaving a message of excuse for my mother (I had just sense of +shame enough left to shrink from facing her), I hastened away to +profit by my invitation on the very day when I received it. + +CHAPTER XIV. + +MRS. VAN BRANDT AT HOME. + +As I lifted my hand to ring the house bell, the door was opened +from within, and no less a person than Mr. Van Brandt himself +stood before me. He had his hat on. We had evidently met just as +he was going out. + +"My dear sir, how good this is of you! You present the best of +all replies to my letter in presenting yourself. Mrs. Van Brandt +is at home. Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted. Pray walk in." + +He threw open the door of a room on the ground-floor. His +politeness was (if possible) even more offensive than his +insolence. "Be seated, Mr. Germaine, I beg of you." He turned to +the open door, and called up the stairs, in a loud and confident +voice: + +"Mary! come down directly." + +"Mary"! I knew her Christian name at last, and knew it through +Van Brandt. No words can tell how the name jarred on me, spoken +by his lips. For the first time for years past my mind went back +to Mary Dermody and Greenwater Broad. The next moment I heard the +rustling of Mrs. Van Brandt's dress on the stairs. As the sound +caught my ear, the old times and the old faces vanished again +from my thoughts as completely as if they had never existed. What +had _she_ in common with the frail, shy little child, her +namesake, of other days? What similarity was perceivable in the +sooty London lodging-house to remind me of the bailiff's +flower-scented cottage by the shores of the lake? + +Van Brandt took off his hat, and bowed to me with sickening +servility. + +"I have a business appointment," he said, "which it is impossible +to put off. Pray excuse me. Mrs. Van Brandt will do the honors. +Good morning." + +The house door opened and closed again. The rustling of the dress +came slowly nearer and nearer. She stood before me. + +"Mr. Germaine!" she exclaimed, starting back, as if the bare +sight of me repelled her. "Is this honorable? Is this worthy of +you? You allow me to be entrapped into receiving you, and you +accept as your accomplice Mr. Van Brandt! Oh, sir, I have +accustomed myself to look up to you as a high-minded man. How +bitterly you have disappointed me!" + +Her reproaches passed by me unheeded. They only heightened her +color; they only added a new rapture to the luxury of looking at +her. + +"If you loved me as faithfully as I love you," I said, "you would +understand why I am here. No sacrifice is too great if it brings +me into your presence again after two years of absence." + +She suddenly approached me, and fixed her eyes in eager scrutiny +on my face. + +"There must be some mistake," she said. "You cannot possibly have +received my letter, or you have not read it?" + +"I have received it, and I have read it." + +"And Van Brandt's letter--you have read that too?" + +"Yes." + +She sat down by the table, and, leaning her arms on it, covered +her face with her hands. My answers seemed not only to have +distressed, but to have perplexed her. "Are men all alike?" I +heard her say. "I thought I might trust in _his_ sense of what +was due to himself and of what was compassionate toward me." + +I closed the door and seated myself by her side. She removed her +hands from her face when she felt me near her. She looked at me +with a cold and steady surprise. + +"What are you going to do?" she asked. + +"I am going to try if I can recover my place in your estimation," +I said. "I am going to ask your pity for a man whose whole heart +is yours, whose whole life is bound up in you." + +She started to her feet, and looked round her incredulously, as +if doubting whether she had rightly heard and rightly interpreted +my last words. Before I could speak again, she suddenly faced me, +and struck her open hand on the table with a passionate +resolution which I now saw in her for the first time. + +"Stop!" she cried. "There must be an end to this. And an end +there shall be. Do you know who that man is who has just left the +house? Answer me, Mr. Germaine! I am speaking in earnest." + +There was no choice but to answer her. She was indeed in +earnest--vehemently in earnest. + +"His letter tells me," I said, "that he is Mr. Van Brandt." + +She sat down again, and turned her face away from me. + +"Do you know how he came to write to you?" she asked. "Do you +know what made him invite you to this house?" + +I thought of the suspicion that had crossed my mind when I read +Van Brandt's letter. I made no reply. + +"You force me to tell you the truth," she went on. "He asked me +who you were, last night on our way home. I knew that you were +rich, and that _he_ wanted money. I told him I knew nothing of +your position in the world. He was too cunning to believe me; he +went out to the public-house and looked at a directory. He came +back and said, 'Mr. Germaine has a house in Berkeley Square and a +country-seat in the Highlands. He is not a man for a poor devil +like me to offend; I mean to make a friend of him, and I expect +you to make a friend of him too.' He sat down and wrote to you. I +am living under that man's protection, Mr. Germaine. His wife is +not dead, as you may suppose; she is living, and I know her to be +living. I wrote to you that I was beneath your notice, and you +have obliged me to tell you why. Am I sufficiently degraded to +bring you to your senses?" + +I drew closer to her. She tried to get up and leave me. I knew my +power over her, and used it (as any man in my place would have +used it) without scruple. I took her hand. + +"I don't believe you have voluntarily degraded yourself," I said. +"You have been forced into your present position: there are +circumstances which excuse you, and which you are purposely +keeping back from me. Nothing will convince me that you are a +base woman. Should I love you as I love you, if you were really +unworthy of me?" + +She struggled to free her hand; I still held it. She tried to +change the subject. "There is one thing you haven't told me yet," +she said, with a faint, forced smile. "Have you seen the +apparition of me again since I left you?" + +"No. Have _you_ ever seen _me_ again, as you saw me in your dream +at the inn in Edinburgh?" + +"Never. Our visions of each other have left us. Can you tell +why?" + +If we had continued to speak on this subject, we must surely have +recognized each other. But the subject dropped. Instead of +answering her question, I drew her nearer to me--I returned to +the forbidden subject of my love. + +"Look at me," I pleaded, "and tell me the truth. Can you see me, +can you hear me, and do you feel no answering sympathy in your +own heart? Do you really care nothing for me? Have you never once +thought of me in all the time that has passed since we last met?" + +I spoke as I felt--fervently, passionately. She made a last +effort to repel me, and yielded even as she made it. Her hand +closed on mine, a low sigh fluttered on her lips. She answered +with a sudden self-abandonment; she recklessly cast herself loose +from the restraints which had held her up to this time. + +"I think of you perpetually," she said. "I was thinking of you at +the opera last night . My heart leaped in me when I heard your +voice in the street." + +"You love me!" I whispered. + +"Love you!" she repeated. "My whole heart goes out to you in +spite of myself. Degraded as I am, unworthy as I am--knowing as I +do that nothing can ever come of it--I love you! I love you!" + +She threw her arms round my neck, and held me to her with all her +strength. The moment after, she dropped on her knees. "Oh, don't +tempt me!" she murmured. "Be merciful--and leave me." + +I was beside myself. I spoke as recklessly to her as she had +spoken to me. + +"Prove that you love me," I said. "Let me rescue you from the +degradation of living with that man. Leave him at once and +forever. Leave him, and come with me to a future that is worthy +of you--your future as my wife." + +"Never!" she answered, crouching low at my feet. + +"Why not? What obstacle is there?" + +"I can't tell you--I daren't tell you." + +"Will you write it?" + +"No, I can't even write it--to _you_. Go, I implore you, before +Van Brandt comes back. Go, if you love me and pity me." + +She had roused my jealousy. I positively refused to leave her. + +"I insist on knowing what binds you to that man," I said. "Let +him come back! If _you_ won't answer my question, I will put it +to _him_." + +She looked at me wildly, with a cry of terror. She saw my +resolution in my face. + +"Don't frighten me," she said. "Let me think." + +She reflected for a moment. Her eyes brightened, as if some new +way out of the difficulty had occurred to her. + +"Have you a mother living?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"Do you think she would come and see me?" + +"I am sure she would if I asked her." + +She considered with herself once more. "I will tell your mother +what the obstacle is," she said, thoughtfully. + +"When?" + +"To-morrow, at this time." + +She raised herself on her knees; the tears suddenly filled her +eyes. She drew me to her gently. "Kiss me," she whispered. "You +will never come here again. Kiss me for the last time." + +My lips had barely touched hers, when she started to her feet and +snatched up my hat from the chair on which I had placed it. + +"Take your hat," she said. "He has come back." + +My duller sense of hearing had discovered nothing. I rose and +took my hat to quiet her. At the same moment the door of the room +opened suddenly and softly. Mr. Van Brandt came in. I saw in his +face that he had some vile motive of his own for trying to take +us by surprise, and that the result of the experiment had +disappointed him. + +"You are not going yet?" he said, speaking to me with his eye on +Mrs. Van Brandt. "I have hurried over my business in the hope of +prevailing on you to stay and take lunch with us. Put down your +hat, Mr. Germaine. No ceremony!" + +"You are very good," I answered. "My time is limited to-day. I +must beg you and Mrs. Van Brandt to excuse me." + +I took leave of her as I spoke. She turned deadly pale when she +shook hands with me at parting. Had she any open brutality to +dread from Van Brandt as soon as my back was turned? The bare +suspicion of it made my blood boil. But I thought of _her_. In +her interests, the wise thing and the merciful thing to do was to +conciliate the fellow before I left the house. + +"I am sorry not to be able to accept your invitation," I said, as +we walked together to the door. "Perhaps you will give me another +chance?" + +His eyes twinkled cunningly. "What do you say to a quiet little +dinner here?" he asked. "A slice of mutton, you know, and a +bottle of good wine. Only our three selves, and one old friend of +mine to make up four. We will have a rubber of whist in the +evening. Mary and you partners--eh? When shall it be? Shall we +say the day after to-morrow?" + +She had followed us to the door, keeping behind Van Brandt while +he was speaking to me. When he mentioned the "old friend" and the +"rubber of whist," her face expressed the strongest emotions of +shame and disgust. The next moment (when she had heard him fix +the date of the dinner for "the day after to-morrow") her +features became composed again, as if a sudden sense of relief +had come to her. What did the change mean? "To-morrow" was the +day she had appointed for seeing my mother. Did she really +believe, when I had heard what passed at the interview, that I +should never enter the house again, and never attempt to see her +more? And was this the secret of her composure when she heard the +date of the dinner appointed for "the day after to-morrow"? + +Asking myself these questions, I accepted my invitation, and left +the house with a heavy heart. That farewell kiss, that sudden +composure when the day of the dinner was fixed, weighed on my +spirits. I would have given twelve years of my life to have +annihilated the next twelve hours. + +In this frame of mind I reached home, and presented myself in my +mother's sitting-room. + +"You have gone out earlier than usual to-day," she said. "Did the +fine weather tempt you, my dear?" She paused, and looked at me +more closely. "George!" she exclaimed, "what has happened to you? +Where have you been?" + +I told her the truth as honestly as I have told it here. + +The color deepened in my mother's face. She looked at me, and +spoke to me with a severity which was rare indeed in my +experience of her. + +"Must I remind you, for the first time in your life, of what is +due to your mother?" she asked. "Is it possible that you expect +me to visit a woman, who, by her own confession--" + +"I expect you to visit a woman who has only to say the word and +to be your daughter-in-law," I interposed. "Surely I am not +asking what is unworthy of you, if I ask that?" + +My mother looked at me in blank dismay. + +"Do you mean, George, that you have offered her marriage?" + +"Yes." + +"And she has said No?" + +"She has said No, because there is some obstacle in her way. I +have tried vainly to make her explain herself. She has promised +to confide everything to _you_." + +The serious nature of the emergency had its effect. My mother +yielded. She handed me the little ivory tablets on which she was +accustomed to record her engagements. "Write down the name and +address," she said resignedly. + +"I will go with you," I answered, "and wait in the carriage at +the door. I want to hear what has passed between you and Mrs. Van +Brandt the instant you have left her." + +"Is it as serious as that, George?" + +"Yes, mother, it is as serious as that." + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE OBSTACLE BEATS ME. + +HOW long was I left alone in the carriage at the door of Mrs. Van +Brandt's lodgings? Judging by my sensations, I waited half a +life-time. Judging by my watch, I waited half an hour. + +When my mother returned to me, the hope which I had entertained +of a happy result from her interview with Mrs. Van Brandt was a +hope abandoned before she had opened her lips. I saw, in her +face, that an obstacle which was beyond my power of removal did +indeed stand between me and the dearest wish of my life. + +"Tell me the worst," I said, as we drove away from the house, +"and tell it at once." + +"I must tell it to you, George," my mother answered, sadly, "as +she told it to me. She begged me herself to do that. 'We must +disappoint him,' she said, 'but pray let it be done as gently as +possible.' Beginning in those words, she confided to me the +painful story which you know already--the story of her marriage. +From that she passed to her meeting with you at Edinburgh, and to +the circumstances which have led her to live as she is living +now. This latter part of her narrative she especially requested +me to repeat to you. Do you feel composed enough to hear it now? +Or would you rather wait?" + +"Let me hear it now, mother; and tell it, as nearly as you can, +in her own words." + +"I will repeat what she said to me, my dear, as faithfully as I +can. After speaking of her father's death, she told me that she +had only two relatives living. 'I have a married aunt in Glasgow, +and a married aunt in London,' she said. 'When I left Edinburgh, +I went to my aunt in London. She and my father had not been on +good terms together; she considered that my father had neglected +her. But his death had softened her toward him and toward me. She +received me kindly, and she got me a situation in a shop. I kept +my situation for three months, and then I was obliged to leave +it.' + " + +My mother paused. I thought directly of the strange postscript +which Mrs. Van Brandt had made me add to the letter that I wrote +for her at the Edinburgh inn. In that case also she had only +contemplated remaining in her employment for three months' time. + +"Why was she obliged to leave her situation?" I asked. + +"I put that question to her myself," replied my mother. "She made +no direct reply--she changed color, and looked confused. 'I will +tell you afterward, madam,' she said. 'Please let me go on now. +My aunt was angry with me for leaving my employment--and she was +more angry still, when I told her the reason. She said I had +failed in duty toward her in not speaking frankly at first. We +parted coolly. I had saved a little money from my wages; and I +did well enough while my savings lasted. When they came to an +end, I tried to get employment again, and I failed. My aunt said, +and said truly, that her husband's income was barely enough to +support his family: she could do nothing for me, and I could do +nothing for myself. I wrote to my aunt at Glasgow, and received +no answer. Starvation stared me in the face, when I saw in a +newspaper an advertisement addressed to me by Mr. Van Brandt. He +implored me to write to him; he declared that his life without me +was too desolate to be endured; he solemnly promised that there +should be no interruption to my tranquillity if I would return to +him. If I had only had myself to think of, I would have begged my +bread in the streets rather than return to him--' " + +I interrupted the narrative at that point. + +"What other person could she have had to think of?" I said. + +"Is it possible, George," my mother rejoined, "that you have no +suspicion of what she was alluding to when she said those words?" + +The question passed by me unheeded: my thoughts were dwelling +bitterly on Van Brandt and his advertisement. "She answered the +advertisement, of course?" I said. + +"And she saw Mr. Van Brandt," my mother went on. "She gave me no +detailed account of the interview between them. 'He reminded me,' +she said, 'of what I knew to be true--that the woman who had +entrapped him into marrying her was an incurable drunkard, and +that his ever living with her again was out of the question. +Still she was alive, and she had a right to the name at least of +his wife. I won't attempt to excuse my returning to him, knowing +the circumstances as I did. I will only say that I could see no +other choice before me, in my position at the time. It is +needless to trouble you with what I have suffered since, or to +speak of what I may suffer still. I am a lost woman. Be under no +alarm, madam, about your son. I shall remember proudly to the end +of my life that he once offered me the honor and the happiness of +becoming his wife; but I know what is due to him and to you. I +have seen him for the last time. The one thing that remains to be +done is to satisfy him that our marriage is impossible. You are a +mother; you will understand why I reveal the obstacle which +stands between us--not to him, but to you.' She rose saying those +words, and opened the folding-doors which led from the parlor +into a back room. After an absence of a few moments only, she +returned." + +At that crowning point in the narrative, my mother stopped. Was +she afraid to go on? or did she think it needless to say more? + +"Well?" I said. + +"Must I really tell it to you in words, George? Can't you guess +how it ended, even yet?" + +There were two difficulties in the way of my understanding her. I +had a man's bluntness of perception, and I was half maddened by +suspense. Incredible as it may appear, I was too dull to guess +the truth even now. + +"When she returned to me," my mother resumed, "she was not alone. +She had with her a lovely little girl, just old enough to walk +with the help of her mother's hand. She tenderly kissed the +child, and then she put it on my lap. 'There is my only comfort,' +she said, simply; 'and there is the obstacle to my ever becoming +Mr. Germaine's wife.' " + +Van Brandt's child! Van Brandt's child! + +The postscript which she had made me add to my letter; the +incomprehensible withdrawal from the employment in which she was +prospering; the disheartening difficulties which had brought her +to the brink of starvation; the degrading return to the man who +had cruelly deceived her--all was explained, all was excused now! +With an infant at the breast, how could she obtain a new +employment? With famine staring her in the face, what else could +the friendless woman do but return to the father of her child? +What claim had I on her, by comparison with _him_? What did it +matter, now that the poor creature secretly returned the love +that I felt for her? There was the child, an obstacle between +us--there was _his_ hold on her, now that he had got her back! +What was _my_ hold worth? All social proprieties and all social +laws answered the question: Nothing! + +My head sunk on my breast; I received the blow in silence. + +My good mother took my hand. "You understand it now, George?" she +said, sorrowfully. + +"Yes, mother; I understand it." + +"There was one thing she wished me to say to you, my dear, which +I have not mentioned yet. She entreats you not to suppose that +she had the faintest idea of her situation when she attempted to +destroy herself. Her first suspicion that it was possible she +might become a mother was conveyed to her at Edinburgh, in a +conversation with her aunt. It is impossible, George, not to feel +compassionately toward this poor woman. Regrettable as her +position is, I cannot see that she is to blame for it. She was +the innocent victim of a vile fraud when that man married her; +she has suffered undeservedly since; and she has behaved nobly to +you and to me. I only do her justice in saying that she is a +woman in a thousand--a woman worthy, under happier circumstances, +to be my daughter and your wife. I feel _for_ you, and feel +_with_ you, my dear--I do, with my whole heart." + +So this scene in my life was, to all appearance, a scene closed +forever. As it had been with my love, in the days of my boyhood, +so it was again now with the love of my riper age! + +Later in the day, when I had in some degree recovered my +self-possession, I wrote to Mr. Van Brandt--as _she_ had foreseen +I should write!--to apologize for breaking my engagement to dine +with him. + +Could I trust to a letter also, to say the farewell words for me +to the woman whom I had loved and lost? No! It was better for +her, and better for me, that I should not write. And yet the idea +of leaving her in silence was more than my fortitude could +endure. Her last words at parting (as they were repeated to me by +my mother) had expressed the hope that I should not think hardly +of her in the future. How could I assure her that I should think +of her tenderly to the end of my life? My mother's delicate tact +and true sympathy showed me the way. "Send a little present, +George," she said, "to the child. You bear no malice to the poor +little child?" God knows I was not hard on the child! I went out +myself and bought her a toy. I brought it home, and before I sent +it away, I pinned a slip of paper to it, bearing this +inscription: "To your little daughter, from George Germaine." +There is nothing very pathetic, I suppose, in those words. And +yet I burst out crying when I had written them. + +The next morning my mother and I set forth for my country-house +in Perthshire. London was now unendurable to me. Traveling abroad +I had tried already. Nothing was left but to go back to the +Highlands, and to try what I could make of my life, with my +mother still left to live for. + +CHAPTER XVI. + +MY MOTHER'S DIARY. + +THERE is something repellent to me, even at this distance of +time, in looking back at the dreary days, of seclusion which +followed each other monotonously in my Highland home. The actions +of my life, however trifling they may have been, I can find some +interest in recalling: they associate me with my +fellow-creatures; they connect me, in some degree, with the +vigorous movement of the world. But I have no sympathy with the +purely selfish pleasure which some men appear to derive from +dwelling on the minute anatomy of their own feelings, under the +pr essure of adverse fortune. Let the domestic record of our +stagnant life in Perthshire (so far as I am concerned in it) be +presented in my mother's words, not in mine. A few lines of +extract from the daily journal which it was her habit to keep +will tell all that need be told before this narrative advances to +later dates and to newer scenes. + + +"20th August.--We have been two months at our home in Scotland, +and I see no change in George for the better. He is as far as +ever, I fear, from being reconciled to his separation from that +unhappy woman. Nothing will induce him to confess it himself. He +declares that his quiet life here with me is all that he desires. +But I know better! I have been into his bedroom late at night. I +have heard him talking of her in his sleep, and I have seen the +tears on his eyelids. My poor boy! What thousands of charming +women there are who would ask nothing better than to be his wife! +And the one woman whom he can never marry is the only woman whom +he loves! + +"25th.--A long conversation about George with Mr. MacGlue. I have +never liked this Scotch doctor since he encouraged my son to keep +the fatal appointment at Saint Anthony's Well. But he seems to be +a clever man in his profession--and I think, in his way, he means +kindly toward George. His advice was given as coarsely as usual, +and very positively at the same time. 'Nothing will cure your +son, madam, of his amatory passion for that half-drowned lady of +his but change--and another lady. Send him away by himself this +time; and let him feel the want of some kind creature to look +after him. And when he meets with that kind creature (they are as +plenty as fish in the sea), never trouble your head about it if +there's a flaw in her character. I have got a cracked tea-cup +which has served me for twenty years. Marry him, ma'am, to the +new one with the utmost speed and impetuosity which the law will +permit.' I hate Mr. MacGlue's opinions--so coarse and so +hard-hearted!--but I sadly fear that I must part with my son for +a little while, for his own sake. + +"26th.--Where is George to go? I have been thinking of it all +through the night, and I cannot arrive at a conclusion. It is so +difficult to reconcile myself to letting him go away alone. + +"29th.--I have always believed in special providences; and I am +now confirmed in my belief. This morning has brought with it a +note from our good friend and neighbor at Belhelvie. Sir James is +one of the commissioners for the Northern Lights. He is going in +a Government vessel to inspect the lighthouses on the North of +Scotland, and on the Orkney and Shetland Islands--and, having +noticed how worn and ill my poor boy looks, he most kindly +invites George to be his guest on the voyage. They will not be +absent for more than two months; and the sea (as Sir James +reminds me) did wonders for George's health when he returned from +India. I could wish for no better opportunity than this of trying +what change of air and scene will do for him. However painfully I +may feel the separation myself, I shall put a cheerful face on +it; and I shall urge George to accept the invitation. + +"30th.--I have said all I could; but he still refuses to leave +me. I am a miserable, selfish creature. I felt so glad when he +said No. + +"31st.--Another wakeful night. George must positively send his +answer to Sir James to-day. I am determined to do my duty toward +my son--he looks so dreadfully pale and ill this morning! +Besides, if something is not done to rouse him, how do I know +that he may not end in going back to Mrs. Van Brandt after all? +From every point of view, I feel bound to insist on his accepting +Sir James's invitation. I have only to be firm, and the thing is +done. He has never yet disobeyed me, poor fellow. He will not +disobey me now. + +"2d September.--He has gone! Entirely to please me--entirely +against his own wishes. Oh, how is it that such a good son cannot +get a good wife! He would make any woman happy. I wonder whether +I have done right in sending him away? The wind is moaning in the +fir plantation at the back of the house. Is there a storm at sea? +I forgot to ask Sir James how big the vessel was. The 'Guide to +Scotland' says the coast is rugged; and there is a wild sea +between the north shore and the Orkney Islands. I almost regret +having insisted so strongly--how foolish I am! We are all in the +hands of God. May God bless and prosper my good son! + +"10th.--Very uneasy. No letter from George. Ah, how full of +trouble this life is! and how strange that we should cling to it +as we do! + +"15th.--A letter from George! They have done with the north coast +and they have crossed the wild sea to the Orkneys. Wonderful +weather has favored them so far; and George is in better health +and spirits. Ah! how much happiness there is in life if we only +have the patience to wait for it. + +"2d October.--Another letter. They are safe in the harbor of +Lerwick, the chief port in the Shetland Islands. The weather has +not latterly been at all favorable. But the amendment in George's +health remains. He writes most gratefully of Sir James's +unremitting kindness to him. I am so happy, I declare I could +kiss Sir James--though he _is_ a great man, and a Commissioner +for Northern Lights! In three weeks more (wind and weather +permitting) they hope to get back. Never mind my lonely life +here, if I can only see George happy and well again! He tells me +they have passed a great deal of their time on shore; but not a +word does he say about meeting any ladies. Perhaps they are +scarce in those wild regions? I have heard of Shetland shawls and +Shetland ponies. Are there any Shetland ladies, I wonder?" + +CHAPTER XVII. + +SHETLAND HOSPITALITY. + +"GUIDE! Where are we?" + +"I can't say for certain." + +"Have you lost your way?" + +The guide looks slowly all round him, and then looks at me. That +is his answer to my question. And that is enough. + +The lost persons are three in number. My traveling companion, +myself, and the guide. We are seated on three Shetland ponies--so +small in stature, that we two strangers were at first literally +ashamed to get on their backs. We are surrounded by dripping +white mist so dense that we become invisible to one another at a +distance of half a dozen yards. We know that we are somewhere on +the mainland of the Shetland Isles. We see under the feet of our +ponies a mixture of moorland and bog--here, the strip of firm +ground that we are standing on, and there, a few feet off, the +strip of watery peat-bog, which is deep enough to suffocate us if +we step into it. Thus far, and no further, our knowledge extends. +This question of the moment is, What are we to do next? + +The guide lights his pipe, and reminds me that he warned us +against the weather before we started for our ride. My traveling +companion looks at me resignedly, with an expression of mild +reproach. I deserve it. My rashness is to blame for the +disastrous position in which we now find ourselves. + +In writing to my mother, I have been careful to report favorably +of my health and spirits. But I have not confessed that I still +remember the day when I parted with the one hope and renounced +the one love which made life precious to me. My torpid condition +of mind, at home, has simply given place to a perpetual +restlessness, produced by the excitement of my new life. I must +now always be doing something--no matter what, so long as it +diverts me from my own thoughts. Inaction is unendurable; +solitude has become horrible to me. While the other members of +the party which has accompanied Sir James on his voyage of +inspection among the lighthouses are content to wait in the +harbor of Lerwick for a favorable change in the weather, I am +obstinately bent on leaving the comfortable shelter of the vessel +to explore some inland ruin of prehistoric times, of which I +never heard, and for which I care nothing. The movement is all I +want; the ride will fill the hateful void of time. I go, in +defiance of sound advice offered to me on all sides. The youngest +member of our party catches the infection of my recklessness (in +virtue of his youth) and goes with me. And what has come of it? +We are blinded by mist; we are lost on a moor; and the treacherou +s peat-bogs are round us in every direction! + +What is to be done? + +"Just leave it to the pownies," the guide says. + +"Do you mean leave the ponies to find the way?" + +"That's it," says the guide. "Drop the bridle, and leave it to +the pownies. See for yourselves. I'm away on _my_ powny." + +He drops his bridle on the pommel of his saddle, whistles to his +pony, and disappears in the mist; riding with his hands in his +pockets, and his pipe in his mouth, as composedly as if he were +sitting by his own fireside at home. + +We have no choice but to follow his example, or to be left alone +on the moor. The intelligent little animals, relieved from our +stupid supervision, trot off with their noses to the ground, like +hounds on the scent. Where the intersecting tract of bog is wide, +they skirt round it. Where it is narrow enough to be leaped over, +they cross it by a jump. Trot! trot!--away the hardy little +creatures go; never stopping, never hesitating. Our "superior +intelligence," perfectly useless in the emergency, wonders how it +will end. Our guide, in front of us, answers that it will end in +the ponies finding their way certainly to the nearest village or +the nearest house. "Let the bridles be," is his one warning to +us. "Come what may of it, let the bridles be!" + +It is easy for the guide to let his bridle be--he is accustomed +to place himself in that helpless position under stress of +circumstances, and he knows exactly what his pony can do. + +To us, however, the situation is a new one; and it looks +dangerous in the extreme. More than once I check myself, not +without an effort, in the act of resuming the command of my pony +on passing the more dangerous points in the journey. The time +goes on; and no sign of an inhabited dwelling looms through the +mist. I begin to get fidgety and irritable; I find myself +secretly doubting the trustworthiness of the guide. While I am in +this unsettled frame of mind, my pony approaches a dim, black, +winding line, where the bog must be crossed for the hundredth +time at least. The breadth of it (deceptively enlarged in +appearance by the mist) looks to my eyes beyond the reach of a +leap by any pony that ever was foaled. I lose my presence of +mind. At the critical moment before the jump is taken, I am +foolish enough to seize the bridle, and suddenly check the pony. +He starts, throws up his head, and falls instantly as if he had +been shot. My right hand, as we drop on the ground together, gets +twisted under me, and I feel that I have sprained my wrist. + +If I escape with no worse injury than this, I may consider myself +well off. But no such good fortune is reserved for me. In his +struggles to rise, before I have completely extricated myself +from him, the pony kicks me; and, as my ill-luck will have it, +his hoof strikes just where the poisoned spear struck me in the +past days of my service in India. The old wound opens again--and +there I lie bleeding on the barren Shetland moor! + +This time my strength has not been exhausted in attempting to +breast the current of a swift-flowing river with a drowning woman +to support. I preserve my senses; and I am able to give the +necessary directions for bandaging the wound with the best +materials which we have at our disposal. To mount my pony again +is simply out of the question. I must remain where I am, with my +traveling companion to look after me; and the guide must trust +his pony to discover the nearest place of shelter to which I can +be removed. + +Before he abandons us on the moor, the man (at my suggestion) +takes our " bearings," as correctly as he can by the help of my +pocket-compass. This done, he disappears in the mist, with the +bridle hanging loose, and the pony's nose to the ground, as +before. I am left, under my young friend's care, with a cloak to +lie on, and a saddle for a pillow. Our ponies composedly help +themselves to such grass as they can find on the moor; keeping +always near us as companionably as if they were a couple of dogs. +In this position we wait events, while the dripping mist hangs +thicker than ever all round us. + +The slow minutes follow each other wearily in the majestic +silence of the moor. We neither of us acknowledge it in words, +but we both feel that hours may pass before the guide discovers +us again. The penetrating damp slowly strengthens its clammy hold +on me. My companion's pocket-flask of sherry has about a +teaspoonful of wine left in the bottom of it. We look at one +another--having nothing else to look at in the present state of +the weather--and we try to make the best of it. So the slow +minutes follow each other, until our watches tell us that forty +minutes have elapsed since the guide and his pony vanished from +our view. + +My friend suggests that we may as well try what our voices can do +toward proclaiming our situation to any living creature who may, +by the barest possibility, be within hearing of us. I leave him +to try the experiment, having no strength to spare for vocal +efforts of any sort. My companion shouts at the highest pitch of +his voice. Silence follows his first attempt. He tries again; +and, this time, an answering hail reaches us faintly through the +white fog. A fellow-creature of some sort, guide or stranger, is +near us--help is coming at last! + +An interval passes; and voices reach our ears--the voices of two +men. Then the shadowy appearance of the two becomes visible in +the mist. Then the guide advances near enough to be identified. +He is followed by a sturdy fellow in a composite dress, which +presents him under the double aspect of a groom and a gardener. +The guide speaks a few words of rough sympathy. The composite man +stands by impenetrably silent; the sight of a disabled stranger +fails entirely either to surprise or to interest the +gardener-groom. + +After a little private consultation, the two men decide to cross +their hands, and thus make a seat for me between them. My arms +rest on their shoulders; and so they carry me off. My friend +trudges behind them, with the saddle and the cloak. The ponies +caper and kick, in unrestrained enjoyment of their freedom; and +sometimes follow, sometimes precede us, as the humor of the +moment inclines them. I am, fortunately for my bearers, a light +weight. After twice resting, they stop altogether, and set me +down on the driest place they can find. I look eagerly through +the mist for some signs of a dwelling-house--and I see nothing +but a little shelving beach, and a sheet of dark water beyond. +Where are we? + +The gardener-groom vanishes, and appears again on the water, +looming large in a boat. I am laid down in the bottom of the +boat, with my saddle-pillow; and we shove off, leaving the ponies +to the desolate freedom of the moor. They will pick up plenty to +eat (the guide says); and when night comes on they will find +their own way to shelter in a village hard by. The last I see of +the hardy little creatures they are taking a drink of water, side +by side, and biting each other sportively in higher spirits than +ever! + +Slowly we float over the dark water--not a river, as I had at +first supposed, but a lake--until we reach the shores of a little +island; a flat, lonely, barren patch of ground. I am carried +along a rough pathway made of great flat stones, until we reach +the firmer earth, and discover a human dwelling-place at last. It +is a long, low house of one story high; forming (as well as I can +see) three sides of a square. The door stands hospitably open. +The hall within is bare and cold and dreary. The men open an +inner door, and we enter a long corridor, comfortably warmed by a +peat fire. On one wall I notice the closed oaken doors of rooms; +on the other, rows on rows of well-filled book-shelves meet my +eye. Advancing to the end of the first passage, we turn at right +angles into a second. Here a door is opened at last: I find +myself in a spacious room, completely and tastefully furnished, +having two beds in it, and a large fire burning in the grate. The +change to this warm and cheerful place of shelter from the chilly +and misty solitude of the moor is so luxuriously delightful that +I am quite content, for the first few minutes, to stretch myself +on a bed, in lazy enjoyment of my new position; without caring to +inquire into whose house we have intruded; without even wondering +at the strange absence of master, mistress, or member of the +family to welcome our arrival under their hospitable roof. + +After a while, the first sense of relief passes away. My dormant +curiosity revives. I begin to look about me. + +The gardener-groom has disappeared. I discover my traveling +companion at the further end of the room, evidently occupied in +questioning the guide. A word from me brings him to my bedside. +What discoveries has he made? whose is the house in which we are +sheltered; and how is it that no member of the family appears to +welcome us? + +My friend relates his discoveries. The guide listens as +attentively to the second-hand narrative as if it were quite new +to him. + +The house that shelters us belongs to a gentleman of ancient +Northern lineage, whose name is Dunross. He has lived in unbroken +retirement on the barren island for twenty years past, with no +other companion than a daughter, who is his only child. He is +generally believed to be one of the most learned men living. The +inhabitants of Shetland know him far and wide, under a name in +their dialect which means, being interpreted, "The Master of +Books." The one occasion on which he and his daughter have been +known to leave their island retreat was at a past time when a +terrible epidemic disease broke out among the villages in the +neighborhood. Father and daughter labored day and night among +their poor and afflicted neighbors, with a courage which no +danger could shake, with a tender care which no fatigue could +exhaust. The father had escaped infection, and the violence of +the epidemic was beginning to wear itself out, when the daughter +caught the disease. Her life had been preserved, but she never +completely recovered her health. She is now an incurable sufferer +from some mysterious nervous disorder which nobody understands, +and which has kept her a prisoner on the island, self-withdrawn +from all human observation, for years past. Among the poor +inhabitants of the district, the father and daughter are +worshiped as semi-divine beings. Their names come after the +Sacred Name in the prayers which the parents teach to their +children. + +Such is the household (so far as the guide's story goes) on whose +privacy we have intruded ourselves! The narrative has a certain +interest of its own, no doubt, but it has one defect--it fails +entirely to explain the continued absence of Mr. Dunross. Is it +possible that he is not aware of our presence in the house? We +apply the guide, and make a few further inquiries of him. + +"Are we here," I ask, "by permission of Mr. Dunross?" + +The guide stares. If I had spoken to him in Greek or Hebrew, I +could hardly have puzzled him more effectually. My friend tries +him with a simpler form of words. + +"Did you ask leave to bring us here when you found your way to +the house?" + +The guide stares harder than ever, with every appearance of +feeling perfectly scandalized by the question. + +"Do you think," he asks, sternly, "'that I am fool enough to +disturb the Master over his books for such a little matter as +bringing you and your friend into this house?" + +"Do you mean that you have brought us here without first asking +leave?" I exclaim in amazement. + +The guide's face brightens; he has beaten the true state of the +case into our stupid heads at last! "That's just what I mean!" he +says, with an air of infinite relief. + +The door opens before we have recovered the shock inflicted on us +by this extraordinary discovery. A little, lean, old gentleman, +shrouded in a long black dressing-gown, quietly enters the room. +The guide steps forward, and respectfully closes the door for +him. We are evidently in the presence of The Master of Books! + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE DARKENED ROOM. + +THE little gentleman advances to my bedside. His silky white hair +flows over his shoulders; he looks at us with faded blue eyes; he +bows with a sad and subdued courtesy, and says, in the simplest +manner, "I bid you welcome, gentlemen, to my house." + +We are not content with merely thanking him; we naturally attempt +to apologize for our intrusion. Our host defeats the attempt at +the outset by making an apology on his own behalf. + +"I happened to send for my servant a minute since," he proceeds, +"and I only then heard that you were here. It is a custom of the +house that nobody interrupts me over my books. Be pleased, sir, +to accept my excuses," he adds, addressing himself to me, "for +not having sooner placed myself and my household at your +disposal. You have met, as I am sorry to hear, with an accident. +Will you permit me to send for medical help? I ask the question a +little abruptly, fearing that time may be of importance, and +knowing that our nearest doctor lives at some distance from this +house." + +He speaks with a certain quaintly precise choice of words--more +like a man dictating a letter than holding a conversation. The +subdued sadness of his manner is reflected in the subdued sadness +of his face. He and sorrow have apparently been old +acquaintances, and have become used to each other for years past. +The shadow of some past grief rests quietly and impenetrably over +the whole man; I see it in his faded blue eyes, on his broad +forehead, on his delicate lips, on his pale shriveled cheeks. My +uneasy sense of committing an intrusion on him steadily +increases, in spite of his courteous welcome. I explain to him +that I am capable of treating my own case, having been myself in +practice as a medical man; and this said, I revert to my +interrupted excuses. I assure him that it is only within the last +few moments that my traveling companion and I have become aware +of the liberty which our guide has taken in introducing us, on +his own sole responsibility, to the house. Mr. Dunross looks at +me, as if he, like the guide, failed entirely to understand what +my scruples and excuses mean. After a while the truth dawns on +him. A faint smile flickers over his face; he lays his hand in a +gentle, fatherly way on my shoulder. + +"We are so used here to our Shetland hospitality," he says, "that +we are slow to understand the hesitation which a stranger feels +in taking advantage of it. Your guide is in no respect to blame, +gentlemen. Every house in these islands which is large enough to +contain a spare room has its Guests' Chamber, always kept ready +for occupation. When you travel my way, you come here as a matter +of course; you stay here as long as you like; and, when you go +away, I only do my duty as a good Shetlander in accompanying you +on the first stage of your journey to bid you godspeed. The +customs of centuries past elsewhere are modern customs here. I +beg of you to give my servant all the directions which are +necessary to your comfort, just as freely as you could give them +in your own house." + +He turns aside to ring a hand-bell on the table as he speaks; and +notices in the guide's face plain signs that the man has taken +offense at my disparaging allusion to him. + +"Strangers cannot be expected to understand our ways, Andrew," +says The Master of Books. "But you and I understand one +another--and that is enough." + +The guide's rough face reddens with pleasure. If a crowned king +on a throne had spoken condescendingly to him, he could hardly +have looked more proud of the honor conferred than he looks now. +He makes a clumsy attempt to take the Master's hand and kiss it. +Mr. Dunross gently repels the attempt, and gives him a little pat +on the head. The guide looks at me and my friend as if he had +been honored with the highest distinction that an earthly being +can receive. The Master's hand had touched him kindly! + +In a moment more, the gardener-groom appears at the door to +answer the bell. + +"You will move the medicine-chest into this room, Peter," says +Mr. Dunross. "And you will wait on this gentleman, who is +confined to his bed by an accident, exactly as you would wait on +me if I were ill. If we both happen to ring for you together, you +will answer his bell before you answer mine. The usual changes of +linen are, of course, ready in the wardrobe there? Very good. Go +now, and tell the cook to prepare a little dinner; and get a +bottle of the old Madeira + out of the cellar. You will spread the table, for to-day at +least, in this room. These two gentlemen will be best pleased to +dine together. Return here in five minutes' time, in case you are +wanted; and show my guest, Peter, that I am right in believing +you to be a good nurse as well as a good servant." + +The silent and surly Peter brightens under the expression of the +Master's confidence in him, as the guide brightened under the +influence of the Master s caressing touch. The two men leave the +room together. + +We take advantage of the momentary silence that follows to +introduce ourselves by name to our host, and to inform him of the +circumstances under which we happen to be visiting Shetland. He +listens in his subdued, courteous way; but he makes no inquiries +about our relatives; he shows no interest in the arrival of the +Government yacht and the Commissioner for Northern Lights. All +sympathy with the doings of the outer world, all curiosity about +persons of social position and notoriety, is evidently at an end +in Mr. Dunross. For twenty years the little round of his duties +and his occupations has been enough for him. Life has lost its +priceless value to this man; and when Death comes to him he will +receive the king of terrors as he might receive the last of his +guests. + +"Is there anything else I can do," he says, speaking more to +himself than to us, "before I go back to my books?" + +Something else occurs to him, even as he puts the question. He +addresses my companion, with his faint, sad smile. "This will be +a dull life, I am afraid, sir, for you. If you happen to be fond +of angling, I can offer you some little amusement in that way. +The lake is well stocked with fish; and I have a boy employed in +the garden, who will be glad to attend on you in the boat." + +My friend happens to be fond of fishing, and gladly accepts the +invitation. The Master says his parting words to me before he +goes back to his books. + +"You may safely trust my man Peter to wait on you, Mr. Germaine, +while you are so unfortunate as to be confined to this room. He +has the advantage (in cases of illness) of being a very silent, +undemonstrative person. At the same time he is careful and +considerate, in his own reserved way. As to what I may term the +lighter duties at your bedside such as reading to you, writing +your letters for you while your right hand is still disabled, +regulating the temperature in the room, and so on--though I +cannot speak positively, I think it likely that these little +services may be rendered to you by another person whom I have not +mentioned yet. We shall see what happens in a few hours' time. In +the meanwhile, sir, I ask permission to leave you to your rest." + +With those words, he walks out of the room as quietly as he +walked into it, and leaves his two guests to meditate gratefully +on Shetland hospitality. We both wonder what those last +mysterious words of our host mean; and we exchange more or less +ingenious guesses on the subject of that nameless "other person" +who may possibly attend on me--until the arrival of dinner turns +our thoughts into a new course. + +The dishes are few in number, but cooked to perfection and +admirably served. I am too weary to eat much: a glass of the fine +old Madeira revives me. We arrange our future plans while we are +engaged over the meal. Our return to the yacht in Lerwick harbor +is expected on the next day at the latest. As things are, I can +only leave my companion to go back to the vessel, and relieve the +minds of our friends of any needless alarm about me. On the day +after, I engage to send on board a written report of the state of +my health, by a messenger who can bring my portmanteau back with +him. + +These arrangements decided on, my friend goes away (at my own +request) to try his skill as an angler in the lake. Assisted by +the silent Peter and the well-stocked medicine-chest, I apply the +necessary dressings to my wound, wrap myself in the comfortable +morning-gown which is always kept ready in the Guests' Chamber, +and lie down again on the bed to try the restorative virtues of +sleep. + +Before he leaves the room, silent Peter goes to the window, and +asks in fewest possible words if he shall draw the curtains. In +fewer words still--for I am feeling drowsy already--I answer No. +I dislike shutting out the cheering light of day. To my morbid +fancy, at that moment, it looks like resigning myself +deliberately to the horrors of a long illness. The hand-bell is +on my bedside table; and I can always ring for Peter if the light +keeps me from sleeping. On this understanding, Peter mutely nods +his head, and goes out. + +For some minutes I lie in lazy contemplation of the companionable +fire. Meanwhile the dressings on my wound and the embrocation on +my sprained wrist steadily subdue the pains which I have felt so +far. Little by little, the bright fire seems to be fading. Little +by little, sleep steals on me, and all my troubles are forgotten. + +I wake, after what seems to have been a long repose--I wake, +feeling the bewilderment which we all experience on opening our +eyes for the first time in a bed and a room that are new to us. +Gradually collecting my thoughts, I find my perplexity +considerably increased by a trifling but curious circumstance. +The curtains which I had forbidden Peter to touch are +drawn--closely drawn, so as to plunge the whole room in +obscurity. And, more surprising still, a high screen with folding +sides stands before the fire, and confines the light which it +might otherwise give exclusively to the ceiling. I am literally +enveloped in shadows. Has night come? + +In lazy wonder, I turn my head on the pillow, and look on the +other side of my bed. + +Dark as it is, I discover instantly that I am not alone. + +A shadowy figure stands by my bedside. The dim outline of the +dress tells me that it is the figure of a woman. Straining my +eyes, I fancy I can discern a wavy black object covering her head +and shoulders which looks like a large veil. Her face is turned +toward me, but no distinguishing feature in it is visible. She +stands like a statue, with her hands crossed in front of her, +faintly relieved against the dark substance of her dress. This I +can see--and this is all. + +There is a moment of silence. The shadowy being finds its voice, +and speaks first. + +"I hope you feel better, sir, after your rest?" + +The voice is low, with a certain faint sweetness or tone which +falls soothingly on my ear. The accent is unmistakably the accent +of a refined and cultivated person. After making my +acknowledgments to the unknown and half-seen lady, I venture to +ask the inevitable question, "To whom have I the honor of +speaking?" + +The lady answers, "I am Miss Dunross; and I hope, if you have no +objection to it, to help Peter in nursing you." + +This, then, is the "other person" dimly alluded to by our host! I +think directly of the heroic conduct of Miss Dunross among her +poor and afflicted neighbors; and I do not forget the melancholy +result of her devotion to others which has left her an incurable +invalid. My anxiety to see this lady more plainly increases a +hundred-fold. I beg her to add to my grateful sense of her +kindness by telling me why the room is so dark "Surely," I say, +"it cannot be night already?" + +"You have not been asleep," she answers, "for more than two +hours. The mist has disappeared, and the sun is shining." + +I take up the bell, standing on the table at my side. + +"May I ring for Peter, Miss Dunross?" + +"To open the curtains, Mr. Germaine?" + +"Yes--with your permission. I own I should like to see the +sunlight." + +"I will send Peter to you immediately." + +The shadowy figure of my new nurse glides away. In another +moment, unless I say something to stop her, the woman whom I am +so eager to see will have left the room. + +"Pray don't go!" I say. "I cannot think of troubling you to take +a trifling message for me. The servant will come in, if I only +ring the bell." + +She pauses--more shadowy than ever--halfway between the bed and +the door, and answers a little sadly: + +"Peter will not let in the daylight while I am in the room. He +closed the curtains by my order." + +The reply puzzles me. Why should Peter keep the room dark while +Miss Dunro ss is in it? Are her eyes weak? No; if her eyes were +weak, they would be protected by a shade. Dark as it is, I can +see that she does not wear a shade. Why has the room been +darkened--if not for me? I cannot venture on asking the +question--I can only make my excuses in due form. + +"Invalids only think of themselves," I say. "I supposed that you +had kindly darkened the room on my account." + +She glides back to my bedside before she speaks again. When she +does answer, it is in these startling words: + +"You were mistaken, Mr. Germaine. Your room has been +darkened--not on your account, but on _mine_." + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE CATS. + +MISS DUNROSS had so completely perplexed me, that I was at a loss +what to say next. + +To ask her plainly why it was necessary to keep the room in +darkness while she remained in it, might prove (for all I knew to +the contrary) to be an act of positive rudeness. To venture on +any general expression of sympathy with her, knowing absolutely +nothing of the circumstances, might place us both in an +embarrassing position at the outset of our acquaintance. The one +thing I could do was to beg that the present arrangement of the +room might not be disturbed, and to leave her to decide as to +whether she should admit me to her confidence or exclude me from +it, at her own sole discretion. + +She perfectly understood what was going on in my mind. Taking a +chair at the foot of the bed, she told me simply and unreservedly +the sad secret of the darkened room. + +"If you wish to see much of me, Mr. Germaine," she began, "you +must accustom yourself to the world of shadows in which it is my +lot to live. Some time since, a dreadful illness raged among the +people in our part of this island; and I was so unfortunate as to +catch the infection. When I recovered--no! 'Recovery' is not the +right word to use--let me say, when I escaped death, I found +myself afflicted by a nervous malady which has defied medical +help from that time to this. I am suffering (as the doctors +explain it to me) from a morbidly sensitive condition of the +nerves near the surface to the action of light. If I were to draw +the curtains, and look out of that window, I should feel the +acutest pain all over my face. If I covered my face, and drew the +curtains with my bare hands, I should feel the same pain in my +hands. You can just see, perhaps, that I have a very large and +very thick veil on my head. I let it fall over my face and neck +and hands, when I have occasion to pass along the corridors or to +enter my father's study--and I find it protection enough. Don't +be too ready to deplore my sad condition, sir! I have got so used +to living in the dark that I can see quite well enough for all +the purposes of _my_ poor existence. I can read and write in +these shadows--I can see you, and be of use to you in many little +ways, if you will let me. There is really nothing to be +distressed about. My life will not be a long one--I know and feel +that. But I hope to be spared long enough to be my father's +companion through the closing years of his life. Beyond that, I +have no prospect. In the meanwhile, I have my pleasures; and I +mean to add to my scanty little stack the pleasure of attending +on you. You are quite an event in my life. I look forward to +reading to you and writing for you, as some girls look forward to +a new dress, or a first ball. Do you think it very strange of me +to tell you so openly just what I have in my mind? I can't help +it! I say what I think to my father and to our poor neighbors +hereabouts--and I can't alter my ways at a moment's notice. I own +it when I like people; and I own it when I don't. I have been +looking at you while you were asleep; and I have read your face +as I might read a book. There are signs of sorrow on your +forehead and your lips which it is strange to see in so young a +face as yours. I am afraid I shall trouble you with many +questions about yourself when we become better acquainted with +each other. Let me begin with a question, in my capacity as +nurse. Are your pillows comfortable? I can see they want shaking +up. Shall I send for Peter to raise you? I am unhappily not +strong enough to be able to help you in that way. No? You are +able to raise yourself? Wait a little. There! Now lie back--and +tell me if I know how to establish the right sort of sympathy +between a tumbled pillow and a weary head." + +She had so indescribably touched and interested me, stranger as I +was, that the sudden cessation of her faint, sweet tones affected +me almost with a sense of pain. In trying (clumsily enough) to +help her with the pillows, I accidentally touched her hand. It +felt so cold and so thin, that even the momentary contact with it +startled me. I tried vainly to see her face, now that it was more +within reach of my range of view. The merciless darkness kept it +as complete a mystery as ever. Had my curiosity escaped her +notice? Nothing escaped her notice. Her next words told me +plainly that I had been discovered. + +"You have been trying to see me," she said. "Has my hand warned +you not to try again? I felt that it startled you when you +touched it just now." + +Such quickness of perception as this was not to be deceived; such +fearless candor demanded as a right a similar frankness on my +side. I owned the truth, and left it to her indulgence to forgive +me. + +She returned slowly to her chair at the foot of the bed. + +"If we are to be friends," she said, "we must begin by +understanding one another. Don't associate any romantic ideas of +invisible beauty with _me_, Mr. Germaine. I had but one beauty to +boast of before I fell ill--my complexion--and that has gone +forever. There is nothing to see in me now but the poor +reflection of my former self; the ruin of what was once a woman. +I don't say this to distress you--I say it to reconcile you to +the darkness as a perpetual obstacle, so far as your eyes are +concerned, between you and me. Make the best instead of the worst +of your strange position here. It offers you a new sensation to +amuse you while you are ill. You have a nurse who is an +impersonal creature--a shadow among shadows; a voice to speak to +you, and a hand to help you, and nothing more. Enough of myself!" +she exclaimed, rising and changing her tone. "What can I do to +amuse you?" She considered a little. "I have some odd tastes," +she resumed; "and I think I may entertain you if I make you +acquainted with one of them. Are you like most other men, Mr. +Germaine? Do you hate cats?" + +The question startled me. However, I could honestly answer that, +in this respect at least, I was not like other men. + +"To my thinking," I added, "the cat is a cruelly misunderstood +creature--especially in England. Women, no doubt, generally do +justice to the affectionate nature of cats. But the men treat +them as if they were the natural enemies of the human race. The +men drive a cat out of their presence if it ventures upstairs, +and set their dogs at it if it shows itself in the street--and +then they turn round and accuse the poor creature (whose genial +nature must attach itself to something) of being only fond of the +kitchen!" + +The expression of these unpopular sentiments appeared to raise me +greatly in the estimation of Miss Dunross. + +"We have one sympathy in common, at any rate," she said. "Now I +can amuse you! Prepare for a surprise." + +She drew her veil over her face as she spoke, and, partially +opening the door, rang my handbell. Peter appeared, and received +his instructions. + +"Move the screen," said Miss Dunross. Peter obeyed; the ruddy +firelight streamed over the floor. Miss Dunross proceeded with +her directions. "Open the door of the cats' room, Peter; and +bring me my harp. Don't suppose that you are going to listen to a +great player, Mr. Germaine," she went on, when Peter had departed +on his singular errand, "or that you are likely to see the sort +of harp to which you are accustomed, as a man of the modern time. +I can only play some old Scotch airs; and my harp is an ancient +instrument (with new strings)--an heirloom in our family, some +centuries old. When you see my harp, you will think of pictures +of St. Cecilia--and you will be treating my performance kindly if +you will remember, at the sam e time, that I am no saint!" + +She drew her chair into the firelight, and sounded a whistle +which she took from the pocket of her dress. In another moment +the lithe and shadowy figures of the cats appeared noiselessly in +the red light, answering their mistress's call. I could just +count six of them, as the creatures seated themselves demurely in +a circle round the chair. Peter followed with the harp, and +closed the door after him as he went out. The streak of daylight +being now excluded from the room, Miss Dunross threw back her +veil, and took the harp on her knee; seating herself, I observed, +with her face turned away from the fire. + +"You will have light enough to see the cats by," she said, +"without having too much light for _me_. Firelight does not give +me the acute pain which I suffer when daylight falls on my +face--I feel a certain inconvenience from it, and nothing more." + +She touched the strings of her instrument--the ancient harp, as +she had said, of the pictured St. Cecilia; or, rather, as I +thought, the ancient harp of the Welsh bards. The sound was at +first unpleasantly high in pitch, to my untutored ear. At the +opening notes of the melody--a slow, wailing, dirgelike air--the +cats rose, and circled round their mistress, marching to the +tune. Now they followed each other singly; now, at a change in +the melody, they walked two and two; and, now again, they +separated into divisions of three each, and circled round the +chair in opposite directions. The music quickened, and the cats +quickened their pace with it. Faster and faster the notes rang +out, and faster and faster in the ruddy firelight, the cats, like +living shadows, whirled round the still black figure in the +chair, with the ancient harp on its knee. Anything so weird, +wild, and ghostlike I never imagined before even in a dream! The +music changed, and the whirling cats began to leap. One perched +itself at a bound on the pedestal of the harp. Four sprung up +together, and assumed their places, two on each of her shoulders. +The last and smallest of the cats took the last leap, and lighted +on her head! There the six creatures kept their positions, +motionless as statues! Nothing moved but the wan, white hands +over the harp-strings; no sound but the sound of the music +stirred in the room. Once more the melody changed. In an instant +the six cats were on the floor again, seated round the chair as I +had seen them on their first entrance; the harp was laid aside; +and the faint, sweet voice said quietly, "I am soon tired--I must +leave my cats to conclude their performances tomorrow." + +She rose, and approached the bedside. + +"I leave you to see the sunset through your window," she said. +"From the coming of the darkness to the coming of breakfast-time, +you must not count on my services--I am taking my rest. I have no +choice but to remain in bed (sleeping when I can) for twelve +hours or more. The long repose seems to keep my life in me. Have +I and my cats surprised you very much? Am I a witch; and are they +my familiar spirits? Remember how few amusements I have, and you +will not wonder why I devote myself to teaching these pretty +creatures their tricks, and attaching them to me like dogs! They +were slow at first, and they taught me excellent lessons of +patience. Now they understand what I want of them, and they learn +wonderfully well. How you will amuse your friend, when he comes +back from fishing, with the story of the young lady who lives in +the dark, and keeps a company of performing cats! I shall expect +_you_ to amuse _me_ to-morrow--I want you to tell me all about +yourself, and how you came to visit these wild islands of ours. +Perhaps, as the days go on, and we get better acquainted, you +will take me a little more into your confidence, and tell me the +true meaning of that story of sorrow which I read on your face +while you were asleep? I have just enough of the woman left in me +to be the victim of curiosity, when I meet with a person who +interests me. Good-by till to-morrow! I wish you a tranquil +night, and a pleasant waking. - Come, my familiar spirits! Come, +my cat children! it's time we went back to our own side of the +house." + +She dropped the veil over her face--and, followed by her train of +cats, glided out of the room. + +Immediately on her departure, Peter appeared and drew back the +curtains. The light of the setting sun streamed in at the window. +At the same moment my traveling companion returned in high +spirits, eager to tell me about his fishing in the lake. The +contrast between what I saw and heard now, and what I had seen +and heard only a few minutes since, was so extraordinary and so +startling that I almost doubted whether the veiled figure with +the harp, and the dance of cats, were not the fantastic creations +of a dream. I actually asked my friend whether he had found me +awake or asleep when he came into the room! + +Evening merged into night. The Master of Books made his +appearance, to receive the latest news of my health. He spoke and +listened absently as if his mind were still pre-occupied by his +studies--except when I referred gratefully to his daughter's +kindness to me. At her name his faded blue eyes brightened; his +drooping head became erect; his sad, subdued voice strengthened +in tone. + +"Do not hesitate to let her attend on you," he said. "Whatever +interests or amuses her, lengthens her life. In _her_ life is the +breath of mine. She is more than my daughter; she is the +guardian-angel of the house. Go where she may, she carries the +air of heaven with her. When you say your prayers, sir, pray God +to leave my daughter here a little longer." + +He sighed heavily; his head dropped again on his breast--he left +me. + +The hour advanced; the evening meal was set by my bedside. Silent +Peter, taking his leave for the night, developed into speech. "I +sleep next door," he said. "Ring when you want me." My traveling +companion, taking the second bed in the room, reposed in the +happy sleep of youth. In the house there was dead silence. Out of +the house, the low song of the night-wind, rising and falling +over the lake and the moor, was the one sound to be heard. So the +first day ended in the hospitable Shetland house. + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE GREEN FLAG. + +"I CONGRATULATE you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of painting in +words. Your description gives me a vivid idea of Mrs. Van +Brandt." + +"Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross?" + +"May I speak as plainly as usual?" + +"Certainly!" + +"Well, then, plainly, I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt." + +Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had made her way +into my confidence already! + +By what means had she induced me to trust her with those secret +and sacred sorrows of my life which I had hitherto kept for my +mother's ear alone? I can easily recall the rapid and subtle +manner in which her sympathies twined themselves round mine; but +I fail entirely to trace the infinite gradations of approach by +which she surprised and conquered my habitual reserve. The +strongest influence of all, the influence of the eye, was not +hers. When the light was admitted into the room she was shrouded +in her veil. At all other times the curtains were drawn, the +screen was before the fire--I could see dimly the outline of her +face, and I could see no more. The secret of her influence was +perhaps partly attributable to the simple and sisterly manner in +which she spoke to me, and partly to the indescribable interest +which associated itself with her mere presence in the room. Her +father had told me that she "carried the air of heaven with her." +In my experience, I can only say that she carried something with +her which softly and inscrutably possessed itself of my will, and +made me as unconsciously obedient to her wishes as if I had been +her dog. The love-story of my boyhood, in all its particulars, +down even to the gift of the green flag; the mystic predictions +of Dame Dermody; the loss of every trace of my little Mary of +former days; the rescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from the river; the +apparition of her in the summer-house; the after-meetings with +her in Edinburgh and in London; the final parting which had left +its mark of sorrow on my face--all these events, all these +sufferi ngs, I confided to her as unreservedly as I have confided +them to these pages. And the result, as she sat by me in the +darkened room, was summed up, with a woman's headlong impetuosity +of judgment, in the words that I have just written--"I don't like +your Mrs. Van Brandt!" + +"Why not?" I asked. + +She answered instantly, "Because you ought to love nobody but +Mary." + +"But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen." + +"Be patient, and you will find her again. Mary is patient--Mary +is waiting for you. When you meet her, you will be ashamed to +remember that you ever loved Mrs. Van Brandt--you will look on +your separation from that woman as the happiest event of your +life. I may not live to hear of it--but _you_ will live to own +that I was right." + +Her perfectly baseless conviction that time would yet bring about +my meeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused me. + +"You seem to agree with Dame Dermody," I said. "You believe that +our two destinies are one. No matter what time may elapse, or +what may happen in the time, you believe my marriage with Mary is +still a marriage delayed, and nothing more?" + +"I firmly believe it." + +"Without knowing why--except that you dislike the idea of my +marrying Mrs. Van Brandt?" + +She knew that this view of her motive was not far from being the +right one--and, womanlike, she shifted the discussion to new +ground. + +"Why do you call her Mrs. Van Brandt?" she asked. "Mrs. Van +Brandt is the namesake of your first love. If you are so fond of +her, why don't you call her Mary?" + +I was ashamed to give the true reason--it seemed so utterly +unworthy of a man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hesitation, +she insisted on my answering her; she forced me to make my +humiliating confession. + +"The man who has parted us," I said, "called her Mary. I hate him +with such a jealous hatred that he has even disgusted me with the +name! It lost all its charm for me when it passed _his_ lips." + +I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No! She suddenly +raised her head as if she were looking at me intently in the +dark. + +"How fond you must be of that woman!" she said. "Do you dream of +her now?" + +"I never dream of her now." + +"Do you expect to see the apparition of her again?" + +"It may be so--if a time comes when she is in sore need of help, +and when she has no friend to look to but me." + +"Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary?" + +"Never!" + +"But you used once to see her--as Dame Dermody predicted--in +dreams?" + +"Yes--when I was a lad." + +"And, in the after-time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van Brandt who +came to you in dreams--who appeared to you in the spirit, when +she was far away from you in the body? Poor old Dame Dermody. She +little thought, in her life-time, that her prediction would be +fullfilled by the wrong woman!" + +To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her! If +she had only pressed them a little further--if she had not +unconsciously led me astray again by the very next question that +fell from her lips--she _must_ have communicated to _my_ mind the +idea obscurely germinating in hers--the idea of a possible +identity between the Mary of my first love and Mrs. Van Brandt! + +"Tell me," she went on. "If you met with your little Mary now, +what would she be like? What sort of woman would you expect to +see?" + +I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoined, "at +this distance of time?" + +"Try!" she said. + +Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, I +searched my memory for the image of the frail and delicate child +of my remembrance: and I drew the picture of a frail and delicate +woman--the most absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt! + +The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunross +dropped out of it instantly, expelled by the substantial +conclusion which the contrast implied. Alike ignorant of the +aftergrowth of health, strength, and beauty which time and +circumstances had developed in the Mary of my youthful days, we +had alike completely and unconsciously misled one another. Once +more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missed it by a +hair-breadth! + +"I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dunross, +"to your portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea of +what a really attractive woman ought to be. How you can have felt +any sorrow for the loss of that other person (I detest buxom +women!) passes my understanding. I can't tell you how interested +I am in Mary! I want to know more about her. Where is that pretty +present of needle-work which the poor little thing embroidered +for you so industriously? Do let me see the green flag!" + +She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! I +felt a little confused as I answered her. + +"I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in my +house in Perthshire." + +"You have not got it with you?" she exclaimed. "You leave her +keepsake lying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeed +forgotten Mary! A woman, in your place, would have parted with +her life rather than part with the one memorial left of the time +when she first loved!" + +She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness--with such +agitation, I might almost say--that she quite startled me. + +"Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not lost." + +"I should hope not!" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose the +green flag, you lose the last relic of Mary--and more than that, +if _my_ belief is right." + +"What do you believe?" + +"You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first reading +of your face was wrong--I am afraid you are a hard man." + +"Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me as +frankly as usual. What do I lose in losing the last relic of +Mary?" + +"You lose the one hope I have for you," she answered, +gravely--"the hope of your meeting and your marriage with Mary in +the time to come. I was sleepless last night, and I was thinking +of your pretty love story by the banks of the bright English +lake. The longer I thought, the more firmly I felt the conviction +that the poor child's green flag is destined to have its innocent +influence in forming your future life. Your happiness is waiting +for you in that artless little keepsake! I can't explain or +justify this belief of mine. It is one of my eccentricities, I +suppose--like training my cats to perform to the music of my +harp. But, if I were your old friend, instead of being only your +friend of a few days, I would leave you no peace--I would beg and +entreat and persist, as only a woman _can_ persist--until I had +made Mary's gift as close a companion of yours, as your mother's +portrait in the locket there at your watch-chain. While the flag +is with you, Mary's influence is with you; Mary's love is still +binding you by the dear old tie; and Mary and you, after years of +separation, will meet again!" + +The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestness +which had given expression to it would have had its influence +over a man of a far harder nature than mine. I confess she had +made me ashamed, if she had done nothing more, of my neglect of +the green flag. + +"I will look for it the moment I am at home again," I said; "and +I will take care that it is carefully preserved for the future." + +"I want more than that," she rejoined. "If you can't wear the +flag about you, I want it always to be _with_ you--to go wherever +you go. When they brought your luggage here from the vessel at +Lerwick, you were particularly anxious about the safety of your +traveling writing-desk--the desk there on the table. Is there +anything very valuable in it?" + +"It contains my money, and other things that I prize far more +highly--my mother's letters, and some family relics which I +should be very sorry to lose. Besides, the desk itself has its +own familiar interest as my constant traveling companion of many +years past." + +Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I was +sitting. + +"Let Mary's flag be your constant traveling companion," she said. +"You have spoken far too gratefully of my services here as your +nurse. Reward me beyond my deserts. Make allowances, Mr. +Germaine, for the superstitious fancies of a lonely, dreamy +woman. Promise me that the green + flag shall take its place among the other little treasures in +your desk!" + +It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave the +promise--gave it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For the +first time since I had known her, she put her poor, wasted hand +in mine, and pressed it for a moment. Acting heedlessly under my +first grateful impulse, I lifted her hand to my lips before I +released it. She started--trembled--and suddenly and silently +passed out of the room. + +CHAPTER XXI. + +SHE COMES BETWEEN US. + +WHAT emotion had I thoughtlessly aroused in Miss Dunross? Had I +offended or distressed her? Or had I, without meaning it, forced +on her inner knowledge some deeply seated feeling which she had +thus far resolutely ignored? + +I looked back through the days of my sojourn in the house; I +questioned my own feelings and impressions, on the chance that +they might serve me as a means of solving the mystery of her +sudden flight from the room. + +What effect had she produced on me? + +In plain truth, she had simply taken her place in my mind, to the +exclusion of every other person and every other subject. In ten +days she had taken a hold on my sympathies of which other women +would have failed to possess themselves in so many years. I +remembered, to my shame, that my mother had but seldom occupied +my thoughts. Even the image of Mrs. Van Brandt--except when the +conversation had turned on her--had become a faint image in my +mind! As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir James downward, they +had all kindly come to see me--and I had secretly and +ungratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene free +for the return of my nurse. In two days more the Government +vessel was to sail on the return voyage. My wrist was still +painful when I tried to use it; but the far more serious injury +presented by the re-opened wound was no longer a subject of +anxiety to myself or to any one about me. I was sufficiently +restored to be capable of making the journey to Lerwick, if I +rested for one night at a farm half-way between the town and Mr. +Dunross's house. Knowing this, I had nevertheless left the +question of rejoining the vessel undecided to the very latest +moment. The motive which I pleaded to my friends was--uncertainty +as to the sufficient recovery of my strength. The motive which I +now confessed to myself was reluctance to leave Miss Dunross. + +What was the secret of her power over me? What emotion, what +passion, had she awakened in me? Was it love? + +No: not love. The place which Mary had once held in my heart, the +place which Mrs. Van Brandt had taken in the after-time, was not +the place occupied by Miss Dunross. How could I (in the ordinary +sense of the word) be in love with a woman whose face I had never +seen? whose beauty had faded, never to bloom again? whose wasted +life hung by a thread which the accident of a moment might snap? +The senses have their share in all love between the sexes which +is worthy of the name. They had no share in the feeling with +which I regarded Miss Dunross. What _was_ the feeling, then? I +can only answer the question in one way. The feeling lay too deep +in me for my sounding. + +What impression had I produced on her? What sensitive chord had I +ignorantly touched, when my lips touched her hand? + +I confess I recoiled from pursuing the inquiry which I had +deliberately set myself to make. I thought of her shattered +health; of her melancholy existence in shadow and solitude; of +the rich treasures of such a heart and such a mind as hers, +wasted with her wasting life; and I said to myself, Let her +secret be sacred! let me never again, by word or deed, bring the +trouble which tells of it to the surface! let her heart be veiled +from me in the darkness which veils her face! + +In this frame of mind toward her, I waited her return. + +I had no doubt of seeing her again, sooner or later, on that day. +The post to the south went out on the next day; and the early +hour of the morning at which the messenger called for our letters +made it a matter of ordinary convenience to write overnight. In +the disabled state of my hand, Miss Dunross had been accustomed +to write home for me, under my dictation: she knew that I owed a +letter to my mother, and that I relied as usual on her help. Her +return to me, under these circumstances, was simply a question of +time: any duty which she had once undertaken was an imperative +duty in her estimation, no matter how trifling it might be. + +The hours wore on; the day drew to its end--and still she never +appeared. + +I left my room to enjoy the last sunny gleam of the daylight in +the garden attached to the house; first telling Peter where I +might be found, if Miss Dunross wanted me. The garden was a wild +place, to my southern notions; but it extended for some distance +along the shore of the island, and it offered some pleasant views +of the lake and the moorland country beyond. Slowly pursuing my +walk, I proposed to myself to occupy my mind to some useful +purpose by arranging beforehand the composition of the letter +which Miss Dunross was to write. + +To my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix my mind +on the subject. Try as I might, my thoughts persisted in +wandering from the letter to my mother, and concentrated +themselves instead--on Miss Dunross? No. On the question of my +returning, or not returning, to Perthshire by the Government +vessel? No. By some capricious revulsion of feeling which it +seemed impossible to account for, my whole mind was now absorbed +on the one subject which had been hitherto so strangely absent +from it--the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt! + +My memory went back, in defiance of all exercise of my own will, +to my last interview with her. I saw her again; I heard her +again. I tasted once more the momentary rapture of our last kiss; +I felt once more the pang of sorrow that wrung me when I had +parted with her and found myself alone in the street. Tears--of +which I was ashamed, though nobody was near to see them--filled +my eyes when I thought of the months that had passed since we had +last looked on one another, and of all that she might have +suffered, must have suffered, in that time. Hundreds on hundreds +of miles were between us--and yet she was now as near me as if +she were walking in the garden by my side! + +This strange condition of my mind was matched by an equally +strange condition of my body. A mysterious trembling shuddered +over me faintly from head to foot. I walked without feeling the +ground as I trod on it; I looked about me with no distinct +consciousness of what the objects were on which my eyes rested. +My hands were cold--and yet I hardly felt it. My head throbbed +hotly--and yet I was not sensible of any pain. It seemed as if I +were surrounded and enwrapped in some electric atmosphere which +altered all the ordinary conditions of sensation. I looked up at +the clear, calm sky, and wondered if a thunderstorm was coming. I +stopped, and buttoned my coat round me, and questioned myself if +I had caught a cold, or if I was going to have a fever. The sun +sank below the moorland horizon; the gray twilight trembled over +the dark waters of the lake. I went back to the house; and the +vivid memory of Mrs. Van Brandt, still in close companionship, +went back with me. + +The fire in my room had burned low in my absence. One of the +closed curtains had been drawn back a few inches, so as to admit +through the window a ray of the dying light. On the boundary +limit where the light was crossed by the obscurity which filled +the rest of the room, I saw Miss Dunross seated, with her veil +drawn and her writing-case on her knee, waiting my return. + +I hastened to make my excuses. I assured her that I had been +careful to tell the servant where to find me. She gently checked +me before I could say more. + +"It's not Peter's fault," she said. "I told him not to hurry your +return to the house. Have you enjoyed your walk?" + +She spoke very quietly. The faint, sad voice was fainter and +sadder than ever. She kept her head bent over her writing-case, +instead of turning it toward me as usual while we were talking. I +still felt the mysterious trembling which had oppressed me in the +garden. Drawing a chair near the fire, I stirred the embers +together, and tried to warm myself. Our positions in the room +left some little distance between us. I could only see her +sidewise, as she sat by the window in the sheltering darkness of +the curtain which still remained drawn. + +"I think I have been too long in the garden," I said. "I feel +chilled by the cold evening air." + +"Will you have some more wood put on the fire?" she asked. "Can I +get you anything?" + +"No, thank you. I shall do very well here. I see you are kindly +ready to write for me." + +"Yes," she said, "at your own convenience. When you are ready, my +pen is ready." + +The unacknowledged reserve that had come between us since we had +last spoken together, was, I believe, as painfully felt by her as +by me. We were no doubt longing to break through it on either +side--if we had only known how. The writing of the letter would +occupy us, at any rate. I made another effort to give my mind to +the subject--and once more it was an effort made in vain. Knowing +what I wanted to say to my mother, my faculties seemed to be +paralyzed when I tried to say it. I sat cowering by the fire--and +she sat waiting, with her writing-case on her lap. + +CHAPTER XXII. + +SHE CLAIMS ME AGAIN. + +THE moments passed; the silence between us continued. Miss +Dunross made an attempt to rouse me. + +"Have you decided to go back to Scotland with your friends at +Lerwick?" she asked. + +"It is no easy matter," I replied, "to decide on leaving my +friends in this house." + +Her head drooped lower on her bosom; her voice sunk as she +answered me. + +"Think of your mother," she said. "The first duty you owe is your +duty to her. Your long absence is a heavy trial to her--your +mother is suffering." + +"Suffering?" I repeated. "Her letters say nothing--" + +"You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters," Miss +Dunross interposed. "I see the unwritten and unconscious +confession of anxiety in every line that she writes to you. You +know, as well as I do, that there is cause for her anxiety. Make +her happy by telling her that you sail for home with your +friends. Make her happier still by telling her that you grieve no +more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. May I write it, in your +name and in those words?" + +I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in those +terms, or in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The unhappy +love-story of my manhood had never been a forbidden subject +between us on former occasions. Why did I feel as if it had +become a forbidden subject now? Why did I evade giving her a +direct reply? + +"We have plenty of time before us," I said. "I want to speak to +you about yourself." + +She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, as if +to protest against the topic to which I had returned. I +persisted, nevertheless, in returning to it. + +"If I must go back," I went on, "I may venture to say to you at +parting what I have not said yet. I cannot, and will not, believe +that you are an incurable invalid. My education, as I have told +you, has been the education of a medical man. I am well +acquainted with some of the greatest living physicians, in +Edinburgh as well as in London. Will you allow me to describe +your malady (as I understand it) to men who are accustomed to +treat cases of intricate nervous disorder? And will you let me +write and tell you the result?" + +I waited for her reply. Neither by word nor sign did she +encourage the idea of any future communication with her. I +ventured to suggest another motive which might induce her to +receive a letter from me. + +"In any case, I may find it necessary to write to you," I went +on. "You firmly believe that I and my little Mary are destined to +meet again. If your anticipations are realized, you will expect +me to tell you of it, surely?" + +Once more I waited. She spoke--but it was not to reply: it was +only to change the subject. + +"The time is passing," was all she said. "We have not begun your +letter to your mother yet." + +It would have been cruel to contend with her any longer. Her +voice warned me that she was suffering. The faint gleam of light +through the parted curtains was fading fast. It was time, indeed, +to write the letter. I could find other opportunities of speaking +to her before I left the house. + +"I am ready," I answered. "Let us begin." + +The first sentence was easily dictated to my patient secretary. I +informed my mother that my sprained wrist was nearly restored to +use, and that nothing prevented my leaving Shetland when the +lighthouse commissioner was ready to return. This was all that it +was necessary to say on the subject of my health; the disaster of +my re-opened wound having been, for obvious reasons, concealed +from my mother's knowledge. Miss Dunross silently wrote the +opening lines of the letter, and waited for the words that were +to follow. + +In my next sentence, I announced the date at which the vessel was +to sail on the return voyage; and I mentioned the period at which +my mother might expect to see me, weather permitting. Those +words, also, Miss Dunross wrote--and waited again. I set myself +to consider what I should say next. To my surprise and alarm, I +found it impossible to fix my mind on the subject. My thoughts +wandered away, in the strangest manner, from my letter to Mrs. +Van Brandt. I was ashamed of myself; I was angry with myself--I +resolved, no matter what I said, that I would positively finish +the letter. No! try as I might, the utmost effort of my will +availed me nothing. Mrs. Van Brandt's words at our last interview +were murmuring in my ears--not a word of my own would come to me! + +Miss Dunross laid down her pen, and slowly turned her head to +look at me. + +"Surely you have something more to add to your letter?" she said. + +"Certainly," I answered. "I don't know what is the matter with +me. The effort of dictating seems to be beyond my power this +evening." + +"Can I help you?" she asked. + +I gladly accepted the suggestion. "There are many things," I +said, "which my mother would be glad to hear, if I were not too +stupid to think of them. I am sure I may trust your sympathy to +think of them for me." + +That rash answer offered Miss Dunross the opportunity of +returning to the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt. She seized the +opportunity with a woman's persistent resolution when she has her +end in view, and is determined to reach it at all hazards. + +"You have not told your mother yet," she said, "that your +infatuation for Mrs. Van Brandt is at an end. Will you put it in +your own words? Or shall I write it for you, imitating your +language as well as I can?" + +In the state of my mind at that moment, her perseverance +conquered me. I thought to myself indolently, "If I say No, she +will only return to the subject again, and she will end (after +all I owe to her kindness) in making me say Yes." Before I could +answer her she had realized my anticipations. She returned to the +subject; and she made me say Yes. + +"What does your silence mean?" she said. "Do you ask me to help +you, and do you refuse to accept the first suggestion I offer?" + +"Take up your pen," I rejoined. "It shall be as you wish." + +"Will you dictate the words?" + +"I will try." + +I tried; and this time I succeeded. With the image of Mrs. Van +Brandt vividly present to my mind, I arranged the first words of +the sentence which was to tell my mother that my "infatuation" +was at an end! + +"You will be glad to hear," I began, "that time and change are +doing their good work." + +Miss Dunross wrote the words, and paused in anticipation of the +next sentence. The light faded and faded; the room grew darker +and darker. I went on. + +"I hope I shall cause you no more anxiety, my dear mother, on the +subject of Mrs. Van Brandt." + +In the deep silence I could hear the pen of my secretary +traveling steadily over the paper while it wrote those words. + +"Have you written?" I asked, as the sound of the pen ceased. + +"I have written," she answered, in her customary quiet tones. + +I went on again with my letter. + +"The days pass now, and I seldom or never think of her; I hope I +am resigned at last to the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt." + +As I reached the end of the sentence, I heard a faint cry from +Miss Dunross. Looking instantly toward her, I could just see, in +the deepening darkness, t hat her head had fallen on the back of +the chair. My first impulse was, of course, to rise and go to +her. I had barely got to my feet, when some indescribable dread +paralyzed me on the instant. Supporting myself against the +chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapable of advancing a step. +The effort to speak was the one effort that I could make. + +"Are you ill?" I asked. + +She was hardly able to answer me; speaking in a whisper, without +raising her head. + +"I am frightened," she said. + +"What has frightened you?" + +I heard her shudder in the darkness. Instead of answering me, she +whispered to herself: "What am I to say to him?" + +"Tell me what has frightened you?" I repeated. "You know you may +trust me with the truth." + +She rallied her sinking strength. She answered in these strange +words: + +"Something has come between me and the letter that I am writing +for you." + +"What is it?" + +"I can't tell you." + +"Can you see it?" + +"No." + +"Can you feel it?" + +"Yes!" + +"What is it like?" + +"Like a breath of cold air between me and the letter." + +"Has the window come open?" + +"The window is close shut." + +"And the door?" + +"The door is shut also--as well as I can see. Make sure of it for +yourself. Where are you? What are you doing?" + +I was looking toward the window. As she spoke her last words, I +was conscious of a change in that part of the room. + +In the gap between the parted curtains there was a new light +shining; not the dim gray twilight of Nature, but a pure and +starry radiance, a pale, unearthly light. While I watched it, the +starry radiance quivered as if some breath of air had stirred it. +When it was still again, there dawned on me through the unearthly +luster the figure of a woman. By fine and slow gradations, it +became more and more distinct. I knew the noble figure; I knew +the sad and tender smile. For the second time I stood in the +presence of the apparition of Mrs. Van Brandt. + +She was robed, not as I had last seen her, but in the dress which +she had worn on the memorable evening when we met on the +bridge--in the dress in which she had first appeared to me, by +the waterfall in Scotland. The starry light shone round her like +a halo. She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes, as she +had looked when I saw the apparition of her in the summer-house. +She lifted her hand--not beckoning me to approach her, as before, +but gently signing to me to remain where I stood. + +I waited--feeling awe, but no fear. My heart was all hers as I +looked at her. + +She moved; gliding from the window to the chair in which Miss +Dunross sat; winding her way slowly round it, until she stood at +the back. By the light of the pale halo that encircled the +ghostly Presence, and moved with it, I could see the dark figure +of the living woman seated immovable in the chair. The +writing-case was on her lap, with the letter and the pen lying on +it. Her arms hung helpless at her sides; her veiled head was now +bent forward. She looked as if she had been struck to stone in +the act of trying to rise from her seat. + +A moment passed--and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop over the +living woman. It lifted the writing-case from her lap. It rested +the writing-case on her shoulder. Its white fingers took the pen +and wrote on the unfinished letter. It put the writing-case back +on the lap of the living woman. Still standing behind the chair, +it turned toward me. It looked at me once more. And now it +beckoned--beckoned to me to approach. + +Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved when I +first saw her in the summer-house--drawn nearer and nearer by an +irresistible power--I approached and stopped within a few paces +of her. She advanced and laid her hand on my bosom. Again I felt +those strangely mingled sensations of rapture and awe, which had +once before filled me when I was conscious, spiritually, of her +touch. Again she spoke, in the low, melodious tones which I +recalled so well. Again she said the words: "Remember me. Come to +me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale light in which she +stood quivered, sunk, vanished. I saw the twilight glimmering +between the curtains--and I saw no more. She had spoken. She had +gone. + +I was near Miss Dunross--near enough, when I put out my hand, to +touch her. + +She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awakened from a +dreadful dream. + +"Speak to me!" she whispered. "Let me know that it is _you_ who +touched me." + +I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her. + +"Have you seen anything in the room?" + +She answered. "I have been filled with a deadly fear. I have seen +nothing but the writing-case lifted from my lap." + +"Did you see the hand that lifted it?" + +"No." + +"Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in it?" + +"No." + +"Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from your lap?" + +"I saw it resting on my shoulder." + +"Did you see writing on the letter, which was not _your_ +writing?" + +"I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in which I am +sitting." + +"Did it move?" + +"It moved across the paper." + +"As a pen moves in writing?" + +"Yes. As a pen moves in writing." + +"May I take the letter?" + +She handed it to me. + +"May I light a candle?" + +She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed in +silence. + +I lighted the candle on the mantel-piece, and looked for the +writing. + +There, on the blank space in the letter, as I had seen it before +on the blank space in the sketch-book--there were the written +words which the ghostly Presence had left behind it; arranged +once more in two lines, as I copy them here: + +At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's. + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +THE KISS. + +SHE had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I felt all +the old love, all the old devotion owning her power once more. +Whatever had mortified or angered me at our last interview was +forgiven and forgotten now. My whole being still thrilled with +the mingled awe and rapture of beholding the Vision of her that +had come to me for the second time. The minutes passed--and I +stood by the fire like a man entranced; thinking only of her +spoken words, "Remember me. Come to me;" looking only at her +mystic writing, "At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint +Paul's." + +The month's end was still far off; the apparition of her had +shown itself to me, under some subtle prevision of trouble that +was still in the future. Ample time was before me for the +pilgrimage to which I was self-dedicated already--my pilgrimage +to the shadow of Saint Paul's. Other men, in my position, might +have hesitated as to the right understanding of the place to +which they were bidden. Other men might have wearied their +memories by recalling the churches, the institutions, the +streets, the towns in foreign countries, all consecrated to +Christian reverence by the great apostle's name, and might have +fruitlessly asked themselves in which direction they were first +to turn their steps. No such difficulty troubled me. My first +conclusion was the one conclusion that was acceptable to my mind. +"Saint Paul's" meant the famous Cathedral of London. Where the +shadow of the great church fell, there, at the month's end, I +should find her, or the trace of her. In London once more, and +nowhere else, I was destined to see the woman I loved, in the +living body, as certainly as I had just seen her in the ghostly +presence. + +Who could interpret the mysterious sympathies that still united +us, in defiance of distance, in defiance of time? Who could +predict to what end our lives were tending in the years that were +to come? + +Those questions were still present to my thoughts; my eyes were +still fixed on the mysterious writing--when I became +instinctively aware of the strange silence in the room. Instantly +the lost remembrance of Miss Dunross came back to me. Stung by my +own sense of self-reproach, I turned with a start, and looked +toward her chair by the window. + +The chair was empty. I was alone in the room. + +Why had she left me secretly, without a word of farewell? Because +she was suffering, in mind or body? Or because she resented, +naturally resented, my neglect of her? + +The bare suspicion that I had given her pain was intolerable to +me. I rang my bell, to make inquiries. + +The bell was answered, not, as usua l, by the silent servant +Peter, but by a woman of middle age, very quietly and neatly +dressed, whom I had once or twice met on the way to and from my +room, and of whose exact position in the house I was still +ignorant. + +"Do you wish to see Peter?" she asked. + +"No. I wish to know where Miss Dunross is." + +"Miss Dunross is in her room. She has sent me with this letter." + +I took the letter, feeling some surprise and uneasiness. It was +the first time Miss Dunross had communicated with me in that +formal way. I tried to gain further information by questioning +her messenger. + +"Are you Miss Dunross's maid?" I asked. + +"I have served Miss Dunross for many years," was the answer, +spoken very ungraciously. + +"Do you think she would receive me if I sent you with a message +to her?" + +"I can't say, sir. The letter may tell you. You will do well to +read the letter." + +We looked at each other. The woman's preconceived impression of +me was evidently an unfavorable one. Had I indeed pained or +offended Miss Dunross? And had the servant--perhaps the faithful +servant who loved her--discovered and resented it? The woman +frowned as she looked at me. It would be a mere waste of words to +persist in questioning her. I let her go. + +Left by myself again, I read the letter. It began, without any +form of address, in these lines: + + +"I write, instead of speaking to you, because my self-control has +already been severely tried, and I am not strong enough to bear +more. For my father's sake--not for my own--I must take all the +care I can of the little health that I have left. + +"Putting together what you have told me of the visionary creature +whom you saw in the summer-house in Scotland, and what you said +when you questioned me in your room a little while since, I +cannot fail to infer that the same vision has shown itself to +you, for the second time. The fear that I felt, the strange +things that I saw (or thought I saw), may have been imperfect +reflections in my mind of what was passing in yours. I do not +stop to inquire whether we are both the victims of a delusion, or +whether we are the chosen recipients of a supernatural +communication. The result, in either case, is enough for me. You +are once more under the influence of Mrs. Van Brandt. I will not +trust myself to tell you of the anxieties and forebodings by +which I am oppressed: I will only acknowledge that my one hope +for you is in your speedy reunion with the worthier object of +your constancy and devotion. I still believe, and I am consoled +in believing, that you and your first love will meet again. + +"Having written so far, I leave the subject--not to return to it, +except in my own thoughts. + +"The necessary preparations for your departure to-morrow are all +made. Nothing remains but to wish you a safe and pleasant journey +home. Do not, I entreat you, think me insensible of what I owe to +you, if I say my farewell words here. + +"The little services which you have allowed me to render you have +brightened the closing days of my life. You have left me a +treasury of happy memories which I shall hoard, when you are +gone, with miserly care. Are you willing to add new claims to my +grateful remembrance? I ask it of you, as a last favor--do not +attempt to see me again! Do not expect me to take a personal +leave of you! The saddest of all words is 'Good-by': I have +fortitude enough to write it, and no more. God preserve and +prosper you--farewell! + +"One more request. I beg that you will not forget what you +promised me, when I told you my foolish fancy about the green +flag. Wherever you go, let Mary's keepsake go with you. No +written answer is necessary--I would rather not receive it. Look +up, when you leave the house to-morrow, at the center window over +the doorway--that will be answer enough." + + +To say that these melancholy lines brought the tears into my eyes +is only to acknowledge that I had sympathies which could be +touched. When I had in some degree recovered my composure, the +impulse which urged me to write to Miss Dunross was too strong to +be resisted. I did not trouble her with a long letter; I only +entreated her to reconsider her decision with all the art of +persuasion which I could summon to help me. The answer was +brought back by the servant who waited on Miss Dunross, in four +resolute words: "It can not be." This time the woman spoke out +before she left me. "If you have any regard for my mistress," she +said sternly, "don't make her write to you again." She looked at +me with a last lowering frown, and left the room. + +It is needless to say that the faithful servant's words only +increased my anxiety to see Miss Dunross once more before we +parted--perhaps forever. My one last hope of success in attaining +this object lay in approaching her indirectly through the +intercession of her father. + +I sent Peter to inquire if I might be permitted to pay my +respects to his master that evening. My messenger returned with +an answer that was a new disappointment to me. Mr. Dunross begged +that I would excuse him, if he deferred the proposed interview +until the next morning. The next morning was the morning of my +departure. Did the message mean that he had no wish to see me +again until the time had come to take leave of him? I inquired of +Peter whether his master was particularly occupied that evening. +He was unable to tell me. "The Master of Books" was not in his +study, as usual. When he sent his message to me, he was sitting +by the sofa in his daughter's room. + +Having answered in those terms, the man left me by myself until +the next morning. I do not wish my bitterest enemy a sadder time +in his life than the time I passed during the last night of my +residence under Mr. Dunross's roof. + +After walking to and fro in the room until I was weary, I thought +of trying to divert my mind from the sad thoughts that oppressed +it by reading. The one candle which I had lighted failed to +sufficiently illuminate the room. Advancing to the mantel-piece +to light the second candle which stood there, I noticed the +unfinished letter to my mother lying where I had placed it, when +Miss Dunross's servant first presented herself before me. Having +lighted the second candle, I took up the letter to put it away +among my other papers. Doing this (while my thoughts were still +dwelling on Miss Dunross), I mechanically looked at the letter +again--and instantly discovered a change in it. + +The written characters traced by the hand of the apparition had +vanished! Below the last lines written by Miss Dunross nothing +met my eyes now but the blank white paper! + +My first impulse was to look at my watch. + +When the ghostly presence had written in my sketch-book, the +characters had disappeared after an interval of three hours. On +this occasion, as nearly as I could calculate, the writing had +vanished in one hour only. + +Reverting to the conversation which I had held with Mrs. Van +Brandt when we met at Saint Anthony's Well, and to the +discoveries which followed at a later period of my life, I can +only repeat that she had again been the subject of a trance or +dream, when the apparition of her showed itself to me for the +second time. As before, she had freely trusted me and freely +appealed to me to help her, in the dreaming state, when her +spirit was free to recognize my spirit. When she had come to +herself, after an interval of an hour, she had again felt ashamed +of the familiar manner in which she had communicated with me in +the trance--had again unconsciously counteracted by her +waking-will the influence of her sleeping-will; and had thus +caused the writing once more to disappear, in an hour from the +moment when the pen had traced (or seemed to trace) it. + +This is still the one explanation that I can offer. At the time +when the incident happened, I was far from being fully admitted +to the confidence of Mrs. Van Brandt; and I was necessarily +incapable of arriving at any solution of the mystery, right or +wrong. I could only put away the letter, doubting vaguely whether +my own senses had not deceived me. After the distressing thoughts +which Miss Dunross's letter had roused in my mind, I was in no +humor to employ my ingenuity in finding a clew to the mystery of +the vanished writing. My ner ves were irritated; I felt a sense +of angry discontent with myself and with others. "Go where I may" +(I thought impatiently), "the disturbing influence of women seems +to be the only influence that I am fated to feel." As I still +paced backward and forward in my room--it was useless to think +now of fixing my attention on a book--I fancied I understood the +motives which made men as young as I was retire to end their +lives in a monastery. I drew aside the window curtains, and +looked out. The only prospect that met my view was the black gulf +of darkness in which the lake lay hidden. I could see nothing; I +could do nothing; I could think of nothing. The one alternative +before me was that of trying to sleep. My medical knowledge told +me plainly that natural sleep was, in my nervous condition, one +of the unattainable luxuries of life for that night. The +medicine-chest which Mr. Dunross had placed at my disposal +remained in the room. I mixed for myself a strong sleeping +draught, and sullenly took refuge from my troubles in bed. + +It is a peculiarity of most of the soporific drugs that they not +only act in a totally different manner on different +constitutions, but that they are not even to be depended on to +act always in the same manner on the same person. I had taken +care to extinguish the candles before I got into my bed. Under +ordinary circumstances, after I had lain quietly in the darkness +for half an hour, the draught that I had taken would have sent me +to sleep. In the present state of my nerves the draught stupefied +me, and did no more. + +Hour after hour I lay perfectly still, with my eyes closed, in +the semi-sleeping, semi-wakeful state which is so curiously +characteristic of the ordinary repose of a dog. As the night wore +on, such a sense of heaviness oppressed my eyelids that it was +literally impossible for me to open them--such a masterful +languor possessed all my muscles that I could no more move on my +pillow than if I had been a corpse. And yet, in this somnolent +condition, my mind was able to pursue lazy trains of pleasant +thought. My sense of hearing was so acute that it caught the +faintest sounds made by the passage of the night-breeze through +the rushes of the lake. Inside my bed-chamber, I was even more +keenly sensible of those weird night-noises in the heavy +furniture of a room, of those sudden settlements of extinct coals +in the grate, so familiar to bad sleepers, so startling to +overwrought nerves! It is not a scientifically correct statement, +but it exactly describes my condition, that night, to say that +one half of me was asleep and the other half awake. + +How many hours of the night had passed, when my irritable sense +of hearing became aware of a new sound in the room, I cannot +tell. I can only relate that I found myself on a sudden listening +intently, with fast-closed eyes. The sound that disturbed me was +the faintest sound imaginable, as of something soft and light +traveling slowly over the surface of the carpet, and brushing it +just loud enough to be heard. + +Little by little, the sound came nearer and nearer to my bed--and +then suddenly stopped just as I fancied it was close by me. + +I still lay immovable, with closed eyes; drowsily waiting for the +next sound that might reach my ears; drowsily content with the +silence, if the silence continued. My thoughts (if thoughts they +could be called) were drifting back again into their former +course, when I became suddenly conscious of soft breathing just +above me. The next moment I felt a touch on my forehead--light, +soft, tremulous, like the touch of lips that had kissed me. There +was a momentary pause. Then a low sigh trembled through the +silence. Then I heard again the still, small sound of something +brushing its way over the carpet; traveling this time _from_ my +bed, and moving so rapidly that in a moment more it was lost in +the silence of the night. + +Still stupefied by the drug that I had taken, I could lazily +wonder what had happened, and I could do no more. Had living lips +really touched me? Was the sound that I had heard really the +sound of a sigh? Or was it all delusion, beginning and ending in +a dream? The time passed without my deciding, or caring to +decide, those questions. Minute by minute, the composing +influence of the draught began at last to strengthen its hold on +my brain. A cloud seemed to pass softly over my last waking +impressions. One after another, the ties broke gently that held +me to conscious life. I drifted peacefully into perfect sleep. + + +Shortly after sunrise, I awoke. When I regained the use of my +memory, my first clear recollection was the recollection of the +soft breathing which I had felt above me--then of the touch on my +forehead, and of the sigh which I had heard after it. Was it +possible that some one had entered my room in the night? It was +quite possible. I had not locked the door--I had never been in +the habit of locking the door during my residence under Mr. +Dunross's roof. + +After thinking it over a little, I rose to examine my room. + +Nothing in the shape of a discovery rewarded me, until I reached +the door. Though I had not locked it overnight, I had certainly +satisfied myself that it was closed before I went to bed. It was +now ajar. Had it opened again, through being imperfectly shut? or +had a person, after entering and leaving my room, forgotten to +close it? + +Accidentally looking downward while I was weighing these +probabilities, I noticed a small black object on the carpet, +lying just under the key, on the inner side of the door. I picked +the thing up, and found that it was a torn morsel of black lace. + +The instant I saw the fragment, I was reminded of the long black +veil, hanging below her waist, which it was the habit of Miss +Dunross to wear. Was it _her_ dress, then, that I had heard +softly traveling over the carpet; _her_ kiss that had touched my +forehead; _her_ sigh that had trembled through the silence? Had +the ill-fated and noble creature taken her last leave of me in +the dead of night, trusting the preservation of her secret to the +deceitful appearances which persuaded her that I was asleep? I +looked again at the fragment of black lace. Her long veil might +easily have been caught, and torn, by the projecting key, as she +passed rapidly through the door on her way out of my room. Sadly +and reverently I laid the morsel of lace among the treasured +memorials which I had brought with me from home. To the end of +her life, I vowed it, she should be left undisturbed in the +belief that her secret was safe in her own breast! Ardently as I +still longed to take her hand at parting, I now resolved to make +no further effort to see her. I might not be master of my own +emotions; something in my face or in my manner might betray me to +her quick and delicate perception. Knowing what I now knew, the +last sacrifice I could make to her would be to obey her wishes. I +made the sacrifice. + +In an hour more Peter informed me that the ponies were at the +door, and that the Master was waiting for me in the outer hall. + +I noticed that Mr. Dunross gave me his hand, without looking at +me. His faded blue eyes, during the few minutes while we were +together, were not once raised from the ground. + +"God speed you on your journey, sir, and guide you safely home," +he said. "I beg you to forgive me if I fail to accompany you on +the first few miles of your journey. There are reasons which +oblige me to remain with my daughter in the house." + +He was scrupulously, almost painfully, courteous; but there was +something in his manner which, for the first time in my +experience, seemed designedly to keep me at a distance from him. +Knowing the intimate sympathy, the perfect confidence, which +existed between the father and daughter, a doubt crossed my mind +whether the secret of the past night was entirely a secret to Mr. +Dunross. His next words set that doubt at rest, and showed me the +truth. + +In thanking him for his good wishes, I attempted also to express +to him (and through him to Miss Dunross) my sincere sense of +gratitude for the kindness which I had received under his roof. +He stopped me, politely and resolutely, speaking with that +quaintly precise choice of language which I h ad remarked as +characteristic of him at our first interview. + +"It is in your power, sir," he said, "to return any obligation +which you may think you have incurred on leaving my house. If you +will be pleased to consider your residence here as an unimportant +episode in your life, which ends--_absolutely_ ends--with your +departure, you will more than repay any kindness that you may +have received as my guest. In saying this, I speak under a sense +of duty which does entire justice to you as a gentleman and a man +of honor. In return, I can only trust to you not to misjudge my +motives, if I abstain from explaining myself any further." + +A faint color flushed his pale cheeks. He waited, with a certain +proud resignation, for my reply. I respected her secret, +respected it more resolutely than ever, before her father. + +"After all that I owe to you, sir," I answered, "your wishes are +my commands." Saying that, and saying no more, I bowed to him +with marked respect, and left the house. + +Mounting my pony at the door, I looked up at the center window, +as she had bidden me. It was open; but dark curtains, jealously +closed, kept out the light from the room within. At the sound of +the pony's hoofs on the rough island road, as the animal moved, +the curtains were parted for a few inches only. Through the gap +in the dark draperies a wan white hand appeared; waved +tremulously a last farewell; and vanished from my view. The +curtains closed again on her dark and solitary life. The dreary +wind sounded its long, low dirge over the rippling waters of the +lake. The ponies took their places in the ferryboat which was +kept for the passage of animals to and from the island. With +slow, regular strokes the men rowed us to the mainland and took +their leave. I looked back at the distant house. I thought of her +in the dark room, waiting patiently for death. Burning tears +blinded me. The guide took my bridle in his hand: "You're not +well, sir," he said; "I will lead the pony." + +When I looked again at the landscape round me, we had descended +in the interval from the higher ground to the lower. The house +and the lake had disappeared, to be seen no more. + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +IN THE SHADOW OF ST. PAUL'S. + +In ten days I was at home again--and my mother's arms were round +me. + +I had left her for my sea-voyage very unwillingly--seeing that +she was in delicate health. On my return, I was grieved to +observe a change for the worse, for which her letters had not +prepared me. Consulting our medical friend, Mr. MacGlue, I found +that he, too, had noticed my mother's failing health, but that he +attributed it to an easily removable cause--to the climate of +Scotland. My mother's childhood and early life had been passed on +the southern shores of England. The change to the raw, keen air +of the North had been a trying change to a person at her age. In +Mr. MacGlue's opinion, the wise course to take would be to return +to the South before the autumn was further advanced, and to make +our arrangements for passing the coming winter at Penzance or +Torquay. + +Resolved as I was to keep the mysterious appointment which +summoned me to London at the month's end, Mr. MacGlue's +suggestion met with no opposition on my part. It had, to my mind, +the great merit of obviating the necessity of a second separation +from my mother--assuming that she approved of the doctor's +advice. I put the question to her the same day. To my infinite +relief, she was not only ready, but eager to take the journey to +the South. The season had been unusually wet, even for Scotland; +and my mother reluctantly confessed that she "did feel a certain +longing" for the mild air and genial sunshine of the Devonshire +coast. + +We arranged to travel in our own comfortable carriage by +post--resting, of course, at inns on the road at night. In the +days before railways it was no easy matter for an invalid to +travel from Perthshire to London--even with a light carriage and +four horses. Calculating our rate of progress from the date of +our departure, I found that we had just time, and no more, to +reach London on the last day of the month. + +I shall say nothing of the secret anxieties which weighed on my +mind, under these circumstances. Happily for me, on every +account, my mother's strength held out. The easy and (as we then +thought) the rapid rate of traveling had its invigorating effect +on her nerves. She slept better when we rested for the night than +she had slept at home. After twice being delayed on the road, we +arrived in London at three o'clock on the afternoon of the last +day of the month. Had I reached my destination in time? + +As I interpreted the writing of the apparition, I had still some +hours at my disposal. The phrase, "at the month's end," meant, as +I understood it, at the last hour of the last day in the month. +If I took up my position "under the shadow of Saint Paul's," say, +at ten that night, I should arrive at the place of meeting with +two hours to spare, before the last stroke of the clock marked +the beginning of the new month. + +At half-past nine, I left my mother to rest after her long +journey, and privately quit the house. Before ten, I was at my +post. The night was fine and clear; and the huge shadow of the +cathedral marked distinctly the limits within which I had been +bid to wait, on the watch for events. + +The great clock of Saint Paul's struck ten--and nothing happened. + +The next hour passed very slowly. I walked up and down; at one +time absorbed in my own thoughts; at another, engaged in watching +the gradual diminution in the number of foot passengers who +passed me as the night advanced. The City (as it is called) is +the most populous part of London in the daytime; but at night, +when it ceases to be the center of commerce, its busy population +melts away, and the empty streets assume the appearance of a +remote and deserted quarter of the metropolis. As the half hour +after ten struck--then the quarter to eleven--then the hour--the +pavement steadily became more and more deserted. I could count +the foot passengers now by twos and threes; and I could see the +places of public refreshment within my view beginning already to +close for the night. + +I looked at the clock; it pointed to ten minutes past eleven. At +that hour, could I hope to meet Mrs. Van Brandt alone in the +public street? + +The more I thought of it, the less likely such an event seemed to +be. The more reasonable probability was that I might meet her +once more, accompanied by some friend--perhaps under the escort +of Van Brandt himself. I wondered whether I should preserve my +self-control, in the presence of that man, for the second time. + +While my thoughts were still pursuing this direction, my +attention was recalled to passing events by a sad little voice, +putting a strange little question, close at my side. + +"If you please, sir, do you know where I can find a chemist's +shop open at this time of night?" + +I looked round, and discovered a poorly clad little boy, with a +basket over his arm, and a morsel of paper in his hand. + +"The chemists' shops are all shut," I said. "If you want any +medicine, you must ring the night-bell." + +"I dursn't do it, sir," replied the small stranger. "I am such a +little boy, I'm afraid of their beating me if I ring them up out +of their beds, without somebody to speak for me." + +The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with such +a forlorn experience of being beaten for trifling offenses in his +face, that it was impossible to resist the impulse to help him. + +"Is it a serious case of illness?" I asked. + +"I don't know, sir." + +"Have you got a doctor's prescription?" + +He held out his morsel of paper. + +"I have got this," he said. + +I took the paper from him, and looked at it. + +It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I looked +first at the doctor's signature; it was the name of a perfectly +obscure person in the profession. Below it was written the name +of the patient for whom the medicine had been prescribed. I +started as I read it. The name was "Mrs. Brand." + +The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound went, at +any rate) was the English equivalent of Van Brandt. + +"Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?" I asked. + +" Oh yes, sir! She lodges with mother--and she owes for rent. I +have done everything she told me, except getting the physic. I've +pawned her ring, and I've bought the bread and butter and eggs, +and I've taken care of the change. Mother looks to the change for +her rent. It isn't my fault, sir, that I've lost myself. I am but +ten years old--and all the chemists' shops are shut up!" + +Here my little friend's sense of his unmerited misfortunes +overpowered him, and he began to cry. + +"Don't cry, my man!" I said; "I'll help you. Tell me something +more about the lady first. Is she alone?" + +"She's got her little girl with her, sir." + +My heart quickened its beat. The boy's answer reminded me of that +other little girl whom my mother had once seen. + +"Is the lady's husband with her?" I asked next. + +"No, sir--not now. He was with her; but he went away--and he +hasn't come back yet." + +I put a last conclusive question. + +"Is her husband an Englishman?" I inquired. + +"Mother says he's a foreigner," the boy answered. + +I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might have +noticed it! + +Passing under the name of "Mrs. Brand"--poor, so poor that she +was obliged to pawn her ring--left, by a man who was a foreigner, +alone with her little girl--was I on the trace of her at that +moment? Was this lost child destined to be the innocent means of +leading me back to the woman I loved, in her direst need of +sympathy and help? The more I thought of it, the more strongly +the idea of returning with the boy to the house in which his +mother's lodger lived fastened itself on my mind. The clock +struck the quarter past eleven. If my anticipations ended in +misleading me, I had still three-quarters of an hour to spare +before the month reached its end. + +"Where do you live?" I asked. + +The boy mentioned a street, the name of which I then heard for +the first time. All he could say, when I asked for further +particulars, was that he lived close by the river--in which +direction, he was too confused and too frightened to be able to +tell me. + +While we were still trying to understand each other, a cab passed +slowly at some little distance. I hailed the man, and mentioned +the name of the street to him. He knew it perfectly well. The +street was rather more than a mile away from us, in an easterly +direction. He undertook to drive me there and to bring me back +again to Saint Paul's (if necessary), in less than twenty +minutes. I opened the door of the cab, and told my little friend +to get in. The boy hesitated. + +"Are we going to the chemist's, if you please, sir?" he asked. + +"No. You are going home first, with me." + +The boy began to cry again. + +"Mother will beat me, sir, if I go back without the medicine." + +"I will take care that your mother doesn't beat you. I am a +doctor myself; and I want to see the lady before we get the +medicine." + +The announcement of my profession appeared to inspire the boy +with a certain confidence. But he still showed no disposition to +accompany me to his mother's house. + +"Do you mean to charge the lady anything?" he asked. "The money +I've got on the ring isn't much. Mother won't like having it +taken out of her rent." + +"I won't charge the lady a farthing," I answered. + +The boy instantly got into the cab. "All right," he said, "as +long as mother gets her money." + +Alas for the poor! The child's education in the sordid anxieties +of life was completed already at ten years old! + +We drove away. + +CHAPTER XXV. + +I KEEP MY APPOINTMENT. + +THE poverty-stricken aspect of the street when we entered it, the +dirty and dilapidated condition of the house when we drew up at +the door, would have warned most men, in my position, to prepare +themselves for a distressing discovery when they were admitted to +the interior of the dwelling. The first impression which the +place produced on _my_ mind suggested, on the contrary, that the +boy's answers to my questions had led me astray. It was simply +impossible to associate Mrs. Van Brandt (as _I_ remembered her) +with the spectacle of such squalid poverty as I now beheld. I +rang the door-bell, feeling persuaded beforehand that my +inquiries would lead to no useful result. + +As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion's dread of a +beating revived in full force. He hid himself behind me; and when +I asked what he was about, he answered, confidentially: "Please +stand between us, sir, when mother opens the door!" + +A tall and truculent woman answered the bell. No introduction was +necessary. Holding a cane in her hand, she stood self-proclaimed +as my small friend's mother. + +"I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine," she explained, +as an apology for the exhibition of the cane. "He has been gone +on an errand more than two hours. What did you please to want, +sir?" + +I interceded for the unfortunate boy before I entered on my own +business. + +"I must beg you to forgive your son this time," I said. "I found +him lost in the streets; and I have brought him home." + +The woman's astonishment when she heard what I had done, and +discovered her son behind me, literally struck her dumb. The +language of the eye, superseding on this occasion the language of +the tongue, plainly revealed the impression that I had produced +on her: "You bring my lost brat home in a cab! Mr. Stranger, you +are mad." + +"I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging in the house," I +went on. "I dare say I am mistaken in supposing her to be a lady +of the same name whom I know. But I should like to make sure +whether I am right or wrong. Is it too late to disturb your +lodger to-night?" + +The woman recovered the use of her tongue. + +"My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who doesn't +know his way about London yet!" She emphasized those words by +shaking her brawny fist at her son--who instantly returned to his +place of refuge behind the tail of my coat. "Have you got the +money?" inquired the terrible person, shouting at her hidden +offspring over my shoulder. "Or have you lost _that_ as well as +your own stupid little self?" + +The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his mother's +knotty hand. She counted it, with eyes which satisfied themselves +fiercely that each coin was of genuine silver--and then became +partially pacified. + +"Go along upstairs," she growled, addressing her son; "and don't +keep the lady waiting any longer. They're half starved, she and +her child," the woman proceeded, turning to me. "The food my boy +has got for them in his basket will be the first food the mother +has tasted today. She's pawned everything by this time; and what +she's to do unless you help her is more than I can say. The +doctor does what he can; but he told me today, if she wasn't +better nourished, it was no use sending for _him_. Follow the +boy; and see for yourself if it's the lady you know." + +I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had acted +under a delusion in going to her house. How was it possible to +associate the charming object of my heart's worship with the +miserable story of destitution which I had just heard? I stopped +the boy on the first landing, and told him to announce me simply +as a doctor, who had been informed of Mrs. Brand's illness, and +who had called to see her. + +We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Arrived now +at the top of the house, the boy knocked at the door that was +nearest to us on the landing. No audible voice replied. He opened +the door without ceremony, and went in. I waited outside to hear +what was said. The door was left ajar. If the voice of "Mrs. +Brand" was (as I believed it would prove to be) the voice of a +stranger, I resolved to offer her delicately such help as lay +within my power, and to return forthwith to my post under "the +shadow of Saint Paul's." + +The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a child. + +"I'm so hungry, Jemmy--I'm so hungry!" + +"All right, missy--I've got you something to eat." + +"Be quick, Jemmy! Be quick!" + +There was a momentary pause; and then I heard the boy's voice +once more. + +"There's a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must wait for +your egg till I can boil it. Don't you eat too fast, or you'll +choke yourself. What's the matter with your mamma? Are you +asleep, ma'am?" + +I could bar ely hear the answering voice--it was so faint; and it +uttered but one word: "No!" + +The boy spoke again. + +"Cheer up, missus. There's a doctor outside waiting to see you." + +This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed himself to +me at the door. "Please to come in, sir. _I_ can't make anything +of her." + +It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated any +longer to enter the room. I went in. + +There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed-chamber, +lying back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was one more among +the thousands of forlorn creatures, starving that night in the +great city. A white handkerchief was laid over her face as if to +screen it from the flame of the fire hard by. She lifted the +handkerchief, startled by the sound of my footsteps as I entered +the room. I looked at her, and saw in the white, wan, death-like +face the face of the woman I loved! + +For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint and +giddy. In another instant I was kneeling by her chair. My arm was +round her--her head lay on my shoulder. She was past speaking, +past crying out: she trembled silently, and that was all. I said +nothing. No words passed my lips, no tears came to my relief. I +held her to me; and she let me hold her. The child, devouring its +bread-and-butter at a little round table, stared at us. The boy, +on his knees before the grate, mending the fire, stared at us. +And the slow minutes lagged on; and the buzzing of a fly in a +corner was the only sound in the room. + +The instincts of the profession to which I had been trained, +rather than any active sense of the horror of the situation in +which I was placed, roused me at last. She was starving! I saw it +in the deadly color of her skin; I felt it in the faint, quick +flutter of her pulse. I called the boy to me, and sent him to the +nearest public-house for wine and biscuits. "Be quick about it," +I said; "and you shall have more money for yourself than ever you +had in your life!" The boy looked at me, spit on the coins in his +hand, said, "That's for luck!" and ran out of the room as never +boy ran yet. + +I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. The +cry of the child stopped me. + +"I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!" + +I set more food before the famished child and kissed her. She +looked up at me with wondering eyes. + +"Are you a new papa?" the little creature asked. "My other papa +never kisses me." + +I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed; the tears flowed +slowly over her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail hand in +mine. "Happier days are coming," I said; "you are _my_ care now." +There was no answer. She still trembled silently, and that was +all. + +In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned his +promised reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting his +treasure, the one happy creature in the room. I soaked some +crumbled morsels of biscuit in the wine, and, little by little, I +revived her failing strength by nourishment administered at +intervals in that cautious form. After a while she raised her +head, and looked at me with wondering eyes that were pitiably +like the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate flush began to show +itself in her face. She spoke to me, for the first time, in +whispering tones that I could just hear as I sat close at her +side. + +"How did you find me? Who showed you the way to this place?" + +She paused; painfully recalling the memory of something that was +slow to come back. Her color deepened; she found the lost +remembrance, and looked at me with a timid curiosity. "What +brought you here?" she asked. "Was it my dream?" + +"Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you all." + +I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The child +followed us, and climbing to the bedstead with my help, nestled +at her mother's side. I sent the boy away to tell the mistress of +the house that I should remain with my patient, watching her +progress toward recovery, through the night. He went out, +jingling his money joyfully in his pocket. We three were left +together. + +As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals into +a broken sleep; waking with a start, and looking at me wildly as +if I had been a stranger at her bedside. Toward morning the +nourishment which I still carefully administered wrought its +healthful change in her pulse, and composed her to quieter +slumbers. When the sun rose she was sleeping as peacefully as the +child at her side. I was able to leave her, until my return later +in the day, under the care of the woman of the house. The magic +of money transformed this termagant and terrible person into a +docile and attentive nurse--so eager to follow my instructions +exactly that she begged me to commit them to writing before I +went away. For a moment I still lingered alone at the bedside of +the sleeping woman, and satisfied myself for the hundredth time +that her life was safe, before I left her. It was the sweetest of +all rewards to feel sure of this--to touch her cool forehead +lightly with my lips--to look, and look again, at the poor worn +face, always dear, always beautiful, to _my_ eyes. change as it +might. I closed the door softly and went out in the bright +morning, a happy man again. So close together rise the springs of +joy and sorrow in human life! So near in our heart, as in our +heaven, is the brightest sunshine to the blackest cloud! + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER. + +I REACHED my own house in time to snatch two or three hours of +repose, before I paid my customary morning visit to my mother in +her own room. I observed, in her reception of me on this +occasion, certain peculiarities of look and manner which were far +from being familiar in my experience of her. + +When our eyes first met, she regarded me with a wistful, +questioning look, as if she were troubled by some doubt which she +shrunk from expressing in words. And when I inquired after her +health, as usual, she surprised me by answering as impatiently as +if she resented my having mentioned the subject. For a moment, I +was inclined to think these changes signified that she had +discovered my absence from home during the night, and that she +had some suspicion of the true cause of it. But she never +alluded, even in the most distant manner, to Mrs. Van Brandt; and +not a word dropped from her lips which implied, directly or +indirectly, that I had pained or disappointed her. I could only +conclude that she had something important to say in relation to +herself or to me--and that for reasons of her own she unwillingly +abstained from giving expression to it at that time. + +Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touched on +the subject (always interesting to my mother) of my visit to +Shetland. Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also of Miss +Dunross. Here, again, when I least expected it, there was another +surprise in store for me. + +"You were talking the other day," said my mother, "of the green +flag which poor Dermody's daughter worked for you, when you were +both children. Have you really kept it all this time?" + +"Yes." + +"Where have you left it? In Scotland?" + +"I have brought it with me to London." + +"Why?" + +"I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, wherever +I might go." + +My mother smiled. + +"Is it possible, George, that you think about this as the young +lady in Shetland thinks? After all the years that have passed, +you believe in the green flag being the means of bringing Mary +Dermody and yourself together again?" + +"Certainly not! I am only humoring one of the fancies of poor +Miss Dunross. Could I refuse to grant her trifling request, after +all I owed to her kindness?" + +The smile left my mother's face. She looked at me attentively. + +"Miss Dunross seems to have produced a very favorable impression +on you," she said. + +"I own it. I feel deeply interested in her." + +"If she had not been an incurable invalid, George, I too might +have become interested in Miss Dunross--perhaps in the character +of my daughter-in-law?" + +"It is useless, mother, to speculate on what _might_ have +happened. The sad reality is enough." + +My mother paused a little before she put her next question to me. + +"Did Miss Dunross always keep her veil drawn in your + presence, when there happened to be light in the room?" + +"Always." + +"She never even let you catch a momentary glance at her face?" + +"Never." + +"And the only reason she gave you was that the light caused her a +painful sensation if it fell on her uncovered skin?" + +"You say that, mother, as if you doubt whether Miss Dunross told +me the truth." + +"No, George. I only doubt whether she told you _all_ the truth." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Don't be offended, my dear. I believe Miss Dunross has some more +serious reason for keeping her face hidden than the reason that +she gave _you_." + +I was silent. The suspicion which those words implied had never +occurred to my mind. I had read in medical books of cases of +morbid nervous sensitiveness exactly similar to the case of Miss +Dunross, as described by herself--and that had been enough for +me. Now that my mother's idea had found its way from her mind to +mine, the impression produced on me was painful in the last +degree. Horrible imaginings of deformity possessed my brain, and +profaned all that was purest and dearest in my recollections of +Miss Dunross. It was useless to change the subject--the evil +influence that was on me was too potent to be charmed away by +talk. Making the best excuse that I could think of for leaving my +mother's room, I hurried away to seek a refuge from myself, where +alone I could hope to find it, in the presence of Mrs. Van +Brandt. + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +CONVERSATION WITH MRS. VAN BRANDT. + +THE landlady was taking the air at her own door when I reached +the house. Her reply to my inquiries justified my most hopeful +anticipations. The poor lodger looked already "like another +woman"; and the child was at that moment posted on the stairs, +watching for the return of her "new papa." + +"There's one thing I should wish to say to you, sir, before you +go upstairs," the woman went on. "Don't trust the lady with more +money at a time than the money that is wanted for the day's +housekeeping. If she has any to spare, it's as likely as not to +be wasted on her good-for-nothing husband." + +Absorbed in the higher and dearer interests that filled my mind, +I had thus far forgotten the very existence of Mr. Van Brandt. + +"Where is he?" I asked. + +"Where he ought to be," was the answer. "In prison for debt." + +In those days a man imprisoned for debt was not infrequently a +man imprisoned for life. There was little fear of my visit being +shortened by the appearance on the scene of Mr. Van Brandt. + +Ascending the stairs, I found the child waiting for me on the +upper landing, with a ragged doll in her arms. I had bought a +cake for her on my way to the house. She forthwith turned over +the doll to my care, and, trotting before me into the room with +her cake in her arms, announced my arrival in these words: + +"Mamma, I like this papa better than the other. You like him +better, too." + +The mother's wasted face reddened for a moment, then turned pale +again, as she held out her hand to me. I looked at her anxiously, +and discerned the welcome signs of recovery, clearly revealed. +Her grand gray eyes rested on me again with a glimmer of their +old light. The hand that had lain so cold in mine on the past +night had life and warmth in it now. + +"Should I have died before the morning if you had not come here?" +she asked, softly. "Have you saved my life for the second time? I +can well believe it." + +Before I was aware of her, she bent her head over my hand, and +touched it tenderly with her lips. "I am not an ungrateful +woman," she murmured--"and yet I don't know how to thank you." + +The child looked up quickly from her cake. "Why don't you kiss +him?" the quaint little creature asked, with a broad stare of +astonishment. + +Her head sunk on her breast. She sighed bitterly. + +"No more of Me!" she said, suddenly recovering her composure, and +suddenly forcing herself to look at me again. "Tell me what happy +chance brought you here last night?" + +"The same chance," I answered, "which took me to Saint Anthony's +Well." + +She raised herself eagerly in the chair. + +"You have seen me again--as you saw me in the summer-house by the +waterfall!" she exclaimed. "Was it in Scotland once more?" + +"No. Further away than Scotland--as far away as Shetland." + +"Tell me about it! Pray, pray tell me about it!" + +I related what had happened as exactly as I could, consistently +with maintaining the strictest reserve on one point. Concealing +from her the very existence of Miss Dunross, I left her to +suppose that the master of the house was the one person whom I +had found to receive me during my sojourn under Mr. Dunross's +roof. + +"That is strange!" she exclaimed, after she had heard me +attentively to the end. + +"What is strange?" I asked. + +She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large grave +eyes. + +"I hardly like speaking of it," she said. "And yet I ought to +have no concealments in such a matter from you. I understand +everything that you have told me--with one exception. It seems +strange to me that you should only have had one old man for your +companion while you were at the house in Shetland." + +"What other companion did you expect to hear of?" I inquired. + +"I expected," she answered, "to hear of a lady in the house." + +I cannot positively say that the reply took me by surprise: it +forced me to reflect before I spoke again. I knew, by my past +experience, that she must have seen me, in my absence from her, +while I was spiritually present to her mind in a trance or dream. +Had she also seen the daily companion of my life in +Shetland--Miss Dunross? + +I put the question in a form which left me free to decide whether +I should take her unreservedly into my confidence or not. + +"Am I right," I began, "in supposing that you dreamed of me in +Shetland, as you once before dreamed of me while I was at my +house in Perthshire?" + +"Yes," she answered. "It was at the close of evening, this time. +I fell asleep, or became insensible--I cannot say which. And I +saw you again, in a vision or a dream." + +"Where did you see me?" + +"I first saw you on the bridge over the Scotch river--just as I +met you on the evening when you saved my life. After a while the +stream and the landscape about it faded, and you faded with them, +into darkness. I waited a little, and the darkness melted away +slowly. I stood, as it seemed to me, in a circle of starry +lights; fronting a window, with a lake behind me, and before me a +darkened room. And I looked into the room, and the starry light +showed you to me again." + +"When did this happen? Do you remember the date?" + +"I remember that it was at the beginning of the month. The +misfortunes which have since brought me so low had not then +fallen on me; and yet, as I stood looking at you, I had the +strangest prevision of calamity that was to come. I felt the same +absolute reliance on your power to help me that I felt when I +first dreamed of you in Scotland. And I did the same familiar +things. I laid my hand on your bosom. I said to you: 'Remember +me. Come to me.' I even wrote--" + +She stopped, shuddering as if a sudden fear had laid its hold on +her. Seeing this, and dreading the effect of any violent +agitation, I hastened to suggest that we should say no more, for +that day, on the subject of her dream. + +"No," she answered, firmly. "There is nothing to be gained by +giving me time. My dream has left one horrible remembrance on my +mind. As long as I live, I believe I shall tremble when I think +of what I saw near you in that darkened room." + +She stopped again. Was she approaching the subject of the +shrouded figure, with the black veil over its head? Was she about +to describe her first discovery, in the dream, of Miss Dunross? + +"Tell me one thing first," she resumed. "Have I been right in +what I have said to you, so far? Is it true that you were in a +darkened room when you saw me?" + +"Quite true." + +"Was the date the beginning of the month? and was the hour the +close of evening?" + +"Yes." + +"Were you alone in the room? Answer me truly!" + +"I was not alone." + +"Was the master of the house with you? or had you some other +companion?" + +It would have been worse than useless (after what I had now +heard) to attempt to deceive her. + +"I had another companion," I answered. "The person in the room + with me was a woman." + +Her face showed, as I spoke, that she was again shaken by the +terrifying recollection to which she had just alluded. I had, by +this time, some difficulty myself in preserving my composure. +Still, I was determined not to let a word escape me which could +operate as a suggestion on the mind of my companion. + +"Have you any other question to ask me?" was all I said. + +"One more," she answered. "Was there anything unusual in the +dress of your companion?" + +"Yes. She wore a long black veil, which hung over her head and +face, and dropped to below her waist." + +Mrs. Van Brandt leaned back in her chair, and covered her eyes +with her hands. + +"I understand your motive for concealing from me the presence of +that miserable woman in the house," she said. "It is good and +kind, like all your motives; but it is useless. While I lay in +the trance I saw everything exactly as it was in the reality; and +I, too, saw that frightful face!" + +Those words literally electrified me. + +My conversation of that morning with my mother instantly recurred +to my memory. I started to my feet. + +"Good God!" I exclaimed, "what do you mean?" + +"Don't you understand yet?" she asked in amazement on her side. +"Must I speak more plainly still? When you saw the apparition of +me, did you see me write?" + +"Yes. On a letter that the lady was writing for me. I saw the +words afterward; the words that brought me to you last night: 'At +the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's.' " + +"How did I appear to write on the unfinished letter?" + +"You lifted the writing-case, on which the letter and the pen +lay, off the lady's lap; and, while you wrote, you rested the +case on her shoulder." + +"Did you notice if the lifting of the case produced any effect on +her?" + +"I saw no effect produced," I answered. "She remained immovable +in her chair." + +"I saw it differently in my dream. She raised her hand--not the +hand that was nearest to you, but nearest to me. As _I_ lifted +the writing-case, _she_ lifted her hand, and parted the folds of +the veil from off her face--I suppose to see more clearly. It was +only for a moment; and in that moment I saw what the veil hid. +Don't let us speak of it! You must have shuddered at that +frightful sight in the reality, as I shuddered at it in the +dream. You must have asked yourself, as I did: 'Is there nobody +to poison the terrible creature, and hide her mercifully in the +grave?' " + +At those words, she abruptly checked herself. I could say +nothing--my face spoke for me. She saw it, and guessed the truth. + +"Good heavens!" she cried, "you have not seen her! She must have +kept her face hidden from you behind the veil! Oh, why, why did +you cheat me into talking of it! I will never speak of it again. +See, we are frightening the child! Come here, darling; there is +nothing to be afraid of. Come, and bring your cake with you. You +shall be a great lady, giving a grand dinner; and we will be two +friends whom you have invited to dine with you; and the doll +shall be the little girl who comes in after dinner, and has fruit +at dessert!" So she ran on, trying vainly to forget the shock +that she had inflicted on me in talking nursery nonsense to the +child. + +Recovering my composure in some degree, I did my best to second +the effort that she had made. My quieter thoughts suggested that +she might well be self-deceived in believing the horrible +spectacle presented to her in the vision to be an actual +reflection of the truth. In common justice toward Miss Dunross I +ought surely not to accept the conviction of her deformity on no +better evidence than the evidence of a dream? Reasonable as it +undoubtedly was, this view left certain doubts still lingering in +my mind. The child's instinct soon discovered that her mother and +I were playfellows who felt no genuine enjoyment of the game. She +dismissed her make-believe guests without ceremony, and went back +with her doll to the favorite play-ground on which I had met +her--the landing outside the door. No persuasion on her mother's +part or on mine succeeded in luring her back to us. We were left +together, to face each other as best we might--with the forbidden +subject of Miss Dunross between us. + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +LOVE AND MONEY. + +FEELING the embarrassment of the moment most painfully on her +side, Mrs. Van Brandt spoke first. + +"You have said nothing to me about yourself," she began. "Is your +life a happier one than it was when we last met?" + +"I cannot honestly say that it is," I answered. + +"Is there any prospect of your being married?" + +"My prospect of being married still rests with you." + +"Don't say that!" she exclaimed, with an entreating look at me. +"Don't spoil my pleasure in seeing you again by speaking of what +can never be! Have you still to be told how it is that you find +me here alone with my child?" + +I forced myself to mention Van Brandt's name, rather than hear it +pass _her_ lips. + +"I have been told that Mr. Van Brandt is in prison for debt," I +said. "And I saw for myself last night that he had left you +helpless." + +"He left me the little money he had with him when he was +arrested," she rejoined, sadly. "His cruel creditors are more to +blame than he is for the poverty that has fallen on us." + +Even this negative defense of Van Brandt stung me to the quick. + +"I ought to have spoken more guardedly of him," I said, bitterly. +"I ought to have remembered that a woman can forgive almost any +wrong that a man can inflict on her--when he is the man whom she +loves." + +She put her hand on my mouth, and stopped me before I could say +any more. + +"How can you speak so cruelly to me?" she asked. "You know--to my +shame I confessed it to you the last time we met--you know that +my heart, in secret, is all yours. What 'wrong' are you talking +of? Is it the wrong I suffered when Van Brandt married me, with a +wife living at the time (and living still)? Do you think I can +ever forget the great misfortune of my life--the misfortune that +has made me unworthy of you? It is no fault of mine, God knows; +but it is not the less true that I am not married, and that the +little darling who is playing out there with her doll is my +child. And you talk of my being your wife--knowing that!" + +"The child accepts me as her second father," I said. "It would be +better and happier for us both if you had as little pride as the +child." + +"Pride?" she repeated. "In such a position as mine? A helpless +woman, with a mock-husband in prison for debt! Say that I have +not fallen quite so low yet as to forget what is due to you, and +you will pay me a compliment that will be nearer to the truth. Am +I to marry you for my food and shelter? Am I to marry you, +because there is no lawful tie that binds me to the father of my +child? Cruelly as he has behaved, he has still _that_ claim upon +me. Bad as he is, he has not forsaken me; he has been forced +away. My only friend, is it possible that you think me ungrateful +enough to consent to be your wife? The woman (in my situation) +must be heartless indeed who could destroy your place in the +estimation of the world and the regard of your friends! The +wretchedest creature that walks the streets would shrink from +treating you in that way. Oh, what are men made of? How _can_ +you--how _can_ you speak of it!" + +I yielded---and spoke of it no more. Every word she uttered only +increased my admiration of the noble creature whom I had loved, +and lost. What refuge was now left to me? But one refuge; I could +still offer to her the sacrifice of myself. Bitterly as I hated +the man who had parted us, I loved her dearly enough to be even +capable of helping him for her sake. Hopeless infatuation! I +don't deny it; I don't excuse it--hopeless infatuation! + +"You have forgiven me," I said. "Let me deserve to be forgiven. +It is something to be your only friend. You must have plans for +the future; tell me unreservedly how I can help you." + +"Complete the good work that you have begun," she answered, +gratefully. "Help me back to health. Make me strong enough to +submit to a doctor's estimate of my chances of living for some +years yet." + +"A doctor's estimate of your chances of living?" I repeated. +"What do you mean?" + +"I hardly know how to tell you," she said, "without + speaking again of Mr. Van Brandt." + +"Does speaking of him again mean speaking of his debts?" I asked. +"Why need you hesitate? You know that there is nothing I will not +do to relieve _your_ anxieties." + +She looked at me for a moment, in silent distress. + +"Oh! do you think I would let you give your money to Van Brandt?" +she asked, as soon as she could speak. "I, who owe everything to +your devotion to me? Never! Let me tell you the plain truth. +There is a serious necessity for his getting out of prison. He +must pay his creditors; and he has found out a way of doing +it--with my help." + +"Your help?" I exclaimed. + +"Yes. This is his position, in two words: A little while since, +he obtained an excellent offer of employment abroad, from a rich +relative of his, and he had made all his arrangements to accept +it. Unhappily, he returned to tell me of his good fortune, and +the same day he was arrested for debt. His relative has offered +to keep the situation open for a certain time, and the time has +not yet expired. If he can pay a dividend to his creditors, they +will give him his freedom; and he believes he can raise the money +if I consent to insure my life." + +To insure her life! The snare that had been set for her was +plainly revealed in those four words. + +In the eye of the law she was, of course, a single woman: she was +of age; she was, to all intents and purposes, her own mistress. +What was there to prevent her from insuring her life, if she +pleased, and from so disposing of the insurance as to give Van +Brandt a direct interest in her death? Knowing what I knew of +him--believing him, as I did, to be capable of any atrocity--I +trembled at the bare idea of what might have happened if I had +failed to find my way back to her until a later date. Thanks to +the happy accident of my position, the one certain way of +protecting her lay easily within my reach. I could offer to lend +the scoundrel the money that he wanted at an hour's notice, and +he was the man to accept my proposal quite as easily as I could +make it. + +"You don't seem to approve of our idea," she said, noticing, in +evident perplexity, the effect which she had produced on me. "I +am very unfortunate; I seem to have innocently disturbed and +annoyed you for the second time." + +"You are quite mistaken," I replied. "I am only doubting whether +your plan for relieving Mr. Van Brandt of his embarrassments is +quite so simple as you suppose. Are you aware of the delays that +are likely to take place before it will be possible to borrow +money on your policy of insurance?" + +"I know nothing about it," she said, sadly. + +"Will you let me ask the advice of my lawyers? They are +trustworthy and experienced men, and I am sure they can be of use +to you." + +Cautiously as I had expressed myself, her delicacy took the +alarm. + +"Promise that you won't ask me to borrow money of you for Mr. Van +Brandt," she rejoined, "and I will accept your help gratefully." + +I could honestly promise that. My one chance of saving her lay in +keeping from her knowledge the course that I had now determined +to pursue. I rose to go, while my resolution still sustained me. +The sooner I made my inquiries (I reminded her) the more speedily +our present doubts and difficulties would be resolved. + +She rose, as I rose--with the tears in her eyes, and the blush on +her cheeks. + +"Kiss me," she whispered, "before you go! And don't mind my +crying. I am quite happy now. It is only your goodness that +overpowers me." + +I pressed her to my heart, with the unacknowledged tenderness of +a parting embrace. It was impossible to disguise the position in +which I had now placed myself. I had, so to speak, pronounced my +own sentence of banishment. When my interference had restored my +unworthy rival to his freedom, could I submit to the degrading +necessity of seeing her in his presence, of speaking to her under +his eyes? _That_ sacrifice of myself was beyond me--and I knew +it. "For the last time!" I thought, as I held her to me for a +moment longer--"for the last time!" + +The child ran to meet me with open arms when I stepped out on the +landing. My manhood had sustained me through the parting with the +mother. It was only when the child's round, innocent little face +laid itself lovingly against mine that my fortitude gave way. I +was past speaking; I put her down gently in silence, and waited +on the lower flight of stairs until I was fit to face the world +outside. + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +OUR DESTINIES PART US. + +DESCENDING to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to request a +moment's interview with the landlady. I had yet to learn in which +of the London prisons Van Brandt was confined; and she was the +only person to whom I could venture to address the question. + +Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own sordid +construction on my motive for visiting the prisoner. + +"Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy pockets +already?" she asked. "If I was as rich as you are, I should let +it go. In your place, I wouldn't touch him with a pair of tongs!" + +The woman's coarse warning actually proved useful to me; it +started a new idea in my mind! Before she spoke, I had been too +dull or too preoccupied to see that it was quite needless to +degrade myself by personally communicating with Van Brandt in his +prison. It only now occurred to me that my legal advisers were, +as a matter of course, the proper persons to represent me in the +matter--with this additional advantage, that they could keep my +share in the transaction a secret even from Van Brandt himself. + +I drove at once to the office of my lawyers. The senior +partner--the tried friend and adviser of our family--received me. + +My instructions, naturally enough, astonished him. He was +immediately to satisfy the prisoner's creditors, on my behalf, +without mentioning my name to any one. And he was gravely to +accept as security for repayment--Mr. Van Brandt's note of hand! + +"I thought I was well acquainted with the various methods by +which a gentleman can throw away his money," the senior partner +remarked. "I congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, on having discovered +an entirely new way of effectually emptying your purse. Founding +a newspaper, taking a theater, keeping race-horses, gambling at +Monaco, are highly efficient as modes of losing money. But they +all yield, sir, to paying the debts of Mr. Van Brandt!" + +I left him, and went home. + +The servant who opened the door had a message for me from my +mother. She wished to see me as soon as I was at leisure to speak +to her. + +I presented myself at once in my mother's sitting-room. + +"Well, George?" she said, without a word to prepare me for what +was coming. "How have you left Mrs. Van Brandt?" + +I was completely thrown off my guard. + +"Who has told you that I have seen Mrs. Van Brandt?" I asked. + +"My dear, your face has told me. Don't I know by this time how +you look and how you speak when Mrs. Van Brandt is in your mind. +Sit down by me. I have something to say to you which I wanted to +say this morning; but, I hardly know why, my heart failed me. I +am bolder now, and I can say it. My son, you still love Mrs. Van +Brandt. You have my permission to marry her." + +Those were the words! Hardly an hour had elapsed since Mrs. Van +Brandt's own lips had told me that our union was impossible. Not +even half an hour had passed since I had given the directions +which would restore to liberty the man who was the one obstacle +to my marriage. And this was the time that my mother had +innocently chosen for consenting to receive as her +daughter-in-law Mrs. Van Brandt! + +"I see that I surprise you," she resumed. "Let me explain my +motive as plainly as I can. I should not be speaking the truth, +George, if I told you that I have ceased to feel the serious +objections that there are to your marrying this lady. The only +difference in my way of thinking is, that I am now willing to set +my objections aside, out of regard for your happiness. I am an +old woman, my dear. In the course of nature, I cannot hope to be +with you much longer. When I am gone, who will be left to care +for you and love you, in the place of your mother? No one will be +left, unless you marry Mrs. Van Brandt. Your happiness is my +first consideration, and the woman you love (sadly as she has +been led astray) is a woman worthy of a better fate. Marry her." + +I could not trust myself to speak. I could only kneel at my +mother's feet, and hide my face on her knees, as if I had been a +boy again. + +"Think of it, George," she said. "And come back to me when you +are composed enough to speak as quietly of the future as I do." + +She lifted my head and kissed me. As I rose to leave her, I saw +something in the dear old eyes that met mine so tenderly, which +struck a sudden fear through me, keen and cutting, like a stroke +from a knife. + +The moment I had closed the door, I went downstairs to the porter +in the hall. + +"Has my mother left the house," I asked, "while I have been +away?" + +"No, sir." + +"Have any visitors called?" + +"One visitor has called, sir." + +"Do you know who it was?" + +The porter mentioned the name of a celebrated physician--a man at +the head of his profession in those days. I instantly took my hat +and went to his house. + +He had just returned from his round of visits. My card was taken +to him, and was followed at once by my admission to his +consulting-room. + +"You have seen my mother," I said. "Is she seriously ill? and +have you not concealed it from her? For God's sake, tell me the +truth; I can bear it." + +The great man took me kindly by the hand. + +"Your mother stands in no need of any warning; she is herself +aware of the critical state of her health," he said. "She sent +for me to confirm her own conviction. I could not conceal from +her--I must not conceal from you--that the vital energies are +sinking. She may live for some months longer in a milder air than +the air of London. That is all I can say. At her age, her days +are numbered." + +He gave me time to steady myself under the blow; and then he +placed his vast experience, his matured and consummate knowledge, +at my disposal. From his dictation, I committed to writing the +necessary instructions for watching over the frail tenure of my +mother's life. + +"Let me give you one word of warning," he said, as we parted. +"Your mother is especially desirous that you should know nothing +of the precarious condition of her health. Her one anxiety is to +see you happy. If she discovers your visit to me, I will not +answer for the consequences. Make the best excuse you can think +of for at once taking her away from London, and, whatever you may +feel in secret, keep up an appearance of good spirits in her +presence." + +That evening I made my excuse. It was easily found. I had only to +tell my poor mother of Mrs. Van Brandt's refusal to marry me, and +there was an intelligible motive assigned for my proposing to +leave London. The same night I wrote to inform Mrs. Van Brandt of +the sad event which was the cause of my sudden departure, and to +warn her that there no longer existed the slightest necessity for +insuring her life. "My lawyers" (I wrote) "have undertaken to +arrange Mr. Van Brandt's affairs immediately. In a few hours he +will be at liberty to accept the situation that has been offered +to him." The last lines of the letter assured her of my +unalterable love, and entreated her to write to me before she +left England. + +This done, all was done. I was conscious, strange to say, of no +acutely painful suffering at this saddest time of my life. There +is a limit, morally as well as physically, to our capacity for +endurance. I can only describe my sensations under the calamities +that had now fallen on me in one way: I felt like a man whose +mind had been stunned. + +The next day my mother and I set forth on the first stage of our +journey to the south coast of Devonshire. + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE PROSPECT DARKENS. + +THREE days after my mother and I had established ourselves at +Torquay, I received Mrs. Van Brandt's answer to my letter. After +the opening sentences (informing me that Van Brandt had been set +at liberty, under circumstances painfully suggestive to the +writer of some unacknowledged sacrifice on my part), the letter +proceeded in these terms: + +"The new employment which Mr. Van Brandt is to undertake secures +to us the comforts, if not the luxuries, of life. For the first +time since my troubles began, I have the prospect before me of a +peaceful existence, among a foreign people from whom all that is +false in my position may be concealed--not for my sake, but for +the sake of my child. To more than this, to the happiness which +some women enjoy, I must not, I dare not, aspire. + +"We leave England for the Continent early tomorrow morning. Shall +I tell you in what part of Europe my new residence is to be? + +"No! You might write to me again; and I might write back. The one +poor return I can make to the good angel of my life is to help +him to forget me. What right have I to cling to my usurped place +in your regard? The time will come when you will give your heart +to a woman who is worthier of it than I am. Let me drop out of +your life--except as an occasional remembrance, when you +sometimes think of the days that have gone forever. + +"I shall not be without some consolation on my side, when I too +look back at the past. I have been a better woman since I met +with you. Live as long as I may, I shall always remember that. + +"Yes! The influence that you have had over me has been from first +to last an influence for good. Allowing that I have done wrong +(in my position) to love you, and, worse even than that, to own +it, still the love has been innocent, and the effort to control +it has been an honest effort at least. But, apart from this, my +heart tells me that I am the better for the sympathy which has +united us. I may confess to you what I have never yet +acknowledged--now that we are so widely parted, and so little +likely to meet again--whenever I have given myself up +unrestrainedly to my own better impulses, they have always seemed +to lead me to you. Whenever my mind has been most truly at peace, +and I have been able to pray with a pure and a penitent heart, I +have felt as if there was some unseen tie that was drawing us +nearer and nearer together. And, strange to say, this has always +happened (just as my dreams of you have always come to me) when I +have been separated from Van Brandt. At such times, thinking or +dreaming, it has always appeared to me that I knew you far more +familiarly than I know you when we meet face to face. Is there +really such a thing, I wonder, as a former state of existence? +And were we once constant companions in some other sphere, +thousands of years since? These are idle guesses. Let it be +enough for me to remember that I have been the better for knowing +you--without inquiring how or why. + +"Farewell, my beloved benefactor, my only friend! The child sends +you a kiss; and the mother signs herself your grateful and +affectionate + + M. VAN BRANDT." + +When I first read those lines, they once more recalled to my +memory--very strangely, as I then thought--the predictions of +Dame Dermody in the days of my boyhood. Here were the foretold +sympathies which were spiritually to unite me to Mary, realized +by a stranger whom I had met by chance in the later years of my +life! + +Thinking in this direction, did I advance no further? Not a step +further! Not a suspicion of the truth presented itself to my mind +even yet. + +Was my own dullness of apprehension to blame for this? Would +another man in my position have discovered what I had failed to +see? + +I look back along the chain of events which runs through my +narrative, and I ask myself, Where are the possibilities to be +found (in my case, or in the case of any other man) of +identifying the child who was Mary Dermody with the woman who was +Mrs. Van Brandt? Was there anything left in our faces, when we +met again by the Scotch river, to remind us of our younger +selves? We had developed, in the interval, from boy and girl to +man and woman: no outward traces were discernible in us of the +George and Mary of other days. Disguised from each other by our +faces, we were also disguised by our names. Her mock-marriage had +changed her surname. My step-father's will had changed mine. Her +Christian name was the commonest of all names of women; and mine +was almost as far from being remarkable among the names of men. +Turning next to the various occasions + on which we had met, had we seen enough of each other to drift +into recognition on either side, in the ordinary course of talk? +We had met but four times in all; once on the bridge, once again +in Edinburgh, twice more in London. On each of these occasions, +the absorbing anxieties and interests of the passing moment had +filled her mind and mine, had inspired her words and mine. When +had the events which had brought us together left us with leisure +enough and tranquillity enough to look back idly through our +lives, and calmly to compare the recollections of our youth? +Never! From first to last, the course of events had borne us +further and further away from any results that could have led +even to a suspicion of the truth. She could only believe when she +wrote to me on leaving England--and I could only believe when I +read her letter--that we had first met at the river, and that our +divergent destinies had ended in parting us forever. + +Reading her farewell letter in later days by the light of my +matured experience, I note how remarkably Dame Dermody's faith in +the purity of the tie that united us as kindred spirits was +justified by the result. + +It was only when my unknown Mary was parted from Van Brandt--in +other words, it was only when she was a pure spirit--that she +felt my influence over her as a refining influence on her life, +and that the apparition of her communicated with me in the +visible and perfect likeness of herself. On my side, when was it +that I dreamed of her (as in Scotland), or felt the mysterious +warning of her presence in my waking moments (as in Shetland)? +Always at the time when my heart opened most tenderly toward her +and toward others--when my mind was most free from the bitter +doubts, the self-seeking aspirations, which degrade the divinity +within us. Then, and then only, my sympathy with her was the +perfect sympathy which holds its fidelity unassailable by the +chances and changes, the delusions and temptations, of mortal +life. + + +I am writing prematurely of the time when the light came to me. +My narrative must return to the time when I was still walking in +darkness. + +Absorbed in watching over the closing days of my mother's life, I +found in the performance of this sacred duty my only consolation +under the overthrow of my last hope of marriage with Mrs. Van +Brandt. By slow degrees my mother felt the reviving influences of +a quiet life and a soft, pure air. The improvement in her health +could, as I but too well knew, be only an improvement for a time. +Still, it was a relief to see her free from pain, and innocently +happy in the presence of her son. Excepting those hours of the +day and night which were dedicated to repose, I was never away +from her. To this day I remember, with a tenderness which +attaches to no other memories of mine, the books that I read to +her, the sunny corner on the seashore where I sat with her, the +games of cards that we played together, the little trivial gossip +that amused her when she was strong enough for nothing else. +These are my imperishable relics; these are the deeds of my life +that I shall love best to look back on, when the all-infolding +shadows of death are closing round me. + +In the hours when I was alone, my thoughts--occupying themselves +mostly among the persons and events of the past--wandered back, +many and many a time, to Shetland and Miss Dunross. + +My haunting doubt as to what the black veil had really hidden +from me was no longer accompanied by a feeling of horror when it +now recurred to my mind. The more vividly my later remembrances +of Miss Dunross were associated with the idea of an unutterable +bodily affliction, the higher the noble nature of the woman +seemed to rise in my esteem. For the first time since I had left +Shetland, the temptation now came to me to disregard the +injunction which her father had laid on me at parting. When I +thought again of the stolen kiss in the dead of night; when I +recalled the appearance of the frail white hand, waving to me +through the dark curtains its last farewell; and when there +mingled with these memories the later remembrance of what my +mother had suspected, and of what Mrs. Van Brandt had seen in her +dream--the longing in me to find a means of assuring Miss Dunross +that she still held her place apart in my memory and my heart was +more than mortal fortitude could resist. I was pledged in honor +not to return to Shetland, and not to write. How to communicate +with her secretly, in some other way, was the constant question +in my mind as the days went on. A hint to enlighten me was all +that I wanted; and, as the irony of circumstances ordered it, my +mother was the person who gave me the hint. + +We still spoke, at intervals, of Mrs. Van Brandt. Watching me on +those occasions when we were in the company of friends and +acquaintances at Torquay, my mother plainly discerned that no +other woman, whatever her attractions might be, could take the +place in my heart of the woman whom I had lost. Seeing but one +prospect of happiness for me, she steadily refused to abandon the +idea of my marriage. When a woman has owned that she loves a man +(so my mother used to express her opinion), it is that man's +fault, no matter what the obstacles may be, if he fails to make +her his wife. Reverting to this view in various ways, she pressed +it on my consideration one day in these words: + +"There is one drawback, George, to my happiness in being here +with you. I am an obstacle in the way of your communicating with +Mrs. Van Brandt." + +"You forget," I said, "that she has left England without telling +me where to find her." + +"If you were free from the incumbrance of your mother, my dear, +you would easily find her. Even as things are, you might surely +write to her. Don't mistake my motives, George. If I had any hope +of your forgetting her--if I saw you only moderately attracted by +one or other of the charming women whom we know here--I should +say, let us never speak again or think again of Mrs. Van Brandt. +But, my dear, your heart is closed to every woman but one. Be +happy in your own way, and let me see it before I die. The wretch +to whom that poor creature is sacrificing her life will, sooner +or later, ill-treat her or desert her and then she must turn to +you. Don't let her think that you are resigned to the loss of +her. The more resolutely you set her scruples at defiance, the +more she will love you and admire you in secret. Women are like +that. Send her a letter, and follow it with a little present. You +talked of taking me to the studio of the young artist here who +left his card the other day. I am told that he paints admirable +portraits in miniatures. Why not send your portrait to Mrs. Van +Brandt?" + +Here was the idea of which I had been vainly in search! Quite +superfluous as a method of pleading my cause with Mrs. Van +Brandt, the portrait offered the best of all means of +communicating with Miss Dunross, without absolutely violating the +engagement to which her father had pledged me. In this way, +without writing a word, without even sending a message, I might +tell her how gratefully she was remembered; I might remind her of +me tenderly in the bitterest moments of her sad and solitary +life. + +The same day I went to the artist privately. The sittings were +afterward continued during the hours while my mother was resting +in her room, until the portrait was completed. I caused it to be +inclosed in a plain gold locket, with a chain attached; and I +forwarded my gift, in the first instance, to the one person whom +I could trust to assist me in arranging for the conveyance of it +to its destination. This was the old friend (alluded to in these +pages as "Sir James") who had taken me with him to Shetland in +the Government yacht. + +I had no reason, in writing the necessary explanations, to +express myself to Sir James with any reserve. On the voyage back +we had more than once spoken together confidentially of Miss +Dunross. Sir James had heard her sad story from the resident +medical man at Lerwick, who had been an old companion of his in +their college days. Requesting him to confide my gift to this +gentleman, I did not hesitate to acknowledge the doubt that +oppressed me in relation to the mystery of the black veil. It +was, of course, impossible to decide whether the doctor would be +able to relieve that doubt. I could only venture to suggest that +the question might be guardedly put, in making the customary +inquiries after the health of Miss Dunross. + +In those days of slow communication, I had to wait, not for days, +but for weeks, before I could expect to receive Sir James's +answer. His letter only reached me after an unusually long delay. +For this, or for some other reason that I cannot divine, I felt +so strongly the foreboding of bad news that I abstained from +breaking the seal in my mother's presence. I waited until I could +retire to my own room, and then I opened the letter. My +presentiment had not deceived me. + +Sir James's reply contained these words only: "The letter +inclosed tells its own sad story, without help from me. I cannot +grieve for her; but I can feel sorry for you." + +The letter thus described was addressed to Sir James by the +doctor at Lerwick. I copy it (without comment) in these words: + +"The late stormy weather has delayed the vessel by means of which +we communicate with the mainland. I have only received your +letter to-day. With it, there has arrived a little box, +containing a gold locket and chain; being the present which you +ask me to convey privately to Miss Dunross, from a friend of +yours whose name you are not at liberty to mention. + +"In transmitting these instructions, you have innocently placed +me in a position of extreme difficulty. + +"The poor lady for whom the gift is intended is near the end of +her life--a life of such complicated and terrible suffering that +death comes, in her case, literally as a mercy and a deliverance. +Under these melancholy circumstances, I am, I think, not to blame +if I hesitate to give her the locket in secret; not knowing with +what associations this keepsake may be connected, or of what +serious agitation it may not possibly be the cause. + +"In this state of doubt I have ventured on opening the locket, +and my hesitation is naturally increased. I am quite ignorant of +the remembrances which my unhappy patient may connect with the +portrait. I don't know whether it will give her pleasure or pain +to receive it, in her last moments on earth. I can only decide to +take it with me, when I see her to-morrow, and to let +circumstances determine whether I shall risk letting her see it +or not. Our post to the South only leaves this place in three +days' time. I can keep my letter open, and let you know the +result. + + +"I have seen her; and I have just returned to my own house. My +distress of mind is great. But I will do my best to write +intelligibly and fully of what has happened. + +"Her sinking energies, when I first saw her this morning, had +rallied for the moment. The nurse informed me that she had slept +during the early hours of the new day. Previously to this, there +were symptoms of fever, accompanied by some slight delirium. The +words that escaped her in this condition appear to have related +mainly to an absent person whom she spoke of by the name of +'George.' Her one anxiety, I am told, was to see 'George' again +before she died. + +"Hearing this, it struck me as barely possible that the portrait +in the locket might be the portrait of the absent person. I sent +her nurse out of the room, and took her hand in mine. Trusting +partly to her own admirable courage and strength of mind, and +partly to the confidence which I knew she placed in me as an old +friend and adviser, I adverted to the words which had fallen from +her in the feverish state. And then I said, 'You know that any +secret of yours is safe in my keeping. Tell me, do you expect to +receive any little keepsake or memorial from 'George'? + +"It was a risk to run. The black veil which she always wears was +over her face. I had nothing to tell me of the effect which I was +producing on her, except the changing temperature, or the partial +movement, of her hand, as it lay in mine, just under the silk +coverlet of the bed. + +"She said nothing at first. Her hand turned suddenly from cold to +hot, and closed with a quick pressure on mine. Her breathing +became oppressed. When she spoke, it was with difficulty. She +told me nothing; she only put a question: + +" 'Is he here?' she asked. + +"I said, 'Nobody is here but myself.' + +" 'Is there a letter?' + +"I said 'No.' + +"She was silent for a while. Her hand turned cold; the grasp of +her fingers loosened. She spoke again: 'Be quick, doctor! +Whatever it is, give it to me, before I die.' + +"I risked the experiment; I opened the locket, and put it into +her hand. + +"So far as I could discover, she refrained from looking at it at +first. She said, 'Turn me in the bed, with my face to the wall.' +I obeyed her. With her back turned toward me she lifted her veil; +and then (as I suppose) she looked at the portrait. A long, low +cry--not of sorrow or pain: a cry of rapture and delight--burst +from her. I heard her kiss the portrait. Accustomed as I am in my +profession to piteous sights and sounds, I never remember so +completely losing my self-control as I lost it at that moment. I +was obliged to turn away to the window. + +"Hardly a minute can have passed before I was back again at the +bedside. In that brief interval she had changed. Her voice had +sunk again; it was so weak that I could only hear what she said +by leaning over her and placing my ear close to her lips. + +" 'Put it round my neck,' she whispered. + +"I clasped the chain of the locket round her neck. She tried to +lift her hand to it, but her strength failed her. + +" 'Help me to hide it,' she said. + +"I guided her hand. She hid the locket in her bosom, under the +white dressing-gown which she wore that day. The oppression in +her breathing increased. I raised her on the pillow. The pillow +was not high enough. I rested her head on my shoulder, and +partially opened her veil. She was able to speak once more, +feeling a momentary relief. + +" 'Promise,' she said, 'that no stranger's hand shall touch me. +Promise to bury me as I am now.' + +"I gave her my promise. + +"Her failing breath quickened. She was just able to articulate +the next words: + +" 'Cover my face again.' + +"I drew the veil over her face. She rested a while in silence. +Suddenly the sound of her laboring respiration ceased. She +started, and raised her head from my shoulder. + +" 'Are you in pain?' I asked. + +" 'I am in heaven!' she answered. + +" Her head dropped back on my breast as she spoke. In that last +outburst of joy her last breath had passed. The moment of her +supreme happiness and the moment of her death were one. The mercy +of God had found her at last. + +"I return to my letter before the post goes out. + +"I have taken the necessary measures for the performance of my +promise. She will be buried with the portrait hidden in her +bosom, and with the black veil over her face. No nobler creature +ever breathed the breath of life. Tell the stranger who sent her +his portrait that her last moments were joyful moments, through +his remembrance of her as expressed by his gift. + +"I observe a passage in your letter to which I have not yet +replied. You ask me if there was any more serious reason for the +persistent hiding of her face under the veil than the reason +which she was accustomed to give to the persons about her. It is +true that she suffered under a morbid sensitiveness to the action +of light. It is also true that this was not the only result, or +the worst result, of the malady that afflicted her. She had +another reason for keeping her face hidden--a reason known to two +persons only: to the doctor who lives in the village near her +father's house, and to myself. We are both pledged never to +divulge to any living creature what our eyes alone have seen. We +have kept our terrible secret even from her father; and we shall +carry it with us to our graves. I have no more to say on this +melancholy subject to the person in whose interest you write. +When he thinks of her now, let him think of the beauty which no +bodily affliction can profane--the beauty of the freed spirit, +eternally happy in its union with the angels of God. + +"I may add, before I close my letter, that the poor old father +will not be left in cheerless solitude at the lak e house. He +will pass the remainder of his days under my roof, with my good +wife to take care of him, and my children to remind him of the +brighter side of life." + + +So the letter ended. I put it away, and went out. The solitude of +my room forewarned me unendurably of the coming solitude in my +own life. My interests in this busy world were now narrowed to +one object--to the care of my mother's failing health. Of the two +women whose hearts had once beaten in loving sympathy with mine, +one lay in her grave and the other was lost to me in a foreign +land. On the drive by the sea I met my mother, in her little +pony-chaise, moving slowly under the mild wintry sunshine. I +dismissed the man who was in attendance on her, and walked by the +side of the chaise, with the reins in my hand. We chatted quietly +on trivial subjects. I closed my eyes to the dreary future that +was before me, and tried, in the intervals of the heart-ache, to +live resignedly in the passing hour. + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +THE PHYSICIAN'S OPINION. + +SIX months have elapsed. Summer-time has come again. + +The last parting is over. Prolonged by my care, the days of my +mother's life have come to their end. She has died in my arms: +her last words have been spoken to me, her last look on earth has +been mine. I am now, in the saddest and plainest meaning of the +words, alone in the world. + +The affliction which has befallen me has left certain duties to +be performed that require my presence in London. My house is let; +I am staying at a hotel. My friend, Sir James (also in London on +business), has rooms near mine. We breakfast and dine together in +my sitting-room. For the moment solitude is dreadful to me, and +yet I cannot go into society; I shrink from persons who are mere +acquaintances. At Sir James's suggestion, however, one visitor at +the hotel has been asked to dine with us, who claims distinction +as no ordinary guest. The physician who first warned me of the +critical state of my mother's health is anxious to hear what I +can tell him of her last moments. His time is too precious to be +wasted in the earlier hours of the day, and he joins us at the +dinner-table when his patients leave him free to visit his +friends. + +The dinner is nearly at an end. I have made the effort to +preserve my self-control; and in few words have told the simple +story of my mother's last peaceful days on earth. The +conversation turns next on topics of little interest to me: my +mind rests after the effort that it has made; my observation is +left free to exert itself as usual. + +Little by little, while the talk goes on, I observe something in +the conduct of the celebrated physician which first puzzles me, +and then arouses my suspicion of some motive for his presence +which has not been acknowledged, and in which I am concerned. + +Over and over again I discover that his eyes are resting on me +with a furtive interest and attention which he seems anxious to +conceal. Over and over again I notice that he contrives to divert +the conversation from general topics, and to lure me into talking +of myself; and, stranger still (unless I am quite mistaken), Sir +James understands and encourages him. Under various pretenses I +am questioned about what I have suffered in the past, and what +plans of life I have formed for the future. Among other subjects +of personal interest to me, the subject of supernatural +appearances is introduced. I am asked if I believe in occult +spiritual sympathies, and in ghostly apparitions of dead or +distant persons. I am dexterously led into hinting that my views +on this difficult and debatable question are in some degree +influenced by experiences of my own. Hints, however, are not +enough to satisfy the doctor's innocent curiosity; he tries to +induce me to relate in detail what I have myself seen and felt. +But by this time I am on my guard; I make excuses; I steadily +abstain from taking my friend into my confidence. It is more and +more plain to me that I am being made the subject of an +experiment, in which Sir James and the physician are equally +interested. Outwardly assuming to be guiltless of any suspicion +of what is going on, I inwardly determine to discover the true +motive for the doctor's presence that evening, and for the part +that Sir James has taken in inviting him to be my guest. + +Events favor my purpose soon after the dessert has been placed on +the table. + +The waiter enters the room with a letter for me, and announces +that the bearer waits to know if there is any answer. I open the +envelope, and find inside a few lines from my lawyers, announcing +the completion of some formal matter of business. I at once seize +the opportunity that is offered to me. Instead of sending a +verbal message downstairs, I make my apologies, and use the +letter as a pretext for leaving the room. + +Dismissing the messenger who waits below, I return to the +corridor in which my rooms are situated, and softly open the door +of my bed-chamber. A second door communicates with the +sitting-room, and has a ventilator in the upper part of it. I +have only to stand under the ventilator, and every word of the +conversation between Sir James and the physician reaches my ears. + +"Then you think I am right?" are the first words I hear, in Sir +James's voice. + +"Quite right," the doctor answers. + +"I have done my best to make him change his dull way of life," +Sir James proceeds. "I have asked him to pay a visit to my house +in Scotland; I have proposed traveling with him on the Continent; +I have offered to take him with me on my next voyage in the +yacht. He has but one answer--he simply says No to everything +that I can suggest. You have heard from his own lips that he has +no definite plans for the future. What is to become of him? What +had we better do?" + +"It is not easy to say," I hear the physician reply. "To speak +plainly, the man's nervous system is seriously deranged. I +noticed something strange in him when he first came to consult me +about his mother's health. The mischief has not been caused +entirely by the affliction of her death. In my belief, his mind +has been--what shall I say?--unhinged, for some time past. He is +a very reserved person. I suspect he has been oppressed by +anxieties which he has kept secret from every one. At his age, +the unacknowledged troubles of life are generally troubles caused +by women. It is in his temperament to take the romantic view of +love; and some matter-of-fact woman of the present day may have +bitterly disappointed him. Whatever may be the cause, the effect +is plain--his nerves have broken down, and his brain is +necessarily affected by whatever affects his nerves. I have known +men in his condition who have ended badly. He may drift into +insane delusions, if his present course of life is not altered. +Did you hear what he said when we talked about ghosts?" + +"Sheer nonsense!" Sir James remarks. + +"Sheer delusion would be the more correct form of expression," +the doctor rejoins. "And other delusions may grow out of it at +any moment." + +"What is to be done?" persists Sir James. "I may really say for +myself, doctor, that I feel a fatherly interest in the poor +fellow. His mother was one of my oldest and dearest friends, and +he has inherited many of her engaging and endearing qualities. I +hope you don't think the case is bad enough to be a case for +restraint?" + +"Certainly not--as yet," answers the doctor. "So far there is no +positive brain disease; and there is accordingly no sort of +reason for placing him under restraint. It is essentially a +difficult and a doubtful case. Have him privately looked after by +a competent person, and thwart him in nothing, if you can +possibly help it. The merest trifle may excite his suspicions; +and if that happens, we lose all control over him." + +"You don't think he suspects us already, do you, doctor?" + +"I hope not. I saw him once or twice look at me very strangely; +and he has certainly been a long time out of the room." + +Hearing this, I wait to hear no more. I return to the, +sitting-room (by way of the corridor) and resume my place at the +table. + +The indignation that I feel--naturally enough, I think, under the +circumstances--makes a good actor of me for once in my life. I +invent the necessary + excuse for my long absence, and take my part in the +conversation, keeping the strictest guard on every word that +escapes me, without betraying any appearance of restraint in my +manner. Early in the evening the doctor leaves us to go to a +scientific meeting. For half an hour or more Sir James remains +with me. By way (as I suppose) of farther testing the state of my +mind, he renews the invitation to his house in Scotland. I +pretend to feel flattered by his anxiety to secure me as his +guest. I undertake to reconsider my first refusal, and to give +him a definite answer when we meet the next morning at breakfast. +Sir James is delighted. We shake hands cordially, and wish each +other good-night. At last I am left alone. + +My resolution as to my next course of proceeding is formed +without a moment's hesitation. I determine to leave the hotel +privately the next morning before Sir James is out of his +bedroom. + +To what destination I am to betake myself is naturally the next +question that arises, and this also I easily decide. During the +last days of my mother's life we spoke together frequently of the +happy past days when we were living together on the banks of the +Greenwater lake. The longing thus inspired to look once more at +the old scenes, to live for a while again among the old +associations, has grown on me since my mother's death. I have, +happily for myself, not spoken of this feeling to Sir James or to +any other person. When I am missed at the hotel, there will be no +suspicion of the direction in which I have turned my steps. To +the old home in Suffolk I resolve to go the next morning. +Wandering among the scenes of my boyhood, I can consider with +myself how I may best bear the burden of the life that lies +before me. + +After what I have heard that evening, I confide in nobody. For +all I know to the contrary, my own servant may be employed +to-morrow as the spy who watches my actions. When the man makes +his appearance to take his orders for the night, I tell him to +wake me at six the next morning, and release him from further +attendance. + +I next employ myself in writing two letters. They will be left on +the table, to speak for themselves after my departure. + +In the first letter I briefly inform Sir James that I have +discovered his true reason for inviting the doctor to dinner. +While I thank him for the interest he takes in my welfare, I +decline to be made the object of any further medical inquiries as +to the state of my mind. In due course of time, when my plans are +settled, he will hear from me again. Meanwhile, he need feel no +anxiety about my safety. It is one among my other delusions to +believe that I am still perfectly capable of taking care of +myself. My second letter is addressed to the landlord of the +hotel, and simply provides for the disposal of my luggage and the +payment of my bill. + +I enter my bedroom next, and pack a traveling-bag with the few +things that I can carry with me. My money is in my dressing-case. +Opening it, I discover my pretty keepsake--the green flag! Can I +return to "Greenwater Broad," can I look again at the bailiff's +cottage, without the one memorial of little Mary that I possess? +Besides, have I not promised Miss Dunross that Mary's gift shall +always go with me wherever I go? and is the promise not doubly +sacred now that she is dead? For a while I sit idly looking at +the device on the flag--the white dove embroidered on the green +ground, with the golden olive-branch in its beak. The innocent +love-story of my early life returns to my memory, and shows me in +horrible contrast the life that I am leading now. I fold up the +flag and place it carefully in my traveling-bag. This done, all +is done. I may rest till the morning comes. + +No! I lie down on my bed, and I discover that there is no rest +for me that night. + +Now that I have no occupation to keep my energies employed, now +that my first sense of triumph in the discomfiture of the friends +who have plotted against me has had time to subside, my mind +reverts to the conversation that I have overheard, and considers +it from a new point of view. For the first time, the terrible +question confronts me: The doctor's opinion on my case has been +given very positively. How do I know that the doctor is not +right? + +This famous physician has risen to the head of his profession +entirely by his own abilities. He is one of the medical men who +succeed by means of an ingratiating manner and the dexterous +handling of good opportunities. Even his enemies admit that he +stands unrivaled in the art of separating the true conditions +from the false in the discovery of disease, and in tracing +effects accurately to their distant and hidden cause. Is such a +man as this likely to be mistaken about me? Is it not far more +probable that I am mistaken in my judgment of myself? + +When I look back over the past years, am I quite sure that the +strange events which I recall may not, in certain cases, be the +visionary product of my own disordered brain--realities to me, +and to no one else? What are the dreams of Mrs. Van Brandt? What +are the ghostly apparitions of her which I believe myself to have +seen? Delusions which have been the stealthy growth of years? +delusions which are leading me, by slow degrees, nearer and +nearer to madness in the end? Is it insane suspicion which has +made me so angry with the good friends who have been trying to +save my reason? Is it insane terror which sets me on escaping +from the hotel like a criminal escaping from prison? + +These are the questions which torment me when I am alone in the +dead of night. My bed becomes a place of unendurable torture. I +rise and dress myself, and wait for the daylight, looking through +my open window into the street. + +The summer night is short. The gray light of dawn comes to me +like a deliverance; the glow of the glorious sunrise cheers my +soul once more. Why should I wait in the room that is still +haunted by my horrible doubts of the night? I take up my +traveling-bag; I leave my letters on the sitting-room table; and +I descend the stairs to the house door. The night-porter at the +hotel is slumbering in his chair. He wakes as I pass him; and +(God help me!) he too looks as if he thought I was mad. + +"Going to leave us already, sir?" he says, looking at the bag in +my hand. + +Mad or sane, I am ready with my reply. I tell him I am going out +for a day in the country, and to make it a long day, I must start +early. + +The man still stares at me. He asks if he shall find some one to +carry my bag. I decline to let anybody be disturbed. He inquires +if I have any messages to leave for my friend. I inform him that +I have left written messages upstairs for Sir James and the +landlord. Upon this he draws the bolts and opens the door. To the +last he looks at me as if he thought I was mad. + +Was he right or wrong? Who can answer for himself? How can I +tell? + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +A LAST LOOK AT GREENWATER BROAD. + +MY spirits rose as I walked through the bright empty streets, and +breathed the fresh morning air. + +Taking my way eastward through the great city, I stopped at the +first office that I passed, and secured my place by the early +coach to Ipswich. Thence I traveled with post-horses to the +market-town which was nearest to Greenwater Broad. A walk of a +few miles in the cool evening brought me, through well-remembered +by-roads, to our old house. By the last rays of the setting sun I +looked at the familiar row of windows in front, and saw that the +shutters were all closed. Not a living creature was visible +anywhere. Not even a dog barked as I rang the great bell at the +door. The place was deserted; the house was shut up. + +After a long delay, I heard heavy footsteps in the hall. An old +man opened the door. + +Changed as he was, I remembered him as one of our tenants in the +by-gone time. To his astonishment, I greeted him by his name. On +his side, he tried hard to recognize me, and tried in vain. No +doubt I was the more sadly changed of the two: I was obliged to +introduce myself. The poor fellow's withered face brightened +slowly and timidly, as if he were half incapable, half afraid, of +indulging in the unaccustomed luxury of a smile. In his confusion +he bid me welcome home ag ain, as if the house had been mine. + +Taking me into the little back-room which he inhabited, the old +man gave me all he had to offer--a supper of bacon and eggs and a +glass of home-brewed beer. He was evidently puzzled to understand +me when I informed him that the only object of my visit was to +look once more at the familiar scenes round my old home. But he +willingly placed his services at my disposal; and he engaged to +do his best, if I wished it, to make me up a bed for the night. + +The house had been closed and the establishment of servants had +been dismissed for more than a year past. A passion for +horse-racing, developed late in life, had ruined the rich retired +tradesman who had purchased the estate at the time of our family +troubles. He had gone abroad with his wife to live on the little +income that had been saved from the wreck of his fortune; and he +had left the house and lands in such a state of neglect that no +new purchaser had thus far been found to take them. My old +friend, "now past his work," had been put in charge of the place. +As for Dermody's cottage, it was empty, like the house. I was at +perfect liberty to look over it if I liked. There was the key of +the door on the bunch with the others; and here was the old man, +with his old hat on his head, ready to accompany me wherever I +pleased to go. I declined to trouble him to accompany me or to +make up a bed in the lonely house. The night was fine, the moon +was rising. I had supped; I had rested. When I had seen what I +wanted to see, I could easily walk back to the market-town and +sleep at the inn. Taking the key in my hand, I set forth alone on +the way through the grounds which led to Dermody's cottage. + +Again I followed the woodland paths along which I had once idled +so happily with my little Mary. At every step I saw something +that reminded me of her. Here was the rustic bench on which we +had sat together under the shadow of the old cedar-tree, and +vowed to be constant to each other to the end of our lives. There +was the bright little water spring, from which we drank when we +were weary and thirsty in sultry summer days, still bubbling its +way downward to the lake as cheerily as ever. As I listened to +the companionable murmur of the stream, I almost expected to see +her again, in her simple white frock and straw hat, singing to +the music of the rivulet, and freshening her nosegay of wild +flowers by dipping it in the cool water. A few steps further on +and I reached a clearing in the wood and stood on a little +promontory of rising ground which commanded the prettiest view of +Greenwater lake. A platform of wood was built out from the bank, +to be used for bathing by good swimmers who were not afraid of a +plunge into deep water. I stood on the platform and looked round +me. The trees that fringed the shore on either hand murmured +their sweet sylvan music in the night air; the moonlight trembled +softly on the rippling water. Away on my right hand I could just +see the old wooden shed that once sheltered my boat in the days +when Mary went sailing with me and worked the green flag. On my +left was the wooden paling that followed the curves of the +winding creek, and beyond it rose the brown arches of the decoy +for wild fowl, now falling to ruin for want of use. Guided by the +radiant moonlight, I could see the very spot on which Mary and I +had stood to watch the snaring of the ducks. Through the hole in +the paling before which the decoy-dog had shown himself, at +Dermody's signal, a water-rat now passed, like a little black +shadow on the bright ground, and was lost in the waters of the +lake. Look where I might, the happy by-gone time looked back in +mockery, and the voices of the past came to me with their burden +of reproach: See what your life was once! Is your life worth +living now? + +I picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. I watched the +circling ripples round the place at which it had sunk. I wondered +if a practiced swimmer like myself had ever tried to commit +suicide by drowning, and had been so resolute to die that he had +resisted the temptation to let his own skill keep him from +sinking. Something in the lake itself, or something in connection +with the thought that it had put into my mind, revolted me. I +turned my back suddenly on the lonely view, and took the path +through the wood which led to the bailiff's cottage. + +Opening the door with my key, I groped my way into the +well-remembered parlor; and, unbarring the window-shutters, I let +in the light of the moon. + +With a heavy heart I looked round me. The old furniture--renewed, +perhaps, in one or two places--asserted its mute claim to my +recognition in every part of the room. The tender moonlight +streamed slanting into the corner in which Mary and I used to +nestle together while Dame Dermody was at the window reading her +mystic books. Overshadowed by the obscurity in the opposite +corner, I discovered the high-backed arm-chair of carved wood in +which the Sibyl of the cottage sat on the memorable day when she +warned us of our coming separation, and gave us her blessing for +the last time. Looking next round the walls of the room, I +recognized old friends wherever my eyes happened to rest--the +gaudily colored prints; the framed pictures in fine needle-work, +which we thought wonderful efforts of art; the old circular +mirror to which I used to lift Mary when she wanted "to see her +face in the glass." Whenever the moonlight penetrated there, it +showed me some familiar object that recalled my happiest days. +Again the by-gone time looked back in mockery. Again the voices +of the past came to me with their burden of reproach: See what +your life was once! Is your life worth living now? + +I sat down at the window, where I could just discover, here and +there between the trees, the glimmer of the waters of the lake. I +thought to myself: "Thus far my mortal journey has brought me. +Why not end it here?" + +Who would grieve for me if my death were reported to-morrow? Of +all living men, I had perhaps the smallest number of friends, the +fewest duties to perform toward others, the least reason to +hesitate at leaving a world which had no place in it for my +ambition, no creature in it for my love. + +Besides, what necessity was there for letting it be known that my +death was a death of my own seeking? It could easily be left to +represent itself as a death by accident. + +On that fine summer night, and after a long day of traveling, +might I not naturally take a bath in the cool water before I went +to bed? And, practiced as I was in the exercise of swimming, +might it not nevertheless be my misfortune to be attacked by +cramp? On the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad the cry of a +drowning man would bring no help at night. The fatal accident +would explain itself. There was literally but one difficulty in +the way--the difficulty which had already occurred to my mind. +Could I sufficiently master the animal instinct of +self-preservation to deliberately let myself sink at the first +plunge? + +The atmosphere in the room felt close and heavy. I went out, and +walked to and fro--now in the shadow, and now in the +moonlight--under the trees before the cottage door. + +Of the moral objections to suicide, not one had any influence +over me now. I, who had once found it impossible to excuse, +impossible even to understand, the despair which had driven Mrs. +Van Brandt to attempt self-destruction--I now contemplated with +composure the very act which had horrified me when I saw it +committed by another person. Well may we hesitate to condemn the +frailties of our fellow-creatures, for the one unanswerable +reason that we can never feel sure how soon similar temptations +may not lead us to be guilty of the same frailties ourselves. +Looking back at the events of the night, I can recall but one +consideration that stayed my feet on the fatal path which led +back to the lake. I still doubted whether it would be possible +for such a swimmer as I was to drown himself. This was all that +troubled my mind. For the rest, my will was made, and I had few +other affairs which remained unsettled. No lingering hope was +left in me of a reunion in the future with Mrs. Van Brandt. She +had never written to + me again; I had never, since our last parting, seen her again in +my dreams. She was doubtless reconciled to her life abroad. I +forgave her for having forgotten me. My thoughts of her and of +others were the forbearing thoughts of a man whose mind was +withdrawn already from the world, whose views were narrowing fast +to the one idea of his own death. + +I grew weary of walking up and down. The loneliness of the place +began to oppress me. The sense of my own indecision irritated my +nerves. After a long look at the lake through the trees, I came +to a positive conclusion at last. I determined to try if a good +swimmer could drown himself. + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +A VISION OF THE NIGHT. + +RETURNING to the cottage parlor, I took a chair by the window and +opened my pocket-book at a blank page. I had certain directions +to give to my representatives, which might spare them some +trouble and uncertainty in the event of my death. Disguising my +last instructions under the commonplace heading of "Memoranda on +my return to London," I began to write. + +I had filled one page of the pocket-book, and had just turned to +the next, when I became conscious of a difficulty in fixing my +attention on the subject that was before it. I was at once +reminded of the similar difficulty which I felt in Shetland, when +I had tried vainly to arrange the composition of the letter to my +mother which Miss Dunross was to write. By way of completing the +parallel, my thoughts wandered now, as they had wandered then, to +my latest remembrance of Mrs. Van Brandt. In a minute or two I +began to feel once more the strange physical sensations which I +had first experienced in the garden at Mr. Dunross's house. The +same mysterious trembling shuddered through me from head to foot. +I looked about me again, with no distinct consciousness of what +the objects were on which my eyes rested. My nerves trembled, on +that lovely summer night, as if there had been an electric +disturbance in the atmosphere and a storm coming. I laid my +pocket-book and pencil on the table, and rose to go out again +under the trees. Even the trifling effort to cross the room was +an effort made in vain. I stood rooted to the spot, with my face +turned toward the moonlight streaming in at the open door. + +An interval passed, and as I still looked out through the door, I +became aware of something moving far down among the trees that +fringed the shore of the lake. The first impression produced on +me was of two gray shadows winding their way slowly toward me +between the trunks of the trees. By fine degrees the shadows +assumed a more and more marked outline, until they presented +themselves in the likeness of two robed figures, one taller than +the other. While they glided nearer and nearer, their gray +obscurity of hue melted away. They brightened softly with an +inner light of their own as they slowly approached the open space +before the door. For the third time I stood in the ghostly +presence of Mrs. Van Brandt; and with her, holding her hand, I +beheld a second apparition never before revealed to me, the +apparition of her child. + +Hand-in-hand, shining in their unearthly brightness through the +bright moonlight itself, the two stood before me. The mother's +face looked at me once more with the sorrowful and pleading eyes +which I remembered so well. But the face of the child was +innocently radiant with an angelic smile. I waited in unutterable +expectation for the word that was to be spoken, for the movement +that was to come. The movement came first. The child released its +hold on the mother's hand, and floating slowly upward, remained +poised in midair--a softly glowing presence shining out of the +dark background of the trees. The mother glided into the room, +and stopped at the table on which I had laid my pocket-book and +pencil when I could no longer write. As before, she took the +pencil and wrote on the blank page. As before, she beckoned to me +to step nearer to her. I approached her outstretched hand, and +felt once more the mysterious rapture of her touch on my bosom, +and heard once more her low, melodious tones repeating the words: +"Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The +pale light which revealed her to me quivered, sunk, vanished. She +had spoken. She had gone. + +I drew to me the open pocket-book. And this time I saw, in the +writing of the ghostly hand, these words only: + + _"Follow the Child."_ + +I looked out again at the lonely night landscape. + +There, in mid-air, shining softly out of the dark background of +the trees, still hovered the starry apparition of the child. + +Advancing without conscious will of my own, I crossed the +threshold of the door. The softly glowing vision of the child +moved away before me among the trees. I followed, like a man +spellbound. The apparition, floating slowly onward, led me out of +the wood, and past my old home, back to the lonely by-road along +which I had walked from the market-town to the house. From time +to time, as we two went on our way, the bright figure of the +child paused, hovering low in the cloudless sky. Its radiant face +looked down smiling on me; it beckoned with its little hand, and +floated on again, leading me as the Star led the Eastern sages in +the olden time. + +I reached the town. The airy figure of the child paused, hovering +over the house at which I had left my traveling-carriage in the +evening. I ordered the horses to be harnessed again for another +journey. The postilion waited for his further directions. I +looked up. The child's hand was pointing southward, along the +road that led to London. I gave the man his instructions to +return to the place at which I had hired the carriage. At +intervals, as we proceeded, I looked out through the window. The +bright figure of the child still floated on before me gliding low +in the cloudless sky. Changing the horses stage by stage, I went +on till the night ended--went on till the sun rose in the eastern +heaven. And still, whether it was dark or whether it was light, +the figure of the child floated on before me in its changeless +and mystic light. Mile after mile, it still led the way +southward, till we left the country behind us, and passing +through the din and turmoil of the great city, stopped under the +shadow of the ancient Tower, within view of the river that runs +by it. + +The postilion came to the carriage door to ask if I had further +need of his services. I had called to him to stop, when I saw the +figure of the child pause on its airy course. I looked upward +again. The child's hand pointed toward the river. I paid the +postilion and left the carriage. Floating on before me, the child +led the way to a wharf crowded with travelers and their luggage. +A vessel lay along-side of the wharf ready to sail. The child led +me on board the vessel and paused again, hovering over me in the +smoky air. + +I looked up. The child looked back at me with its radiant smile, +and pointed eastward down the river toward the distant sea. While +my eyes were still fixed on the softly glowing figure, I saw it +fade away upward and upward into the higher light, as the lark +vanishes upward and upward in the morning sky. I was alone again +with my earthly fellow-beings--left with no clew to guide me but +the remembrance of the child's hand pointing eastward to the +distant sea. + +A sailor was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on the +deck. I asked him to what port the vessel was bound. The man +looked at me in surly amazement, and answered: + +"To Rotterdam." + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +BY LAND AND SEA. + +IT mattered little to me to what port the vessel was bound. Go +where I might, I knew that I was on my way to Mrs. Van Brandt. +She had need of me again; she had claimed me again. Where the +visionary hand of the child had pointed, thither I was destined +to go. Abroad or at home, it mattered nothing: when I next set my +foot on the land, I should be further directed on the journey +which lay before me. I believed this as firmly as I believed that +I had been guided, thus far, by the vision of the child. + +For two nights I had not slept--my weariness overpowered me. I +descended to the cabin, and found an unoccupied corner in which I +could lie down to rest. When I awoke, it was night already, and +the vessel was at sea. + +I went on deck to breathe the fresh air. Before long the +sensation of drowsiness returned; I slept again for hours +together. My friend, the physician, would no doubt have +attributed this prolonged need of repose to the exhausted +condition of my brain, previously excited by delusions which had +lasted uninterruptedly for many hours together. Let the cause be +what it might, during the greater part of the voyage I was awake +at intervals only. The rest of the time I lay like a weary +animal, lost in sleep. + +When I stepped on shore at Rotterdam, my first proceeding was to +ask my way to the English Consulate. I had but a small sum of +money with me; and, for all I knew to the contrary, it might be +well, before I did anything else, to take the necessary measures +for replenishing my purse. + +I had my traveling-bag with me. On the journey to Greenwater +Broad I had left it at the inn in the market-town, and the waiter +had placed it in the carriage when I started on my return to +London. The bag contained my checkbook, and certain letters which +assisted me in proving my identity to the consul. He kindly gave +me the necessary introduction to the correspondents at Rotterdam +of my bankers in London. + +Having obtained my money, and having purchased certain +necessaries of which I stood in need, I walked slowly along the +street, knowing nothing of what my next proceeding was to be, and +waiting confidently for the event which was to guide me. I had +not walked a hundred yards before I noticed the name of "Van +Brandt" inscribed on the window-blinds of a house which appeared +to be devoted to mercantile purposes. + +The street door stood open. A second door, on one side of the +passage, led into the office. I entered the room and inquired for +Mr. Van Brandt. A clerk who spoke English was sent for to +communicate with me. He told me there were three partners of that +name in the business, and inquired which of them I wished to see. +I remembered Van Brandt's Christian name, and mentioned it. No +such person as "Mr. Ernest Van Brandt" was known at the office. + +"We are only the branch house of the firm of Van Brandt here," +the clerk explained. "The head office is at Amsterdam. They may +know where Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is to be found, if you inquire +there." + +It mattered nothing to me where I went, so long as I was on my +way to Mrs. Van Brandt. It was too late to travel that day; I +slept at a hotel. The night passed quietly and uneventfully. The +next morning I set forth by the public conveyance for Amsterdam. + +Repeating my inquiries at the head office on my arrival, I was +referred to one of the partners in the firm. He spoke English +perfectly; and he received me with an appearance of interest +which I was at a loss to account for at first. + +"Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is well known to me," he said. "May I ask +if you are a relative or friend of the English lady who has been +introduced here as his wife?" + +I answered in the affirmative; adding, "I am here to give any +assistance to the lady of which she may stand in need." + +The merchant's next words explained the appearance of interest +with which he had received me. + +"You are most welcome," he said. "You relieve my partners and +myself of a great anxiety. I can only explain what I mean by +referring for a moment to the business affairs of my firm. We +have a fishing establishment in the ancient city of Enkhuizen, on +the shores of the Zuyder Zee. Mr. Ernest Van Brandt had a share +in it at one time, which he afterward sold. Of late years our +profits from this source have been diminishing; and we think of +giving up the fishery, unless our prospects in that quarter +improve after a further trial. In the meantime, having a vacant +situation in the counting-house at Enkhuizen, we thought of Mr. +Ernest Van Brandt, and offered him the opportunity of renewing +his connection with us, in the capacity of a clerk. He is related +to one of my partners; but I am bound in truth to tell you that +he is a very bad man. He has awarded us for our kindness to him +by embezzling our money; and he has taken to flight--in what +direction we have not yet discovered. The English lady and her +child are left deserted at Enkhuizen; and until you came here +to-day we were quite at a loss to know what to do with them. I +don't know whether you are already aware of it, sir; but the +lady's position is made doubly distressing by doubts which we +entertain of her being really Mr. Ernest Van Brandt's wife. To +our certain knowledge, he was privately married to another woman +some years since; and we have no evidence whatever that the first +wife is dead. If we can help you in any way to assist your +unfortunate country-woman, pray believe that our services are at +your disposal." + +With what breathless interest I listened to these words it is +needless to say. Van Brandt had deserted her! Surely (as my poor +mother had once said) "she must turn to me now." The hopes that +had abandoned me filled my heart once more; the future which I +had so long feared to contemplate showed itself again bright with +the promise of coming happiness to my view. I thanked the good +merchant with a fervor that surprised him. "Only help me to find +my way to Enkhuizen," I said, "and I will answer for the rest." + +"The journey will put you to some expense," the merchant replied. +"Pardon me if I ask the question bluntly. Have you money?" + +"Plenty of money." + +"Very good. The rest will be easy enough. I will place you under +the care of a countryman of yours, who has been employed in our +office for many years. The easiest way for you, as a stranger, +will be to go by sea; and the Englishman will show you where to +hire a boat." + +In a few minutes more the clerk and I were on our way to the +harbor. + +Difficulties which I had not anticipated occurred in finding the +boat and in engaging a crew. This done, it was next necessary to +purchase provisions for the voyage. Thanks to the experience of +my companion, and to the hearty good-will with which he exerted +it, my preparations were completed before night-fall. I was able +to set sail for my destination on the next day. + +The boat had the double advantage, in navigating the Zuyder Zee, +of being large, and of drawing very little water; the captain's +cabin was at the stern; and the two or three men who formed his +crew were berthed forward, in the bows. The whole middle of the +boat, partitioned off on the one side and on the other from the +captain and the crew, was assigned to me for my cabin. Under +these circumstances, I had no reason to complain of want of +space; the vessel measuring between fifty and sixty tons. I had a +comfortable bed, a table, and chairs. The kitchen was well away +from me, in the forward part of the boat. At my own request, I +set forth on the voyage without servant or interpreter. I +preferred being alone. The Dutch captain had been employed, at a +former period of his life, in the mercantile navy of France; and +we could communicate, whenever it was necessary or desirable, in +the French language. + +We left the spires of Amsterdam behind us, and sailed over the +smooth waters of the lake on our way to the Zuyder Zee. + +The history of this remarkable sea is a romance in itself. In the +days when Rome was mistress of the world, it had no existence. +Where the waves now roll, vast tracts of forest surrounded a +great inland lake, with but one river to serve it as an outlet to +the sea. Swelled by a succession of tempests, the lake overflowed +its boundaries: its furious waters, destroying every obstacle in +their course, rested only when they reached the furthest limits +of the land. + +The Northern Ocean beyond burst its way in through the gaps of +ruin; and from that time the Zuyder Zee existed as we know it +now. The years advanced, the generations of man succeeded each +other; and on the shores of the new ocean there rose great and +populous cities, rich in commerce, renowned in history. For +centuries their prosperity lasted, before the next in this mighty +series of changes ripened and revealed itself. Isolated from the +rest of the world, vain of themselves and their good fortune, +careless of the march of progress in the natio ns round them, the +inhabitants of the Zuyder Zee cities sunk into the fatal torpor +of a secluded people. The few members of the population who still +preserved the relics of their old energy emigrated, while the +mass left behind resignedly witnessed the diminution of their +commerce and the decay of their institutions. As the years +advanced to the nineteenth century, the population was reckoned +by hundreds where it had once been numbered by thousands. Trade +disappeared; whole streets were left desolate. Harbors, once +filled with shipping, were destroyed by the unresisted +accumulation of sand. In our own times the decay of these once +flourishing cities is so completely beyond remedy, that the next +great change in contemplation is the draining of the now +dangerous and useless tract of water, and the profitable +cultivation of the reclaimed land by generations that are still +to come. Such, briefly told, is the strange story of the Zuyder +Zee. + +As we advanced on our voyage, and left the river, I noticed the +tawny hue of the sea, caused by sand-banks which color the +shallow water, and which make the navigation dangerous to +inexperienced seamen. We found our moorings for the night at the +fishing island of Marken--a low, lost, desolate-looking place, as +I saw it under the last gleams of the twilight. Here and there, +the gabled cottages, perched on hillocks, rose black against the +dim gray sky. Here and there, a human figure appeared at the +waterside, standing, fixed in contemplation of the strange boat. +And that was all I saw of the island of Marken. + +Lying awake in the still night, alone on a strange sea, there +were moments when I found myself beginning to doubt the reality +of my own position. + +Was it all a dream? My thoughts of suicide; my vision of the +mother and daughter; my journey back to the metropolis, led by +the apparition of the child; my voyage to Holland; my night +anchorage in the unknown sea--were these, so to speak, all pieces +of the same morbid mental puzzle, all delusions from which I +might wake at any moment, and find myself restored to my senses +again in the hotel at London? Bewildered by doubts which led me +further and further from any definite conclusion, I left my bed +and went on deck to change the scene. It was a still and cloudy +night. In the black void around me, the island was a blacker +shadow yet, and nothing more. The one sound that reached my ears +was the heavy breathing of the captain and his crew sleeping on +either side of me. I waited, looking round and round the circle +of darkness in which I stood. No new vision showed itself. When I +returned again to the cabin, and slumbered at last, no dreams +came to me. All that was mysterious, all that was marvelous, in +the later events of my life seemed to have been left behind me in +England. Once in Holland, my course had been influenced by +circumstances which were perfectly natural, by commonplace +discoveries which might have revealed themselves to any man in my +position. What did this mean? Had my gifts as a seer of visions +departed from me in the new land and among the strange people? Or +had my destiny led me to the place at which the troubles of my +mortal pilgrimage were to find their end? Who could say? + +Early the next morning we set sail once more. + +Our course was nearly northward. On one side of me was the tawny +sea, changing under certain conditions of the weather to a dull +pearl-gray. On the other side was the flat, winding coast, +composed alternately of yellow sand and bright-green +meadow-lands; diversified at intervals by towns and villages, +whose red-tiled roofs and quaint church-steeples rose gayly +against the clear blue sky. The captain suggested to me to visit +the famous towns of Edam and. Hoorn; but I declined to go on +shore. My one desire was to reach the ancient city in which Mrs. +Van Brandt had been left deserted. As we altered our course, to +make for the promontory on which Enkhuizen is situated, the wind +fell, then shifted to another quarter, and blew with a force +which greatly increased the difficulties of navigation. I still +insisted, as long as it was possible to do so, on holding on our +course. After sunset, the strength of the wind abated. The night +came without a cloud, and the starry firmament gave us its pale +and glittering light. In an hour more the capricious wind shifted +back again in our favor. Toward ten o'clock we sailed into the +desolate harbor of Enkhuizen. + +The captain and crew, fatigued by their exertions, ate their +frugal suppers and went to their beds. In a few minutes more, I +was the only person left awake in the boat. + +I ascended to the deck, and looked about me. + +Our boat was moored to a deserted quay. Excepting a few fishing +vessels visible near us, the harbor of this once prosperous place +was a vast solitude of water, varied here and there by dreary +banks of sand. Looking inland, I saw the lonely buildings of the +Dead City--black, grim, and dreadful under the mysterious +starlight. Not a human creature, not even a stray animal, was to +be seen anywhere. The place might have been desolated by a +pestilence, so empty and so lifeless did it now appear. Little +more than a hundred years ago, the record of its population +reached sixty thousand. The inhabitants had dwindled to a tenth +of that number when I looked at Enkhuizen now! + +I considered with myself what my next course of proceeding was to +be. + +The chances were certainly against my discovering Mrs. Van Brandt +if I ventured alone and unguided into the city at night. On the +other hand, now that I had reached the place in which she and her +child were living, friendless and deserted, could I patiently +wait through the weary interval that must elapse before the +morning came and the town was astir? I knew my own +self-tormenting disposition too well to accept this latter +alternative. Whatever came of it, I determined to walk through +Enkhuizen on the bare chance of meeting some one who might inform +me of Mrs. Van Brandt's address. + +First taking the precaution of locking my cabin door, I stepped +from the bulwark of the vessel to the lonely quay, and set forth +upon my night wanderings through the Dead City. + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +UNDER THE WINDOW. + +I SET the position of the harbor by my pocket-compass, and then +followed the course of the first street that lay before me. + +On either side, as I advanced, the desolate old houses frowned on +me. There were no lights in the windows, no lamps in the streets. +For a quarter of an hour at least I penetrated deeper and deeper +into the city, without encountering a living creature on my +way--with only the starlight to guide me. Turning by chance into +a street broader than the rest, I at last saw a moving figure, +just visible ahead, under the shadows of the houses. I quickened +my pace, and found myself following a man in the dress of a +peasant. Hearing my footsteps behind him, he turned and looked at +me. Discovering that I was a stranger, he lifted a thick cudgel +that he carried with him, shook it threateningly, and called to +me in his own language (as I gathered by his actions) to stand +back. A stranger in Eukhuizen at that time of night was evidently +reckoned as a robber in the estimation of this citizen! I had +learned on the voyage, from the captain of the boat, how to ask +my way in Dutch, if I happened to be by myself in a strange town; +and I now repeated my lesson, asking my way to the fishing office +of Messrs. Van Brandt. Either my foreign accent made me +unintelligible, or the man's suspicions disinclined him to trust +me. Again he shook his cudgel, and again he signed to me to stand +back. It was useless to persist. I crossed to the opposite side +of the way, and soon afterward lost sight of him under the +portico of a house. + +Still following the windings of the deserted streets, I reached +what I at first supposed to be the end of the town. + +Before me, for half a mile or more (as well as I could guess), +rose a tract of meadow-land, with sheep dotted over it at +intervals reposing for the night. I advanced over the grass, and +observed here and there, where the ground rose a little, some +moldering fragments of brickwork. Looking onward as I reached the +middle of th e meadow, I perceived on its further side, towering +gaunt and black in the night, a lofty arch or gateway, without +walls at its sides, without a neighboring building of any sort, +far or near. This (as I afterward learned) was one of the ancient +gates of the city. The walls, crumbling to ruin, had been +destroyed as useless obstacles that cumbered the ground. On the +waste meadow-land round me had once stood the shops of the +richest merchants, the palaces of the proudest nobles of North +Holland. I was actually standing on what had been formerly the +wealthy quarter of Enkhuizen! And what was left of it now? A few +mounds of broken bricks, a pasture-land of sweet-smelling grass, +and a little flock of sheep sleeping. + +The mere desolation of the view (apart altogether from its +history) struck me with a feeling of horror. My mind seemed to +lose its balance in the dreadful stillness that was round me. I +felt unutterable forebodings of calamities to come. For the first +time, I repented having left England. My thoughts turned +regretfully to the woody shores of Greenwater Broad. If I had +only held to my resolution, I might have been at rest now in the +deep waters of the lake. For what had I lived and planned and +traveled since I left Dermody's cottage? Perhaps only to find +that I had lost the woman whom I loved--now that I was in the +same town with her! + +Regaining the outer rows of houses still left standing, I looked +about me, intending to return by the street which was known to me +already. Just as I thought I had discovered it, I noticed another +living creature in the solitary city. A man was standing at the +door of one of the outermost houses on my right hand, looking at +me. + +At the risk of meeting with another rough reception, I determined +to make a last effort to discover Mrs. Van Brandt before I +returned to the boat. + +Seeing that I was approaching him, the stranger met me midway. +His dress and manner showed plainly that I had not encountered +this time a person in the lower ranks of life. He answered my +question civilly in his own language. Seeing that I was at a loss +to understand what he said, he invited me by signs to follow him. +After walking for a few minutes in a direction which was quite +new to me, we stopped in a gloomy little square, with a plot of +neglected garden-ground in the middle of it. Pointing to a lower +window in one of the houses, in which a light dimly appeared, my +guide said in Dutch: "Office of Van Brandt, sir," bowed, and left +me. + +I advanced to the window. It was open, and it was just high +enough to be above my head. The light in the room found its way +outward through the interstices of closed wooden shutters. Still +haunted by misgivings of trouble to come, I hesitated to announce +my arrival precipitately by ringing the house-bell. How did I +know what new calamity might not confront me when the door was +opened? I waited under the window and listened. + +Hardly a minute passed before I heard a woman's voice in the +room. There was no mistaking the charm of those tones. It was the +voice of Mrs. Van Brandt. + +"Come, darling," she said. "It is very late--you ought to have +been in bed two hours ago." + +The child's voice answered, "I am not sleepy, mamma." + +"But, my dear, remember you have been ill. You may be ill again +if you keep out of bed so late as this. Only lie down, and you +will soon fall asleep when I put the candle out." + +"You must _not_ put the candle out!" the child returned, with +strong emphasis. "My new papa is coming. How is he to find his +way to us, if you put out the light?" + +The mother answered sharply, as if the child's strange words had +irritated her. + +"You are talking nonsense," she said; "and you must go to bed. +Mr. Germaine knows nothing about us. Mr. Germaine is in England." + +I could restrain myself no longer. I called out under the window: + +"Mr. Germaine is here!" + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +LOVE AND PRIDE. + +A CRY of terror from the room told me that I had been heard. For +a moment more nothing happened. Then the child's voice reached +me, wild and shrill: "Open the shutters, mamma! I said he was +coming--I want to see him!" + +There was still an interval of hesitation before the mother +opened the shutters. She did it at last. I saw her darkly at the +window, with the light behind her, and the child's head just +visible above the lower part of the window-frame. The quaint +little face moved rapidly up and down, as if my self-appointed +daughter were dancing for joy! + +"Can I trust my own senses?" said Mrs. Van Brandt. "Is it really +Mr. Germaine?" + +"How do you do, new papa?" cried the child. "Push open the big +door and come in. I want to kiss you." + +There was a world of difference between the coldly doubtful tone +of the mother and the joyous greeting of the child. Had I forced +myself too suddenly on Mrs. Van Brandt? Like all sensitively +organized persons, she possessed that inbred sense of +self-respect which is pride under another name. Was her pride +wounded at the bare idea of my seeing her, deserted as well as +deceived--abandoned contemptuously, a helpless burden on +strangers--by the man for whom she had sacrificed and suffered so +much? And that man a thief, flying from the employers whom he had +cheated! I pushed open the heavy oaken street-door, fearing that +this might be the true explanation of the change which I had +already remarked in her. My apprehensions were confirmed when she +unlocked the inner door, leading from the courtyard to the +sitting-room, and let me in. + +As I took her by both hands and kissed her, she turned her head, +so that my lips touched her cheek only. She flushed deeply; her +eyes looked away from me as she spoke her few formal words of +welcome. When the child flew into my arms, she cried out, +irritably, "Don't trouble Mr. Germaine!" I took a chair, with the +little one on my knee. Mrs. Van Brandt seated herself at a +distance from me. "It is needless, I suppose, to ask you if you +know what has happened," she said, turning pale again as suddenly +as she had turned red, and keeping her eyes fixed obstinately on +the floor. + +Before I could answer, the child burst out with the news of her +father's disappearance in these words: + +"My other papa has run away! My other papa has stolen money! It's +time I had a new one, isn't it?" She put her arms round my neck. +"And now I've got him!" she cried, at the shrillest pitch of her +voice. + +The mother looked at us. For a while, the proud, sensitive woman +struggled successfully with herself; but the pang that wrung her +was not to be endured in silence. With a low cry of pain, she hid +her face in her hands. Overwhelmed by the sense of her own +degradation, she was even ashamed to let the man who loved her +see that she was in tears. + +I took the child off my knee. There was a second door in the +sitting-room, which happened to be left open. It showed me a +bed-chamber within, and a candle burning on the toilet-table. + +"Go in there and play," I said. "I want to talk to your mamma." + +The child pouted: my proposal did not appear to tempt her. "Give +me something to play with," she said. "I'm tired of my toys. Let +me see what you have got in your pockets." + +Her busy little hands began to search in my coat-pockets. I let +her take what she pleased, and so bribed her to run away into the +inner room. As soon as she was out of sight, I approached the +poor mother and seated myself by her side. + +"Think of it as I do," I said. "Now that he has forsaken you, he +has left you free to be mine." + +She lifted her head instantly; her eyes flashed through her +tears. + +"Now that he has forsaken me," she answered, "I am more unworthy +of you than ever!" + +"Why?" I asked. + +"Why!" she repeated, passionately. "Has a woman not reached the +lowest depths of degradation when she has lived to be deserted by +a thief?" + +It was hopeless to attempt to reason with her in her present +frame of mind. I tried to attract her attention to a less painful +subject by referring to the strange succession of events which +had brought me to her for the third time. She stopped me +impatiently at the outset. + +"It seems useless to say once more what we have said on other +occasions," she answered. "I understand what has brought you +here. I + have appeared to you again in a vision, just as I appeared to +you twice before." + +"No," I said. "Not as you appeared to me twice before. This time +I saw you with the child by your side." + +That reply roused her. She started, and looked nervously toward +the bed-chamber door. + +"Don't speak loud!" she said. "Don't let the child hear us! My +dream of you this time has left a painful impression on my mind. +The child is mixed up in it--and I don't like that. Then the +place in which I saw you is associated--" She paused, leaving the +sentence unfinished. "I am nervous and wretched to-night," she +resumed; "and I don't want to speak of it. And yet, I should like +to know whether my dream has misled me, or whether you really +were in that cottage, of all places in the world?" + +I was at a loss to understand the embarrassment which she +appeared to feel in putting her question. There was nothing very +wonderful, to my mind, in the discovery that she had been in +Suffolk, and that she was acquainted with Greenwater Broad. The +lake was known all over the county as a favorite resort of picnic +parties; and Dermody's pretty cottage used to be one of the +popular attractions of the scene. What really surprised me was to +see, as I now plainly saw, that she had some painful association +with my old home. I decided on answering her question in such +terms as might encourage her to take me into her confidence. In a +moment more I should have told her that my boyhood had been +passed at Greenwater Broad--in a moment more, we should have +recognized each other--when a trivial interruption suspended the +words on my lips. The child ran out of the bed-chamber, with a +quaintly shaped key in her hand. It was one of the things she had +taken out of my pockets. and it belonged to the cabin door on +board the boat. A sudden fit of curiosity (the insatiable +curiosity of a child) had seized her on the subject of this key. +She insisted on knowing what door it locked; and, when I had +satisfied her on that point, she implored me to take her +immediately to see the boat. This entreaty led naturally to a +renewal of the disputed question of going, or not going, to bed. +By the time the little creature had left us again, with +permission to play for a few minutes longer, the conversation +between Mrs. Van Brandt and myself had taken a new direction. +Speaking now of the child's health, we were led naturally to the +kindred subject of the child's connection with her mother's +dream. + +"She had been ill with fever," Mrs. Van Brandt began; "and she +was just getting better again on the day when I was left deserted +in this miserable place. Toward evening, she had another attack +that frightened me dreadfully. She became perfectly +insensible--her little limbs were stiff and cold. There is one +doctor here who has not yet abandoned the town. Of course I sent +for him. He thought her insensibility was caused by a sort of +cataleptic seizure. At the same time, he comforted me by saying +that she was in no immediate danger of death; and he left me +certain remedies to be given, if certain symptoms appeared. I +took her to bed, and held her to me, with the idea of keeping her +warm. Without believing in mesmerism, it has since struck me that +we might unconsciously have had some influence over each other, +which may explain what followed. Do you think it likely?" + +"Quite likely. At the same time, the mesmeric theory (if you +could believe in it) would carry the explanation further still. +Mesmerism would assert, not only that you and the child +influenced each other, but that--in spite of the distance--you +both influenced _me_. And in that way, mesmerism would account +for my vision as the necessary result of a highly developed +sympathy between us. Tell me, did you fall asleep with the child +in your arms?" + +"Yes. I was completely worn out; and I fell asleep, in spite of +my resolution to watch through the night. In my forlorn +situation, forsaken in a strange place, I dreamed of you again, +and I appealed to you again as my one protector and friend. The +only new thing in the dream was, that I thought I had the child +with me when I approached you, and that the child put the words +into my mind when I wrote in your book. You saw the words, I +suppose? and they vanished, as before, no doubt, when I awoke? I +found the child still lying, like a dead creature, in my arms. +All through the night there was no change in her. She only +recovered her senses at noon the next day. Why do you start? What +have I said that surprises you?" + +There was good reason for my feeling startled, and showing it. On +the day and at the hour when the child had come to herself, I had +stood on the deck of the vessel, and had seen the apparition of +her disappear from my view. + +"Did she say anything," I asked, "when she recovered her senses?" + +"Yes. She too had been dreaming--dreaming that she was in company +with you. She said: 'He is coming to see us, mamma; and I have +been showing him the way.' I asked her where she had seen you. +She spoke confusedly of more places than one. She talked of +trees, and a cottage, and a lake; then of fields and hedges, and +lonely lanes; then of a carriage and horses, and a long white +road; then of crowded streets and houses, and a river and a ship. +As to these last objects, there is nothing very wonderful in what +she said. The houses, the river, and the ship which she saw in +her dream, she saw in the reality when we took her from London to +Rotterdam, on our way here. But as to the other places, +especially the cottage and the lake (as she described them) I can +only suppose that her dream was the reflection of mine. _I_ had +been dreaming of the cottage and the lake, as I once knew them in +years long gone by; and--Heaven only knows why--I had associated +you with the scene. Never mind going into that now! I don't know +what infatuation it is that makes me trifle in this way with old +recollections, which affect me painfully in my present position. +We were talking of the child's health; let us go back to that." + +It was not easy to return to the topic of her child's health. She +had revived my curiosity on the subject of her association with +Greenwater Broad. The child was still quietly at play in the +bedchamber. My second opportunity was before me. I took it. + +"I won't distress you," I began. "I will only ask leave, before +we change the subject, to put one question to you about the +cottage and the lake." + +As the fatality that pursued us willed it, it was _her_ turn now +to be innocently an obstacle in the way of our discovering each +other. + +"I can tell you nothing more to-night," she interposed, rising +impatiently. "It is time I put the child to bed--and, besides, I +can't talk of things that distress me. You must wait for the +time--if it ever comes!--when I am calmer and happier than I am +now." + +She turned to enter the bed-chamber. Acting headlong on the +impulse of the moment, I took her by the hand and stopped her. + +"You have only to choose," I said, "and the calmer and happier +time is yours from this moment." + +"Mine?" she repeated. "What do you mean?" + +"Say the word," I replied, "and you and your child have a home +and a future before you." + +She looked at me half bewildered, half angry. + +"Do you offer me your protection?" she asked. + +"I offer you a husband's protection," I answered. "I ask you to +be my wife." + +She advanced a step nearer to me, with her eyes riveted on my +face. + +"You are evidently ignorant of what has really happened," she +said. "And yet, God knows, the child spoke plainly enough!" + +"The child only told me," I rejoined, "what I had heard already, +on my way here." + +"All of it?" + +"All of it." + +"And you still ask me to be your wife?" + +"I can imagine no greater happiness than to make you my wife." + +"Knowing what you know now?" + +"Knowing what I know now, I ask you confidently to give me your +hand. Whatever claim that man may once have had, as the father of +your child, he has now forfeited it by his infamous desertion of +you. In every sense of the word, my darling, you are a free +woman. We have had sorrow enough in our lives. Happiness is at +last within our reach. Come to me, and say Yes." + +I tried to take her in my arms. She drew + back as if I had frightened her. + +"Never!" she said, firmly. + +I whispered my next words, so that the child in the inner room +might not hear us. + +"You once said you loved me!" + +"I do love you!" + +"As dearly as ever?" + +"_More_ dearly than ever!" + +"Kiss me!" + +She yielded mechanically; she kissed me--with cold lips, with big +tears in her eyes. + +"You don't love me!" I burst out, angrily. "You kiss me as if it +were a duty. Your lips are cold--your heart is cold. You don't +love me!" + +She looked at me sadly, with a patient smile. + +"One of us must remember the difference between your position and +mine," she said. "You are a man of stainless honor, who holds an +undisputed rank in the world. And what am I? I am the deserted +mistress of a thief. One of us must remember that. You have +generously forgotten it. I must bear it in mind. I dare say I am +cold. Suffering has that effect on me; and, I own it, I am +suffering now." + +I was too passionately in love with her to feel the sympathy on +which she evidently counted in saying those words. A man can +respect a woman's scruples when they appeal to him mutely in her +looks or in her tears; but the formal expression of them in words +only irritates or annoys him. + +"Whose fault is it that you suffer?" I retorted, coldly. "I ask +you to make my life a happy one, and your life a happy one. You +are a cruelly wronged woman, but you are not a degraded woman. +You are worthy to be my wife, and I am ready to declare it +publicly. Come back with me to England. My boat is waiting for +you; we can set sail in two hours." + +She dropped into a chair; her hands fell helplessly into her lap. + +"How cruel!" she murmured, "how cruel to tempt me!" She waited a +little, and recovered her fatal firmness. "No!" she said. "If I +die in doing it, I can still refuse to disgrace you. Leave me, +Mr. Germaine. You can show me that one kindness more. For God's +sake, leave me!" + +I made a last appeal to her tenderness. + +"Do you know what my life is if I live without you?" I asked. "My +mother is dead. There is not a living creature left in the world +whom I love but you. And you ask me to leave you! Where am I to +go to? what am I to do? You talk of cruelty! Is there no cruelty +in sacrificing the happiness of my life to a miserable scruple of +delicacy, to an unreasoning fear of the opinion of the world? I +love you and you love me. There is no other consideration worth a +straw. Come back with me to England! come back and be my wife!" + +She dropped on her knees, and taking my hand put it silently to +her lips. I tried to raise her. It was useless: she steadily +resisted me. + +"Does this mean No?" I asked. + +"It means," she said in faint, broken tones, "that I prize your +honor beyond my happiness. If I marry you, your career is +destroyed by your wife; and the day will come when you will tell +me so. I can suffer--I can die; but I can _not_ face such a +prospect as that. Forgive me and forget me. I can say no more!" + +She let go of my hand, and sank on the floor. The utter despair +of that action told me, far more eloquently than the words which +she had just spoken, that her resolution was immovable. She had +deliberately separated herself from me; her own act had parted us +forever. + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE TWO DESTINIES. + +I MADE no movement to leave the room; I let no sign of sorrow +escape me. At last, my heart was hardened against the woman who +had so obstinately rejected me. I stood looking down at her with +a merciless anger, the bare remembrance of which fills me at this +day with a horror of myself. There is but one excuse for me. The +shock of that last overthrow of the one hope that held me to life +was more than my reason could endure. On that dreadful night +(whatever I may have been at other times), I myself believe it, I +was a maddened man. + +I was the first to break the silence. + +"Get up," I said coldly. + +She lifted her face from the floor, and looked at me as if she +doubted whether she had heard aright. + +"Put on your hat and cloak," I resumed. "I must ask you to go +back with me as far as the boat." + +She rose slowly. Her eyes rested on my face with a dull, +bewildered look. + +"Why am I to go with you to the boat?" she asked. + +The child heard her. The child ran up to us with her little hat +in one hand, and the key of the cabin in the other. + +"I'm ready," she said. "I will open the cabin door." + +Her mother signed to her to go back to the bed-chamber. She went +back as far as the door which led into the courtyard, and waited +there, listening. I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt with immovable +composure, and answered the question which she had addressed to +me. + +"You are left," I said, "without the means of getting away from +this place. In two hours more the tide will be in my favor, and I +shall sail at once on the return voyage. We part, this time, +never to meet again. Before I go I am resolved to leave you +properly provided for. My money is in my traveling-bag in the +cabin. For that reason, I am obliged to ask you to go with me as +far as the boat." + +"I thank you gratefully for your kindness," she said. "I don't +stand in such serious need of help as you suppose." + +"It is useless to attempt to deceive me," I proceeded. "I have +spoken with the head partner of the house of Van Brandt at +Amsterdam, and I know exactly what your position is. Your pride +must bend low enough to take from my hands the means of +subsistence for yourself and your child. If I had died in +England--" + +I stopped. The unexpressed idea in my mind was to tell her that +she would inherit a legacy under my will, and that she might +quite as becomingly take money from me in my life-time as take it +from my executors after my death. In forming this thought into +words, the associations which it called naturally into being +revived in me the memory of my contemplated suicide in the +Greenwater lake. Mingling with the remembrance thus aroused, +there rose in me unbidden, a temptation so overpoweringly vile, +and yet so irresistible in the state of my mind at the moment, +that it shook me to the soul. "You have nothing to live for, now +that she has refused to be yours," the fiend in me whispered. +"Take your leap into the next world, and make the woman whom you +love take it with you!" While I was still looking at her, while +my last words to her faltered on my lips, the horrible facilities +for the perpetration of the double crime revealed themselves +enticingly to my view. My boat was moored in the one part of the +decaying harbor in which deep water still lay at the foot of the +quay. I had only to induce her to follow me when I stepped on the +deck, to seize her in my arms, and to jump overboard with her +before she could utter a cry for help. My drowsy sailors, as I +knew by experience, were hard to wake, and slow to move even when +they were roused at last. We should both be drowned before the +youngest and the quickest of them could get up from his bed and +make his way to the deck. Yes! We should both be struck together +out of the ranks of the living at one and the same moment. And +why not? She who had again and again refused to be my wife--did +she deserve that I should leave her free to go back, perhaps, for +the second time to Van Brandt? On the evening when I had saved +her from the waters of the Scotch river, I had made myself master +of her fate. She had tried to destroy herself by drowning; she +should drown now, in the arms of the man who had once thrown +himself between her and death! + +Self-abandoned to such atrocious reasoning as this, I stood face +to face with her, and returned deliberately to my unfinished +sentence. + +"If I had died in England, you would have been provided for by my +will. What you would have taken from me then, you may take from +me now. Come to the boat." + +A change passed over her face as I spoke; a vague doubt of me +began to show itself in her eyes. She drew back a little, without +making any reply. + +"Come to the boat," I reiterated. + +"It is too late." With that answer, she looked across the room at +the child, still waiting by the door. "Come, Elfie," she said, +calling the little creature by one of her favorite nicknames. +"Come to bed." + +I too looked at Elfie. Might she not, I asked myself, be made the +innoce nt means of forcing her mother to leave the house? +Trusting to the child's fearless character, and her eagerness to +see the boat, I suddenly opened the door. As I had anticipated, +she instantly ran out. The second door, leading into the square, +I had not closed when I entered the courtyard. In another moment +Elfie was out in the square, triumphing in her freedom. The +shrill little voice broke the death-like stillness of the place +and hour, calling to me again and again to take her to the boat. + +I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. The stratagem had succeeded. Elfie's +mother could hardly refuse to follow when Elfie led the way. + +"Will you go with us?" I asked. "Or must I send the money back by +the child?" + +Her eyes rested on me for a moment with a deepening expression of +distrust, then looked away again. She began to turn pale. "You +are not like yourself to-night," she said. Without a word more, +she took her hat and cloak and went out before me into the +square. I followed her, closing the doors behind me. She made an +attempt to induce the child to approach her. "Come, darling," she +said, enticingly--"come and take my hand." + +But Elfie was not to be caught: she took to her heels, and +answered from a safe distance. "No," said the child; "you will +take me back and put me to bed." She retreated a little further, +and held up the key: "I shall go first," she cried, "and open the +door." + +She trotted off a few steps in the direction of the harbor, and +waited for what was to happen next. Her mother suddenly turned, +and looked close at me under the light of the stars. + +''Are the sailors on board the boat?" she asked. + +The question startled me. Had she any suspicion of my purpose? +Had my face warned her of lurking danger if she went to the boat? +It was impossible. The more likely motive for her inquiry was to +find a new excuse for not accompanying me to the harbor. If I +told her that the men were on board, she might answer, "Why not +employ one of your sailors to bring the money to me at the +house?" I took care to anticipate the suggestion in making my +reply. + +"They may be honest men," I said, watching her carefully; "but I +don't know them well enough to trust them with money." + +To my surprise, she watched me just as carefully on her side, and +deliberately repeated her question: + +"Are the sailors on board the boat?" + +I informed her that the captain and crew slept in the boat, and +paused to see what would follow. My reply seemed to rouse her +resolution. After a moment's consideration, she turned toward the +place at which the child was waiting for us. "Let us go, as you +insist on it," she said, quietly. I made no further remark. Side +by side, in silence we followed Elfie on our way to the boat. + +Not a human creature passed us in the streets; not a light +glimmered on us from the grim black houses. Twice the child +stopped, and (still keeping slyly out of her mother's reach) ran +back to me, wondering at my silence. "Why don't you speak?" she +asked. "Have you and mamma quarreled?" + +I was incapable of answering her--I could think of nothing but my +contemplated crime. Neither fear nor remorse troubled me. Every +better instinct, every nobler feeling that I had once possessed, +seemed to be dead and gone. Not even a thought of the child's +future troubled my mind. I had no power of looking on further +than the fatal leap from the boat: beyond that there was an utter +blank. For the time being--I can only repeat it, my moral sense +was obscured, my mental faculties were thrown completely off +their balance. The animal part of me lived and moved as usual; +the viler animal instincts in me plotted and planned, and that +was all. Nobody, looking at me, would have seen anything but a +dull quietude in my face, an immovable composure in my manner. +And yet no madman was fitter for restraint, or less responsible +morally for his own actions, than I was at that moment. + +The night air blew more freshly on our faces. Still led by the +child, we had passed through the last street--we were out on the +empty open space which was the landward boundary of the harbor. +In a minute more we stood on the quay, within a step of the +gunwale of the boat. I noticed a change in the appearance of the +harbor since I had seen it last. Some fishing-boats had come in +during my absence. They moored, some immediately astern and some +immediately ahead of my own vessel. I looked anxiously to see if +any of the fishermen were on board and stirring. Not a living +being appeared anywhere. The men were on shore with their wives +and their families. + +Elfie held out her arms to be lifted on board my boat. Mrs. Van +Brandt stepped between us as I stooped to take her up. + +"We will wait here," she said, "while you go into the cabin and +get the money." + +Those words placed it beyond all doubt that she had her +suspicions of me--suspicions, probably, which led her to fear not +for her life, but for her freedom. She might dread being kept a +prisoner in the boat, and being carried away by me against her +will. More than this she could not thus far possibly apprehend. +The child saved me the trouble of making any remonstrance. She +was determined to go with me. "I must see the cabin," she cried, +holding up the key. "I must open the door myself." + +She twisted herself out of her mother's hands, and ran round to +the other side of me. I lifted her over the gunwale of the boat +in an instant. Before I could turn round, her mother had followed +her, and was standing on the deck. + +The cabin door, in the position which she now occupied, was on +her left hand. The child was close behind her. I was on her +right. Before us was the open deck, and the low gunwale of the +boat overlooking the deep water. In a moment we might step +across; in a moment we might take the fatal plunge. The bare +thought of it brought the mad wickedness in me to its climax. I +became suddenly incapable of restraining myself. I threw my arm +round her waist with a loud laugh. "Come," I said, trying to drag +her across the deck--"come and look at the water." + +She released herself by a sudden effort of strength that +astonished me. With a faint cry of horror, she turned to take the +child by the hand and get back to the quay. I placed myself +between her and the sides of the boat, and cut off her retreat in +that way. Still laughing, I asked her what she was frightened +about. She drew back, and snatched the key of the cabin door out +of the child's hand. The cabin was the one place of refuge now +left, to which she could escape from the deck of the boat. In the +terror of the moment, she never hesitated. She unlocked the door, +and hurried down the two or three steps which led into the cabin, +taking the child with her. I followed them, conscious that I had +betrayed myself, yet still obstinately, stupidly, madly bent on +carrying out my purpose. "I have only to behave quietly," I +thought to myself, "and I shall persuade her to go on deck +again." + +My lamp was burning as I had left it; my traveling-bag was on the +table. Still holding the child, she stood, pale as death, waiting +for me. Elfie's wondering eyes rested inquiringly on my face as I +approached them. She looked half inclined to cry; the suddenness +of the mother's action had frightened the child. I did my best to +compose Elfie before I spoke to her mother. I pointed out the +different objects which were likely to interest her in the cabin. +"Go and look at them," I said, "go and amuse yourself." + +The child still hesitated. "Are you angry with me?" she asked. + +"No, no!" + +"Are you angry with mamma?" + +"Certainly not." I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. "Tell Elfie if I am +angry with you," I said. + +She was perfectly aware, in her critical position, of the +necessity of humoring me. Between us, we succeeded in composing +the child. She turned away to examine, in high delight, the new +and strange objects which surrounded her. Meanwhile her mother +and I stood together, looking at each other by the light of the +lamp, with an assumed composure which hid our true faces like a +mask. In that horrible situation, the grotesque and the terrible, +always together in this strange life of ours, came together now. +On either side of us, the one sound that broke the si nister and +threatening silence was the lumpish snoring of the sleeping +captain and crew. + +She was the first to speak. + +"If you wish to give me the money," she said, trying to +propitiate me in that way, "I am ready to take it now." + +I unlocked my traveling-bag. As I looked into it for the leather +case which held my money, my overpowering desire to get her on +deck again, my mad impatience to commit the fatal act, became too +strong to be controlled. + +"We shall be cooler on deck," I said. "Let us take the bag up +there." + +She showed wonderful courage. I could almost see the cry for help +rising to her lips. She repressed it; she had still presence of +mind enough to foresee what might happen before she could rouse +the sleeping men. + +"We have a light here to count the money by," she answered. "I +don't feel at all too warm in the cabin. Let us stay here a +little longer. See how Elfie is amusing herself!" + +Her eyes rested on me as she spoke. Something in the expression +of them quieted me for the time. I was able to pause and think. I +might take her on deck by force before the men could interfere. +But her cries would rouse them; they would hear the splash in the +water, and they might be quick enough to rescue us. It would be +wiser, perhaps, to wait a little and trust to my cunning to +delude her into leaving the cabin of her own accord. I put the +bag back on the table, and began to search for the leather +money-case. My hands were strangely clumsy and helpless. I could +only find the case after scattering half the contents of the bag +on the table. The child was near me at the time, and noticed what +I was doing. + +"Oh, how awkward you are!" she burst out, in her frankly fearless +way. "Let me put your bag tidy. Do, please!" + +I granted the request impatiently. Elfie's restless desire to be +always doing something, instead of amusing me, as usual, +irritated me now. The interest that I had once felt in the +charming little creature was all gone. An innocent love was a +feeling that was stifled in the poisoned atmosphere of my mind +that night. + +The money I had with me was mostly composed of notes of the Bank +of England. Carefully keeping up appearances, I set aside the sum +that would probably be required to take a traveler back to +London; and I put all that remained into the hands of Mrs. Van +Brandt. Could she suspect me of a design on her life now? + +"That will do for the present," I said. "I can communicate with +you in the future through Messrs. Van Brandt, of Amsterdam." + +She took the money mechanically. Her hand trembled; her eyes met +mine with a look of piteous entreaty. She tried to revive my old +tenderness for her; she made a last appeal to my forbearance and +consideration. + +"We may part friends," she said, in low, trembling tones. "And as +friends we may meet again, when time has taught you to think +forgivingly of what has passed between us, to-night." + +She offered me her hand. I looked at her without taking it. I +penetrated her motive in appealing to my old regard for her. +Still suspecting me, she had tried her last chance of getting +safely on shore. + +"The less we say of the past, the better," I answered, with +ironical politeness. "It is getting late. And you will agree with +me that Elfie ought to be in her bed." I looked round at the +child. "Be quick, Elfie," I said; "your mamma is going away." I +opened the cabin door, and offered my arm to Mrs. Van Brandt. +"This boat is my house for the time being," I resumed. "When +ladies take leave of me after a visit, I escort them to the deck. +Pray take my arm. + +She started back. For the second time she was on the point of +crying for help, and for the second time she kept that last +desperate alternative in reserve. + +"I haven't seen your cabin yet," she said, her eyes wild with +fear, a forced smile on her lips, as she spoke. "There are +several little things here that interest me. Give me another +minute or two to look at them." + +She turned away to get nearer to the child, under pretense of +looking round the cabin. I stood on guard before the open door, +watching her. She made a second pretense: she noisily overthrew a +chair as if by accident, and then waited to discover whether her +trick had succeeded in waking the men. + +The heavy snoring went on; not a sound of a person moving was +audible on either side of us. + +"My men are heavy sleepers," I said, smiling significantly. +"Don't be alarmed; you have not disturbed them. Nothing wakes +these Dutch sailors when they are once safe in port." + +She made no reply. My patience was exhausted. I left the door and +advanced toward her. She retreated in speechless terror, passing +behind the table to the other end of the cabin. I followed her +until she had reached the extremity of the room and could get no +further. She met the look I fixed on her; she shrunk into a +corner, and called for help. In the deadly terror that possessed +her, she lost the use of her voice. A low moaning, hardly louder +than a whisper, was all that passed her lips. Already, in +imagination, I stood with her on the gunwale, already I felt the +cold contact of the water--when I was startled by a cry behind +me. I turned round. The cry had come from Elfie. She had +apparently just discovered some new object in the bag, and she +was holding it up in admiration, high above her head. "Mamma! +mamma!" the child cried, excitedly, "look at this pretty thing! +Oh, do, do ask him if I may have it!" + +Her mother ran to her, eager to seize the poorest excuse for +getting away from me. I followed; I stretched out my hands to +seize her. She suddenly turned round on me, a woman transformed. +A bright flush was on her face, an eager wonder sparkled in her +eyes. Snatching Elfie's coveted object out of the child's hand, +she held it up before me. I saw it under the lamp-light. It was +my little forgotten keepsake--the Green Flag! + +"How came you by this?" she asked, in breathless anticipation of +my reply. Not the slightest trace was left in her face of the +terror that had convulsed it barely a minute since! "How came you +by this?" she repeated, seizing me by the arm and shaking me, in +the ungovernable impatience that possessed her. + +My head turned giddy, my heart beat furiously under the conflict +of emotions that she had roused in me. My eyes were riveted on +the green flag. The words that I wanted to speak were words that +refused to come to me. I answered, mechanically: "I have had it +since I was a boy." + +She dropped her hold on me, and lifted her hands with a gesture +of ecstatic gratitude. A lovely, angelic brightness flowed like +light from heaven over her face. For one moment she stood +enraptured. The next she clasped me passionately to her bosom, +and whispered in my ear: "I am Mary Dermody! I made it for You!" + +The shock of discovery, following so closely on all that I had +suffered before it, was too much for me. I sank, fainting, in her +arms. + +When I came to myself I was lying on my bed in the cabin. Elfie +was playing with the green flag, and Mary was sitting by me with +my hand in hers. One long look of love passed silently from her +eyes to mine--from mine to hers. In that look the kindred spirits +were united; The Two Destinies were fulfilled. + +THE END OF THE STORY. + +The Finale. + +THE WIFE WRITES, AND CLOSES THE STORY. + +THERE was a little introductory narrative prefixed to "The Two +Destinies," which you may possibly have forgotten by this time. + +The narrative was written by myself--a citizen of the United +States, visiting England with his wife. It described a +dinner-party at which we were present, given by Mr. and Mrs. +Germaine, in celebration of their marriage; and it mentioned the +circumstances under which we were intrusted with the story which +has just come to an end in these pages. Having read the +manuscript, Mr. and Mrs. Germaine left it to us to decide whether +we should continue our friendly intercourse with them or not. + +At 3 o'clock P.M. we closed the last leaf of the story. Five +minutes later I sealed it up in its cover; my wife put her bonnet +on, and there we were, bound straight for Mr. Germaine's house, +when the servant brought a letter into the room, addressed to my +wife. + +She opened it, looked at the signature, and discovered + that it was "Mary Germaine." Seeing this, we sat down side by +side to read the letter before we did anything else. + +On reflection, it strikes me that you may do well to read it, +too. Mrs. Germaine is surely by this time a person in whom you +feel some interest. And she is on that account, as I think, the +fittest person to close the story. Here is her letter: + + +"DEAR MADAM (or may I say- 'dear friend'?)--Be prepared, if you +please, for a little surprise. When you read these lines we shall +have left London for the Continent. + +"After you went away last night, my husband decided on taking +this journey. Seeing how keenly he felt the insult offered to me +by the ladies whom we had asked to our table, I willingly +prepared for our sudden departure. When Mr. Germaine is far away +from his false friends, my experience of him tells me that he +will recover his tranquillity. That is enough for me. + +"My little daughter goes with us, of course. Early this morning I +drove to the school in the suburbs at which she is being +educated, and took her away with me. It is needless to say that +she was delighted at the prospect of traveling. She shocked the +schoolmistress by waving her hat over her head and crying +'Hooray,' like a boy. The good lady was very careful to inform me +that my daughter could not possibly have learned to cry 'Hooray' +in _her_ house. + +"You have probably by this time read the narrative which I have +committed to your care. I hardly dare ask how I stand in your +estimation now. Is it possible that I might have seen you and +your good husband if we had not left London so suddenly? As +things are, I must now tell you in writing what I should +infinitely have preferred saying to you with your friendly hand +in mine. + +"Your knowledge of the world has no doubt already attributed the +absence of the ladies at our dinner-table to some report +affecting my character. You are quite right. While I was taking +Elfie away from her school, my husband called on one of his +friends who dined with us (Mr. Waring), and insisted on an +explanation. Mr. Waring referred him to the woman who is known to +you by this time as Mr. Van Brandt's lawful wife. In her +intervals of sobriety she possesses some musical talent; Mrs. +Waring had met with her at a concert for a charity, and had been +interested in the story of her wrongs, as she called them. My +name was, of course, mentioned. I was described as a 'cast-off +mistress' of Van Brandt, who had persuaded Mr. Germaine into +disgracing himself by marrying her, and becoming the step-father +of her child. Mrs. Waring thereupon communicated what she had +heard to other ladies who were her friends. The result you saw +for yourselves when you dined at our house. + +"I inform you of what has happened without making any comment. +Mr. Germaine's narrative has already told you that I foresaw the +deplorable consequences which might follow our marriage, and that +I over and over again (God knows at what cost of misery to +myself) refused to be his wife. It was only when my poor little +green flag had revealed us to each other that I lost all control +over myself. The old time on the banks of the lake came back to +me; my heart hungered for its darling of happier days; and I said +Yes, when (as you may think) I ought to have still said No. Will +you take poor old Dame Dermody's view of it, and believe that the +kindred spirits, once reunited, could be parted no more? Or will +you take my view, which is simpler still? I do love him so +dearly, and he is so fond of me! + +"In the meantime, our departure from England seems to be the +wisest course that we can adopt. As long as this woman lives she +will say again of me what she has said already, whenever she can +find the opportunity. My child might hear the reports about her +mother, and might be injured by them when she gets older. We +propose to take up our abode, for a time at least, in the +neighborhood of Naples. Here, or further away yet, we may hope to +live without annoyance among a people whose social law is the law +of mercy. Whatever may happen, we have always one last +consolation to sustain us--we have love. + +"You talked of traveling on the Continent when you dined with us. +If you should wander our way, the English consul at Naples is a +friend of my husband's, and he will have our address. I wonder +whether we shall ever meet again? It does seem hard to charge the +misfortunes of my life on me, as if they were my faults. + +"Speaking of my misfortunes, I may say, before I close this +letter, that the man to whom I owe them is never likely to cross +my path again. The Van Brandts of Amsterdam have received certain +information that he is now on his way to New Zealand. They are +determined to prosecute him if he returns. He is little likely to +give them the opportunity. + +"The traveling-carriage is at the door: I must say good-by. My +husband sends to you both his kindest regards and best wishes. +His manuscript will be quite safe (when you leave London) if you +send it to his bankers, at the address inclosed. Think of me +sometimes--and think of me kindly. I appeal confidently to _your_ +kindness, for I don't forget that you kissed me at parting. Your +grateful friend (if you will let her be your friend), + + "MARY GERMAINE." + +We are rather impulsive people in the United States, and we +decide on long journeys by sea or land without making the +slightest fuss about it. My wife and I looked at each other when +we had read Mrs. Germaine's letter. + +"London is dull," I remarked, and waited to see what came of it. + +My wife read my remark the right way directly. + +"Suppose we try Naples?" she said. + +That is all. Permit us to wish you good-by. We are off to Naples. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Two Destinies, by Wilkie Collins + diff --git a/old/2dstn10.zip b/old/2dstn10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..429b04e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/2dstn10.zip |