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+Project Gutenberg's At the Mercy of Tiberius, by Augusta Evans Wilson
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+Title: At the Mercy of Tiberius
+
+Author: Augusta Evans Wilson
+
+Release Date: July, 2003 [Etext#4209]
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+[This file was first posted on December 11, 2001]
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+
+
+AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS
+
+A NOVEL
+
+By AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON
+
+Author of "A Speckled Bird," "Infelice," "Vashti," "Beulah," "St.
+Elmo," etc.
+
+
+
+
+     Fate steals along with silent tread,
+     Found oftenest in what least we dread;
+     Frowns in the storm with angry brow,
+     But in the sunshine strikes the blow.
+                               --COWPER.
+
+
+
+
+IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER, WHO HAS ENTERED INTO REST.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"You are obstinate and ungrateful. You would rather see me suffer
+and die, than bend your stubborn pride in the effort to obtain
+relief for me. You will not try to save me."
+
+The thin, hysterically unsteady voice ended in a sob, and the frail
+wasted form of the speaker leaned forward, as if the issue of life
+or death hung upon an answer.
+
+The tower clock of a neighboring church began to strike the hour of
+noon, and not until the echo of the last stroke had died away, was
+there a reply to the appeal.
+
+"Mother, try to be just to me. My pride is for you, not for myself.
+I shrink from seeing my mother crawl to the feet of a man, who has
+disowned and spurned her; I cannot consent that she should humbly
+beg for rights, so unnaturally withheld. Every instinct of my nature
+revolts from the step you require of me, and I feel as if you held a
+hot iron in your hand, waiting to brand me."
+
+"Your proud sensitiveness runs in a strange groove, and it seems you
+would prefer to see me a pauper in a Hospital, rather than go to
+your grandfather and ask for help. Beryl, time presses, and if I die
+for want of aid, you will be responsible; when it is too late, you
+will reproach yourself. If I only knew where and how to reach my
+dear boy, I should not importune you. Bertie would not refuse
+obedience to say wishes."
+
+The silence which followed was so prolonged that a mouse crept from
+its covert in some corner of the comfortless garret room, and
+nibbled at the fragments of bread scattered on the table.
+
+Beryl stood at the dormer window, holding aside the faded blue
+cotton curtain, and the mid-day glare falling upon her, showed every
+curve of her tall full form; every line in the calm, pale Sibylline
+face. The large steel gray eyes were shaded by drooping lids,
+heavily fringed with black lashes, but when raised in a steady gaze
+the pupils appeared abnormally dilated; and the delicately traced
+black brows that overarched them, contrasted conspicuously with the
+wealth of deep auburn hair darkened by mahogany tints, which rolled
+back in shining waves from her blue veined temples. While moulding
+the figure and features upon a scale almost heroic, nature had
+jealously guarded the symmetry of her work, and in addition to the
+perfect proportion of the statuesque outlines, had bestowed upon the
+firm white flesh a gleaming smoothness, suggestive of fine grained
+marble highly polished. Majesty of mien implies much, which the
+comparatively short period of eighteen years rarely confers, yet
+majestic most properly describes this girl, whose archetype Veleda
+read runic myths to the Bructeri in the twilight of history.
+
+Beryl crossed the room, and with her hands folded tightly together,
+came to the low bed, on which lay the wreck of a once beautiful
+woman, and stood for a moment silent and pre-occupied. With a sudden
+gesture of surrender, she stooped her noble head, as if assuming a
+yoke, and drew one long deep breath. Did some prophetic intuition
+show her at that instant the Phicean Hill and its dread tenant,
+which sooner or later we must all confront?
+
+"Dear mother, I submit. Obedience to your commands certainly ought
+not to lead me astray; yet I feel that I stand at the cross-roads,
+longing to turn and flee from the way whither your finger points. I
+have no hope of accomplishing any good, and nothing but humiliation
+can result from the experiment; but I will go. Sometimes I believe;
+that fate maliciously hunts up the things we most bitterly abhor,
+and one by one sets them down before us--labelled Duty. When do you
+wish me to start?"
+
+"To-night, at nine o'clock. In the letter which you will take to
+father, I have told him our destitution; and that the money spent
+for your railway ticket has been obtained by the sacrifice of the
+diamonds and pearls, that were set around my mother's picture; that
+cameo, which he had cut in Rome and framed in Paris. Beryl so much
+depends on the impression you make upon him, that you must guard
+your manner against haughtiness. Try to be patient, my daughter, and
+if he should seem harsh, do not resent his words. He is old now, and
+proud and bitter, but he once had a tender love for me. I was his
+idol, and when my child pleads, he will relent."
+
+Mrs. Brentano laid her thin hot fingers on her daughter's hands,
+drawing her down to the edge of the bed; and Beryl saw she was
+quivering with nervous excitement.
+
+"Compose yourself, mother, or you will be so ill that I cannot leave
+you. Dr. Grantlin impressed upon us, the necessity of keeping your
+nervous system quiet. Take your medicine now, and try to sleep until
+I come back from Stephen & Endicott's."
+
+"Do not go to-day."
+
+"I must. Those porcelain types were promised for a certain day, and
+they should be packed in time for the afternoon express going to
+Boston."
+
+"Beryl."
+
+"Well, mother?"
+
+"Come nearer to me. Give me your hand. My heart is so oppressed by
+dread, that I want you to promise me something, which I fancy will
+lighten my burden. Life is very uncertain, and if I should die, what
+would become of my Bertie? Oh, my boy! my darling, my first born! He
+is so impulsive, so headstrong; and no one but his mother could ever
+excuse or forgive his waywardness. Although younger, you are in some
+respects, the strongest; and I want your promise that you will
+always be patient and tender with him, and that you will shield him
+from evil, as I have tried to do. His conscience of course, is not
+sensitive like yours--because you know, a boy's moral nature is
+totally different from a girl's; and like most of his sex, Bertie
+has no religious instincts bending him always in the right
+direction. Women  generally have to supply conscientious scruples
+for men, and you can take care of your brother, if you will. You are
+unusually brave and strong, Beryl, and when I am gone, you must
+stand between him and trouble. My good little girl, will you?"
+
+The large luminous eyes that rested upon the flushed face of the
+invalid, filled with a mist of yearning compassionate tenderness,
+and taking her mother's hands, Beryl laid the palms together, then
+stooping nearer, kissed her softly.
+
+"I think I have never lacked love for Bertie, though I may not
+always have given expression to my feelings. If at times I have
+deplored his reckless waywardness, and expostulated with him,
+genuine affection prompted me; but I promise you now, that I will do
+all a sister possibly can for a brother. Trust me, mother; and rest
+in the assurance that his welfare shall be more to me than my own;
+that should the necessity arise, I will stand between him and
+trouble. Banish all depressing forebodings. When you are strong and
+well, and when I paint my great picture, we will buy a pretty
+cottage among the lilacs and roses, where birds sing all day long,
+where cattle pasture in clover nooks; and then Bertie, your darling,
+shall never leave you again."
+
+"I do trust you, for your promise means more than oath and vows from
+other people, and if occasion demand, I know you will guard my
+Bertie, my high-strung, passionate, beautiful boy! Your pretty
+cottage? Ah, child! when shall we dwell in Spain?"
+
+"Some day, some day; only be hopeful, and let me find you better
+when I return. Sleep, and dream of our pretty cottage. I must hurry
+away with my pictures, for this is pay day."
+
+Tying the strings of her hat under one ear, and covering her face
+with a blue veil, Beryl took a pasteboard box from a table, on which
+lay brushes and paints, and leaving the door a-jar, went down the
+narrow stairs.
+
+At the window of a small hall on the next floor, a woman sat before
+her sewing-machine, bending so close to her work that she did not
+see the tall form, which paused before her, until a hand was laid on
+the steel plate.
+
+"Mrs. Emmet, will you please be so good as to go up after a while,
+and see if mother needs anything?"
+
+"Certainly, Miss, if I am here, but I have some sewing to carry home
+this afternoon."
+
+"I shall not be absent more than two hours. To-night I am going
+South, to attend to some business; and mother tells me you have
+promised to wait upon her, and allow your daughter Maggie to sleep
+on a pallet by her bed, while I am gone. I cannot tell you how
+grateful I shall be for any kindness you may show her, and I wish
+you would send the baby often to her room, as he is so sweet and
+cunning, and his merry ways amuse her."
+
+"Yes, I will do all I can. We poor folks who have none of this
+world's goods, ought to be rich at least in sympathy and pity for
+each other's suffering, for it is about all we have to share. Don't
+you worry and fret, for I will see your ma has what she needs. I was
+mothered by the best woman God ever made, and since she died, every
+sick mother I see has a sort of claim on my heart."
+
+Pausing an instant to adjust the tucker of her machine, Mrs. Emmet
+looked up, and involuntarily the women shook hands, as if sealing a
+compact.
+
+It was a long walk to the building whither Beryl directed her steps,
+and as she passed through the rear entrance of a large and
+fashionable photograph establishment, she was surprised to find that
+it was half-past two o'clock.
+
+The Superintendent of the department, from whom she received her
+work, was a man of middle-age, of rather stern and forbidding
+aspect; and as she approached his desk, he pointed to the clock on
+the mantel-piece.
+
+"Barely time to submit those types for inspection, and have them
+packed for the express going East. They are birthday gifts, and
+birthdays have an awkward habit of arriving rigidly on time."
+
+He unrolled the tissue paper, and with a magnifying glass, carefully
+examined the pictures; then took from an envelope in the box, two
+short pieces of hair, which he compared with the painted heads
+before him.
+
+"Beautifully done. The lace on that child's dress would bear even a
+stronger lens than my glass. Here Patterson, take this box, and
+letter to Mr. Endicott, and if satisfactory, carry them to the
+packing counter. Shipping address is in the letter. Hurry up, my
+lad. Sit down, Miss Brentano."
+
+"Thank you, I am not tired. Mr. Mansfield, have you any good news
+for me?"
+
+"You mean those etchings; or the designs for the Christmas cards?
+Have not heard a word, pro or con. Guess no news is good news; for I
+notice 'rejected' work generally travels fast, to roost at home."
+
+"I thought the awards were made last week, and that to-day you could
+tell me the result."
+
+"The awards have been made, I presume, but who owns the lucky cards
+is the secret that has not yet transpired. You young people have no
+respect for red tape, and methodical business routine.  You want to
+clap spurs on fate, and make her lower her own last record? 'Bide
+awee. Bide awee'."
+
+"Winning this prize means so much to me, that I confess I find it
+very hard to be patient. Success would save me from a painful and
+expensive journey, upon which I must start to-night; and therefore I
+hoped so earnestly that I might receive good tidings to-day. I am
+obliged to go South on an errand, which will necessitate an absence
+of several days, and if you should have any news for me, keep it
+until I call again. If unfavorable it would depress my mother, and
+therefore I prefer you should not write, as of course she will open
+any letters addressed to me. Please save all the work you can for
+me, and I will come here as soon as I get back home."
+
+"Very well. Any message, Patterson?"
+
+"Mr. Endicott said, 'All right; first-rate;' and ordered them
+shipped."
+
+"Here is your money, Miss Brentano. Better call as early as you can,
+as I guess there will be a lot of photographs ready in a few days.
+Good afternoon."
+
+"Thank you. Good-bye, sir."
+
+From the handful of small change, she selected some pennies which
+she slipped inside of her glove, and dropping the remainder into her
+pocket, left the building, and walked on toward Union Square.
+Absorbed in grave reflections, and oppressed by some vague
+foreboding of impending ill, dim, intangible and unlocalized--she
+moved slowly along the crowded sidewalk--unconscious of the curious
+glances directed toward her superb form, and stately graceful
+carriage, which more than one person turned and looked back to
+admire, wondering when she had stepped down from some sacred
+Panathenaic Frieze.
+
+Near Madison Square, she paused before the window of a florist's,
+and raising her veil, gazed longingly at the glowing mass of
+blossoms, which Nineteenth Century skill and wealth in defiance of
+isothermal lines, and climatic limitations force into perfection,
+in, and out of season. The violet eyes and crocus fingers of Spring
+smiled and quivered, at sight of the crimson rose heart, and flaming
+paeony cheeks of royal Summer; and creamy and purple chrysanthemums
+that quill their laces over the russet robes of Autumn, here stared
+in indignant amazement, at the premature presumption of snowy regal
+camellias, audaciously advancing to crown the icy brows of Winter.
+All latitudes, all seasons have become bound vassals to the great
+God Gold; and his necromancy furnishes with equal facility the dewy
+wreaths of orange flowers that perfume the filmy veils of December
+brides--and the blue bells of spicy hyacinths which ring "Rest" over
+the lily pillows, set as tribute on the graves of babies, who wilt
+under August suns.
+
+From early childhood, an ardent love of beauty had characterized
+this girl, whose covetous gaze wandered from a gorgeous scarlet and
+gold orchid nodding in dreams of its habitat, in some vanilla
+scented Brazilian jungle, to a bed of vivid green moss, where
+skilful hands had grouped great drooping sprays of waxen begonias,
+coral, faint pink, and ivory, all powdered with gold dust like that
+which gilds the heart of water-lilies.
+
+Such treasures were reserved for the family of Dives; and counting
+her pennies, Beryl entered the store, where instantaneously the
+blended breath of heliotrope, tube-rose and mignonette wafted her
+across the ocean, to a white-walled fishing village on the Cornice,
+whose gray rocks were kissed by the blue lips of the Mediterranean.
+
+"What is the price of that cluster of Niphetos buds?"
+
+"One dollar."
+
+"And that Auratum--with a few rose geranium leaves added?"
+
+"Seventy-five cents. You see it is wonderfully large, and the gold
+bands are so very deep."
+
+She put one hand in her pocket and fingered a silver coin, but
+poverty is a grim, tyrannous stepmother to tender aestheticism, and
+prudential considerations prevailed.
+
+"Give me twenty-five cents worth of those pale blue double violets,
+with a sprig of lemon verbena, and a fringe of geranium leaves."
+
+She laid the money on the counter, and while the florist selected
+and bound the blossoms into a bunch, she arrested his finishing
+touch.
+
+"Wait a moment. How much more for one Grand Duke jasmine in the
+centre?"
+
+"Ten cents, Miss."
+
+She added the dime to the pennies she could ill afford to spare from
+her small hoard, and said: "Will you be so kind as to sprinkle it? I
+wish it kept fresh, for a sick lady."
+
+Dusky shadows were gathering in the gloomy hall of the old tenement
+house, when Beryl opened the door of the comfortless attic room,
+where for many months she had struggled bravely to shield her mother
+from the wolf, that more than once snarled across the threshold.
+
+Mrs. Brentano was sitting in a low chair, with her elbows on her
+knees, her face hidden in her palms; and in her lap lay paper and
+pencil, while a sealed letter had fallen on the ground beside her.
+At the sound of the opening door, she lifted her head, and tears
+dripped upon the paper. In her faded flannel dressing-gown, with
+tresses of black hair straggling across her shoulders, she presented
+a picture of helpless mental and physical woe, which painted itself
+indelibly on the panels of her daughter's heart.
+
+"Why did you not wait until I came home? The exertion of getting up
+always fatigues you."
+
+"You staid so long--and I am so uncomfortable in that wretchedly
+hard bed. What detained you?"
+
+"I went to see the Doctor, because I am unwilling to start away,
+without having asked his advice; and he has prescribed some new
+medicine which you will find in this bottle. The directions are
+marked on the label. Now I will put things in order, and try my
+hands on that refractory bed."
+
+"What did the Doctor say about me?"
+
+"Nothing new; but he is confident that you can be cured in time, if
+we will only be patient and obedient. He promised to see you in the
+morning."
+
+She stripped the bed of its covering, shook bolster and pillows;
+turned over the mattress, and beat it vigorously; then put on fresh
+sheets, and adjusted the whole comfortably.
+
+"Now mother, turn your head, and let me comb and brush and braid all
+this glossy black satin, to keep it from tangling while I am away.
+What a pity you did not dower your daughter with part of it, instead
+of this tawny mane of mine, which is a constant affront to my
+fastidious artistic instincts. Please keep still a moment."
+
+She unwrapped the tissue paper that covered her flowers, and holding
+her hands behind her, stepped in front of the invalid.
+
+"Dear mother, shut your eyes. There--! of what does that remind you?
+The pergola--with great amber grape clusters--and white stars of
+jasmine shining through the leaves? All the fragrance of Italy
+sleeps in the thurible of this Grand-Duke."
+
+"How delicious! Ah, my extravagant child! we cannot afford such
+luxuries now. The perfume recalls so vividly the time when Bertie--"
+
+A sob cut short the sentence. Beryl pinned the flowers at her
+mother's throat, kissed her cheek, and kneeling before her, crossed
+her arms on the invalid's lap, resting there the noble head, with
+its burnished crown of reddish bronze braids.
+
+"Mother dear, humor my childish whim. In defiance of my wishes and
+judgment, and solely in obedience to your command, I am leaving you
+for the first time, on a bitterly painful and humiliating mission.
+To-night, let me be indeed your little girl once more. My heart
+brings me to your knees, to say my prayers as of yore, and now while
+I pray, lay your dear pretty hands on my head. It will seem like a
+parting benediction; a veritable Nunc dimmitas."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+"I do not want a carriage. If the distance is only a mile and a
+half, I can easily walk. After leaving town is there a straight
+road?"
+
+"Straight as the crow flies, when you have passed the factory, and
+cemetery, and turned to the left. There is a little Branch running
+at the foot of the hill, and just across it, you will see the white
+palings, and the big gate with stone pillars, and two tremendous
+brass dogs on top, showing their teeth and ready to spring. There's
+no mistaking the place, because it is the only one left in the
+country that looks like the good old times before the war; and the
+Yankees would not have spared it, had it not been such comfortable
+bombproof headquarters for  their officers. It's our show place now,
+and General Darrington keeps it up in better style, than any other
+estate I know."
+
+"Thank you. I will find it."
+
+Beryl walked away in the direction indicated, and the agent of the
+railway station, leaning against the door of the baggage room,
+looked with curious scrutiny after her.
+
+"I should like to know who she is. No ordinary person, that is
+clear. Such a grand figure and walk, and such a steady look in her
+big solemn eyes, as if she saw straight through a person, clothes,
+flesh and all. Wonder what her business can be with the old
+general?"
+
+From early childhood Beryl had listened so intently to her mother's
+glowing descriptions of the beauty and elegance of her old home "Elm
+Bluff," that she soon began to identify the land-marks along the
+road, alter passing the cemetery, where so many generations of
+Darringtons slept in one corner, enclosed by a lofty iron railing;
+exclusive in death as in life; jealously guarded and locked from
+contact with the surrounding dwellers in "God's Acre."
+
+The October day had begun quite cool and crisp, with a hint of frost
+in its dewy sparkle, but as though vanquished Summer had suddenly
+faced about, and charged furiously to cover her retreat, the south
+wind came heavily laden with hot vapor from equatorial oceanic
+caldrons; and now the afternoon sun, glowing in a cloudless sky,
+shed a yellowish glare that burned and tingled like the breath of a
+furnace; while along the horizon, a dim dull haze seemed blotting
+out the boundary of earth and sky.
+
+A portion of the primeval pine forest having been preserved, the
+trees had attained gigantic height, thrusting their plumy heads
+heavenward, as their lower limbs died; and year after year the
+mellow brown carpet of reddish straw deepened, forming a soft safe
+nidus for the seeds that sprang up and now gratefully embroidered it
+with masses of golden rod, starry white asters, and tall, feathery
+spikes of some velvety purple bloom, which looked royal by the side
+of a cluster of belated evening primroses.
+
+Pausing on the small but pretty rustic bridge, Beryl leaned against
+the interlacing cedar boughs twisted into a balustrade, and looked
+down at the winding stream, where the clear water showed amber hues,
+flecked with glinting foam bubbles, as it lapped and gurgled, eddied
+and sang, over its bed of yellow gravel. Unacquainted with "piney-
+woods' branches," she was charmed by the novel golden brown wavelets
+that frothed against the pillars of the bridge, and curled
+caressingly about the broad emerald fronds of luxuriant ferns, which
+hung Narcissus-like over their own graceful quivering images.
+Profound quiet brooded in the warm, hazy air, burdened with balsamic
+odors; but once a pine burr full of rich nutty mast crashed down
+through dead twigs, bruising the satin petals of a primrose; and
+ever and anon the oboe notes of that shy, deep throated hermit of
+ravines--the russet, speckled-breasted lark--thrilled through the
+woods, like antiphonal echoes in some vast, cool, columned cloister.
+
+The perfect tranquillity of the scene soothed the travel-weary
+woman, as though nestling so close to the great heart of nature, had
+stilled the fierce throbbing, and banished the gloomy forebodings of
+her own; and she walked on, through the iron gate, where the bronze
+mastiffs glared warningly from their granite pedestal--on into the
+large undulating park, which stretched away to meet the line of
+primitive pines. There was no straight avenue, but a broad smooth
+carriage road curved gently up a hillside, and on both margins of
+the graveled way, ancient elm trees stood at regular intervals,
+throwing their boughs across, to unite in lifting the superb groined
+arches, whose fine tracery of sinuous lines were here and there
+concealed by clustering mistletoe--and gray lichen masses--and
+ornamented with bosses of velvet moss; while the venerable columnar
+trunks were now and then wreathed with poison-oak vines, where red
+trumpet flowers insolently blared defiance to the waxen pearls of
+encroaching mistletoe.
+
+On the other side, the grounds were studded with native growth, as
+though protective forestry statutes had crossed the ocean with the
+colonists, and on this billowy sea of varied foliage Autumn had set
+her illuminated autograph, in the vivid scarlet of sumach and black
+gum, the delicate lemon of wild cherry--the deep ochre all sprinkled
+and splashed with intense crimson, of the giant oaks--the orange
+glow of ancestral hickory--and the golden glory of maples, on which
+the hectic fever of the dying year kindled gleams of fiery red;--
+over all, a gorgeous blazonry of riotous color, toned down by the
+silver gray shadows of mossy tree-trunks, and the rich, dark,
+restful green of polished magnolias.
+
+Half a dozen fine Cotswold ewes browsed on the grass, and the small
+bell worn by a staid dowager tinkled musically, as she threw up her
+head and watched suspiciously the figure moving under the elm
+arches. Beneath the far reaching branches of a patriarchal cedar, a
+small herd of Jersey calves had grouped themselves, as if posing for
+Landseer or Rosa Bonheur; and one pretty fawn-colored weanling ran
+across the sward to meet the stranger, bleating a welcome and
+looking up, with unmistakable curiosity in its velvety, long-lashed
+eyes.
+
+As the avenue gradually climbed the ascent, the outlines of the
+house became visible; a stately, typical southern mansion, like
+hundreds, which formerly opened hospitably their broad mahogany
+doors, and which, alas! are becoming traditional to this generation-
+-obsolete as the brave chivalric, warm-hearted, open-handed, noble-
+souled, refined southern gentlemen who built and owned them. No
+Mansard roof here, no pseudo "Queen Anne" hybrid, with lowering,
+top-heavy projections like scowling eyebrows over squinting eyes;
+neither mongrel Renaissance, nor feeble, sickly, imitation
+Elizabethan facades, and Tudor towers; none of the queer, composite,
+freakish impertinences of architectural style, which now-a-day do
+duty as the adventurous vanguard, the aesthetic vedettes "making
+straight the way," for the coming cohorts of Culture.
+
+The house at "Elm Bluff" was built of brick, overcast with stucco
+painted in imitation of gray granite, and its foundation was only
+four feet high, resting upon a broad terrace of brickwork; the
+latter bounded by a graceful wooden balustrade, with pedestals for
+vases, on either side of the two stone steps leading down from the
+terrace to the carriage drive. The central halls, in both stories,
+divided the space equally into four rooms on each side, and along
+the wide front, ran a lofty piazza supporting the roof, with white
+smooth round pillars; while the upper broad square windows, cedar-
+framed, and deeply embrasured, looked down on the floor of the
+piazza, where so many generations of Darringtons had trundled hoops
+in childhood--and promenaded as lovers in the silvery moonlight,
+listening to the ring doves cooing above them, from the columbary of
+the stucco capitals. This spacious colonnade extended around the
+northern and eastern side of the house, but the western end had
+formerly been enclosed as a conservatory--which having been
+abolished, was finally succeeded by a comparatively modern iron
+veranda, with steps leading down to the terrace. In front of the
+building, between the elm avenue and the flower-bordered terrace,
+stood a row of very old poplar trees, tall as their forefathers in
+Lombardy, and to an iron staple driven into one of these, a handsome
+black horse was now fastened.
+
+Standing with one foot on the terrace step, close to the marble
+vases where heliotropes swung their dainty lilac chalices against
+her shoulder, and the scarlet geraniums stared unabashed, Beryl's
+gaze wandered from the lovely park and ancient trees, to the
+unbroken facade of the gray old house; and as, in painful contrast
+she recalled the bare bleak garret room, where a beloved invalid
+held want and death at bay, a sudden mist clouded her vision, and
+almost audibly she murmured: "My poor mother! Now, I can realize the
+bitterness of your suffering; now I understand the intensity of your
+yearning to come back; the terrible home-sickness, which only Heaven
+can cure."
+
+What is presentiment? The swaying of the veil of futurity, under the
+straining hands of our guardian angels? Is it the faint shadow, the
+solemn rustle of their hovering wings, as like mother birds they
+spread protecting plumes between blind fledglings, and descending
+ruin? Will theosophy ever explain and augment prescience?
+
+                                    "It may be--
+     The thoughts that visit us, we know not whence,
+     Sudden as inspiration, are the whispers
+     Of disembodied spirits, speaking to us
+     As friends, who wait outside a prison wall,
+     Through the barred windows speak to those within."
+
+With difficulty Beryl resisted an inexplicable impulse to turn and
+flee; but the drawn sword of duty pointed ahead.
+
+Striking her hands together, as if thereby crushing her reluctance
+to enter, she waited a moment, with closed eyes, while her lips
+moved in silent prayer; then ascending the terrace, she crossed the
+stone pavement, walked up the stops and slowly advanced to the
+threshold. The dark mahogany door was so glossy, that she dimly saw
+her own image on its polished panels, as she lifted and let fall the
+heavy silver knocker, in the middle of an oval silver plate, around
+the edges of which were raised the square letters of the name
+"Darrington." The clanging sound startled a peacock, strutting among
+the verbena beds, and his shrill scream was answered by the deep
+hoarse bark of some invisible dog; then the heavy door swung open,
+and a gray-headed negro man, who wore a white linen apron over his
+black clothes, and held a waiter in one hand, stood before her.
+
+"I wish to see Mr. Darrington."
+
+"I reckon you mean Gin'l Darrington, don't you? Mr. Darrington,
+Marse Prince Darrington, is in Yurope."
+
+"I mean Mr. Luke Darrington, the owner of this place."
+
+"Jess so; Gin'l Luke Darrington. Well, you can't see him."
+
+"Why not? I must see him, and I shall stay here until I do."
+
+"'Cause he is busy with his lie-yer, fixin' of some papers; and when
+he tells me not to let nobody else in I'de ruther set down in a
+yaller jacket's nest than to turn the door knob, after he done shut
+it. Better leave your name and call ag'in."
+
+"No, I will wait until he is at leisure. I presume my sitting on the
+steps here will not be a violation of your orders."
+
+"To be shore not. But them steps are harder than the stool of
+repentance, and you had better walk in the drawing-room, and rest
+yourself. There's pictures, and lots and piles of things there, you
+can pass away the time looking at."
+
+He waved his waiter toward a long, dim apartment, on the left side
+of the hall.
+
+"Thank you, I prefer to sit here."
+
+She seated herself on the top of the stone steps, and taking off her
+straw hat, fanned her heated brow, where the rich waving hair clung
+in damp masses.
+
+"What name, miss, must I give, when the lie-yer finishes his
+bizness?"
+
+"Say that a stranger wishes to see him about an important matter."
+
+"Its mighty uncertain how long he will tarry; for lie-yers live by
+talking; turning of words upside down, and wrong side outards, and
+reading words backards, and whitewashing black things, and smutting
+of white ones. Marse Lennox Dunbar (he is our lie-yer now, since his
+pa took paralsis) he is a powerful wrastler with justice. They do
+say down yonder, at the court house, that when he gets done with a
+witness, and turns him aloose, the poor creetur is so flustrated in
+his mind, that he don't know his own name, on when he was born, or
+where he was born, or whether he was ever born at all."
+
+Curiosity to discover the nature of the stranger's errand had
+stimulated the old man's garrulity, but receiving no reply, he
+finally retreated, leaving the front door open. By the aid of a
+disfiguring scar on his furrowed cheek, Beryl recognized him as the
+brave, faithful, family coachman, Abednego, (abbreviated to
+"Bedney")--who had once saved his mother's life at the risk of his
+own. Mrs. Brentano had often related to her children, an episode in
+her childhood, when having gone to play with her dolls in the loft
+of the stable, she fell asleep on the hay; and two hours later,
+Bedney remembering that he had heard her singing there to her dolls,
+rushed into the burning building, groped through the stifling smoke
+of the loft, and seizing the sleeping child, threw her out upon a
+pile of straw. When he attempted to jump after her, a falling rafter
+struck him to the earth, and left an honorable scar in attestation
+of his heroism.
+
+Had she yielded to the promptings of her heart, the stranger would
+gladly have shaken hands with him, and thanked him, in the name of
+those early years, when her mother's childish feet made music on the
+wide mahogany railed stairs, that wound from the lower hall to the
+one above; but the fear of being denied an audience, deterred her
+from disclosing her name.
+
+Educated in the belief that the utterance of the abhorred name of
+Brentano, within the precincts of "Elm Bluff," would produce an
+effect very similar to the ringing of some Tamil Pariah's bell,
+before the door of a Brahman temple, Beryl wisely kept silent; and
+soon forgot her forebodings, in the contemplation of the supreme
+loveliness of the prospect before her.
+
+The elevation was sufficient to command an extended view of the
+surrounding country, and of the river, which crossed by the railroad
+bridge north of the town, curved sharply to the east, whence she
+could trace its course as it gradually wound southward, and
+disappeared behind the house; where at the foot of a steep bluff, a
+pretty boat and bath house nestled under ancient willow trees. At
+her feet the foliage of the park stretched like some brilliant
+carpet, before whose gorgeous tints, ustads of Karman would have
+stood in despair; and beyond the sea-green, undulating line of pine
+forest she saw the steeple of a church, with its gilt vane burning
+in the sunshine, and the red brick dome of the ante bellum court
+house.
+
+Time seemed to have fallen asleep on that hot, still afternoon, and
+Beryl was roused from her reverie by the sound of hearty laughter in
+the apartment opposite the drawing-room--followed by the tones of a
+man's voice.
+
+"Thank you, General. That is my destination this afternoon, and I
+shall certainly expect you to dance at my wedding."
+
+Quick, firm steps rang on the oil-cloth-covered floor of the hall,
+and Beryl rose and turned toward the door.
+
+With a cigar in one hand, hat and riding-whip in the other, the
+attorney stepped out on the colonnade, and pausing involuntarily, at
+sight of the stranger, they looked at each other. A man, perhaps,
+more, certainly not less than thirty years old, of powerful and
+impressive physique; very tall, athletic, sinewy, without an ounce
+of superfluous flesh to encumber his movements, in the professional
+palaestra; with a large finely modeled head, whose crisp black hair
+closely cut, was (contrary to the prevailing fashion) parted neither
+in the middle, nor yet on the side, but brushed straight back from
+the square forehead, thereby enhancing the massiveness of its
+appearance.
+
+Something in this swart, beardless face, with its brilliant
+inquisitorial dark blue eyes, handsome secretive mouth veiled by no
+mustache--and boldly assertive chin deeply cleft in the centre--
+affected Beryl very unpleasantly, as a perplexing disagreeable
+memory; an uncanny resemblance hovering just beyond the grasp of
+identification. A feeling of unaccountable repulsion made her
+shiver, and she breathed more freely, when he hewed slightly, and
+walked on toward his horse. Upon the attorney her extraordinary
+appearance produced a profound impression, and in his brief
+scrutiny, no detail of her face, figure, or apparel escaped his keen
+probing gaze.
+
+Glancing back as he untied his bridle rein, his unspoken comment
+was: "Superb woman; I wonder what brings her here? Evidently a
+stranger--with a purpose."
+
+He sprang into the saddle, stooped his head to avoid the yellow
+poplar branches, and disappeared under the elm arches.
+
+"Gin'l Darrington's compliments; and if your bizness is pressin' you
+will have to see him in his bedcharmber, as he feels poorly to-day,
+and the Doctor won't let him out. Follow me. You see, ole Marster
+remembers the war by the game leg he got at Sharpshurg, and
+sometimes it lays him up."
+
+The old servant led Beryl through a long room, fitted up as a
+library and armory, and pausing before an open door, waved her into
+the adjoining apartment. One swift glance showed her the heavy
+canopied bedstead in one corner, the arch-shaped glass door leading
+out upon the iron veranda; and at an oblong table in the middle of
+the floor, the figure of a man, who rose, taller and taller, until
+he seemed a giant, drawn to his full height, and resting for support
+on the hand that was rested upon the table. Intensity of emotion
+arrested her breath, as she gazed at the silvered head, piercing
+black eyes, and spare wasted framp of the handsome man, who had
+always reigned as a brutal ogre in her imagination. The fire in his
+somewhat sunken eyes, seemed to bid defiance to the whiteness of the
+abundant hair, and of the heavy mustache which drooped over his
+lips; and every feature in his patrician face revealed not only a
+long line of blue-blooded ancestors, but the proud haughtiness which
+had been considered always as distinctively characteristic of the
+Darringtons as their finely cut lips, thin nostrils, small feet and
+unusual height.
+
+Unprepared for the apparition that confronted him, Luke Darrington
+bowed low, surveyed her intently, then pointed to a chair opposite
+his own.
+
+"Walk in, Madam; or perhaps it may be Miss? Will you take a seat,
+and excuse the feebleness that forces me to receive visits in my
+bed-room?"
+
+As he reseated himself, Beryl advanced and stood beside him, but for
+a moment she found it impossible to utter the words, rehearsed so
+frequently during her journey; and while she hesitated, he curiously
+inspected her face and form.
+
+Her plain, but perfectly fitting bunting dress, was of the color,
+popularly dominated "navy-blue," and the linen collar and cuffs were
+scarcely whiter than the round throat and wrists they encircled. The
+burnished auburn hair clinging in soft waves to her brow, was
+twisted into a heavy coil, which the long walk had shaken down till
+it rested almost on her neck; and though her heart beat furiously,
+the pale calm face might have been marble, save for the scarlet
+lines of her beautiful mouth, and the steady glow of the dilated
+pupils in her great gray eyes.
+
+"Pray be seated; and tell me to whom I am indebted for the pleasure
+of this visit?"
+
+"I am merely the bearer of a letter which will explain itself, and
+my presence, in your house."
+
+Mechanically he took the preferred letter, and with his eyes still
+lingering in admiration upon the classic outlines of her face and
+form, leaned back comfortably against the velvet lining of his
+armchair.
+
+"Are you some exiled goddess travelling incognito? If we lived in
+the 'piping days of Pan' I should flatter myself that 'Ox-eyed Juno'
+had honored me with a call, as a reward for my care of her favorite
+bird."
+
+Receiving no reply he glanced at the envelope in his hand, and as he
+read the address--"To my dear father, Gen'l Luke Darrington"--the
+smile on his face changed to a dark scowl and he tossed the letter
+to the floor, as if it were a red-hot coal.
+
+"Only one living being has the right to call me father--my son,
+Prince Darrington. I have repeatedly refused to hold any
+communication with the person who wrote that letter."
+
+Beryl stooped to pick it up, and with a caressing touch, as though
+it were sentient, held it against her heart.
+
+"Your daughter is dying; and this is her last appeal."
+
+"I have no daughter. Twenty-three years ago my daughter buried
+herself in hopeless disgrace, and for her there can be no
+resurrection here. If she dreams that I am in my dotage, and may
+relent, she strangely forgets the nature of the blood she saw fit to
+cross with that of a beggarly foreign scrub. Go back and tell her,
+the old man is not yet senile and imbecile; and that the years have
+only hardened his heart. Tell her, I have almost learned to forget
+even how she looked."
+
+His eyes showed a dull reddish fire, like those of some drowsy caged
+tiger, suddenly stirred into wrath, and a grayish pallor--the white
+heat of the Darringtons--settled on his face.
+
+Twice Beryl walked the length of the room, but each time the
+recollection of her mother's tearful, suffering countenance, and the
+extremity of her need, drove her back to the chair.
+
+"If you knew that your daughter's life hung by a thread, would you
+deliberately take a pair of shears and cut it?"
+
+He glared at her in silence, and leaning forward on the table,
+pushed roughly aside a salver, on which stood a decanter and two
+wine glasses.
+
+"I am here to tell you a solemn truth; then my responsibility ends.
+Your daughter's life rests literally in your hands; for unless you
+consent to furnish the money to pay for a surgical operation, which
+may restore her health, she will certainly die. I am indulging in no
+exaggeration to extort alms. In this letter is the certificate of a
+distinguished physician, corroborating my statement. If you, the
+author of her being, prefer to hasten her death, then your choice of
+an awful revenge must be settled between your hardened conscience
+and your God."
+
+"You are bold indeed, to beard me in my own house, and tell me to my
+face what no man would dare to utter."
+
+His voice was an angry pant, and he struck his clenched hand on the
+table with a force that made the glasses jingle, and the sherry
+dance in the decanter.
+
+"Yes, you scarcely realize how much bravery this painful errand
+demands; but the tender love in a woman's heart nerves her to bear
+fiery ordeals, that vanquish a man's courage."
+
+"Then you find that age has not drawn the fangs from the old
+crippled Darrington lion, nor clipped his claws?"
+
+The sneer curved his white mustache, until she saw the outline of
+the narrow, bloodless underlip.
+
+"That king of beasts scorns to redden his fangs, or flesh his claws,
+in the quivering body of his own offspring. Your metaphor is an
+insult to natural instincts."
+
+She laid the letter once more before him, and looked down on him,
+with ill-concealed aversion.
+
+"Who are you? By what right dare you intrude upon me?"
+
+"I am merely a sorrowful, anxious, poverty-stricken woman, whose
+heart aches over her mother's sufferings and vho would never have
+endured the humiliation of this interview, except to deliver a
+letter in the hope of prolonging my mother's life."
+
+"You do not mean that you are--my--"
+
+"I am nothing to you, sir, but the bearer of a letter from your
+dying daughter."
+
+"You cannot be the child of--of Ellice?"
+
+After the long limbo of twenty-three years, the name burst from him,
+and with what a host of memories its echo peopled the room, where
+that erring daughter had formerly reigned queen of his heart.
+
+"Yes, Ellice is my dear mother's name."
+
+He stared at the majestic form, and at the faultless face looking so
+proudly down upon him, as from an inaccessible height; and she heard
+him draw his breath, with a labored hissing sound.
+
+"But--I thought her child was a boy?"
+
+"I am the youngest of two children."
+
+"It is impossible that you are the daughter of that infernal, low-
+born, fiddling foreign vagabond who--"
+
+"Hush! The dead are sacred!"
+
+She threw up her hand, with an imperious gesture, not of
+deprecation, but of interdict; and all the stony calm in her pale
+face seemed shivered by a passionate gust, that made her eyes gleam
+like steel under an electric flash.
+
+"I am the daughter of Ignace Brentano, and I love, and honor his
+memory, and his name. No drop of your Darrington blood runs in my
+veins; I love my dear mother--but I am my father's daughter--and I
+want no nobler heritage than his name. Upon you I have no shadow of
+claim, but I am here from dire necessity, at your mercy--a helpless,
+defenseless pleader in my mother's behalf--and as such, I appeal to
+the boasted southern chivalry, upon which you pride yourself, for
+immunity from insult while I am under your roof. Since I stood no
+taller than your knee, my mother has striven to inculcate a belief
+in the nobility, refinement, and chivalric deference to womanhood,
+inherent in southern gentlemen; and if it be not all a myth, I
+invoke its protection against abuse of my father. A stranger, but a
+lady, every inch, I demand the respect due from a gentleman."
+
+For a moment they eyed each other, as gladiators awaiting the
+signal, then General Darrington sprang to his feet, and with a bow,
+stately and profound as if made to a duchess, replied:
+
+"And in the name of southern chivalry, I swear you shall receive
+it."
+
+"Read your daughter's letter; give me your answer, and let us cut
+short an interview--which, if disagreeable to you, is almost
+unendurable to me."
+
+Turning away, she began to walk slowly up and down the floor; and
+smothering an oath under his heavy mustache, the old man sank back
+in his chair, and opened the letter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Holding in leash the painful emotions that struggled for utterance,
+Beryl was unconscious of the lapse of time, and when her averted
+eyes returned reluctantly to her grandfather's face, he was slowly
+tearing into shreds the tear-stained letter, freighted with
+passionate prayers for pardon, and for succor. Rolling the strips
+into a ball, he threw it into the waste-paper basket under the
+table; then filled a glass with sherry, drank it, and dropped his
+head wearily on his hand. Five leaden minutes crawled away, and a
+long, heavy sigh quivered through Gen'l Darrington's gaunt frame.
+Seizing the decanter, he poured the contents into two glasses, and
+as he raised one to his lips, held the other toward his visitor.
+
+"You must be weary from your journey; let me insist that you drink
+some sherry."
+
+"Thank you, I neither wish nor require it."
+
+"I find your name is Beryl. Sit down here, and answer a few
+questions." He drew a chair near his own.
+
+She shook her head:
+
+"If you will excuse me, I prefer to stand."
+
+In turning, so as to confront her fully, his elbow struck from the
+table, a bronze paper-weight which rolled just beyond his reach.
+Instinctively she stooped to pick it up, and in restoring it, her
+fingers touched his. Leaning suddenly forward he grasped her wrists
+ere she was aware of his intention, and drew her in front of him.
+
+"Pardon me; but I want a good look at you."
+
+His keen merciless eyes searched every feature, and he deliberately
+lifted and examined the exquisitely shaped strong, white hands, the
+dainty nails, and delicately rounded wrists with their violet
+tracery of veins. It cost her an effort, to abstain from wrenching
+herself free; but her mother's caution: "So much depends on the
+impression you make upon father," girded her to submit to his
+critical inspection.
+
+A grim smile crossed his face, as he watched her.
+
+"Blood often doubles, like a fox; sometimes 'crops back,' but never
+lies. You can't play out your role of pauper; and you don't look a
+probable outcome of destitution and hard work. Your hands would fit
+much better in a metope of the Elgin Marbles, than in a wash-tub, or
+a bake-oven."
+
+Drawing away quickly, she put them behind her, and felt her palms
+tingle.
+
+"It is expected I should believe that for some time past, you have
+provided for your own, and your mother's wants. In what way?"
+
+"By coloring photographs; by furnishing designs for Christmas and
+Easter cards, and occasionally (not often), by selling drawings used
+for decorating china, and wallpaper. At one time, I had regular pay
+for singing in a choir, but diphtheria injured my throat, and when I
+partly recovered my voice, the situation had been given to another
+person."
+
+"I am informed also that before long, you intend to astonish the
+world with a wonderful picture, which shall distance such laggards
+as Troyon, Dore, and Ary Scheffer?"
+
+She was looking, not at him, but out through the glass door, at the
+glowing western sky, where distant pine trees printed their
+silhouettes. Now her gaze came back to his face, and he noted a
+faint quiver in her full throat.
+
+"If God will mercifully spare my mother to me, my loftiest and
+holiest ambition shall be to distance the wolfish cares and woes
+that have hunted her. ever since she became a widow. Any and all
+honest labor that can contribute to her comfort, will be welcome and
+sweet to me."
+
+"The laws of heredity must be occult and complex. The offspring of a
+rebellious and disobedient child, is certainly entitled to no filial
+instincts; and some day the strain will tell, and you will overwhelm
+your mother with ingratitude, black as that which she showed me."
+
+"When I do, may God eternally forsake me!"
+
+A brief silence ensued, and the old man drummed on the table, with
+the fingers of his right hand.
+
+"Who educated you?"
+
+"My dear father."
+
+"It seems there are two of you. Where is your brother?"
+
+"At present, I do not know exactly where he is, but I think in the
+far West; possibly in Montana--probably in Canada."
+
+"How does he earn his bread? By daubing, or fiddling?"
+
+"Since he earns it honestly, that is his own affair. We have not
+heard from him for some months."
+
+"I thought so! He inherits the worthless vagabond strain of--"
+
+"He is his mother's idol, and she glories in his resemblance to you,
+sir; and to your father; hence his name--Robert L. Darrington."
+
+"Then she must have one handsome child! I am not surprised that he
+is the favorite."
+
+"Bertie certainly is her darling, and he is very handsome; not in
+the very least degree like me."
+
+For the first time, their eyes met in a friendly glance, and a
+covert smile stirred the General's lips; but as he put out his hand
+toward her, she moved a step beyond his reach.
+
+"Beryl, you consider me a dreadful, cruel old tyrant?"
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"Answer me."
+
+"You are my mother's father; and that word--father, means so much to
+me, that it shall shield even you, from the shadow of disrespect."
+
+"Oh! very dutiful indeed, but dead as the days when daughters
+obeyed, and honored their fathers! Beggarly foreign professors wiped
+all that out of the minds of wealthy girls at boarding schools--just
+as they changed their backwoods pronunciation of French and Italian.
+Don't evade my question."
+
+"I did not come here, sir, to bandy words; and I ended my mission by
+delivering the letter intrusted to me."
+
+"You regard me as a vindictive old bear?"
+
+"I had heard much of the Darringtons; I imagined a great deal more;
+but now, like the Queen of Sheba, I must testify--'Behold, the half
+was not told me.'"
+
+He threw back his lion-like head, and laughed.
+
+"That will do. Shake hands, child."
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"And you will not sit down?"
+
+"Frankly, I prefer not. I long to get away."
+
+"You shall certainly be gratified, but there are a few things which
+I intend you shall hear. Of course you know that your mother was my
+only child, and an heiress; but you are ignorant probably of the
+fact that when she returned to boarding school for the last session,
+she was engaged in marriage to the son of my best friend--a man in
+every respect desirable, and thoroughly acceptable to me."
+
+"So my mother told me."
+
+"Indeed? She should blush to remember it. While she wore his
+engagement ring, she forgot her promise to him, her duty to me, her
+lineage, her birth, her position--and was inveigled by a low
+adventurer who--"
+
+"Who was my own precious father--poor, but noble, and worthy of any
+princess! Unless you can refer to him respectfully, name him not at
+all, in his child's presence."
+
+She suddenly towered over him, like some threatening fate, and her
+uplifted arm trembled from the intensity of her indignation.
+
+"At least--you are loyal to your tribe!"
+
+"I am, to my heart's core. You could pay me no higher compliment."
+
+"Ellice wrote that she had bestowed her affections on--on--the
+'exiled scion of a noble house,' who paid his board bill by teaching
+languages and music in the school; and who very naturally preferred
+to marry a rich fool, who would pay them for him. I answered her
+letter, which was addressed to her own mother--then quite ill at
+home--and I told her precisely what she might expect, if she
+persisted in her insane folly. As soon as my wife convalesced
+sufficiently to render my departure advisable, I started to bring my
+daughter home; but she ran away, a few hours before my arrival, and
+while, hoping to rescue Ellice, I was in pursuit of the precious
+pair, my wife relapsed and died--the victim of excitement brought on
+by her child's disgrace. I came back here to a desolate, silent
+house;--bereft of wife and daughter; and in the grave of her mother,
+I buried every atom of love and tenderness I ever entertained for
+Ellice. When the sun is suddenly blotted out at noon, and the world
+turns black--black, we grope to and fro aimlessly; but after awhile,
+we accommodate ourselves to the darkness;--and so, I became a
+different man--very hard, and I dare say very bitter. The world soon
+learned that I would tolerate no illusion to my disgrace, and people
+respected my family cancer, and prudently refrained from offering me
+nostrums to cure it. My wife had a handsome estate of her own right,
+and every cent of her fortune I collected, and sent with her jewelry
+to Ellice. Did you know this?"
+
+"I have heard only of the jewels."
+
+"As I supposed, the money was squandered before you could
+recollect."
+
+"I know that we were reduced to poverty, by the failure of some
+banking house in Paris. I was old enough when it occurred, to
+remember ever afterward, the dismay and distress it caused. My
+father no doubt placed my mother's money there for safety."
+
+"I wrote one long, final letter when I sent the checks for the
+money, and I told Ellice I wished never to see, never to hear from
+her again. I told her also, I had only one wish concerning her, and
+that was, that I might be able to forget her so completely, that if
+we should meet in the Last Judgment, I could not possibly know her.
+I assured her she need expect nothing at my death; as I had taken
+good care that my estate should not fall into the clutches of--her--
+'exiled scion of a noble house.' Now do you consider that she has
+any claim on me?"
+
+"You must not ask me to sit in judgment on my parents."
+
+"You shall decide a question of business facts. I provided liberally
+for her once; can you expect me to do so again? Has she any right to
+demand it?"
+
+"Having defied your parental wishes, she may have forfeited a
+daughter's claim; but as a heart-broken sufferer, you cannot deny
+her the melancholy privilege of praying for your help, on her death-
+bed."
+
+The proud clear voice trembled, and Beryl covered her face with her
+hands.
+
+"Then we will ignore outraged ties of blood, and treat on the ground
+of mere humanity? Let me conclude, for it is sickening and loathsome
+to a man of my age, to see his long silent household graves yawn,
+and give up uncalled--their sheeted dead. For some years the money
+sent, was a quietus, and I was left in peace. I was lonely; it was,
+hard work to forget, because I could never forgive; and the more
+desolate the gray ruin, the more nature yearns to cover it close
+with vines and flowers; so after a time, I married a gentle, pure
+hearted woman, who made the best of what was left of me. We had no
+children, but she had one son of a former marriage, who proved a
+noble trustworthy boy; and by degrees he crept into my heart, and
+raked together the cinders of my dead affections, and kindled a
+feeble flame that warmed my shivering old age. When I felt assured
+that I was not thawing another serpent to sting me for my pains, I
+adopted Thorton Prince, and with the aid of a Legislative enactment,
+changed his name to Prince Darrington. Only a few months elapsed,
+before his mother, of whom I was very fond, died of consumption and
+my boy and I comforted each other. Then I made my second and last
+will, and took every possible precaution to secure my estate of
+every description to him. He is my sole heir, and I intend that at
+my death he shall receive every cent I possess. Did you know this?"
+
+"I did, because your last endorsement on a letter of my mother's
+returned unopened to her, informed her of the fact."
+
+"Why? Because in violation of my wishes she had persisted in
+writing, and soon began to importune me for money. Then I made her
+understand that even at my death, she would receive no aid; and
+since that endorsement, I have returned or destroyed her letters
+unread. My Will is so strong--has been drawn so carefully--that no
+contest can touch it; and it will stand forever between your mother
+and my property."
+
+As he uttered these words, he elevated his voice, which had a ring
+of savage triumph in its harsh excited tones. Just then, a muffled
+sound attracted his attention, and seizing his gold-headed cane, he
+limped with evident pain to the threshold of the adjoining room.
+
+"Bedney."
+
+Receiving no reply, he closed the door with a violence that jarred
+the whole room; and came slowly back to the table, where he stood
+leaning heavily on his stick.
+
+"At least we will have no eavesdropping at this resurrection of my
+dead. That Ellice is now a miserable woman, I have no doubt; for
+truly: 'Quien se casa por amores, ha de vivir con dolores.' Of
+course you understand Spanish?"
+
+"No, sir; but no matter; I take it for granted that you intend some
+thrust at my mother, and I have heard quite enough."
+
+"Don't know Spanish? Why I fancied your--your 'exiled scion of a
+noble house'--taught all the languages under the sun; including that
+used by the serpent in beguiling Eve! Well, the wise old adage
+means: 'Who marries for love, lives with sorrow.' Ellice made her
+choice, and she shall abide by it; and you--being unluckily her
+daughter--will share the punishment. If 'fathers WILL eat sour
+grapes, the children's teeth MUST be set on edge.' I repudiate all
+claims on my parental treasury, save such as I have given to my son
+Prince. To every other draft I am bankrupt; but merely as a
+gentleman, I will now for the last time, respond to the petition of
+a sick woman, whose child is so loyal as to arouse my compassion.
+Ellice has asked for one hundred dollars. You shall have it. But
+first, tell me why she did not go to the hospital, and submit to the
+operation which she says will cure her?"
+
+"Because I could not be with her there, and I will never be
+separated from her. The aneurism has grown so alarmingly, that I
+became desperate, and having no one to aid us, I reluctantly obeyed
+my mother's requirement that I should come here. I could not summon
+my brother, because I have no idea where a letter would reach him;
+and with no friend--but the God of the friendless--I am before you.
+There is one thing I ought to tell you; I have terrible forebodings
+of the result of the operation, from which the Doctor encourages her
+to hope so much. She will not be able to take anesthetics, at least
+not chloroform, because she has a weak heart, and--"
+
+"Yes--a very weak heart! It was never strong enough to hold her to
+her duty."
+
+"If you could see her now, I think even your vindictive hatred would
+be sufficiently gratified. So wasted, so broken!--and with such a
+ceaseless craving for a kind word from you. One night last week pain
+made her restless, and I heard her sob. When I tried to relieve the
+suffering, she cried bitterly: 'It is not my poor body alone--it is
+the gnawing hunger to see father once more. He loved me so fondly
+once and if I could crawl to his feet, and clasp his knees in my
+arms, I could at least die in peace. I am starving for just one
+sight of him--one touch.' My poor darling mother! My beautiful,
+bruised, broken flower."
+
+Through the glittering mist of unshed tears, her eyes shone, like
+silver lamps; and for a moment Gen'l Darrington covered his face
+with one hand.
+
+"If you could realize how bitterly galling to my own pride and self
+respect is this appeal to a man who hates and spurns all whom I
+love, I think, sir, that even you would pity me so heartily, that
+your hardened heart would melt into one last farewell message of
+forgiveness to your unfortunate daughter. I would rather carry her
+one word of love than all your fortune."
+
+"No--I come of a flinty race. We never forgive insults; never
+condone wrongs; and expecting loyalty in our own blood, we cannot
+live long enough to pardon its treachery. Once, I made an idol of my
+beautiful, graceful, high-bred girl; but she stabbed my pride,
+dragged my name through the gutters, broke her doting mother's
+heart; and now, I tell you, she is as dead to me as if she had lain
+twenty-three years in her grave. I have only one message. Tell her
+she is reaping the tares her own hand sowed. I know her no more as
+child of mine, and my son fills her place so completely, I do not
+even miss her. That is the best I can say. No doubt I am hard, but
+at least I am honest; and I will not feign what I cannot feel."
+
+He limped across the floor, to a recess on one side of the chimney,
+where a square vault with an iron door had been built into the wall.
+Leaning on his cane, he took from his pocket a bunch of keys, fitted
+one into the lock, and pushing the bolt, the door slid back into a
+groove, instead of opening on hinges. He lifted a black tin box from
+the depths of the vault, carried it to the table, sat down, and
+opened it. Near the top, were numerous papers tied into packages
+with red tape, and two large envelopes carefully sealed with dark-
+green wax. In removing the bundles, to find something beneath them,
+these envelopes were laid on the table; and as one was either
+accidentally or intentionally turned, Beryl saw the endorsement
+written in bold black letters, and heavily underscored in red ink:
+"Last Will and Testament of Robert Luke Darrington." Untying a small
+chamois bag, the owner counted out five twenty-dollar gold pieces,
+closed the bag, and replaced it in the box.
+
+"Hold out your hand. Your mother asked fur one hundred dollars. Here
+is the exact amount. Henceforth, leave me in peace. I am an old man,
+and I advise you to 'let sleeping dogs lie.'"
+
+If he had laid a red-hot iron on her palm, it would scarcely have
+been more scorching than the touch of his gold, and only the vision
+of a wan and woeful face in that far off cheerless attic room,
+restrained her impulse to throw it at his feet.
+
+An almost intolerable humiliation dyed her pale cheeks a deep
+purplish crimson, and she proudly drew herself to her utmost height.
+
+"Because I cannot now help myself, I accept the money--not as a
+gift, but as a loan for my mother's benefit; and so help me God! I
+will not owe it to you one moment longer than by hard labor I can
+earn and return it. Goodbye, Gen'l Darrington."
+
+She turned toward the closed door leading to the library, but
+raising his cane, he held it out, to intercept her.
+
+"Wait a moment. There is one thing more."
+
+He took from the tin box an oblong package, wrapped in letter paper,
+yellowed by age, and carefully sealed with red wax. As he held it
+up, she read thereon: "My last folly." He tore off the paper, lifted
+an old fashioned morocco case, and attempted to open it, but the
+catch was obstinate, or rusty, and several ineffectual efforts were
+made, ere he succeeded in moving the spring. The once white velvet
+cushion, had darkened and turned very yellow, but time had robbed in
+no degree, the lustre of the magnificent sapphires coiled there; and
+the blue fires leaped out, as if rejoicing in the privilege of
+displaying their splendor.  "This set of stones was intended as a
+gift to your mother, when she was graduated at boarding-school. The
+time fixed for the close of the session was only one month later
+than the day on which she eloped with that foreign fraud, who should
+never have been allowed in the school. My wife had promised that if
+your mother won the honor of valedictorian, she should have the
+handsomest present ever worn at a commencement. These costly
+sapphires were my poor wife's choice. Poor Helena! how often she
+admired them!" His voice faltered, and he bit his under lip to still
+its quiver.
+
+Was there some necromancy in the azure flames, that suddenly
+revealed the beloved face of the wife of his youth, and the lovely
+vision of their only child? His eagle eyes were dim with tears, and
+his hand shook; but, as if ashamed of the weakness, he closed the
+jewel case with a snap, and held it out.
+
+"Here--take them. I had intended to give them as a bridal present to
+my son's wife, when he marries to suit me--as he certainly will; but
+somehow, such a disposal seems hard on my dear Helena's wishes, and
+for her sake, I don't feel quite easy about leaving them to Prince's
+bride. Your mother never saw them, never knew of their existence.
+They are very valuable, and the amount they will bring must relieve
+all present necessities. Tell Ellice the sight of the case disturbs
+me, like a thorn in the flesh, so I send them away, to rid myself of
+an annoyance. She must not thank me; they come from her--dead
+mother."
+
+"A knowledge of their history would give her infinitely more pain
+than the proceeds of their sale could bring comfort. I would not
+stab her aching heart for twenty times the value of the jewels."
+
+"Then sell them, or do as you like. It matters not what becomes of
+them, if I am spared in future all reminders of the past. Put them
+in your pocket. What? The case is too large? Where is your trunk--
+your baggage?"
+
+"I have none, except my basket and shawl."
+
+She picked them up from the carpet near the library door, and
+dropped the case into her basket.
+
+"You are a brave, and a loyal woman, and you appear to deserve far
+better parents than fell to your lot. Before you go, let me offer
+you a glass of wine, and a biscuit."
+
+"Thank you--no. I could not possibly accept it."
+
+"Well, we shall never meet again. Good-bye. Shake hands."
+
+"I will very gladly do so if you will only give me just one gentle,
+forgiving kind word to comfort mother."
+
+He set his teeth, and shook his head.
+
+"Good-bye, Gen'l Darrington. When you lie down to die, I hope God
+will be more merciful to your poor soul, than you have shown
+yourself to your suffering child."
+
+He bowed profoundly.
+
+Her hand was on the knob of the door, when he pointed to the western
+veranda.
+
+"You are going back to town? Then, if you please, be so good as to
+pass out through that rear entrance, and close the glass door after
+you. A side path leads to the lawn; and I prefer that you should not
+meet the servants, who pry and tattle."
+
+When she stood on the veranda, and turned to close the wide arched
+glass door, whence the inside red silk curtain had been looped back,
+her last view of the gaunt, tall figure within, showed him leaning
+on his stick, with the tin box held in his left hand, and the dying
+sunlight shining on his silver hair and furrowed face.
+
+Along the serpentine path which was bordered with masses of
+brilliant chrysanthemums, Beryl walked rapidly, feeling almost
+stifled by the pressure of contending emotions. Recollecting that
+these spice censers of Autumn were her mother's favorite flowers,
+she stooped and broke several lovely clusters of orange and garnet
+color, hoping that a lingering breath of perfume from the home of
+her girlhood, might afford at least a melancholy pleasure to the
+distant invalid.
+
+Advancing into the elm avenue, she heard a voice calling, and
+looking back, saw the old negro man, Bedney, waving his white apron
+and running toward her; but at that moment his steps were arrested
+by the sudden, loud and rapid ringing of a bell. He paused,
+listened, wavered; then threw up his hands, and hurried back to the
+house, whence issued the impatient summons.
+
+The sun had gone down in the green sea of far-off pine tops, but the
+western sky glowed like some vast altar of topaz, whereon zodiacal
+fires had kindled the rays of vivid rose, that sprang into the
+zenith and cooled their flush in the pale blue of the upper air.
+Under the elms, swift southern twilight was already filling the
+arches with purple gloom, and when the heavy iron gate closed with a
+sullen clang behind her, Beryl drew a long deep breath of relief. On
+the sultry atmosphere broke the gurgling andante music of the
+"branch," as it eddied among the nodding ferns, and darted under the
+bridge; and the weary, thirsty woman knelt on the mossy margin,
+dipped up the amber water in her palms, drank, and bathed her
+burning face which still tingled painfully.
+
+Having learned from the station agent, who had already sold her a
+return ticket, that the north bound railway train, by which she
+desired to travel home, would not depart until 7.15, she was
+beguiled by the brilliance of the sky into the belief that she had
+ample time, to comply with her mother's farewell request. Mrs.
+Brentano had tied with a scrap of ribbon the bouquet of flowers,
+bought by her daughter on the afternoon of her journey south, and
+asked her to lay them on her mother's grave.
+
+Anxious to accomplish this sacred mission Beryl took the faded
+blossoms from her basket, added a cluster of chrysanthemums, a frond
+of fern from the "branch" border, and hurried on to the cemetery.
+When she reached the entrance, the gate was locked, but unwilling to
+return without having gratified her mother's wish, she climbed into
+a spreading cedar close by the low brick wall, and swung herself
+easily down inside the enclosure.
+
+Some time was lost in finding the Darrington lot, but at last she
+stood before a tall iron railing, that bristled with lance-like
+points, between the dust, of her ancestors and herself. In one
+corner rose a beautiful monument, bearing on its front, in gilt
+letters, the inscription "Helena Tracy, wife of R. L. Darrington."
+
+Thrusting her hand through a space in the railing, Beryl dropped her
+mother's withered Arkja tribute on the marble slab. Her dress was
+caught by a sharp point of iron, and while endeavoring to disengage
+it, she heard the shrill whistle of the R. R. engine. Tearing the
+skirt away, she ran to the wall, climbed over, after some delay, and
+finding herself once more in the open road, darted on as fast as
+possible through the dusk, heedless of appearances, fearful only of
+missing the train. How the houses multiplied, and what interminable
+lengths the squares seemed, as she neared the brick warehouse and
+office of the station! The lamps at the street corners beckoned her
+on, and when panting for breath she rushed around the side of the
+tall building that fronted the railway, there was no train in sight.
+
+Two or three coal cars stood on a siding, near a detached engine,
+where one man was lighting the lamp before the reflector of the
+headlight, and another, who whistled merrily, burnished the brass
+and copper platings. In the door of the ticket office the agent
+lounged, puffed his cigar, and fanned himself with his hat.
+
+"What time is it?" cried Beryl.
+
+"Seven-forty-five."
+
+"Oh! do not tell me I have missed the train."
+
+"You certainly have. I told you it left at 7:15 sharp. It was ten
+minutes behind time on account of hot boxes, but rolled out just
+twenty minutes ago. Did you get lost hunting 'Elm Bluff,' and miss
+your train on that account?"
+
+"No, I had no difficulty in finding the place, but having no watch,
+I was forced to guess at the time. Only twenty minutes too late!"
+
+"Did you see the old war-horse?"
+
+Beryl did not answer, and after a moment the agent added:
+
+"That is Gen'l Darrington's nick-name all over this section."
+
+"When will the next train leave here?"
+
+"Not until 3:05 A.M."
+
+Beryl sat down on the edge of a baggage truck, and pondered the
+situation. She knew that her mother, who had carefully studied the
+railway schedule, was with feverish anxiety expecting her return by
+the train, now many miles away; and she feared that any unexplained
+detention would have an injurious effect on the sick woman's
+shattered nerves.
+
+Although she could ill afford the expense, she resolved to allay all
+apprehension, by the costly sedative of a telegram.
+
+Only a wall separated the ticket office from that of the
+"telegraph," and approaching the operator, Beryl asked for a blank
+form, on which she wrote her mother's address, and the following
+message:
+
+"Complete success required delay. All will be satisfactory. Expect
+me Saturday. B. B."
+
+When she had paid the operator, there remained in her purse,
+exclusive of the gold coins received that afternoon, only thirty-
+eight cents. Where could she spend the next seven hours?
+Interpreting the perplexed expression of her face, the agent, who
+had curiously noted her movements, said courteously:
+
+"There is a hotel a few blocks off, where you can rest until train
+time."
+
+"I prefer to remain here."
+
+"We generally lock up this office about half-past eight, and re-open
+at half-past two, which gives passengers ample accommodation for the
+3:05 train."
+
+"Would you violate regulations by leaving the waiting-room open to-
+night?"
+
+"Not exactly; as of course we are obliged to keep open for delayed
+trains; but it will be lonesome waiting, for no one stays here,
+except the Night Train Despatcher, and the switch watchman. Still if
+it will oblige you, miss, I will not lock up, and you can doze away
+the time by spreading your shawl on two chairs. I am going to supper
+now, and shall turn down the lights. One burner will be sufficient."
+
+"Thank you very much. Where can I find some water?"
+
+"In the cooler in the ladies' dressing-room. It is most
+unaccountably hot tonight, and I never knew anything like it in
+October. There must be a cyclone brewing somewhere not far off."
+
+He lifted his hat, as he passed her, and disappeared; and the tired
+girl seated herself near a window and stirred the dense, impure air
+by fanning herself with her straw hat. Gradually the few stragglers
+loitering about the station wandered away; the engineer stepped upon
+the locomotive; a piercing whistle broke suddenly on the silence
+settling down over the whilom busy precincts, and as the rhythmic
+measure of the engine bell rang farewell chimes, a pyramid of sparks
+leaped high, and the mighty mechanism fled down the track, hunting
+its own echoes. The man in charge of the express office came out,
+looked up and down the street; yawned, lighted his pipe, and after
+locking the office, wended his way homeward.
+
+From the adjoining room came the slow monotonous clicking of the
+telegraph wires, as messages passed to other stations, and only the
+switch watchman was visible, sitting on an inverted tub, and playing
+snatches from "Mascotte" and "Olivette" upon a harmonicon.
+
+Heat seemed radiating from the brick pavement outside, from the
+inner walls of the waiting-room; and Beryl, finding the atmosphere
+almost stifling, went out under the stars. Up and down she paced,
+until weary of the dusty thoroughfare, she turned into the street
+which, earlier in the day, had conducted her toward the suburbs. She
+knew that a full moon had climbed above the horizon, and some malign
+Morgana lured her on, with visions of cool pine glades paved with
+silver mosaics, and balmy with breath of balsam; where through vast
+forest naves echoed the melodious monody chanted by the reddish gold
+wavelets of the "branch." In the eastern sky the florid face of a
+hunter's moon looked down, from the level line of a leaden cloud,
+which striped the star emblazoned shield of night, like a bar
+sinister; and the white lustre of her rays was dimmed to a lurid
+dulness solemn and presageful.
+
+As Beryl crossed the common near the station, and entered the
+pillared aisles of the pines, the air was less oppressive, but a dun
+haze seemed on every side to curtain the horizon, and the stars
+looked bleared and tired in the breathless vault above her. A man
+driving two cows toward town, stared at her; then a wagon drawn by
+four horses rattled along, bearing homeward a gay picnic party of
+young people, who made the woods ring with the echoes of "Hold the
+Fort." The grandeur of towering pines, the mysterious dimness of
+illimitable arcades, and the peculiar resinous odor that stole like
+lingering ghosts of myrrh, frankincense and onycha through the
+vaulted solitude of a deserted hoary sanctuary, all these phases of
+primeval Southern forests combined to weave a spell that the
+stranger could not resist.
+
+After a while, fearful of straying too far, the weary woman threw
+her shawl on the brown straw, and sat down quite near the road. She
+leaned her bare head against the trunk of a pine, listened to the
+katydids gossiping in a distant oak that shaded the "branch," to the
+quavering strident song of a locust; and she intended, after resting
+for a few moments, to return to the station-house; but unexpected
+drowsiness overpowered her. Suddenly aroused from a sound sleep, she
+heard the clatter of galloping hoofs, and as she sprang up, the
+horse, startled by her movement, shied and reared within a few feet
+of the spot where she stood. The moon shone full on the glossy black
+animal, and upon his powerful rider, and Beryl recognized the
+massive head, swarthy face and keen eyes of the attorney, Lennox
+Dunbar. He leaned forward and said, as he patted the erect ears of
+his horse:
+
+"Madam, you seem a stranger. Have you lost your way?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Pardon me; but having seen you this afternoon at 'Elm Bluff,' I
+thought it possible you had missed the road."
+
+Standing so straight and tall, with the sheen of the moon on her
+faultless features, he thought she looked the incarnation of some
+prescient Norn, fit for the well of Urda.
+
+She made no reply; and he touched his hat, and rode rapidly away in
+the direction of the town, carrying an indelible impression of the
+mysterious picture under the pines.
+
+The sky had changed; the face of the moon had cleared, but tatters
+and scuds of smoke-colored cloud fled northward, as if scourged by a
+stormy current too high to stir the sultry stagnation of the lower
+atmospheric stratum. From its vaporous lair somewhere in the cypress
+and palm jungles of the Mexican Gulf borders, the tempest had risen,
+and before its breath the shreds of cloud flew like avant couriers
+of disaster. Already the lurid glare of incessant sheet lightning
+fought with the moon for supremacy, and from a leaden wall along the
+southeastern sky, came the long reverberating growl of thunder, that
+told where the electric batteries had opened fire. A vague
+foreboding, which for several days had haunted Beryl's mind, now
+pressed so heavily upon her, that she hurried back to the station,
+which was near the edge of the town; and more than once she started
+nervously at sight of grotesque shadows cast by the trees across the
+sandy road.
+
+The streets were deserted, and lights gleamed only in upper windows
+of apartments, where sick sufferers tossed, or tender mothers sang
+soft lullabys to restless babies crooning in their cribs. Now and
+then a sudden gust of wind shook the yellow berries from the china
+trees, that bordered the pavements, and very soon the moonshine
+faded, then flashed fitfully, and finally vanished, as the
+blackening cloud swept over the face of earth and sky. The watchman
+dozed on his post of observation; a porter slept on a baggage truck
+under the awning, and as Beryl peeped into the telegraph office, she
+heard the snoring of the operator, whose head rested upon the table
+close to the silent instrument. She listened to the ticking of a
+clock in the ticket office, but could not see its face; wondered how
+late it was, and how long she had been absent. Feeling very lonely
+and restless she closed the door, and sat down in the deserted
+waiting-room, glad of the companionship of a tortoise-shell cat
+which was curled up on a chair next her own.
+
+Gradually the storm approached, and she thought that an hour had
+elapsed, when the dust-tainted smell of rain came with the rush of
+cold air. There was no steady gale, but the tempest broke in frantic
+spasmodic gusts, as though it had lost its reckoning, and
+simultaneously assaulted all the points of the compass; while the
+lightning glared almost continuously, and the roar of the thunder
+was uninterrupted. Now and then a vivid zig-zag flash gored the
+intense darkness with its baleful blue death-light, followed by a
+crash, appalling as if the battlements of heaven had been shattered.
+Once the whole air seemed ablaze, and the simultaneous shock of the
+detonation was so violent, that Beryl involuntarily sank on her
+knees, and hid her eyes on a chair. The rain fell in torrents, that
+added a solemn sullen swell to the diapason of the thunder fugue,
+and by degrees a delicious coolness crept into the cisterns of the
+night.
+
+When the cloud had wept away its fury, and electric fires burned low
+in the far west, a gentle shower droned on the roof, and lulled by
+its cadence Beryl fell asleep, still kneeling on the floor, with her
+head resting on the chair where the cat lay coiled.
+
+In dreams, she wandered with her father and brother upon a Tuscan
+hillside draped with purple fruited grape vines, and Bertie was
+crushing a luscious cluster against her thirsty lips, when some
+noise startled her. Wide awake, she sprang to her feet, and
+listened.
+
+"There ain't no train till daylight, 'cepting it be the through
+freight."
+
+"When is that due?"
+
+"Pretty soon; it's mighty nigh time now, but it don't stop here; it
+goes on to the water tank, whar it blows for the railroad bridge."
+
+"How far is the bridge?"
+
+"Only a short piece down the track, after you pass the tank."
+
+Beryl had rushed to the window, and looked out, but no one was
+visible. She could scarcely mistake that peculiar voice, and was so
+assured of its identity, that she ran out under the awning and
+looked up and down the platform in front of the station buildings.
+The rain had ceased, but drops still pattered from the tin roof, and
+a few stars peeped over the ragged ravelled edge of slowly drifting
+clouds. By the light of a gas lamp, she saw an old negro man limping
+away, who held a stick over his shoulder, on which was slung a
+bundle wrapped in a red handkerchief; and while she stood watching,
+he vanished in some cul de sac. With her basket in her hand, and her
+shawl on her arm, she sped down the track, looking to right and
+left.
+
+"Bertie! Bertie!"
+
+Once she fancied she discerned a form flying ahead of her, leaping
+from cross tie to cross tie to avoid the water, but when she called
+vehemently, only the sound of her own voice broke the silence.
+
+Was it merely an illusion born of her vivid dream of her brother;
+and while scarcely awake, had she confounded the tones of a
+stranger, with those so long familiar? She could not shake off the
+conviction that Bertie had really spoken only a few yards from her,
+and while she stood irresolute, puzzling over the problem, the
+through freight train dashed by the station and left a trail of
+sparks and cinders. To avoid it she sprang on a pile of cross ties
+beside the track, and when the fiery serpent wound out of sight, she
+reluctantly retraced her steps. How long the night seemed! Would day
+never dawn again? She heard the telegraph operator whistling at his
+work, and as she re-entered the waiting-room, she saw the ticket
+agent standing in his office.
+
+"What time is it?"
+
+"Half-past two o'clock. I might as well have locked up as usual, for
+after all, you did not stay here."
+
+"Yes I did."
+
+He eyed her suspiciously.
+
+"I came back from supper, and brought a pitcher of cold tea,
+thinking you might relish it, but you were not here. I waited nearly
+an hour; then I went home."
+
+"It was so hot, I walked about outside. What a frightful storm."
+
+"Yes, perfectly awful. Were you exposed to the worst of it?"
+
+"No, I was here."
+
+He shook his head, smiled, and went into the next room, knowing that
+when he returned to unlock his office she was not in the building,
+and that he had seen her coming up the railway track. The bustle of
+preparation soon began; the baggage wagons thundered up to the
+platform, porters called to one another; passengers collected in the
+waiting-room, carriages and omnibuses dashed about; then at 2:50 the
+long train of north bound cars swept in. With her shawl and basket
+in one hand, and the odorous bunches of chrysanthemums clasped in
+the other, Beryl stepped upon the platform. She found a seat at an
+open window, and made herself comfortable; placing her feet upon the
+basket which contained the jewels that constituted her sole earthly
+fortune. The bell rang, the train glided on, and as it passed the
+office door, she saw the agent watching her, with a strangely
+suspicious expression.
+
+The cars wound around a curve, and she sank back and shut her eyes,
+rejoicing in the belief that her mission to "Elm Bluff," and its
+keen humiliation, were forever ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"I concede that point. Your lover is amply endowed with brains, and
+moreover has a vast amount of shrewdness, all that is requisite to
+secure success and eminence in his profession; but to-day, it seems
+as much a matter of astonishment to me--as it certainly was six
+months ago, when first you told me of your engagement--that you, Leo
+Gordon, could ever fancy just such a man as Lennox Dunbar."
+
+"I am very sorry, Aunt Patty, that he finds no favor in your eyes,
+and I think he is aware of the fact that he is not in your good
+graces. You both look so vaguely uncomfortable when thrown into each
+other's presence; but for my sake you must try to like Lennox."
+
+Miss Gordon bent her pretty head over a square of ruby velvet,
+whereon she was embroidering a wreath of pansies, and the delicate
+flush on her fair face, deepened to a vivid carnation.
+
+"My likes or dislikes are a matter of moonshine, in comparison with
+your happiness. Because you are an orphan, I feel a sort of
+responsibility; and sometimes I am not exactly easy over the account
+of my stewardship I must render to my poor dead Marcia. The more I
+see of your lover, the more I dread your marriage. A man who makes
+no profession of religious belief, is an unsafe guardian of any
+woman's peace of mind. You who have been reared almost in the shadow
+of the altar, accustomed to hearing grace at your meals, to family
+prayers, to strict observance of our ritual, will feel isolated
+indeed, when transplanted to the home of a godless man, who rarely
+darkens the door of the sanctuary. 'Be ye not unequally yoked
+together with unbelievers.'"
+
+Miss Patty Dent took off her spectacles, wiped them with the string
+of her white muslin cap, and adjusting them firmly on her nose,
+plucked nervously at the fluted lace ruffles around her wrists.
+
+"Auntie, you are scarcely warranted in using such strong language.
+Because a man refrains from the public avowal of faith, incident to
+church membership, he is not necessarily godless; nor inevitably
+devoid of true religious feeling. Mr. Dunbar has a strong, reticent
+nature, habituated to repression of all evidences of emotion, but of
+the depth and earnestness of his real feeling, I entertain no
+doubt."
+
+"I fear your line and plummet will never sound his depth. You often
+speak of his strength; but, Leo, hardness is not always strength;
+and he is hard, hard. I never saw a man with a chin like his, who
+was not tyrannical, and idolatrous of his own will. My dear, such
+men are as uncomfortable to live in the same house with, as a smoky
+chimney, or a woman with shattered nerves, or creaking doors, or
+draughty windows. They are a sort of everlasting east wind that
+never veers, blowing always to the one point, attainment of their
+own ends, mildewing all else. Ugh!"
+
+Miss Patty shivered, and her companion smiled.
+
+"What a grewsome picture, Auntie dear! Fortunately human taste is as
+diverse and catholic as the variety of human countenances. For
+example: Clara Morse raves over Mr. Dunbar's 'clear-cut features, so
+immensely classical'; and she pronounces his offending 'chin simply
+perfect! fit for a Greek God!'"
+
+"A very thin and gauzy partition divides Clara Morse's brains from
+idiocy. In my day, all such feeble watery minds as hers were
+regarded as semi-imbecile, pitied as intellectual cripples, and
+wisely kept in the background of society; but, bless me! in this
+generation they skip and prance to the very edge of the front, pose
+in indecent garments without starch, or crinoline, or even the
+protection of pleats and gathers; and insult good, sound, wholesome
+common sense with the sickening affectations they are pleased to
+call 'aesthetics.' Don't waste your time, and dilute your own mind
+by quoting the silly twaddle of a poor girl who was turned loose too
+early on society, who falls on her knees in ecstasies before a
+hideous broken-nose tea-pot from some filthy hovel in Japan; and who
+would not dare to admire the loveliest bit of Oiron pottery, or
+precious old Chelsea claret-colored china in Kensington Museum,
+until she had turned it upside down, and hunted the potter's mark
+with a microscope. I say Mr. Dunbar has a domineering and tyrannical
+chin, and five years hence, if you do not agree with me, it will be
+because 'Ephraim is joined to his idols'--clay feet and all."
+
+"Then follow the Bible injunction to 'let him alone.' I see Lennox
+through neither Clara's rosy lenses, nor your jaundiced glasses; and
+these circular discussions are as fruitless as they are unpleasant.
+Let us select some more agreeable topic. I gave you Leighton's
+letter. What think you of his scheme?"
+
+"That it is admirable, worthy of the brain that conceived it. What a
+wonderful man he is, considering his age? Such a devout and fervent
+spirit, and withal such a marvel of executive ability. Ah! happy the
+woman who can command his wise guardianship, and renew her
+aspirations after holiness, in his spiritual society. I honor, even
+more than I love, Leighton Douglass."
+
+"So do I, Aunt Patty. He is quite my ideal pastor, and when he
+marries, I hope his wife will be worthy of him in every respect.
+Only a very noble woman would suit my cousin."
+
+A bright spot burned on Miss Dent's wrinkled cheek, and she knitted
+her brows, and shook her head.
+
+"He is so absorbed in his holy work that he has no leisure for such
+trifles as love-making; but if he should ever honor a woman by the
+offer of his consecrated hand, it must be one of large fortune, who
+will dedicate herself and her money to the accomplishment of his
+ecclesiastical schemes."
+
+The corners of Miss Gordon's mouth twitched mutinously, but she
+contrived to throw much innocent surprise and questioning into the
+handsome brown eyes, which she lifted from her gold-hearted pansies,
+to her Aunt's face.
+
+"Could you possibly associate mercenary motives with any step which
+he might take? Such a supposition would be totally incompatible with
+my estimate of his character."
+
+"When a man dedicates himself to a solemn mission, he is lifted far
+above the ordinary plane, can dispense with sentimental
+conventionalities, and must learn to regard all human relations as
+merely means to an end. Want of money has palsied many an arm lifted
+to advance the good of the Church; and zeal without funds,
+accomplishes as little as rusty machinery stiff from lack of oil. If
+Dr. Douglass could only control even a hundred thousand dollars,
+what shining monuments he would leave to immortalize him! Indeed, it
+passes my comprehension how persons who could so easily help him,
+deliberately turn a deaf ear to the 'cry from Macedonia'."
+
+"There is far more eclat in trips to Macedonia, but the God of
+recompense does not forget the steady, tireless help and sympathy
+extended to the needy, who dwell within sight of our own doors.
+Organized society work is good, but individual self-sacrifice and
+labor are much better; and if every unit did full duty, co-operative
+systems would not be so necessary; still, Leighton's scheme commends
+itself to every woman's heart, and when I answered his letter, I
+expressed cordially my approbation."
+
+"Did you prove your faith by your works, and send him a large
+check?"
+
+"Auntie, dear, do you expect me to stultify all your training, both
+your example and precept--for lo! these many years--by setting my
+left hand to gossip about my right? I am very sure."
+
+"Well, Andrew, what is it?"
+
+"A boy from Mr. Dunbar's office has just galloped up, and says I am
+to tell you he can't ride to the Falls to-day, as he expected,
+because of some pressing business; and he wants to know if the Judge
+will come into town right away? Mr. Dunbar will explain when he
+comes late this evening."
+
+"Very well. Tell Daniel I shall not want 'Rebel' saddled; and say to
+the messenger that my Uncle is not at home. Aunt Patty, do you know
+where he has gone?"
+
+"Doubtless to his office; where else should he be? He said he had a
+pile of tiresome papers to examine to-day."
+
+Miss Gordon folded up her work, laid it away in a dainty basket
+lined with blue satin and flounced with lace; and after pausing a
+moment to pet her Aunt's white Maltese cat which lay dozing In the
+sunshine, walked away toward a Small hot-house, built quite near the
+dining-room, and  connected with it by an arcade, covered in summer
+by vines, in winter by glass.
+
+Twenty-four years before that day, when a proud, fond young mother
+puffed and tucked the marvel of lace and linen cambric, which was
+intended as a christening robe for her baby, and laid it away with
+spicery of rose leaves and sachet of lavender and deer tongue, to
+wait until a "furlough" allowed the child's father to be present at
+the baptism, she had supposed that its delicate folds would one day
+adorn a dimpled rosy-faced infant, for whom the name Aurelia Gordon
+had long been selected. Fate cruelly vetoed all the details of the
+programme, carefully arranged by maternal affection; and the lurid
+sun that set in clouds of smoke on one of the most desperate battles
+of the Confederacy, saw Colonel Gordon's brave, patriotic soul
+released on that long "furlough" which glory granted her heroes; saw
+his devoted wife a wailing widow. The red burial of battle had
+precluded the solemnization of baptismal rites at the sacred marble
+font; and when four days after Colonel Gordon's death, his frail
+young wife welcomed the summons to an everlasting re-union, she laid
+her cold hands on her baby's golden head, and died, as she
+whispered:
+
+"Name her Leo, for her father."
+
+So it came to pass, that the clergyman who read the burial service
+beside the mother's coffin, lifted the cooing infant in the midst of
+a weeping funeral throng, and with a faltering voice baptized her,
+in the presence of the dead, Leo Gordon,
+
+To the care of her sister Patty, and of her widowed brother, Judge
+Dent, Mrs. Gordon had consigned her child; and transplanted so early
+to her uncle's house, the orphan knew no other home.
+
+When the problem of vast numerical preponderance had solved itself
+in accordance with the rules of avoirdupois, and history--fond like
+all garrulous old crones of repeating even her inglorious episodes--
+had triumphantly inscribed on her bloody tablets, that once more the
+Few were throttled and trampled by the Many, then the fabled
+"Ragnarok" of the Sagas described only approximately the doom of the
+devastated South. In the financial and social chaos that followed
+the invasion by "loyal" hordes, rushing under "sealed orders" on the
+mission of "Reconstruction," and eminently successful in
+"reconstructing" their individual fortunes, an anomaly presented
+itself for the consideration of political economists. The wealthy
+classes of ante bellum days were the most destitute paupers that the
+newly-risen Union sun shone upon.
+
+The French Revolution and its subsequent eruptions of Communism
+failed to destroy the value of land; and the emancipation of Russian
+serfs may have stimulated agricultural activity, but that political
+and social Communism which the Pandora of "reconstruction" let loose
+throughout the conquered States of the South, accomplished all that
+the victors could have desired.
+
+Abandoned by the laborers God had fitted to endure toil under
+climatic conditions peculiar to the soil, vast silent fields of
+weeds stared blankly, and the richer a man found himself in
+ancestral acres, the more hopelessly was he manacled by taxes.
+"Reconstructionists" most thoroughly inoculated with "Loyal" rabies,
+held in lofty disdain the claims of widows and orphans, and the
+right of minors was as dead as that of secession. In the general
+maelstrom, Colonel Gordon's large estate went to pieces; but after a
+time, Judge Dent took lessons from his new political masters in the
+science of wrecking, and by degrees, as fragments and shreds
+stranded, he collected and secreted them. Certain mining interests
+were protected, and some valuable plantations in distant sugar
+belts, were secured. As guardian of his sister's daughter, he
+changed, or renewed investments in stocks which rapidly increased in
+value, until an unusually large fortune had accumulated: and
+verifying figures justified his boast, that his niece and ward was
+the wealthiest heiress in the State.
+
+Reared in a household which consisted of an elderly uncle and aunt,
+and a middle-aged governess, Leo Gordon had never known intimate
+association with younger people; and while her nature was gentle and
+tranquil, she gradually imbibed the grave and rather prim ideas
+which were in vogue when Miss Patty was the reigning belle of her
+county. Although petted and indulged, she had not been spoiled, and
+remained singularly free from the selfishness usually developed in
+the character of an only child, nurtured in the midst of mature
+relatives. When eighteen years old, Leo, accompanied by her
+governess, Mrs. Eldridge, had been sent to New York and Boston for
+educational advantages, which it was supposed that her own section
+of the country could not supply; and subsequently the two went
+abroad, gleaning knowledge in the great centres of European Art.
+During their sojourn in Munich, Mrs. Eldridge died after a very
+brief illness; and returning to her southern home, Leo found herself
+the object of social homage.
+
+Thoroughly well-bred, accomplished, graceful and pretty, she
+commanded universal admiration; yet her manner was marked by a
+quiet, grave dignity, and a peculiar reticence, at variance with the
+prevailing type of young ladyhood, now alas! too dominant; whose
+premature emancipation from home rule, and old-fashioned canons of
+decorum renders "American girlhood" synonymous with flippant
+pertness. Moulded by two women who were imbued with the spirit of
+Richter's admonition: "Girls like the priestesses of old, should be
+educated only in sacred places, and never hear, much less see, what
+is rude, immoral or violent"; the pate tendre of Leo's character
+showed unmistakably the potter's marks.
+
+She shrewdly surmised that the knowledge of her unusual wealth
+contributed to swell the number of her suitors, and she was twenty-
+four years old when Lennox Dunbar, for whom she had long secretly
+cherished a partiality, succeeded in placing his ring on her fair,
+slender hand. In character they differed widely, and the deep and
+tender love that filled her heart, found only a faint echo in his
+cold and more selfish nature, which had carefully calculated all the
+advantages derivable from this alliance.
+
+He cordially admired and esteemed his brown-eyed fair-haired
+fiancee, considered her the personification of feminine refinement
+and delicacy; and congratulated himself warmly on his great good
+fortune in winning her affection; but tender emotions found little
+scope for exercise in his intensely practical, busy life, which was
+devoted to the attainment of eminence in his profession; and the
+merely dynamic apparatus which did duty as his heart, had never been
+disturbed by any feeling sufficiently deep to quicken his calm,
+steady pulse.
+
+There were times, when Leo wondered whether all accepted lovers were
+as undemonstrative as her own, and she would have been happier had
+he occasionally forgotten professional aspirations, in the charm of
+her presence; but her confidence in the purity and fidelity of his
+affection was unshaken, even by the dismal predictions of Miss
+Patty, who found it impossible to reconcile herself to the failure
+of her darling scheme, that Leo should marry her second cousin,
+Leighton Douglass, D.D., and devote her fortune to the advancement
+of his church.
+
+To-day, as she sought pleasant work in arranging the ferns and
+carnations of her conservatory, her thoughts reverted to the
+previous evening, which Mr. Dunbar had spent with her; and she could
+not avoid indulging regret, that he should have allowed business
+affairs to interfere with their engagement for horseback riding, but
+her reverie was speedily interrupted by the excited tones of her
+aunt's voice.
+
+"Leo! Leo! Where do you hide yourself?"
+
+"Here, Auntie, in the conservatory."
+
+"Oh! my child, such dreadful news! Such a frightful tragedy!"
+
+Pale and panting, Miss Patty ran down the arcade, and stumbled over
+a barricade of potted plants on the threshold of the door.
+
+"What is the matter? Is it my Uncle, or--or Lennox?"
+
+Leo sprang to her feet, and caught her aunt's arm.
+
+"Horrible! horrible! General Darrington was robbed, and then most
+brutally murdered last night!"
+
+"Murdered! Can it be possible? Murdered--by whom?"
+
+"How should I know? The whole town is wild about it. My brother is
+at Elm Bluff, with the body, and I shall take the carriage and drive
+over there at once. Dear me; I am so nervous I can't stand still,
+and my teeth chatter like a pair of castanets."
+
+"Perhaps there may be some mistake. How did you hear it?"
+
+"Your Uncle Mitchell sent a boy to tell me why he was detained.
+There has been a coroner's inquest, and of course, as an old and
+intimate friend of General Darrington's, Mitchell feels he must do
+all he can. Poor old gentleman! So proud and aristocratic! To be
+murdered in his own house, like any common pauper! Positively it
+makes me sick. May the Lord have mercy on his soul."
+
+"Amen!" murmured Leo.
+
+"Will you go with me to Elm Bluff?"
+
+"Oh, no! Not for worlds. Why should I? Women will only be in the
+way; and who could desire to contemplate so horrible a spectacle? It
+will merely harrow your feelings, Aunt Patty, and you can do no
+good."
+
+"It is my Christian duty as a neighbor; and I was always very fond
+of the first Mrs. Darrington, Helena Tracey. What is this wicked
+world coming to? Robbery and murder stalking bare-faced through the
+land. It will be a dreadful blow to Mitchell, because he and Luke
+Darrington have been intimate all their lives. I see the carriage
+coming round, so I must get my bonnet and wrap."
+
+"I presume Mr. Dunbar is engaged in the same melancholy details
+which occupy my uncle."
+
+"Doubtless he is, because his father was General Darrington's
+attorney until his health failed; and Lennox is now his lawyer and
+business agent. It is a thousand pities that Prince is away in
+Europe."
+
+Two hours after the carriage had disappeared on the road leading to
+Elm Bluff, Leo crossed the grassy lawn, and sat down near the gate,
+on a rustic bench under a cluster of tall lilacs, which gave their
+name to her uncle's home.
+
+A keen north wind whistling through neighboring walnut tree tops,
+drove the dying leaves like frightened flocks before it, and ever
+and anon the ripened nuts pattered down, hiding themselves under the
+drift of yellow foliage, that had sheltered them in cool greenery
+during summer heats. Overhead a red squirrel barked and frisked, and
+across the pale-blue sky, feathered nomads, teal or mallard, moved
+swiftly en echelon, their quivering pinions flashing like silver, as
+they fled southward. On a distant hillside cattle browsed, and sheep
+wandered; and the drowsy tinkle of bells, as the herd wended
+homeward, seemed a nocturne of rest, for the closing day.
+
+How serene, harmonious and holy all nature appeared; and yet a few
+miles distant, into what a fierce seething whirlpool of conflicting
+passions, of hatred and bloodthirsty vengeance, had human crime
+plunged an entire community. We plume ourselves upon nineteenth
+century civilization, upon ethical advancement, upon Christian
+progress; we adorn our cathedrals, build temples for art treasures,
+and museums for science, and listen to preludes of the "music of the
+future;" and we shudder at the mention of vice, as at the
+remembrance of the tortures of Regulus, but will the Cain type ever
+become extinct, like the dodo, or the ichthyosaurus? When will the
+laws of heredity, and the by-laws of agnation result in an altruism,
+where human bloodshed is an unknown horror?
+
+The apostles of Evolution tell us, that in the genealogical ages
+during which man has struggled upward, from the lower stages of
+vertebrate and mammal to the genus of catarrhine apes, he has
+gradually thrown off bestial instincts, and that the tiger taint
+will ultimately be totally eliminated; that "original sin is neither
+more nor less than the brute inheritance which every man carries
+with him, and that Evolution is an advance toward true salvation."
+Meanwhile what becomes of the "Survival of the Fittest", which is
+only a euphemism for the strangling of the feeble by the strong? We
+can understand how perfection, or permanence of type, individual and
+national, demands carnage, and entails all the dire catalogue of
+human woes, but wherein is altruism evolved? How many aeons shall we
+wait, to behold the leopard and the lamb pasturing together in
+peace?
+
+Pondering this problem, as he rode along the public road outside the
+boundary of Judge Dent's lawn, Mr. Dunbar caught a glimpse of his
+betrothed, sitting behind the hedge of lilacs, and he lifted his
+hat, hoping that she would meet him at the entrance; but although
+she bowed in recognition, he was forced to open the gate and admit
+himself. Throwing the bridle rein over one of the iron spikes of the
+fence, and taking off his gloves, he approached the bench.
+
+"Dare I flatter myself, that my queen deigns to meet me half way?"
+
+He took her outstretched hand, and kissed it softly, while his
+glance noted every detail of her handsome fawn-colored dress, with
+its jabot of creamy lace, and the cluster of crimson carnations in
+her belt. The touch of his lips on her fingers, deepened the flush
+in her cheeks, and, making room for him beside her, she replied:
+
+"Sit down, and tell me if this dreadful news about General
+Darrington be indeed true? I have hoped there might be some mistake,
+some exaggeration."
+
+"Some horrors exceed the possibility of verbal exaggeration, and
+last night's tragedy is one of that class. General Darrington was
+most brutally murdered."
+
+"Poor old gentleman! How incredible it seems that such awful crimes
+can be committed in our quiet neighborhood? who could have been so
+guilty; and what motive could have prompted such a fiendish act?"
+
+"The one all-powerful evil passion of mankind--greed of gold; lust
+of filthy lucre. He was first robbed, then murdered by the thief, to
+avoid detection and punishment. There is unmistakable evidence that
+the General was chloroformed while asleep; but he must have awakened
+in time to discover the robber, with whom he struggled desperately,
+and by whom he was struck down. The coroner's inquest developed some
+startling facts."
+
+"Has any clue been discovered which would indicate the murderer?"
+
+"A handful of clues."
+
+"Then you have a theory concerning the person who perpetrated this
+awful crime?"
+
+"My dear Leo, not a theory, but a conviction; I might almost say an
+absolute knowledge."
+
+"Would it be pardonable for me to ask whom you suspect; would it be
+a violation of professional etiquette for you to tell me?"
+
+"Certainly, my dearest, you can ask me anything, only--" he paused a
+moment; and she put her hand quickly on his arm.
+
+"I see. Do not tell me mere suspicions; they might cruelly wrong an
+innocent person; and I ought not to have asked the question."
+
+"My hesitation arose from a totally different source, and I was
+merely wondering whether you, my sweet saint, could believe that a
+woman committed the bloody deed."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Dunbar, impossible! A woman guilty of taking that old man's
+life? The supposition is as horrible as the crime itself."
+
+Passing his hand lightly over her crimped fair hair, and looking
+down into her eyes, as brown as the back of a thrush, her lover
+replied:
+
+"I find that the nobler and purer a woman's heart is, the less she
+credits the existence of vice and the possibility of crime among her
+own sex. You doubtless consider the Brinvilliers, Fredegonds,
+Fulvias and Faustinas, quite as fabulous as Centaurs, Sirens and
+Were-wolves; and I feel as reluctant to shake your fair faith in
+womanhood, as to dash the dew from a rose-bud, or rudely brush the
+bloom a cluster of tempting grapes; but the grim truth must be told,
+that our old friend was robbed and murdered by a woman."
+
+"One of his servants? They all seemed devotedly attached to him."
+
+"No, by his granddaughter, a young and very beautiful woman; Beryl
+Brentano, the child of General Darrington's daughter Ellice, whom he
+had disowned on account of her wretched marriage with a foreigner,
+who taught her music and the languages. Of course you have heard
+from your aunt and uncle all the details of that family episode.
+Yesterday this girl Beryl suddenly presented herself at Elm Bluff,
+and demanded money from her grandfather; alleging that her mother's
+life was in danger for want of it. I learn there was a stormy
+interview, part of the conversation having been overheard by two
+persons; and the General, who was as vindictive as a Modoc, or a
+Cossack, drove the young lady through a door leading down to the
+rosery. This occurred in the afternoon, immediately after I left Elm
+Bluff, where I went to obtain his signature to a deed to some lands
+recently sold in Texas. I saw the girl sitting on the front steps,
+and when she rose and looked at me, her superb physique impressed me
+powerfully. She is as beautiful and stately as some goddess stepping
+out of the Norse 'Edda', and altogether a remarkable looking person.
+It will appear in evidence, that the General harshly refused her
+pleadings, and made a point of assuring her that his will, already
+prepared, would forever debar her mother and herself from any
+inheritance at his death; as he had bequeathed his entire estate to
+his adopted son Prince. Unfortunately, she learned where the will
+was kept, as during the interview, persons in the next room
+distinctly heard the peculiar noise made by the sliding door of the
+iron vault, where General Darrington kept all his valuable papers.
+She disappeared from Elm Bluff about sunset, going toward town; and
+last night at ten o'clock, when I left you and rode home, I saw her
+lurking in the pine woods not very far from the bridge over the
+branch, near the park gate. She was evidently hiding, as she sat on
+the ground half screened by a tree; but my horse shied and plunged
+badly, and when she rose, the full moon showed her face and figure
+distinctly. There was something so mysterious in her movements, that
+I asked her if she had lost her way; to which she curtly replied
+that she had not. I learn from Burk, the station agent, that her
+actions aroused his suspicion, and that instead of leaving town, as
+she said she intended, by the 7:15 train, she hung about the
+station, and finally took the 3:05 express this morning. He said she
+had begged permission to stay in the waiting-room, but that at 2:30
+A.M., when he went back to open the ticket office, she was nowhere
+to be found; and that later, he saw her coming down the railroad
+track. She must have gone back to Elm Bluff after I passed her on
+the road, and effected an entrance through the window on the front
+piazza, as it was found open; and the awful work of robbery and
+murder was accomplished during the storm, which you know was so
+frightful that it drowned all minor sounds. This morning when the
+General did not ring for his hot water at the usual time, it was
+supposed that he was sleeping late, but finally old Bedney knocked.
+Unable to arouse his master, he opened the door, and found our old
+friend lying on the floor, near the fireplace. He had been dead for
+hours, and close to his head was a heavy brass andiron, which
+evidently had been snatched from the hearth by the murderess, who
+must have dealt the fatal blow with it, as there was a dark spot on
+his temple, and also on the left side near the heart. The room was
+in disorder, and two glass vases on the mantel were shivered, as
+though some missile had struck them--probably a heavy ledger which
+was found on the floor."
+
+"How horrible! But no woman could have overpowered a man like
+General Darrington."
+
+"Physically, his granddaughter was more than a match for him,
+especially since his last illness; and I assure you she looks like
+some daughter of the Vikings. She certainly is a woman of grand
+proportions, and wonderfully symmetrical."
+
+"What is her age?"
+
+"About eighteen, I should think; though her size and a certain
+majestic bearing might convey the impression that she was older."
+
+"How can you connect so dreadful a crime with a young and beautiful
+woman, of whom you know absolutely nothing?"
+
+"My theory is, that she intended merely to get possession of the
+will, the contents of which had been made known to her--and of the
+money, that she knew or surmised was kept in the vault. When the
+effect of the chloroform wore off, and the General waked to find her
+at the vault; a struggle evidently took place, and in desperation at
+the thought of being detected, she killed him. You do not understand
+all the bearings of even slight circumstances in a case like this,
+but we who make a study of such sad matters, know the significance
+of the disappearance of the will; the destruction of which could
+benefit only her mother and herself. The vault was open; the gold,
+silver, some valuable jewelry, and the will are missing from the tin
+box. All the other papers were left, even a package of bonds,
+amounting to thousands of dollars. She seemed to know that the bonds
+might lead to detection, hence she did not take them. On the floor,
+and in the bottom of the tin box were found two twenty-dollar gold
+pieces. We are collecting all the evidence, and it constitutes a
+powerful array of proof."
+
+"We? Do you mean that you are hunting down a woman?"
+
+Miss Gordon withdrew her hand from her lover's, and instinctively
+moved farther from him.
+
+"I am most diligently hunting down the author of a foul and awful
+crime; and it is my duty to my friend and client to use every
+possible exertion, in discovering and bringing to punishment the
+person who robbed and murdered him--be it man, woman or child.
+Feminine youth and beauty are no aegis against the barbed javelins
+of justice and the District Solicitor (Mr. Churchill) and I, have no
+doubt of the guilt of the woman, who will soon be put on trial here
+for her monstrous and unnatural crime."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+In a deep, narrow "railway cut," through Virginia hills, a south-
+bound freight train had been so badly wrecked in consequence of a
+"washout," that the southern passenger express going north was
+detained fourteen hours; thereby missing connection at Washington
+City, where the passengers were again delayed nearly twelve hours.
+Tired and very hungry, having eaten nothing but a sandwich and a cup
+of coffee for three days, Beryl felt profoundly thankful when the
+cars rolled into Jersey City. In the bustle and confusion incident
+to arrival in that Babel, she did not observe the scrutiny to which
+she was subjected by a man genteelly dressed, who gave her his hand
+as she stepped down from the train, and kept by her side while she
+hastened in the direction of the ferry.
+
+Reaching the slip where the boat awaited passengers, she was vexed
+to see it backing out into the stream, and leaned against the chain
+which barred egress until the next trip.
+
+"You have only five minutes to wait for the boat. You seem to have
+had a long and trying journey, madam?"
+
+Glancing at him for the first time, Beryl perceived that he held a
+slip of yellow paper from which he looked now and then to her face.
+His features were coarse and heavy, but his eyes were keen as a
+ferret's; and without answering his question, she turned away and
+looked across the water which teemed with craft of every
+description, laden with freight animate and inanimate, passing to
+and from the vast city, whose spires, domes and forest of masts rose
+like a gray cloud against the sky, etching there their leaden
+outlines.
+
+"You live at No.--West--Street, between 8th and 9th Avenue?"
+
+"You are a stranger, and your questions are offensive and
+impertinent."
+
+As she turned and confronted him haughtily, he stepped closer to
+her, threw back his blue overcoat, and pointed to the metal badge on
+his breast.
+
+"I am an officer of the law, and have a warrant for your arrest. You
+are Beryl Brentano."
+
+"I am Beryl Brentano, yes; but there is some blunder, some mistake.
+How dare you annoy me? Arrest me? Me!"
+
+"Do not make a scene. My instructions are to deal with you as gently
+as possible. Better come quietly into the station near, and I will
+read you the warrant, otherwise I shall be obliged to use force. You
+see I have two assistants yonder."
+
+"Arrested for what? By whom?"
+
+"I am ordered to arrest you for the murder of General Darrington."
+
+"Murder! General Darrington is alive and well. I have just left him.
+Stand back! Do not touch me. I will call on the police to protect
+me."
+
+Laying his fingers firmly on her arm, he beckoned to two men clad in
+police uniform, who promptly approached.
+
+"You see resistance is worse than useless, and since there is no
+escape, come quietly."
+
+"You are insulting me, under some frightful mistake. I am a lady. Do
+I look like a criminal?"
+
+"General Darrington has been robbed and murdered, and I have
+telegraphic orders to arrest and hold a woman named Beryl Brentano,
+who corresponds in every respect with the description of the person
+suspected of having committed the crime."
+
+Hitherto she had attributed the insult of the interview to some
+question of mistaken identity, but as she slowly comprehended the
+possibility that she was the person accused, and intended for
+arrest, a sickening horror seized and almost paralyzed her,
+blanching her face and turning her to stone. As he led her along the
+street, she staggered from the numbness that possessed her, and her
+eyes stared blankly, like those of a somnambulist. When she had been
+ushered into a room where several policemen were lounging and
+smoking, the intolerable sense of shame and indignation shook off
+her apathy.
+
+"This is a cruel and outrageous wrong, and only base cowards could
+wantonly insult an unprotected and innocent woman. You call
+yourselves men? Have you no mothers, no sisters, whose memory can
+arouse some reverence, some respect for womanhood in your brutal
+souls?"
+
+Electric lamps set in the sockets of some marble face, might perhaps
+resemble the blaze that leaped up in her eyes, as she wrenched her
+arm from the officer's profaning touch, and her voice rang like the
+clash of steel.
+
+"Madam, we are allowed no discretion; we are only the blind and deaf
+machines that obey orders. Read the warrant, and you will understand
+that our duty is imperative."
+
+Again and again she read the paper, in which the sheriff of the
+county where Elm Bluff is situated, demanded her arrest and return
+to X---, on the charge of robbery and murder committed during the
+night which she had spent at the station. Then several telegrams
+were placed before her. The description of herself, her dress, even
+of the little basket and shawl, was minutely accurate; and by
+degrees the horror of her situation, and her utter helplessness,
+became frightfully distinct. The papers fell from her nerveless
+fingers, and one desperate cry broke from her white lips:
+
+"O just God! Will you permit such a shameful, cruel outrage? Save me
+from this horrible injustice and disgrace!"
+
+Seeing neither the men, nor the room, her strained gaze seemed in
+her great agony fixed upon the face of Him, who, silvering the
+lilies of the field and watching the flight of sparrows, has tender
+care for all who trust Him. Even in this terrible trial, the girl's
+first thought was of her mother; and of the disastrous effect that
+the misfortune would produce upon the invalid.
+
+"I am sorry to tell you, that we are required to search all persons
+arrested under similar charges, and in the next room a female
+detective will receive and retain every thing in your possession,
+except your clothing. You are suspected of having secreted money,
+jewelry and some very valuable papers."
+
+"Suspected of being a common thief! I am as innocent as any angel
+beside the throne of Christ! Save me at least from the degradation
+of being searched. Here is my basket, and here is my purse."
+
+She handed him the worn leather pocket-book, which contained only
+the few pennies reserved to pay her passage across the ferry, and
+turned the pocket of her dress inside cut.
+
+At the tap of a hand-bell, a tall, angular woman opened the door of
+an adjoining room.
+
+"Mrs. Foster, you will very carefully examine the prisoner, and
+search her clothing for papers, as well as valuables."
+
+"Spare me at least this indignity!" cried the shuddering girl.
+
+"Come with me, madam. We have no choice."
+
+When the door closed behind her, the constable walked up and down
+the floor.
+
+"How deceitful appearances are! That woman looks as pure and
+innocent as an angel, and I half believed her protestations; but
+here in the basket, sure enough, hidden at the bottom, are the
+jewelry and the gold. No sign of the papers, but she may have
+destroyed them.
+
+"Thief or not, she is a grand beauty; and if her heart was not in
+that prayer she put up just now, she is a grand actress also. This
+is a beastly trade of ours, hunting down and trapping the unwary.
+Sometimes I feel no better than a sleuth-hound, and that girl's eyes
+went through and through me a while ago like a two-edged dirk."
+
+As he vented his views of his profession, one of the policemen
+lighted his pipe and puffed vigorously.
+
+Mrs. Foster came back, followed by her victim.
+
+"I find absolutely nothing secreted on the prisoner."
+
+"No papers of any description?"
+
+"None, sir."
+
+"Madam, your basket contains the missing jewelry and money, at least
+a portion of it, and I shall place it in the hands of the sheriff."
+
+"The money and jewels are not mine. They belong to my mother, to
+whom they were given by her father; and she needs the money at this
+moment--"
+
+"Let me advise you to say as little as possible for your own sake;
+because your words will be weighed against you."
+
+"I speak only the truth, and it will, it must, vindicate me. What
+papers are you searching for?"
+
+"General Darrington's will. It was stolen with the money. Here is
+yesterday's paper, with an account of the whole affair, telegraphed
+from X----. If you need to learn anything, you will understand when
+you read it."
+
+The sight of the capital letters in the Telegraphic Despatches,
+coupling her name with a heinous and revolting crime, seemed to stab
+her eyes with red-hot thrusts; and shivering from head to foot, she
+slowly realized the suspicious significance of the disappearance of
+the will, which was the sole obstacle that debarred her from her
+grandfather's wealth. Although sustained by an unfaltering trust in
+the omnipotence of innocence, she was tormented by a dread spectre
+that would not "down" at her bidding; how could she prove that the
+money and jewels had been given to her? Would the shock of the
+tidings of her arrest kill her mother? Was there any possible way by
+which she might be kept in ignorance of this foul disgrace?
+
+Beryl hid her face in her hands, and tried to think, but the whole
+universe appeared spinning into chaos. She had opposed the trip
+South so steadily and vehemently: had so sorrowfully and reluctantly
+yielded at last to maternal solicitation, and had been oppressed
+with such dire forebodings of some resultant evil. So bitter was her
+repugnance to the application to her grandfather, that she had set
+out on her journey feeling as though it were a challenge to fate;
+and this was the answer? The vague distrust, the subtle sombre
+presentiment, the haunting shadow of an inexplicable ill, had all
+meant this; this bloody horror, dragging her fair name down to the
+loathsome mire of the slums of crime. Had some merciful angel leaned
+from the parapets of heaven and warned her; or did her father's
+spirit, in mysterious communion of deathless love and prescient
+guardianship, stir her soul to oppose her mother's scheme? Sceptical
+and heedless Tarquins are we all, whom our patient Sibylline
+intuitions finally abandon to the woes which they sought to avert.
+
+In the maddening rush and whirl of Beryl's reflections, her mother's
+image was the one centre around which all things circled; and at
+length, rallying her energies, she turned to her captor.
+
+"You intend to take me to prison?"
+
+"I am obliged to detain and deliver you to the officer who has come
+from X---with the warrant, and who will carry you back there for
+trial. He knew from the detentions along the route, that he could
+easily overhaul you here, so he went straight to Trenton with a
+requisition from the Governor of his State upon Governor Mansfield,
+for your surrender. It is but a short run to the Capital, and he
+expects to get here in time to catch the train going South to-day.
+We had a telegram a while ago, saying the papers were all right, and
+that he would meet us at the train, as there will be only a few
+moments to spare."
+
+"But I must first see my mother. I must give her the money and
+explain--"
+
+"The money will be claimed by the officer who takes charge of you."
+
+"Have you no mercy? My mother is ill, destitute; and she will die
+unless I can go to her. Oh! I beg of you, for the sake of common
+humanity, carry me home, if only for five minutes! Just let me see
+mother, let me speak to her!"
+
+In the intensity of her dread, she fell upon her knees, and lifted
+her hands imploringly; and the anguish in her white quivering face
+was so piteous that the man turned his head away.
+
+"I would oblige you if I could, but it is impossible. The law is
+cruel, as you say, but it is intended as a terror to evil-doers.
+Things look awfully black for you, but all the same I am sorry for
+you, if your mother is to suffer for your deeds. If you wish to
+write to her, I will see that she receives your note; but you have
+very little time left."
+
+"O God! how hard! What a foul, horrible wrong inflicted upon the
+innocent!"
+
+She cowered on the floor, unconscious that she still knelt; seeing
+only the suffering woman in that dreary attic across the river,
+where sunken feverish eyes watched for her return.
+
+Accidentally Beryl's gaze fell on the bunch of faded chrysanthemums
+which had dropped unnoticed on the floor, and snatching them she
+buried her face in their petals. Their perfume was the potent spell
+that now melted her to tears, and the tension of her overtaxed
+nerves gave way in a passionate burst of sobs. When she rose a few
+moments later, the storm had passed; the face regained its stony
+rigidity, and henceforth she fronted fate with an unnatural
+calmness.
+
+"Will you give me some paper and a pen?"
+
+"You can write here at the desk."
+
+Mrs. Foster approached her, and said hesitatingly:
+
+"Would it comfort you at all, for me to go and see your mother and
+explain why you could not return to her? I am very sorry for you,
+poor thing."
+
+"Thank you, but--you could not explain, and the sight of a stranger
+would startle her. In one way you can help me; do you know Dr.
+Grantlin of New York?"
+
+"Only by reputation; but I can find him."
+
+"Will you deliver into his hand the note I am writing?"
+
+"I certainly will."
+
+"How soon?"
+
+"Before nine o'clock to-night."
+
+"Thank you--a thousand times."
+
+After a while she folded a sheet containing these words:
+
+"DEAR DR. GRANTLIN:
+
+"In the extremity of my distress, I appeal to you as a Christian
+gentleman, as a true physician, a healer of the suffering, and under
+God, the guardian of my mother's life. You know why I went to my
+grandfather. He gave me the money, one hundred dollars, and some
+valuable jewels. When in sight of home, I have been arrested on the
+charge of having murdered my grandfather, and stolen his will. Need
+I tell you that I am as innocent as you are? The thought of my
+mother is the bitterest drop in my cup of shame and sorrow. You can
+judge best, how much it may be expedient to tell her, and you can
+devise the kindest method of breaking the truth, if she must know
+it. Have her removed to the hospital, and do not postpone the
+operation. O Doctor! be pitiful, be tender to her, and do not let
+her need any little comforts. Some day I will pay you for all
+expenses incurred in her behalf, but at present I have not a dollar,
+as the money has been seized. I am sure you will not deny my prayer,
+and may God reward and bless you, for your mercy to my precious
+mother.
+
+"In grateful trust,
+
+"BERYL BRENTANO.
+
+"P.S.--If you approve, deliver the enclosed note."
+
+On a separate sheet she wrote:
+
+"MY DARLING MOTHER:
+
+"Finding it necessary to return to X---, I have requested Dr.
+Grantlin to take particularly good care of you for a few days. Your
+father will never forgive, never receive you, but he kindly complied
+with your request and gave me one hundred dollars. Try to be patient
+until I can come and tell you everything, and believe that God will
+not forsake us. With these hurried lines, I send you a few
+chrysanthemums--your favorite flowers--which I gathered in the rose
+garden of your old home. When you smell them, think of your little
+girl who loves you better than her own life, and who will hasten
+home at the earliest possible moment, to take you in her arms.
+Mother, pray for me, and may God be very merciful to you, my
+dearest, and to--
+
+"Your devoted child,
+
+"BERYL."
+
+She had bound the withered flowers together with a strip of fringe
+from her shawl, and now, with dry eyes and firm white lips, she
+kissed them twice, pinned the last note around them and laid the
+whole in Mrs. Foster's hand.
+
+"I trust you to deliver them in person to Dr. Grantlin before you
+sleep to-night; and if I survive this awful outrage, perpetrated
+under the name of law, I will find you some day, and thank you."
+
+Looking at the lovely face, pure in its frozen calm, as some marble
+lily in the fingers of a monumental effigy, Mrs. Foster felt the
+tears dimming her own vision and said earnestly:
+
+"Keep as silent as possible. The less you say, the safer you will
+be; and run no risk of contradicting your own statements."
+
+"I appreciate your motive, but I have nothing to conceal."
+
+Beryl laid her hand on her shawl, then drew back.
+
+"Am I allowed the use of my shawl?"
+
+"Oh, certainly, madam."
+
+The officer would have opened and put it around her, but with an
+indescribable movement of proud repulsion, she shook it out, then
+wrapped it closely about her, and sat down, keeping her eyes fixed
+on the face of the clock ticking over the fireplace. After a long
+and profound silence, the man who had arrested her, said gravely and
+gently:
+
+"Time is up. I must deliver you to Officer Gibson at the train. Come
+with me."
+
+She rose, gave her hand to Mrs. Foster, and stooping suddenly
+touched with her lips the withered flowers, then followed silently.
+
+In subsequent years, when she attempted to recall consecutively the
+incidents of the ensuing forty-eight hours, they eluded her, like
+the flitting phantasmagoria that throng delirium; yet subtle links
+fastened the details upon her brain, and sometimes most
+unexpectedly, that psychic necromancer--association of ideas--
+selected some episode from the sombre kaleidoscope of this dismal
+journey, and set it in lurid light before her, as startling and
+unwelcome as the face of an enemy long dead. Life and personality
+partook in some degree of duality; all that she had been before she
+saw Elm Bluff, seemed a hopelessly distinct existence, yet
+irrevocably chained to the mutilated and blackened Afterward, like
+the grim and loathsome unions enforced by the Noyades of Nantes.
+
+The sun did not forget to shine, nor the moon to keep her
+appointment with the throbbing stars that signalled all along her
+circuit. Men whistled, children laughed; the train thundered through
+tunnels, and flew across golden stubble fields, where grain shocks
+and hay stacks crowded like tents of the God of plenty, in the
+Autumnal bivouac; and throughout the long days and dreary lagging
+nights. Beryl was fully conscious of a ceaseless surveillance, of an
+ever-present shadow, which was tall and gaunt, wore a drab overcoat
+and slouched hat, and was redolent of tobacco. As silent as two
+mummies in the crypts of Karnac they sat side by side; and twice
+when the officer touched her arm and asked if she would take some
+refreshments, she merely shook her head, and tightened the folds of
+her veil; shrinking closer to the window against which she leaned.
+Not until they approached X---, and she recognized some features of
+the landscape, were her lips unsealed:
+
+"What persons are responsible for my arrest?"
+
+"Our District Solicitor, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Dunbar, the lawyer,
+who made the affidavit under which the warrant was issued. I am only
+a deputy, acting under orders from the sheriff."
+
+"You are taking me to prison?"
+
+"Perhaps not; it depends on the result of the preliminary
+examination, and you may be allowed bail."
+
+A ray of hope silvered the shrouding gloom; there was a possibility
+of escaping the stain of incarceration.
+
+"When will the examination take place?"
+
+"About noon to-day. You will have time to eat something and freshen
+up a little. Here we are. What a crowd to welcome us! Don't stir. We
+will just wait a while, and I will get you into a carriage as
+quietly as possible."
+
+He whispered some directions to the conductor of the train, and
+standing in the aisle with his arm across the seat, screened her
+from the gaze of a motley crew of men and boys who rushed in to
+stare at the prisoner, whose arrival had been impatiently expected.
+On the railway platform and about the station house surged a sea of
+human heads, straining now in the direction of the first passenger
+coach; and when in answer to some question, the conductor pointed to
+the sleeping car which was at the rear of the train, the mass swayed
+down the track.
+
+"Quick! Now is our time!"
+
+The deputy sheriff hurried her out, almost lifted her from the
+steps, and pushing her forward, turned a corner of the street, and
+handed her into a carriage which awaited them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+To Beryl many hours seemed to have crept away, since she had been
+left alone in a small dusty apartment, adjoining the office where
+the chief magistrate of X---daily held court. Too restless to sit
+still, she paced up and down the floor, trying to collect her
+thoughts, and at last knelt by the side of a table, and laid her
+weight of dread and peril before the Throne of the God she trusted.
+The Father of the fatherless and Friend of the friendless, would
+surely protect her in this hour of intolerable degradation.
+
+"O, Thou that hearest prayer; unto Thee shall all flesh come."
+
+The door opened, and a venerable, gray-haired man approached the
+table, where her head was bent upon her crossed arms. When she
+lifted her white face, with the violet circles under her dry eyes,
+making them appear preternaturally large and luminous, and the
+beautiful mouth contracted by a spasm of intense pain, a deep sigh
+of compassion passed the stranger's lips.
+
+"I am Mitchell Dent, an old friend of General Darrington's, and of
+your mother, who has often sat upon my knee. Because of my affection
+for your grandfather, I have asked permission to see you for a few
+moments. If you are unjustly accused, I desire to befriend you, and
+offer you some advice. I am told you assert your innocence of the
+great crime of which you are suspected. I hope you can prove it; but
+for your own sake I advise you to waive an examination, and await
+the action of the Grand Jury, as you have had no opportunity of
+consulting counsel, or preparing your defence."
+
+"You knew my mother? Then you should require no other proof that her
+child is not a criminal. I am innocent of every offence against
+General Darrington, except that of being my father's daughter; and
+my unjustifiable arrest is almost as foul a wrong as his murder."
+
+She drew herself proudly to her full height, and as his eyes dwelt
+in irrepressible admiration upon her, his manhood did homage to her
+grace and dignity, and he took off his hat.
+
+"I earnestly hope so; and the law holds every person innocent until
+her guilt be fully proved and established."
+
+"Of the significance of law terms I know nothing; and of the usages
+of courts I am equally ignorant. If, as you suggest, I should waive
+an examination, should I escape imprisonment?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I must be tried at once; because I want to hurry back to my
+mother who is ill, and needs me."
+
+"But you have no counsel as yet, and delay is your best policy."
+
+"Delay might cost my mother's life. I have no money to pay a lawyer
+to stand up and mystify matters, and my best policy is to defend
+myself, by telling the simple truth."
+
+Again Judge Dent sighed. Could guilt be masked by this fair
+semblance of childlike guilelessness?
+
+"Can you summon any witnesses to prove that you were not at Elm
+Bluff on the night of the storm?"
+
+"Yes, the ticket agent knows I was in the waiting-room during that
+storm."
+
+He shook his gray head.
+
+"He will be one of the strongest witnesses against you."
+
+"Then I have no witnesses except--God, and my conscience."
+
+The door opened, and with his watch in his hand the deputy sheriff
+entered.
+
+"Sorry to shorten your interview, Judge, but you know we have a
+martinet in yonder, a regular Turk, and he splits seconds into
+fractions."
+
+As Judge Dent withdrew, Beryl realized that her hour of woe had
+arrived, and she began to pin her veil tightly over her face.
+
+"Come along--You can't keep your veil on. Try to be as non-committal
+as possible when they ask you crooked questions. Of course I want
+justice done, and I hope I am a faithful servant of the law; but if
+you are as innocent as a flock of ring-doves, the lawyers will try
+to confuse you."
+
+He attempted to lead her, but she drew back.
+
+"I will follow you; but please do not hold my arm; do not touch me."
+
+A moment later, a door opened and closed, a glare of light showed
+her a crowded room; a monotonous hum like the swell of the sea fell
+on her ear; then stifled ejaculations, to which succeeded a sudden,
+deathlike hush. The officer placed a chair for her in front of the
+platform where the magistrate sat, and retired to the rear of the
+room. With some difficulty Judge Dent made his way through the
+throng of spectators, and seated himself beside Mr. Dunbar.
+
+"Well, sir, how did the prisoner impress you?" asked the latter, as
+he folded up a paper.
+
+"Dunbar, you have made a mistake. I have spent the best of my life
+in the study of criminals; and if that woman yonder is not innocent,
+I am in my dotage."
+
+"Pardon me, Judge, if I dispute both propositions. I made no
+mistake; and you are merely, in the goodness of your heart, and the
+fervor of your chivalry, dazzled momentarily by the glamour of
+extraordinary beauty and touching youth."
+
+When Beryl recovered in some degree from the shock of finding
+herself actually on trial, she endeavored to collect her faculties;
+but the violent palpitation of her heart was almost suffocating, and
+in her ears the surging as of an ocean tide, drowned the accents of
+the magistrate. At first the words were as meaningless as some
+Sanskrit formula, but gradually her attention grasped and
+comprehended. In a strident incisive voice he read from a paper on
+the desk before him:
+
+"At an inquisition held at X---, T---county, on the twenty-seventh
+day of October, before me, Jeremiah Bateman, Coroner of said county,
+on the body of Robert Luke Darrington, there lying dead, by the
+jurors whose names are hereto subscribed; the said jurors upon their
+oath do say that Robert Luke Darrington came to his death on the
+night of Thursday, October twenty-sixth, by a murderous assault
+committed upon him by means of a heavy brass andiron. And from all
+the evidence brought before them, the jury believe that the fatal
+blow was feloniously given by the hand of his granddaughter, Beryl
+Brentano.
+
+"In testimony whereof, the said jurors have hereunto set their
+hands, this twenty-seventh day of October, A.D., 18--.
+
+"Signed------
+
+"Attest,
+
+"JEREMIAH BATEMAN, Coroner."
+
+"In consequence of this verdict, and by virtue of a warrant issued
+at the request of the District Solicitor, Governor Glenbeigh made a
+prompt requisition for the arrest and detention of the said Beryl
+Brentano, who has been identified and returned to this city, to
+answer the charges brought against her. The prisoner will unveil and
+stand up.
+
+"Beryl Brentano, you are charged with the murder of Robert Luke
+Darrington, by striking him with a brass andiron. Are you guilty, or
+not guilty?"
+
+"Not guilty." Her voice was unsteady, but the words were distinct.
+
+Mr. Dunbar, Mr. Burk, and a middle-aged woman lean as Cassius, came
+nearer to the platform, and after a leisurely survey of the girl's
+face and figure, pronounced her the person whom they had severally
+accused of the crime of causing the death of General Darrington.
+
+The canons that govern psychical phenomena are as occult as the
+abstraction of the "fourth division of space"; and they defy the
+realism of common-place probability, mock all analysis, and
+annihilate distance. When Beryl had first met the keen scrutiny of
+Mr. Dunbar's glittering blue eyes, their baleful influence made her
+shiver slightly; and now at the instant in which he approached, and
+inspected her closely, she forgot that she was on trial for her
+life, became temporarily oblivious of her dismal entourage, and
+stood once more before a marble image in the Vatican, where the
+light streamed full on the cold face, that for centuries has been
+the synonym of blended beauty and cruelty. In her ears rang again
+the words her father had rend aloud at her side, while she sketched:
+"But he does not inspire confidence, by the smile that would like to
+express goodness. The finely cut underlip that rises from the
+strongly marked hollow over the chin ought to sharpen with a dash of
+contempt the conscious superiority that lies upon his broad,
+magnificent forehead. His smile is in strong contrast with the cold
+gaze of the large open eyes; a gaze that hesitates not, but without
+mercy verifies a judgment fixed in advance, that gives up every one
+to condemnation."
+
+The dusty crowded court-room appeared to swim in the rich aroma
+distilled from the creamy hearts of Roman hyacinths; and the velvet
+lips of purple Roman violets suddenly babbled out the secret of the
+mysterious repulsion which had puzzled her, from the hour in which
+she first looked into Mr. Dunbar's face; his strange resemblance to
+the Chiaramonti Tiberius, which she had studied and copied so
+carefully. In days gone by, the subtle repose, the marvelous beauty
+of that marble face, where as yet the demon of destruction had cast
+no stain, possessed a singular fascination for her; and now the
+haunting likeness which had perplexed her at Elm Bluff, became
+associated inseparably with old Bedney's description of Mr. Dunbar's
+merciless treatment of witnesses, and Beryl realized with alarming
+clearness that in her grandfather's lawyer she had met the
+incarnation of her cruel fate.
+
+Standing quite near her, he gravely related, with emphatic
+distinctness and careful detail, his first meeting with the prisoner
+on the piazza at Elm Bluff, and the vivid impression she left on his
+mind; his return to Elm Bluff about half-past nine the same evening,
+in order to get a deed which he had forgotten to put into his pocket
+at the first visit. Learning that General Darrington had not yet
+retired for the night, he sent in to ask for the deed, and was
+summoned "to come and get it himself." On entering the bedroom, he
+found his client wrapped in a cashmere dressing-gown, and sitting in
+an easy chair by the window, which opened on the north or front
+piazza. He appeared much perturbed and harassed, and in reply to
+inquiries touching his health, answered that he was "completely
+shaken up, and unnerved, by a very stormy and disagreeable interview
+held that afternoon with the child of his wayward daughter Ellice.
+"When witness asked: "Did not the great beauty of the embassadress
+accomplish the pardon and restoration of the erring mother?" General
+Darrington had struck his cane violently on the floor, and
+exclaimed: "Don't talk such infernal nonsense! Did you ever hear of
+my pardoning a wrong against my family name and honor? Does any man
+live, idiotic enough to consider me so soft-hearted? No, no. On the
+contrary, I was harsh to the girl; so harsh that she turned upon me,
+savage as a strong cub defending a crippled helpless dam. They know
+now that the last card has been played, and the game ended; for I
+gave her distinctly to understand that at my death, Prince would
+inherit every iota of my estate, and that my will had cut them off
+without a cent. I meant it then, I mean it now. I swear that lowborn
+fiddler's brood shall never darken these doors; but somehow, I am
+unable to get rid of the strange, disagreeable sensation the girl
+left behind her, as a farewell legacy. She stood there at that glass
+door, and raised her hand like a prophetess. 'General Darrington,
+when you lie down to die, may God have more mercy on your poor soul
+than you have shown to your suffering child.'"
+
+Witness advised him to go to bed, and sleep off the unpleasant
+recollections of  the day, but he said it was so oppressively hot,
+he wanted to sit at the window, which was wide open. Witness having
+secured the deed, which was on the table in the room, bade his
+client good-night, and left the house.
+
+He was riding toward town, and thought it was about ten o'clock,
+when he saw the prisoner sitting under a pine tree near the road,
+and not more than a half a mile from the bridge over the "Branch"
+that runs at the foot of Elm Bluff. His horse had shied and plunged
+at sight of her, and, the moonlight being bright as day, witness
+easily recognized her as the same person he had seen earlier in the
+afternoon. Thinking her appearance there at that hour was rather
+mysterious, he asked her if she had lost her way; to which she
+replied "No, sir." On the following morning, when the mournful news
+of the murder of General Darrington had convulsed the entire
+community with grief and horror, witness had smothered his
+reluctance to proceed against a woman, and a solemn sense of duty
+forced him to bring these suspicious circumstances to the knowledge
+of the District Solicitor.
+
+While he gave his testimony, Mr. Dunbar watched her closely for some
+trace of emotion, but she met his gaze without the movement of a
+muscle, and he detected not even a quiver of the jet lashes that
+darkened her proud gray eyes.
+
+Antony Burk next testified that he had given the accused
+instructions about the road to Elm Bluff, when she arrived at X--;
+and that after buying her return ticket, she told him it was
+necessary she should take the 7:15 train, and that she would be sure
+to catch it. The train was a few minutes late, but had pulled out of
+the station twenty minutes before the prisoner came back, when she
+appeared much annoyed at having missed it.
+
+Then she had sent a telegram (a copy of which was in the possession
+of the Solicitor), and requested him to allow her to remain in the
+ladies' waiting-room until the next train at 3:05. He had directed
+her to a hotel close by, but she declined going there. Thinking she
+was fatigued and might relish it, he had, after supper, carried a
+pitcher of iced tea to the waiting-room, but though he remained
+there until nine o'clock she was nowhere visible. He went home and
+went to sleep, but the violence of the storm aroused him; and when
+he took his lantern and went back to unlock the ticket office, he
+searched the whole place, and the prisoner was not in the building.
+This was at half-past two A.M., and the pitcher of tea remained
+untouched where he had placed it. It was not raining when he
+returned, and a few minutes after he had hunted for the prisoner, he
+was standing in the door of his office and he saw her coming down
+the railway track, from the direction of the water tank and the
+bridge. She was breathing rapidly as if she had been running, and
+witness noticed that her clothes were damp, and that some drops of
+water fell from the edge of her hat. A lamp-post stood in front of
+the station, and he saw her plainly; asked her why she did not stay
+in the room, which he had left open for her? Prisoner said she had
+remained there. Witness told her he knew better; that she was not
+there at nine nor yet at half-past two o'clock. The accused did not
+appear inclined to talk, and gave no explanation, but got aboard the
+3:05 train. Witness considered her actions so suspicious, that he
+had related all he knew to Mr. Dunbar, who had summoned him before
+the magistrate. He (witness) was very loath to think evil of a
+woman, especially one so beautiful and noble looking, and if he
+wronged her, he hoped God would forgive him; but he never dodged
+telling the truth.
+
+Here the female Cassius rose, and gave her name as Angeline Dobbs.
+
+"She had for several years attended to the sewing and mending at Elm
+Bluff, being summoned there whenever her services were required. On
+the afternoon previous to General Darrington's death she was sitting
+at her needlework in the hall of the second story of his house. As
+the day was very hot, she had opened the door leading out to an iron
+balcony, which projected just over the front hall door downstairs;
+and since the piazza was open from the roof to the floor, she had
+peeped over, and seen the prisoner when she arrived and had watched
+her while she sat on the steps, waiting to be admitted. After the
+accused had been inside the house some time, she (witness)
+recollected that she had seen a hole in one of the lace curtains in
+the library downstairs, and thought this would be such a nice time
+to darn it. The library was opposite the drawing room, and adjoined
+General Darrington's bed-room. The door was open and witness heard
+what she supposed was a quarrel, as General Darrington's voice was
+loud and violent; and she distinctly heard him say: 'My will is so
+strong, no contest can touch it! and it will stand forever between
+your mother and my property.' Soon after, General Darrington had
+slammed the door, and though she heard loud tones for some time, she
+could not make out the words. The impression left on witness's mind
+was that the prisoner was very impudent to the old gentleman; and
+not long afterward she saw accused standing in the rose garden,
+pretending to gather some flowers, but really looking up and down at
+the front windows. Witness knew the prisoner saw the vault where the
+General kept his papers, because she heard it opened while she was
+in the bed-room. The door of the vault or safe did not open on
+hinges, but was iron, and slid on a metal rod, which made a very
+peculiar squeaking sound. When she heard the noise she thought that
+General Darrington was so enraged that he got the will to show
+prisoner it was all fixed forever, against her and her mother."
+
+When Miss Dobbs sat down, a lame man, disfigured by a scar on his
+cheek, learned upon a stick and testified:
+
+"My name is Belshazzar Tatem. Was an orderly sergeant attached to
+General Darrington's staff dtiring the war; but since that time have
+been a florist and gardener, and am employed to trim hedges and
+vines, and transplant flowers at Elm Bluff." On the afternoon of the
+prisoner's visit there, he was resetting violet roots on a border
+under the western veranda, upon which opened the glass door leading
+out from the General's bed-room. He had heard an angry altercation
+carried on between General Darrington and some one, and supposed he
+was scolding one of the servants. He went to a shed in the barn yard
+to get a spade he needed, and when he came back he saw the prisoner
+walk down the steps, and thought it singular a stranger should leave
+the house that way. Wondered whom she could be, and wondered also
+that the General had quarrelled with such a splendid looking lady.
+Next morning when he went back to his work, he noticed the glass
+door was shut, but the red curtain inside was looped back. He
+thought it was half-past eight o'clock, when he heard a loud cry in
+the bed-room, and very soon after, somebody screamed. He ran up the
+steps, but the glass door was locked on the inside, and when he went
+around and got into the room, the first thing he saw was General
+Darrington's body lying on the floor, with his feet toward the
+hearth, and his head almost on a line with the iron vault built in
+the wall. The servants were screaming and wringing their hands, and
+he called them to help him lift the General, thinking that he had
+dropped in a fit; but he found him stone cold and stiff. There was
+no sign of blood anywhere, but a heavy, old-fashioned brass andiron
+was lying close to the General's head, and he saw a black spot like
+a bruise on his right temple. General Darrington wore his night
+clothes, and the bed showed he had been asleep there. Some broken
+vases were on the floor and hearth, and the vault was wide open. The
+tin box was upside down on the carpet, and some papers in envelopes
+were scattered about.
+
+Witness had picked up a leather bag carefully tied at the top with
+red tape, drawn into hard knots; but in one side he found a hole
+which had been cut with a knife, and at the bottom of the bag was a
+twenty-dollar gold piece. Two more coins of the same value were
+discovered on the floor, when General Darrington's body was lifted;
+and on the bolster of the bed lay a bottle containing chloroform.
+Witness immediately sent off for some of General Darrington's
+friends, and also notified the coroner; and he did not leave the
+room again until the inquest was held. The window on the front
+piazza was open, and witness had searched the piazza and the grounds
+for tracks, but discovered no traces of the burglar and murderer,
+who had escaped before the rain ceased, otherwise the tracks would
+have been found. Witness was positive that the prisoner was the same
+person whom he had seen coming out of the bed-room, and with whom
+General Darrington had quarrelled.
+
+The sheriff here handed to the magistrate, the gold pieces found on
+the floor at Elm Bluff, by the last witness; then the little wicker
+basket which had been taken from the prisoner when she was arrested.
+The coins discovered therein were taken out, and careful comparison
+showed that they corresponded exactly with those picked up after the
+murder. The case of sapphires was also shown, and Mr. Dunbar rose to
+say, that "The prosecution would prove by the attorney who drew up
+General Darrington's will, that these exceedingly valuable stones
+had been bequeathed by a clause in that will to Prince Darrington,
+as a bridal present for whomsoever he might marry."
+
+A brief silence ensued, during which the magistrate pulled at the
+corner of his tawny mustache, and earnestly regarded the prisoner.
+She stood, with her beautiful white hands clasped before her, the
+slender fingers interlaced, the head thrown proudly back. Extreme
+pallor had given place to a vivid flush that dyed her cheeks, and
+crimsoned her delicate lips; and her eyes looking straight into
+space, glowed with an unnatural and indescribable lustre. Tadmor's
+queen Bath Zabbai could not have appeared more regal in her haughty
+pose, amid the exulting shouts that rent the skies of conquering
+Rome. The magistrate cleared his throat, and addressed the accused.
+
+"You are Beryl Brentano, the granddaughter of General Darrington?"
+
+"I am Beryl Brentano."
+
+"You have heard the charges brought against you. What have you to
+say in defence?"
+
+"That I am innocent of every accusation."
+
+"By what witnesses will you prove it?"
+
+"By a statement of the whole truth in detail, if I may be allowed to
+make it."
+
+Here the Solicitor, Mr. Churchill, rose and said:
+
+"While faithfully discharging my official duties, loyalty to justice
+does not smother the accents of human sympathy; and before
+proceeding any further, I hope your Honor will appoint some counsel
+to confer with and advise the prisoner. Her isolation appeals to
+every noble instinct of manhood, and it were indeed puerile tribute
+to our lamented General Darrington, to bring his granddaughter
+before this tribunal, without the aid and defence of legal advisers.
+Justice itself would not be welcome to me, if unjustly won. My
+friend, Mr. Hazelton, who is present, has expressed his desire to
+defend the prisoner; and while I am aware that your Honor is under
+the impression she refuses to accept counsel, I trust you will
+nevertheless commit her, until she can confer with him."
+
+Mr. Hazelton rose and bowed, in tacit approval.
+
+Beryl advanced a few steps, and her clear pure voice thrilled every
+heart in the crowded room.
+
+"I need no help to tell the truth, and I want to conceal nothing.
+Time is inexpressibly valuable to me now, for a human life more
+precious than my own is at stake; and if I am detained here, my
+mother may die. May I speak at once, and explain the circumstances
+which you consider so mysterious as to justify the shameful
+indignity put upon me?"
+
+"Since you assume the responsibility of your own defence, you may
+proceed with your statement. Relate what occurred from the hour you
+reached Elm Bluff, until you left X---next morning."
+
+"I came here to deliver in person a letter written by my mother to
+her father, General Darrington, because other letters sent through
+the mail, had been returned unread. It contained a request for one
+hundred dollars to pay the expense of a surgical operation, which we
+hoped would restore her health. When I reached Elm Bluff, I waited
+on the steps, until General Darrington's attorney finished his
+business and came out; then I was led by an old colored man to the
+bed-room where General Darrington sat. I gave no name, fearing he
+might refuse to admit me, and he was very courteous in his manner
+until I laid the letter before him. He immediately recognized the
+handwriting, and threw it to the floor, declaring that no human
+being had the right to address him as father, except his son Prince.
+I picked up the letter, and insisted he should at least read the
+petition of a suffering, and perhaps dying woman. He was very
+violent in his denunciation of my parents, and his voice was loud
+and angry. So painful was the whole interview, that it was a bitter
+trial to me to remain in his presence, but knowing how absolutely
+necessary it was that mother should obtain the money, I forced
+myself to beg him to read the letter. Finally he consented, read it,
+and seemed somewhat softened; but he tore it into strips and threw
+it from him. He drank several glasses of wine from a decanter on the
+table, and offered me some, expressing the opinion that I must be
+tired from my journey. I declined it. General Darrington then
+questioned me about my family, my mode of living; and after a few
+moments became very much excited, renewing his harsh invectives
+against my parents. It was at this stage of the interview that he
+uttered the identical words quoted by the witness: 'My Will is so
+strong, no contest can touch it, and it will stand forever between
+your mother and my property.'
+
+"Immediately after, he went to the door leading into the library and
+called 'Bedney!' No one answered, and he shut the door, kicking it
+as it closed. When he came back to his chair, he said very bitterly:
+'At least we will have no eavesdroppers at this resurrection of my
+dead.' He told me all the story of my mother's girlhood; of her
+marriage, which had infuriated him; that he had sent her a certain
+proportion of property, and then disowned and disinherited her.
+Afterward he described his lonely life, his second marriage which
+was very happy, and his adoption of his wife's son, who, he
+repeatedly told me, had usurped my mother's place in his affections.
+Finally he said:
+
+"'Your mother has asked for one hundred dollars. You shall have it;
+not because I recognize her as child of mine, but because a sick
+woman appeals to a Southern gentleman.'
+
+"He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and with one of them
+opened a safe or iron closet on the wall near the chimney, and from
+that vault he brought a square black tin box to the table, where he
+opened it. He took out a leather bag, and counted into my hand five
+gold pieces of twenty dollars each. The money was given so
+ungraciously that I told him I would not accept it, save as a loan
+for mother's benefit; and that as soon as I could earn it I would
+return the amount to him. I was so anxious to get away, I started
+toward the library door, but he called me back, and gave me the
+morocco case which contains the sapphires. He said my mother's
+mother had bought them as a gift for her daughter, to be worn when
+she was graduated at school; but as she married and left school
+without his knowledge, the jewels had never been seen by her. He
+told me he had intended to give them to his son Prince, for his
+bride, but that now he would send them to mother, who could sell
+them for a handsome sum, because they were valuable. He showed so
+much sorrow at this time, that I begged him to give me some message
+of pardon and affection, which she would prize infinitely more than
+money or jewels; but he again became angry and bitter, and so I left
+him. I came away by the door leading out on the iron veranda,
+because he directed me to do so, saying that he did not wish me to
+meet the servants, who would pry and tattle. When I closed the glass
+door I saw him standing in the middle of the room, leaning on his
+cane, and he had the black tin box in his hand. The sun was setting
+then, and now--"
+
+She ceased speaking for some seconds, then raised her hands toward
+heaven, and with uplifted eyes that seemed in their strained gaze to
+pierce beyond the veil, she added with solemn emphasis:
+
+"I call God to witness, that was the last and only time I ever saw
+General Darrington. That was the last and only visit I ever made to
+Elm Bluff."
+
+There was a general movement among the spectators, and audible
+excitement, which was promptly quelled by the magistrate.
+
+"Silence there in front, or I shall order the room cleared."
+
+Turning toward Beryl, he said:
+
+"If you left Elm Bluff at sunset, why did you not take the 7:15
+train?"
+
+"I tried to do so, but missed it because I desired to obey my
+mother's injunctions as strictly as possible. She gave me a small
+bunch of flowers, and asked me to be sure to lay them for her on her
+mother's grave. When I reached the cemetery, which you know is in
+sight of the road from Elm Bluff, the gate was locked, and it
+required some time to enable me to climb over the wall and find the
+monument. It was growing dark, and when I arrived at the station, I
+learned the train had just gone."
+
+"Why did you not go to a hotel, as you were advised to do?"
+
+"Because after sending the telegram to my mother, I had no money to
+pay for lodging; and I asked permission to stay in the ladies'
+waiting-room."
+
+"State where and how you spent the night."
+
+"It was very hot and sultry in that room, and as there was a bright
+moon shining, I walked out to get some fresh air. The pine woods had
+appeared so pretty and pleasant that afternoon, that I went on and
+on toward them, and did not realize how far they were. I met people
+passing along the road, and it did not seem lonely. The smell of the
+pines was new to me, and to enjoy it, I sat down on the straw. I was
+tired, and must have fallen asleep at once, for I remember nothing
+till some noise startled me, and there I saw the same man on
+horseback in the road, whom I had met at Elm Bluff. He asked me if I
+had misled my way, and I answered 'No, sir.' The height of the moon
+showed me it was late, and as I was frightened at finding myself
+alone in the woods, I almost ran back to the railway station, where
+I saw no one, except a telegraph operator, who seemed to be asleep
+in his chair. I cannot say what time it was, because I could not see
+the clock. Soon after, it began to thunder, and all through that
+terrible storm I was alone in the waiting-room. So great was my
+relief when the wind and lightning ceased, that I went to sleep, and
+dreamed of a happy time when I lived in Italy, and of talking with
+one very dear to me. Just then I awoke with a start, and heard a
+voice talking outside, which seemed very familiar. There were two
+persons; one, a negro, said:
+
+"'There ain't no train 'till daylight, excepting the through
+freight.'
+
+"The other person asked: 'When is it due?' The negro answered:
+
+"'Pretty soon, but it don't stop here; it goes to the water tank
+where it blows for the railroad bridge; and that is only a short
+distance up the track.'
+
+"I think I must have been only half awake, and with my mind fixed on
+my dream, I ran out in front of the station house. An old negro man
+limping down the street was the only person visible, and while I
+watched him he suddenly vanished. I went along the track for some
+distance but saw no one; and when I came back, the ticket agent was
+standing in the door of his office. I cannot explain to you the
+singular impulse which carried me out, when I heard the dialogue,
+because it is inexplicable to myself, save by the supposition that I
+was still dreaming; and yet I saw the negro man distinctly. There
+was a lamp-post near him, and he had a bundle on his shoulder. When
+the 3:05 train came, I went aboard and left X---."
+
+A smile parted Mr. Dunbar's lips, and his handsome teeth glittered
+as he whispered to Judge Dent:
+
+"Even your chivalrous compassion can scarcely digest this knotty
+solution of her movements that night. As a fabrication, it does
+little credit to her ingenuity."
+
+"Her statement impresses me differently. She is either entirely
+innocent, or she had an accomplice, whose voice she recognized; and
+this clue should be investigated."
+
+The District Solicitor rose and bowed to the Magistrate.
+
+"With your Honor's permission, I should like to ask the prisoner
+whom she expected to see, when she recognized the voice?"
+
+"A person who is very dear to me, but who is not in the United
+States."
+
+"What is the name of that person?"
+
+Her lips moved to pronounce his name, but some swift intuitive
+warning restrained the utterance. Suddenly a new horror, a ghastly
+possibility, thrust itself for the first time before her, and she
+felt as though some hand of ice clutched her heart.
+
+Those who watched her so closely, saw the blood ebb from cheeks and
+lips; noted the ashy pallor that succeeded, and the strange groping
+motion of her hands. She staggered toward the platform, and when the
+Magistrate caught her arm, she fell against him like some tottering
+marble image, entirely unconscious.
+
+                       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So prolonged and death-like was the swoon, and so futile the usual
+methods of restoration, that the prisoner was carried into the small
+ante-room, and laid upon a wooden bench; where a physician, who
+chanced to be in the audience, was summoned to attend her. Finding
+restoratives ineffectual, he took out his lancet:
+
+"This is no ordinary fainting fit."
+
+He attempted to roll up one of her sleeves, but seeing this was
+impracticable, would have unfastened her dress, had not Judge Dent
+arrested his hand.
+
+"No, doctor; cut out the sleeve if necessary, but don't touch her
+otherwise."
+
+"Let me assist you; I can easily bare the arm."
+
+As he spoke, Mr. Dunbar knelt beside the bench, and with a small,
+sharp pen-knife ripped the seam from elbow to shoulder, from elbow
+to wrist, swiftly and deftly folding back the sleeve, and exposing
+the perfect moulding of the snowy arm.
+
+"Just hold the hand, Dunbar, so as to keep it steady."
+
+Clasping closely the hand, which the physician laid in his palm the
+attorney noted the exquisite symmetry of the slender fingers and
+oval nails. He bent forward and watched the frozen face. When the
+heavily lashed lids quivered and lifted, and she looked vacantly at
+the grave compassionate countenances leaning over her, a certain
+tightening of the hold upon her fingers, drew her attention. Her
+gaze fastened on the lawyer's blue eyes as if by a subtle malign
+fascination. The veil that shrouded consciousness was rent, not
+fully raised; and as in some dream the solemn eyes appeared to
+search his. A strange shivering thrill shot along his nerves, and
+his quiet, well regulated heart so long the docile obedient motor,
+fettered vassal of his will, bounded, strained hard on the steel
+cable that held it in thrall.
+
+"You feel better now?" asked the physician, who was stanching the
+flow of blood.
+
+Still her gaze seemed to penetrate the inmost recesses of the
+lawyer's nature, calling into sudden revolt dormant elements that
+amazed and defied him.
+
+A shadowy smile curved her pale lips.
+
+"At the mercy of Tiberius. At the mercy of Tiberius."
+
+Those present looked inquiringly at each other.
+
+"Her mind wanders a little. Sheriff, give her some of that brandy.
+She is as weak as a baby."
+
+Judge Dent raised her head, and the officer held the tumbler to her
+mouth; while the former said gently:
+
+"My poor girl, drink a little, it will strengthen you."
+
+With a gesture of loathing, she rejected it; and as she attempted to
+raise herself, all the dire extremity of her peril rushed back upon
+her mind, like a black overwhelming tide from the sea of the past.
+
+"Lie still, until I have bandaged your arm. Here, Dunbar, you
+acquitted yourself so dexterously with your knife, just lend a hand.
+Hold the arm until I secure the bandage."
+
+To find herself surrounded by men, helpless in the grasp of
+strangers, with no womanly touch or glance to sustain her, served to
+intensify her misery; and wrenching herself free, she struggled into
+a sitting posture, then staggered to her feet. The heavy coil of
+hair loosened when they bore her from the court-room, now released
+itself from restraining pins, and fell in burnished waves to her
+knees, clothing her with a glory, such as the world's great masters
+in art reserve for the beatified. Had all the blood that fed her
+heart been drained, she would not have appeared more deadly pale,
+and in her wide eyes was the desperate look of a doomed animal, that
+feels the hot fangs of the hounds, and the cold steel of the
+hunters.
+
+"Be persuaded for your own sake, to swallow some stimulant, of which
+you are sadly in need. You will require all your strength, and, as a
+physician, I insist upon your taking my prescription."
+
+"If I might have some water. Just a little water."
+
+Some one brought a brown stone pitcher, and she drank long and
+thirstily; then looked for a moment at the faces of those who
+crowded about her.
+
+"What will be done now?"
+
+Every eye fell to the floor, and after a painful silence Judge Dent
+said very gently:
+
+"For the present, the Magistrate will retain you in custody, until
+the action of the Grand Jury. Should they fail to indict you, then
+you will at once be released."
+
+"I am to go to prison? I am to be thrust among convicts, vile
+criminals! I--? My father's Beryl? O, righteous God! Where is Thy
+justice? O, Christ! Is Thy mercy a mockery?"
+
+She stood, with her chin resting on her clenched hands, and twice a
+long violent shudder shook her from head to foot.
+
+"I hope your imprisonment will be only temporary. The Grand Jury
+will be in session next week. Meantime diligent search may discover
+the persons whose conversation you overheard at the station; and if
+you be innocent, we are all your friends, and the law, which now
+seems so stern, will prove your strongest protector and vindicator."
+
+Judge Dent stood close beside her, as he essayed these words of
+comfort, and saw that she caught her breath as though in mortal
+agony. Her face writhed, and she shut her eyes, unable to
+contemplate some hideous apparition. He suspected that she was
+fighting desperately an impulse that suggested succor; and he was
+sure she had strangled it, when her hands fell nerveless at her
+side, and she raised her bowed head. If the finger of paralysis had
+passed over her features, they would not have appeared more
+hopelessly fixed. Mechanically she twisted and coiled her hair, and
+took the hat and shawl which the officer held out to her.
+
+"If I can assist you in any way, you have only to send for me."
+
+She looked at Judge Dent intently, for an instant, then shook her
+head.
+
+"No one can help me now."
+
+She tied her veil over her face, and silently followed the deputy
+sheriff to a carriage, that stood near the pavement.
+
+When he would have assisted her, she haughtily repelled him.
+
+"I will follow you, because I must; but do not put your hands on
+me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+In ante bellum days, when States' Rights was a sacred faith, a
+revered and precious palladium, State pride blossomed under Southern
+skies, and State coffers overflowed with the abundance wherewith God
+blessed the land. During that period, when it became necessary to
+select a site for a new Penitentiary, the salubrity and central
+location of X---had so strongly commended it, that the spacious
+structure was erected within its limits, and regarded as an
+architectural triumph of which the State might justly boast. Soon
+after this had been completed, the old county jail, situated on the
+border of the town, was burned one windy March night; then the red
+rain of war deluged the land, and when the ghastly sun of
+"Reconstruction" smiled upon the grave of States' Rights, Municipal
+money disappeared in subterranean channels. Thus it came to pass,
+that with the exception of a small "lockup" attached to Police
+Headquarters, X--had failed to rebuild its jail, and domiciled its
+dangerous transgressors in the great stone prison; paying therefor
+to the State an annual amount per capita.
+
+Built of gray granite which darkened with time and weather stains,
+its massive walls, machicolated roof, and tall arched clock-tower
+lifted their leaden outlines against the sky, and cast a brooding
+shadow over the town, lying below; a grim perpetual menace to all
+who subsequently found themselves locked in its reformatory arms.
+Separated from the bustling mart and busy traffic, by the winding
+river that divided the little city into North and South X--, it
+crested an eminence on the north; and the single lower story
+flanking the main edifice east and west, resembled the trailing
+wings of some vast bird of prey, an exaggerated simulacrum of a
+monstrous gray condor perched on a "coigne of vantage," waiting to
+swoop upon its victims. Encircled by a tall brick wall, which was
+surmounted by iron spikes sharp as bayonets, that defied escalade,
+the grounds extended to the verge of the swift stream in front, and
+stretched back to the border of a heavily timbered tract of pine
+land, a bit of primeval forest left to stare at the encroaching
+armies of Philistinism.
+
+Within the precincts of the yard, the tender conservatism of our
+great-hearted mother Nature, gently toned the savage stony features;
+and even under the chill frown of iron barred windows, golden
+sunshine bravely smiled, soft grasses wove their emerald velvet
+tapestries starred and flushed with dainty satin petals, which late
+Autumn roses showered in munificent contribution, to the work of
+pitying love.
+
+In a comfortably furnished room situated in the second story of the
+main building, sat a woman apparently thirty-five years old, who was
+singing to a baby lying face downward on her lap, while with one
+hand she rocked the wicker cradle beside her, where a boy of four
+years was tossing. Her hazel eyes were full of kindly light, the
+whole face eloquent with that patient, limitless tenderness, which
+is the magic chrism of maternity, wherewith Lucina and Cuba
+abundantly anoint Motherhood. The blessed and infallible nepenthe
+for all childhood's ills and aches, mother touch, mother songs, soon
+held soothing sway; and when the woman laid the sleeping babe on her
+own bed, and covered her with a shawl, she saw her husband leaning
+against the partly open door.
+
+"Come here, Susie. The kids are snug and safe for the present, and I
+want you."
+
+"For shame, Ned! To call our darlings such a beastly name. Kids,
+indeed! My sweetest, loveliest lambs!"
+
+"There! Hear yourself! If I can see any choice of respectability
+between kids and lambs, may I turn to a thoroughbred Southdown, and
+take the blue ribbon at the next Fair. Beasts of the field, all of
+them. The always-wide-awake-contrariness of womankind is a curious
+and fearful thing. If I had called our beloved towheads, lambs, you
+would have sworn through blue ruin that they were the cutest,
+spryest pair of spotted kids, that ever skipped over a five-railed
+fence!"
+
+"So much the worse for you, Ned Singleton, that you are such a
+hopeless heathen; you do not even know where the Elect are appointed
+to stand, at that great day when the sheep come up on the right hand
+of the Lord, and the goats go down to the left. If you read your
+Bible more, I should have less to teach you."
+
+"Oh! but let me tell you, I thought of all that before I made up my
+mind to marry the daughter of a Presbyterian preacher. I knew your
+dear little blue-nose would keep the orthodox trail; and being one
+of the Elect you could not get the points of the celestial compass
+mixed. Don't you forget, that it is part of the unspoken marriage
+contract, that the wife must not only keep her own soul white, but
+bleach her husband's also; and no matter what a reprobate a man may
+be, he always expects his better-half, by hook or by crook, to steer
+him into heaven."
+
+He put his hands on his wife's shoulders, shook her, in token of
+mastery, and kissed her.
+
+"What do you want of my 'always-wide-awake-contrariness'? I have
+half a mind not to help you out of your scrape; for of course you
+have mired somewhere. What is the matter now, Ned?"
+
+"Yes--stuck hard and fast; so my dear little woman, don't you go
+back on your wedding-day promises, but just lend a helping hand. I
+don't know what is to be done with that poor young woman in No. 19.
+One of the under-wardens, Jarvis, sleeps this week right under her
+cell, and he tells me that all night long she tramps up and down,
+without cessation, like some caged animal. This is her third day in,
+and she has not touched a morsel; though at Judge Dent's request I
+ordered some extras given her. Jarvis said she was not sullen, but
+he thought it proper to report to me that she seemed to act very
+strangely; so I went up to see after her. When I opened the door she
+was walking up and down the floor, with her hands locked at the back
+of her head, and I declare, Susie, she looks five years older than
+when she came here. There are great dark hollows under her eyes, and
+two red spots like coals of fire on her cheeks. I said: 'Are you
+sick, that you reject your meals?' To which she replied: 'Don't
+trouble yourself to send me food; I cannot eat!' Then I told her I
+understood that she was restless at night, and I advised her to take
+a mixture which would quiet her nerves. She shook her head, and I
+could not bear to look at her; the eyes seemed so like a wounded
+fawn's, brimful of misery. I asked her if there was anything I could
+do, to make her more comfortable; or if she needed medicine. All
+this time she kept up her quick walk to and fro, and she answered:
+'Thank you. I need nothing--but death; and that will come soon.' Now
+what could I say? I felt such a lump in my throat, that if Solomon
+had whispered to me some kind speech, I could not have uttered it,
+so I got out of the room just as fast as possible, to dry the tears
+that somehow would blur my eyes. When they are surly, or snappish,
+or violent, or insolent, I know exactly what to do, and have no
+trouble; but hang me, if I can cope with this lady--there it is out!
+She is a lady every inch, and as much out of place here as I should
+be in Queen Victoria's drawing-room. Men are clumsy brutes, even in
+kid gloves, and bruise much oftener than they heal. Whenever I am in
+that girl's presence, I have a queer feeling that I am walking on
+eggs, and tip-toe as I may, shall smash things. If something is not
+done, she will be ill on our hands, and a funeral will balk the
+bloodhounds."
+
+"O, hush, Ned! You give me the shivers. My heart yearns toward that
+beautiful young creature, and I believe she is as innocent as my
+baby. It is a burning shame to send her here, unless there is no
+doubt of her guilt. Judge Dent is too shrewd an old fox to be baited
+with chaff, and I am satisfied from what he told you, that he
+believes her statement. There is nothing I would not do to comfort
+her, but I would rather have my ears boxed than witness her
+suffering. The day I carried to her a change of clothes, until her
+own could be washed, and sewed up her dress sleeve. I did nothing
+but cry. I could not help it, when she moaned and wrung her hands,
+and said her mother's heart would break. I have heard all my life
+that justice is blind; I have learned to believe it, for it
+stumbles, and gropes, and lays iron claws on the wrong person. As
+for the lawyers? They are fit pilots: and the courts are little
+better than blind man's buff. Don't stand chewing your mustache,
+Ned. Tell me what you want me to do, while baby is asleep. She has a
+vexatious habit of taking cat naps."
+
+"Little woman, I turn over the case to you. Just let your heart
+loose, and follow it."
+
+"If I do, will you endorse me?"
+
+"Till the stars fall."
+
+"Can you stay here awhile?"
+
+"Yes, if you will tell Jarvis where he can find me."
+
+"Mind you, Ned, you are not to interfere with me?"
+
+"No--I swear I won't. Hurry up, or there will be much music in this
+bleating fold; and you know I am as utterly useless with a crying
+child, as a one-armed man in a concert of fiddlers."
+
+The cell assigned to the new prisoner was in the centre of a line,
+which rose tier above tier, like the compartments in a pigeon house,
+or the sombre caves hewn out of rock-ribbed cliffs, in some lonely
+Laura. Iron stairways conducted the unfortunates to these stone
+cages, where the dim cold light filtered through the iron lattice-
+work of the upper part of the door, made a perpetual crepuscular
+atmosphere within. The bare floor, walls, and low ceiling were
+spotlessly clean and white; and an iron cot with heavy brown
+blankets spread smoothly and a wooden bench in one corner,
+constituted the furniture. Scrupulous neatness reigned everywhere,
+but the air was burdened with the odor of carbolic acid, and even at
+mid-day was chill as the breath of a tomb. Where the doors were
+thrown open, they resembled the yawning jaws of rifled graves; and
+when closed, the woful inmates peering through the black lattice
+seemed an incarnation of Dante's hideous Caina tenants.
+
+When Mrs. Singleton stopped in front of No. 19, and looked through
+the grating, Beryl was standing at the extremity of the cell, with
+her face turned to the wall, and her hands clasping the back of her
+neck. The ceiling was so low she could have touched it, had she
+lifted her arms, and she appeared to have retreated as far in the
+gloomy den as the barriers allowed. Thinking that perhaps the girl
+was praying, the warden's wife waited some minutes, but no sound
+greeted her; and so motionless was the figure, that it might have
+been only an alto rilievo carved on the wall. Pushing the door open,
+Mrs. Singleton entered, and deposited on the iron bed a waiter
+covered with a snowy napkin. At the sound, Beryl turned, and her
+arms fell to her side, but she shrank back against the wall, as if
+solitude were her only solace, and human intrusion an added torture.
+
+Mrs. Singleton took both hands, and held them firmly:
+
+"Do you believe it right to commit suicide?"
+
+"I believe in everything but human justice, and Divine mercy."
+
+"Your conscience tells you that--"
+
+"Am I allowed a conscience? What ghastly mockery! Thieves and
+murderers are not fit tenements for conscience, and I--I--am accused
+of stealing, and of bloodshed. Justice! What a horrible sham! We--
+her victims--who adored the beneficent and incorruptible attribute
+of God Himself--we are undeceived, when Justice--the harpy--tears
+our hearts out with her hideous, foul, defiling claws."
+
+She spoke through set teeth, and a spasm of shuddering shook her
+from head to feet.
+
+"Listen to me. Suspicion is one thing, proof something very
+different. You are accused, but not convicted, and--"
+
+"I shall be. Justice must be appeased, and I am the most convenient
+and available victim. An awful crime has been committed, and
+outraged law, screaming for vengeance, pounces like a hungry hawk on
+an innocent and unsuspecting prey. Does she spare the victim because
+it quivers, and dies hard?"
+
+"Hush! You must not despair. I believe in your innocence; I believe
+every word you uttered that day was true, and I believe that our
+merciful God will protect you. Put yourself in His hands, and His
+mercy will save, for 'it endureth forever.'"
+
+"I don't ask mercy! I claim justice--from God and man. The wicked
+grovel, and beg for mercy; but innocence lays hold upon the very
+throne of God, and clutches His sword, and demands justice!"
+
+"I understand how you feel, and I do not wonder; but for your own
+sake, in order to keep your mind clear and strong for your
+vindication, you certainly ought to take care of your health.
+Starvation is the surest leech for depleting soul and body. Do you
+want to die here in prison, leaving your name tarnished, and
+smirched with suspicion of crime, when you can live to proclaim your
+innocence to the world? Remember that even if you care nothing for
+your life, you owe something to your mother. You have two chances
+yet; the Grand Jury may not find a true bill--"
+
+"Yes, that tiger-eyed lawyer will see that they do. He knows that
+the law is a cunning net for the feet of the innocent and the
+unwary. He set his snare dexterously, and will not fail to watch
+it."
+
+"You mean Mr. Dunbar? Yes, you certainly have cause to dread him;
+but even if you should be indicted, you have twelve human hearts
+full of compassion to appeal to--and I can't think it possible a
+jury of sane men could look at you and condemn you. You must fight
+for your life; and what is far more to you than life, you must fight
+for your good name, for your character. Suspicion is not proof of
+crime, and there is no taint on you yet; for sin alone stains, and
+if you will only be brave and clear yourself as I know you can, what
+a grand triumph it will be. If you starve yourself you seal your
+doom. An empty stomach will do you more harm than the Grand Jury and
+all the lawyers; for it utterly upsets your nerves, and makes your
+brain whirl like a top. For three days and nights you have not
+tasted food: now just to please me, since I have taken so much
+trouble, sit down here by me, and eat what I have brought. I know
+you would rather not; I know you don't want it; but, my dear child,
+take it like any other dose, which will strengthen you for your
+battle. It is very fine to rant about heroism, but starvation is the
+best factory for turning out cowards: and even the courage of old
+Caesar would have had the 'dwindles,' if he had been stinted in his
+rations."
+
+She removed the napkin, and displayed a tempting luncheon, served in
+pretty, gilt-banded white china. What a contrast it presented, to
+the steaming tin platter and dull tin quart cups carried daily to
+the adjoining cell?
+
+Beryl laid her hand on Mrs. Singleton's shoulder, and her mouth
+trembled.
+
+"I thank you, sincerely, for your sympathy--and for your confidence;
+and to show my appreciation of your kindness, I wish I could eat
+that dainty luncheon; but I think it would strangle me--I have such
+a ceaseless aching here, in my throat. I feel as if I should
+stifle."
+
+"See here! I brought you some sweet rich milk in my little boy's
+cup. He was my first-born, and I lost him. This was his christening
+present from my mother. It is very precious, very sacred to me. If
+you will only drink what is in it, I shall be satisfied. Don't
+slight my angel baby's cup. That would hurt me."
+
+She raised the pretty "Bo-Peep" silver cup to the prisoner's lips,
+and seeing the kind hazel eyes swimming in tears, Beryl stooped her
+head and drank the milk.
+
+The warden's wife lifted the cup, looked wistfully at it, and kissed
+the name engraved on the metal:
+
+"You know now I must think you pure and worthy. I have given you the
+strongest possible proof; for only the good could be allowed to
+touch what my dead boy's lips have consecrated. Now come out with
+me, and get some pure fresh air."
+
+Beryl shrank back.
+
+"These close walls seem a friendly shelter from the horrible faces
+that cluster outside. You can form no idea how I dread contact with
+the vile creatures, whose crimes have brought them here for
+expiation. The thought of breathing the same atmosphere pollutes me.
+I think the loathsomeness of perdition must consist in association
+with the depraved and wicked. Not the undying flames would affright
+me, but the doom of eternal companionship with outcast criminals.
+No! No! I would sooner freeze here, than wander in the sunshine with
+those hideous wretches I saw the day I was thrust among them."
+
+"Trust me, and I will expose you to nothing unpleasant. Take your
+hat and shawl; I shall not bring you back here. There is time enough
+for cells when you have been convicted and sentenced; and please
+God, you shall never stay in this one again. Come."
+
+"Stay, madam. What is your purpose? I have been so hunted down, I am
+growing suspicious of the appearance of kindness. What are you going
+to do?"
+
+Mrs. Singleton took her hand and pressed it gently.
+
+"I am going to trust, and help, and love you, if you will let me;
+and for the present, I intend to keep you in a room adjoining mine,
+where you will have no fear of wicked neighbors."
+
+"That will be merciful indeed. May God bless you for the thought."
+
+Down iron staircases, and through dim corridors bordered with dark
+cells, gloomy as the lairs of wild beasts whom the besotted inmates
+resembled, the two women walked; and once, when a clank of chains
+and a hoarse human cry broke the dismal silence, Beryl clutched her
+companion's arm, and her teeth chattered with horror.
+
+"Yes, it is awful! That poor woman is the saddest case we have. She
+waylaid and stabbed her husband to death, and poisoned his mother.
+We think she is really insane, and as she is dangerous at times, it
+is necessary to keep her chained, until arrangements can be made to
+remove her to the insane asylum."
+
+"I don't wonder she is mad! People cannot dwell here and retain
+their reason; and madness is a mercy that blesses them with
+forgetfulness."
+
+Beryl shivered, and her eyes glittered with an unnatural and ominous
+brilliance.
+
+The warden's wife paused before a large door with solid iron panels,
+and rang a bell. Some one on the other side asked:
+
+"What is the order? Who rang?"
+
+"Mrs. Singleton; I want to get into the chapel. Let me out, Jasper."
+
+The door swung slowly back, and the guard touched his hat
+respectfully.
+
+Through an open arcade, where the sunlight streamed, Mrs. Singleton
+led her companion; then up a short flight of stone steps, and they
+found themselves in a long room, with an altar railing and pulpit at
+one end, and rows of wooden benches crossing the floor from wall to
+wall. Even here, the narrow windows were iron barred, but sunshine
+and the sweet, pure breath of the outside world entered freely.
+Within the altar railing, and at the right of the reading desk where
+a Bible lay, stood a cabinet organ. Leaving the prisoner to walk up
+and down the aisle, Mrs. Singleton opened the organ, drew out the
+stops, and after waiting a few moments, began to play.
+
+At first, only a solemn prelude rolled its waves of harmony through
+the peaceful sunny room, but soon the strains of the beautiful Motet
+"Cast thy burden on the Lord," swelled like the voice of some divine
+consoler. Watching the stately figure of the prisoner who wandered
+to and fro, the warden's wife noticed that like a magnet the music
+drew her nearer and nearer each time she approached the chancel, and
+at last she stood with one hand on the railing. The beautiful face,
+sharpened and drawn by mental agony, was piteously wan save where
+two scarlet spots burned on her cheeks, and the rigid lips were gray
+as some granite Statue's, but the eyes glowed with a strange
+splendor that almost transfigured her countenance.
+
+On and on glided the soft, subtle variations of the Motet, and
+gradually the strained expression of the shining eyes relaxed, as if
+the soul of the listener were drifting back from a far-off realm;
+the white lids quivered, the stern lines of the pale lips unbent. At
+that moment, the face of her father seemed floating on the sunbeams
+that gilded the pulpit, and the tones of her mother's voice rang in
+her ears. The terrible tension of many days and nights of torture
+gave way suddenly, like a silver thread long taut, which snaps with
+one last vibration. She raised her hands:
+
+"My God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?"
+
+The cry ended in a wail. Into her burning eyes merciful tears
+rushed, and sinking on her knees she rested against the railing,
+shaken by a storm of passionate weeping.
+
+Mrs. Singleton felt her own tears falling fast, but she played for a
+while longer; then stole out of the chapel, and sat down on the
+steps.
+
+Across the grass plot before the door, burnished pigeons cooed, and
+trod their stately minuet, their iridescent plumage showing every
+opaline splendor as the sunlight smote them; and on a buttress of
+the clock tower, a lonely hedge-sparrow poured his heart out in that
+peculiarly pathetic threnody which no other feathered throat
+contributes to the varied volume of bird lays. Poised on the point
+of an iron spike in the line that bristled along the wall, a mocking
+bird preened, then spread his wings, soared and finally swept
+downward, thrilling the air with the bravura of the "tumbling song";
+and over the rampart that shut out the world, drifted the refrain of
+a paean to peace:
+
+"Bob White!" "Peas ripe?" "Not quite!"
+
+In the vast epic of the Cosmos, evoked when the "Spirit of God moved
+upon the face of the waters"--an epic printed in stars on blue
+abysses of illimitable space; in illuminated type of rose leaf,
+primrose petal, scarlet berry on the great greenery of field and
+forest; in the rainbows that glow on tropical humming birds, on
+Himalayan pheasants, on dying dolphins in purple seas; and in all
+the riotous carnival of color on Nature's palette, from shifting
+glory of summer clouds, to the steady fires of red autumn skies--we
+find no blot, no break, no blurred abortive passages, until man
+stepped into creation's story. In the material, physical Universe,
+the divine rhythm flows on, majestic, serene as when the "morning
+stars sing together" in the choral of praise to Him, unto whom "all
+seemed good"; but in the moral and spiritual realm evolved by
+humanity, what hideous pandemonium of discords drowns the heavenly
+harmony? What grim havoc marks the swath, when the dripping scythe
+of human sin and crime swings madly, where the lilies of eternal
+"Peace on earth, good will to man," should lift their silver
+chalices to meet the smile of God?
+
+A vague conception of this vexing problem, which like a huge
+carnivorous spectre, flaps its dusky wings along the sky of
+sociology, now saddened Mrs. Singleton's meditations, as she watched
+the lengthening shadow cast by the tower upon the court-yard; but
+she was not addicted to abstract speculation, and the words of her
+favorite hymn epitomized her thoughts: "Though every prospect
+pleases, and only man is vile."
+
+The brazen clang of the deep-throated bell rang out on the quiet
+air, and a moment later, the piercing treble of a child's cry made
+her spring to her feet. She peeped into the chapel all was still.
+
+On tiptoe she passed swiftly down the aisle to the chancel, and saw
+the figure crouched at the altar, with one arm twined through the
+railing. For many days and nights the tortured woman had not known
+an instant of repose; nervous dread had scourged her to the verge of
+frenzy, but when the flow of long-pent tears partly extinguished the
+fire in her brain, overtaxed Nature claimed restitution, and the
+prisoner yielded to overwhelming prostration. Death might be
+hovering near, but her twin sister sleep intervened, and
+compassionately laid her poppies on the snowy eyelids.
+
+Stooping close, Mrs. Singleton saw that tears yet hung on the black
+lashes which swept the flushed cheeks, but the parted lips were at
+rest, and the deep regularly drawn breath told her that at last the
+weary soul reposed in the peaceful domain of dreams. Deftly, and
+softly as thistledown falls, she spread her own shawl over the
+drooping shoulders, then noiselessly hurried back to the door.
+Locking it, she took the key, ran across the grass, into the arcade,
+and up to the great iron barrier, which the guard opened as she
+approached. With flying feet she neared her own apartments, whence
+issued the indignant wail of her implacable baby girl. As she opened
+the door, her husband held the disconsolate child toward her.
+
+"You are in time for your share of the fun; I have had enough and to
+spare. How you stand this diabolical din day in, day out, passes my
+comprehension. You had not been gone fifteen minutes when Missy
+tuned up. I patted and, 'She-e-d' her, but she got her head above
+cover, squinted around the room, and not finding you, set up a
+squall that would have scared a wildcat. The more I patted, the
+worse she screamed, and her feet and hands flew around like a wind-
+mill. I took her up, and trotted her on my knee, but bless you! she
+squirmed like an eel, and her little bald head bobbed up and down
+faster than a di-dapper. Then I walked her, but I would as soon try
+to swing to a greased snake. She wriggled and bucked, and tied
+herself up into a bow knot, and yelled--. Oh! a Comanche papoose is
+a dummy to her. As if I had not hands full, arms full, and ears
+full, Dick must needs wake up and pitch head foremost out of the
+cradle, and turn a double summerset before he landed upside down on
+the floor, whereupon he lifted up his voice, and the concert grew
+lively. I took him under one arm, so, and laid Missy over my
+shoulder, and it struck me I would join the chorus in self defence,
+so I opened with all my might on 'Hold the Fort'; but great
+Tecumseh! I only insulted them both, and finding my fifth fiddle was
+nowhere in the fray, I feared Jarvis would hear the howling and ring
+the alarm bell, so I just sat down. I spread out Dick in a soft
+place, where he could not bump his brains out, and laying my lady
+across my lap, I held her down by main force, while she screamed
+till she was black in the face. If you had not come just when you
+did, I should have turned gray and cross-eyed. Hello, Missy! If she
+is not cooing and laughing! Little vixen! Oh! but--'lambs'!--I
+believe they are! Hereafter tend your own flock; and in preference I
+will herd young panthers."
+
+He wiped his forehead where the perspiration stood in drops, and
+watched with amazement the sudden lull in the tempest.
+
+Clasped in her mother's arms, the baby smiled and gurgled, and Dick,
+drying his eyes on the maternal bosom, showed the exact spot where
+she must kiss his bruised head.
+
+"Ned, what have you done? This baby's hair is dripping wet, and so
+is the neck of her dress."
+
+"Serves her right, too. I sprinkled her, that's all."
+
+"Sprinkled her! Have you lost your senses?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder if I had; people in bedlam are apt to be crazy.
+Yes, I sprinkled Missy, because she turned so black in the face, I
+thought she was strangling; and my step-mother always sprinkled me
+when I had a fit of tantrums. But let me tell you, Missy will never
+be a zealous Baptist, she doesn't take to water kindly."
+
+"When I want my children step-mothered I will let you know. Give me
+that towel, and baby's woollen cap hanging on the knob of the
+bureau. Bless her precious heart! if she does not keep you up all
+night, with the croup, you may thank your stars."
+
+"Susie, just tell me how you tame them, so that next time--"
+
+"Next time, sir, I shall not trust you. I just love them, and they
+know it; that is what tames the whole world."
+
+Edward Singleton stooped over his wife, and kissed her rosy cheek.
+
+"Little woman, what luck had you in No. 19?"
+
+"The best I could wish. I have saved that poor girl from brain-
+fever, I hope."
+
+"How did you manage it?"
+
+"Just simply because I am a flesh and blood woman, and not a
+blundering, cast-iron man."
+
+"How does she seem now?"
+
+"She has had a good, hearty spell of wholesome crying; no hysterics,
+mind you, but floods of tears; and now she is sound asleep with her
+head on the altar railing, in the chapel. I locked her up there, and
+here is the key. When she wakes, I want her brought up here, put in
+that room yonder, and left entirely to me, until her trial is over.
+I never do things half way, Ned, and you need not pucker your
+eyebrows, for I will be responsible for her. I have put my hand to
+the plough, and you are not to meddle with the lines, till I finish
+my furrow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+In one of the "outhouses" which constituted the servants' quarters,
+in that which common parlance denominated the "back-yard" at "Elm
+Bluff," an old negro woman sat smoking a pipe.
+
+The room which she had occupied for more than forty years, presented
+a singular melange of incongruous odds and ends, the flotsam of a
+long term of service, where the rewards, if intrinsically
+incommensurate, were none the less invaluable, to the proud
+recipient. The floor was covered by a faded carpet, once the pride
+of the great drawing-room, but the velvet pile had disappeared
+beneath the arched insteps and high heels of lovely belles and
+haughty beaux, and the scarlet feathers and peacock plumes that
+originally glowed on the brilliant buff ground, were no longer
+distinguishable.
+
+An old-fashioned piece of furniture, coeval with diamond shoe-
+buckles, ruffled shirts and queues, a brass bound mahogany
+chiffonier, with brass handles and tall brass feet representing cat
+claws, stood in one corner; and across the top was stretched a rusty
+purple velvet strip, bordered with tarnished gilt gimp and fringe, a
+fragment of the cover which belonged to the harp on which General
+Darrington's grandmother had played.
+
+The square bedstead was a marvel in size and massiveness, and the
+heavy mahogany posts nearly black with age, and carved like the
+twisted strands of a rope, supported a tester lined with turkey-red
+pleatings, held in the centre by the talons of a gilt spread-eagle.
+So tall was the bed, that three steps were required to ascend it,
+and the space thus left between the mahogany and the floor, was
+hidden by a valance of white dimity, garnished with wide cotton
+fringe. Over this spacious place of repose, a patchwork quilt of the
+"rising sun" pattern displayed its gaudy rays, resembling some
+sprawling octopus, rather than the face of Phoebus.
+
+The contents of a wide mantel board flounced with fringed dimity,
+(venerable prototype of macrame and Arrasene lambrequins), would
+have filled with covetousness the soul of the bric-a-brac devotee;
+and graced the counters of Sypher.
+
+There were burnished brass candle-sticks, with extinguishers in the
+shape of prancing griffins, and snuffers of the same metal,
+fashioned after the similitude of some strange and presumably
+extinct saurian; and a Dresden china shepherdess, whose shattered
+crook had long since disappeared, peeped coquettishly through the
+engraved crystal of a tall candle shade at the bloated features of a
+mandarin, on a tea-pot with a cracked spout--that some Darrington,
+stung by the gad-fly of travel, had brought to the homestead from
+Nanking. A rich blue glass vase poised on the back of a bronze swan,
+which had lost one wing and part of its bill in the combat with
+time, hinted at the rainbow splendors of its native Prague, and
+bewailed the captivity that degraded its ultra-marine depths into a
+receptacle for cut tobacco.
+
+The walls, ceiled with curled pine planks, were covered with a
+motley array of pasted and tacked pictures; some engraved, many
+colored, and ranging in comprehensiveness of designs, from Bible
+scenes cut from magazines, to "riots" in illustrated papers; and
+even the garish glory of circus and theatre posters.
+
+In one corner stood an oak spinning-wheel, more than centenarian in
+age, fallen into hopeless desuetude, but gay with the strings of
+scarlet pepper pods hung up to dry, and twined among its silent
+spokes. On a trivet provided with lizard feet that threatened to
+crawl away, rested a copper kettle bereft of its top, once the idol
+of three generations of Darringtons, to whom it had liberally
+dispensed "hot water tea," in the blessed dead and embalmed era of
+nursery rule and parental power; now eschewed with its despised use,
+and packed to the brim with medicinal "yarbs," bone-set, horse mint,
+life everlasting, and snake-root.
+
+In front of the fire which roared and crackled in the cavernous
+chimney, "Mam' Dyce" rocked slowly, enjoying her clay pipe, and
+meditatively gazing up at an engraved portrait of "Our First
+President," suspended on the wall. It was appropriately framed in
+black, and where the cord that held it was twined around a hook, a
+bow and streamers of very brown and rusty crape fluttered, when a
+draught entered the apartment.
+
+Obese in form, and glossy black in complexion, "Mam' Dyce" retained
+in old age the scrupulous neatness which had characterized her
+youth, when promoted to the post of seamstress and ladies' maid, she
+had ruled the servants' realm at "Elm Bluff" with a sway as
+autocratic as that of Catherine over the Muscovites. Her black
+calico dress, donned as mourning for her master, was relieved by a
+white apron tied about the ample waist; a snowy handkerchief was
+crossed over the vast bosom, and a checked white and black turban
+skilfully wound in intricate folds around her gray head, terminated
+in a peculiar knot, which was the pride of her toilet. A beautiful
+spotted pointer dog with ears like brown satin, was lying asleep
+near the fire, but suddenly he lifted his head, rose, stretched
+himself and went to the door. A moment later it opened, and the
+whilom major-domo, Abednego, came in; put his stick in one corner,
+hung his hat on a wooden peg, and approached the fireplace.
+
+"Well, ole man; you know I tole you so."
+
+"You wimmen would ruther say that, than eat pound cake. Supposin'
+you did tell me, what's the upshot?"
+
+"That gimlet-eyed weasel is snuffing round you and me; but we won't
+turn out to be spring chickens, ready picked."
+
+"Which is to signify that Miss Angerline smells a mouse? Don't talk
+parables, Dyce. What's she done now?"
+
+"She is hankering after that hankchiff. 'Pears to me, if she only
+went on four legs 'sted of two, she would sell high for a
+bloodhound."
+
+"Great Nebuckadanzer! How did she find out?"
+
+"Don't ax me; ax the witches what she has in cahoot. I always tole
+you, she had the eyes of a cunjor, and she has sarched it out. Says
+she saw you when you found it; which ain't true. Eavesdrapping is
+her trade; she was fotch up on it, and her ears fit a key-hole, like
+a bung plugs a barrel. She has eavesdrapped that hankchiff chat of
+our'n somehow. Wuss than that, Bedney, she sot thar this evening and
+faced me down, that I was hiding something else; that I picked up
+something on the floor and hid it in my bosom, after the crowner's
+inquess. Sez I: 'Well, Miss Angerline, you had better sarch me and
+be done with it, if you are the judge, and the jury, and the
+crowner, and the law, and have got the job to run this case.' Sez
+she, a-squinting them venomous eyes of her'n, till they looked like
+knitting needles red hot: 'I leave the sarching to be done by the
+cunstable--when you are 'rested and handcuffed for 'betting of
+murder.' Then my dander riz. Sez I, 'Crack your whip and go ahead!
+You know how, seeing you is the offspring of a Yankee overseer, what
+my marster, Gin'l Darrington, had 'rested for beating one of our
+wimen, on our 'Bend' plantation. You and your pa is as much alike,
+as two shrivelled cow peas out'en one pod. Fetch your cunstable, and
+help yourselves.'"
+
+Dyce rose, knocked the ashes out of her pipe, and stood like a dusky
+image of an Ethiopian Bellona.
+
+"Drat your servigerous tongue! Now the fat's in the fire, to be sho!
+Ever since I tuck you for better for wuss, I have been trying to
+larn you 'screshun! and I might as well 'a wasted my time picking a
+banjo for a dead jackass tu dance by; for you have got no more
+'screshun than old Eve had, in confabulating with the old adversary!
+Why couldn't you temperlize? Sassing that white 'oman, is a
+aggervating mistake."
+
+Under ordinary circumstances, Bedney and Dyce prided themselves on
+the purity of their diction, and they usually abstained from
+plantation dialect; but when embarrassed, frightened or excited,
+they invariably relapsed into the lingo of the "Quarters."
+
+"Hush! What's that? A screech owull! Bedney, turn your pocket."
+
+With marvellous swiftness she plunged her hand into her dress
+pocket, and turned it wrong side out, scattering the contents--
+thimble, thread, two "scalybarks," and some "ground peas" over the
+floor. Then stooping, she slipped off one shoe, turned it upside
+down, and hung it thus on a horseshoe fastened to the mantel board.
+
+"Just lem'me know when you have appinted to hold your sarching, and
+I will make it convenient to have bizness consarning that bunch of
+horgs and cattle, I am raising on shares in the 'Bend' plantation:
+and you can have your sarching frolic," said Bedney, too angry to
+heed the superstitious rites.
+
+Dyce made a warning gesture, and listened intently.
+
+"I am a-thinking you will be chief cook and bottle-washer at that
+sarching, for the appintment is at hand. Don't you hear Pilot baying
+the cunstable?"
+
+She sank into her rocking-chair, picked up a gray yarn sock, and
+began to knit unconcernedly; but in a significant tone, she added,
+nodding her head:
+
+"Hold your own hand, Bedney; don't be pestered about mine. I'll hoe
+my row; you 'tend to yourn."
+
+Then she leaned back, plying her knitting needles, and began to
+chant: "Who will be the leader when the Bridegroom comes?"
+
+Hearing the knock on the door, her voice swelled louder, and Bedney,
+the picture of perplexity, stood filling his pipe, when the bolt was
+turned, and a gentleman holding a whip and wearing a long overcoat
+entered the room.
+
+"Good evening, Bedney. Are you and Dyce holding a camp meeting all
+by yourselves? I hallooed at the gate till your dog threatened to
+devour me, and I had to scare him off with my buggy whip."
+
+"Why, how'dy, Mars Alfred? I am mighty glad to see you! Seems like
+old times, to shake hands with you in my cabin. Lem'me take off your
+overcoat, sir, and gim'me your hat, and make yourself comfortable,
+here by the jam of the chimbly."
+
+"No, Bedney, I can't spare the time, and I only want a little
+business matter settled before I get back to town to my office.
+Thank you, Dyce, this is an old-time rocker sure enough. It is a
+regular 'Sleepy Hollow.'"
+
+Mr. Churchill pushed back his hat, and held his gloved hand toward
+the fire.
+
+"Bedney, I want to see that handkerchief you found in your master's
+room, the day after he was murdered."
+
+"What hankchuf, Marse Alfred? I done tole everything I know, to the
+Crowner's inquess."
+
+"I dare say you did; but something was found afterward. I want to
+see it."
+
+"Who has been villifying of me? You have knowed me ever since you
+was knee-high to a duck, and I--."
+
+"Nobody has vilified you, but Miss Dobbs saw you examining
+something, which she says you pushed up your coat sleeve. She thinks
+it was a handkerchief, but it may have been valuables. Now it is my
+duty, as District Solicitor, to discover and prosecute the person
+who killed your master, and you ought to render me every possible
+assistance. Any unwillingness to give your testimony, or surrender
+the articles found, will cast suspicion on you, and I should be
+sorry to have you arrested."
+
+"Fore Gord, Marse Alfred, I--"
+
+"Own up, husband. You did find a hankchef. You see, Marse Alfred, we
+helped to raise that poor young gal's mother; and Bedney and me was
+'votedly attached to our young Mistiss, Miss Ellie, and we thought
+ole Marster was too hard on her, when she run off with the furrin
+fiddler; so when this awful 'fliction fell upon us and everybody was
+cusing Miss Ellie's child of killing her own grandpa, we couldn't
+believe no such onlikely yarn, and Bedney and me has done swore our
+vow, we will stand by that poor young creetur, for her ma's sake;
+for our young mistiss was good to us, and our heart strings was
+'rapped round her. We does not intend, if we can help it, to lend a
+hand in jailing Miss Ellie's child, and so, after the Crowner had
+'liceted all the facts as he said, and the verdict was made up,
+Bedney and me didn't feel no crampings in our conscience, about
+holding our tongues. Another reason why we wanted to lay low in this
+hiere bizness, was that we didn't hanker after sitting on the
+anxious seats of witnesses in the court-house; and being called
+ongodly thieves, and perjured liars, and turned wrong side out by
+the lie-yers, and told our livers was white, and our hearts blacker
+than our skins. Marse Alfred, Bedney and me are scared of that
+court; what you call the law, cuts curous contarabims sometimes, and
+when the broad axe of jestice hits, there is no telling whar the
+chips will fly; it's wuss than hull-gull, or pitching heads and
+tails. You are a lie-yer, Marse Alfred, and you know how it is
+yourself; and I beg your pardon, sir, for slighting the perfession;
+but when I was a little gal, I got my scare of lie-yers, and it has
+stuck to me like a kuckleburrow. One Christmas eve jest before ole
+Marster got married, he had a egg-nog party; and a lot of gentlemen
+was standing 'round the table in the dining-room. One of 'em was ole
+Mr. Dunbar, Marse Lennox' father, and he axed ole Marster if he had
+saved that game rooster for him, as he promised, Marster told him he
+was very sorry, but some rogue had done gone and burnt some sulphur
+the week before in his henhouse, and bagged that 'dentical rooster.
+Presently Mr. Dunbar axed if Marster would let him have one of the
+blue hen's roosters, if he would catch the rogue for him before
+midnight. Of course Marster said he would. Mr. Dunbar (Marse Lennox'
+pa), he was practicing law then, had a pot full of smut on the
+bottom, turned upside down on the dining-room flo', and he and
+Marster went out to the hen-'ouse and got a dominicker rooster and
+shoved him under the pot. Then they rung the bell, and called every
+darkey on the place into the dining-room, and made us stand in a
+line. I was a little gal then, only so high, but I followed my daddy
+in the house, and I never shall disremember that night, 'cause it
+broke up our home preachment. Mr. Dunbar made a speech, and the
+upshot of it was, that every darkey was to walk past the pot and rub
+his finger in the smut; and he swore a solemn oath, that when the
+pusson that stole that fine game rooster, touched the pot, the
+dominicker rooster would crow. As Marster called our names, we every
+one marched out and rubbed the pot, and when all of us had tried,
+the rooster hadn't crowed. Mr. Dunbar said there was some mistake
+somewhere, and he made us step up and show hands, and make prints on
+his hankcher; and lo, and behold! one darkey had not touched the
+pot; his forefinger was clean; so Mr. Dunbar says, 'Luke, here is
+your thief?' and shore 'nuff, it was our preacher, and he owned up.
+I never forgot that trick, and from that day 'till now, I have been
+more scared of a lie-yer, than I am of a mad dog. They is the only
+perfession that the Bible is agin, for you know they jawed our Lord
+hisself, and he said, 'Woe! woe! to you lie-yers.' Now, Marse
+Alfred, if you have made up your mind you are gwine to have that
+hankcher, it will be bound to come; for if it was tied to a
+millstone and drapped in the sea, you lie-yers would float it into
+court; so Bedney, jest perduce what you found."
+
+"That is right, Dyce; I am glad your opinion of my profession has
+forced you to such a sensible conclusion. Come, Bedney, no balking
+now."
+
+Perplexed by Dyce's tactics, Bedney stood irresolute, with his half-
+filled pipe slipping from his fingers; and he stared at his wife for
+a few seconds, hoping that some cue would be furnished.
+
+"Bedney, there's no use in being cantankerous. If you won't perduce
+it, I will."
+
+Plunging her hand into the blue glass bowl, she pushed aside the
+tobacco, and extracted a key; then crossed the room, lifted the
+valance of the patriarchal bed, and dragged out a small, old-
+fashioned hair trunk, ornamented with stars and diamonds of brass
+tack heads. Drawing it across the floor, she sat down near Mr.
+Churchill, and bending over, unlocked and opened it. After removing
+many articles of clothing, and sundry heirlooms, she lifted from the
+bottom a bundle, which she laid on her lap, and edging her chair
+closer to the Solicitor, proceeded to unfold the contents. The
+outside covering was a richly embroidered Canton crape shawl,
+originally white, now yellow as old ivory; but when this was
+unwrapped, there appeared only an ordinary sized brown gourd, with a
+long and singularly curved handle, as crooked as a ram's horn.
+Bending one of her knitting needles into a hook, Dyce deftly
+inserted it in the neck, where it joined the bowl, and after
+manoeuvring a few seconds, laid down the needle, and with the aid of
+her thumb and forefinger slowly drew out a long roll, tightly
+wrapped with thread. Unwinding it, she shook the roll, and a small,
+gray object, about two inches long, dropped into her lap. Mr.
+Churchill sat leaning a little forward, as if intent on Dyce's
+movements, but his elbow rested on the arm of the rocking chair, and
+holding his hand up to screen his face from the blaze of the fire,
+he was closely watching Bedney. When Dyce shook out and held up a
+faded, dingy blue silk handkerchief, the lawyer noted a sudden
+twinkle in the old man's eyes, but no other feature moved, and he
+stooped to take a coal of fire from the hearth.
+
+"There is the hankchuf that Bedney found. But mebbe you don't know
+what this is, that I wrapped up in it, to bring us good luck?"
+
+She spread the handkerchief over his knee, and held up the small
+gray furry object, which had fallen from its folds.
+
+"Rabbit's foot? Let me see; yes, that is the genuine left hind foot.
+I know all about it, because when my regiment was ordered to the
+front, my old colored Mammy--Ma'm Judy--who nursed me, sewed one
+just like that, inside the lining of my coat skirt. But, Dyce, that
+rabbit's foot was not worth a button; for the very first battle I
+was in, a cannon ball killed my horse under me, and carried away my
+coat tail--rabbit's foot and all. Don't pin your faith to left hind
+feet, they are fatal frauds. You are positive, this is the
+handkerchief Bedney found? It smells of asafoetida and camphor, and
+looks like it had recently been tied around somebody's sore throat."
+
+"Marse Alfred, I will swear on a stack of Bibles high as the
+'Piscopal church steeple, that Bedney Darrington gim'me that same
+blue hankcher, and he said he found it. I wasn't with him when he
+found it, but I hardly think he would 'a stole a' old rag like that.
+I have perduced it! now if you want to sarch behind it, you must
+tackle Bedney."
+
+She resumed her knitting and her lips closed like the spring of a
+steel trap.
+
+"Dyce, I haven't heard the rooster crow yet. Somebody has fought shy
+of the pot. See here, I am in earnest now, and I will give you both
+a friendly word of warning. Your actions are so suspicious, that
+unless you produce the real article you found, I shall be obliged to
+send you to jail, and try you for the murder. How do I know that you
+and Bedney are not the guilty parties, instead of General
+Darrington's granddaughter? This soiled rag will impose neither upon
+me, nor upon the court, and I give you five minutes to put into my
+possession the real genuine handkerchief. I shall know it when I see
+it, because it is white, with red spots on the border."
+
+"Paddle your own 'dug out,' Bedney, and show your s'creshun. If
+Marse Alfred wants to set the red-eyed hounds of the Law on an
+innocent 'oman, let him blow his horn."
+
+She knitted assiduously, and looked composedly at her husband, whose
+lower jaw had suddenly fallen, while his eyelids blinked nervously,
+as though attacked by St. Vitus' dance.
+
+"Only five minutes, Bedney."
+
+Mr. Churchill took out his watch, and held it open.
+
+"You see, Marse Alfred, I--"
+
+"I don't see anything but an infernal fraud you two have planned.
+Only three minutes more. There is a constable waiting at the gate,
+and if he can not persuade you to--"
+
+"Bedney, step and fetch him in, and let Marse Alfred see the
+sarching job done up all right."
+
+"No, I don't hunt foxes that way. Instead of searching this cabin,
+we will just march you both instanter out of these comfortable
+quarters, and let you try how soft the beds are, at the 'State
+boarding-house.' You will sleep cold on iron bunks, and miss your
+feathers and your crazy quilts. Time's up."
+
+He closed his watch, with a snap, and rose as he returned it to his
+pocket.
+
+"Hold on, Marse Alfred! My head ain't hard enough to run it plum
+into a wolf's jaws. I ain't 'sponsible for nobody's acts but my own,
+and if Dyce have committed a pius fraud, in this here hank'cher
+bizness, to screen Miss Ellie's child, why, you see yourself, I had
+no hand in it. I did find that blue 'rag,' as you seen fit to call
+it, but it was nigh on to twenty years ago. when I pulled it out of
+the breast pocket of a dead Yankee officer, we found lying across a
+cannon, what my old Marster's regiment captured at the battle of
+Manassas. I gin it to my wife as a screw-veneer o' the war and she
+have treasured it accordin'. You are a married man yourself, Marse
+Alfred, and you are obleedged to know that wedlock is such a tight
+partnership, that it is an awfully resky thing for a man to so much
+as bat his eyes, or squint 'em, toward the west, when the wife of
+his bosom has set her'n to the east. I have always 'lowed Dyce her
+head, 'pecially in jokes like that one she was playing on you just
+now, 'cause St. John the Baptist said a man must forsake father and
+mother and cleave unto his wife; but conjugular harness is one
+thing, and the law is another, and I don't hanker after forsaking my
+pine-knot fire, and feather bed, to cleave unto jail bars, and
+handcuffs. I see you are tired of Dyce's jokes, and you mean
+bizzness; and I don't intend to consume no more of your valuable
+solicitous time. Dyce, fetch me that plank bottom cher to stand on."
+
+"Fetch it yourself. Paddling your own canoe, means headin' for the
+mill dam."
+
+Bedney hastened to procure the designated chair, which he mounted in
+front of the mantel piece, and thence reaching up to the portrait of
+President Lincoln, took it carefully down from the hook. With the
+blade of his pocket-knife, he loosened some tacks which secured the
+thin pine slats at the back of the picture, and removed them. He
+took everything from the frame, and blank dismay seized him, when
+the desired object was nowhere visible.
+
+"Marse Alfred, I swear I tacked that hank'cher in the back of this
+here portrait, between the pasteboard and the brown paper, only
+yestiddy; and 'fore Gord! I haint seen it since."
+
+Grasping his wife's shoulder, be shook her, until her tall turban
+quivered and bent over like the Tower of Pisa, and Mr. Churchill saw
+that in his unfeigned terror, drops of perspiration broke out on his
+wrinkled forehead.
+
+"Have you turned idjut, that you want us both to be devoured by the
+roarin' lion of the Law? My mammy named me Bedney, not Dani-yell,
+and she had oughter, for Gord knows, you have kept me in a fiery
+furnace ever since I tuck you for better for wurser, mostly wurser.
+I want that hank'cher, and you'd better believe--I want it quick. I
+found it, and I'm gwine to give it up; and you have got no right to
+jeppardy my life, if you are fool enough to resk your own stiff
+neck. Gim'me that hank'cher! Fantods is played out. I would ruther
+play leap frog over a buzz-saw than--than--pester and rile Marse
+Alfred, and have the cunstable clawing my collar."
+
+"You poor, pitiful, rascally, cowardly creetur! Whar's that oath you
+done swore, to help 'fend Miss Ellie's child? And you a deacon, high
+in the church! If I had found that hank'cher, I would hide it, till
+Gabriel's horn blows; and I would go to jail or to Jericho; and
+before I would give testimony agin my dear young Mistiss's poor
+friendless gal, I would chaw my tongue into sassage meat. That's the
+diffunce between a palavering man full of 'screshun, and a 'oman who
+means what she says; and will stand by her word, if it rains fire
+and brimstone. Betrayin' and denying the innercent, has been men's
+work, ever since the time of Judas and Peter. Now, Marse Alfred,
+Bedney did tack the hank'cher inside the portrait of President
+Linkum, 'cause we thought that was the saftest place, but I knowed
+the house would be sarched, so I jest hid it in a better place.
+Since he ain't showed no more backbone than a saucer of blue-mange,
+I shall have to give it up; but if I had found it, you would never
+set your two eyes on it, while my head is warm."
+
+She stooped, lifted the wide hem of her black calico skirt, and
+proceeded to pick out the stitches which held it securely. When she
+had ripped the thread about a quarter of a yard, she raised the edge
+of the unusually deep hem, and drew out a white handkerchief with a
+colored border.
+
+Bedney snatched it from her, and handed it to the Solicitor, who
+leaned close to the fire, and carefully examined it. As he held it
+up by the corners, his face became very grave and stern, and he
+sighed.
+
+"This is evidently a lady's handkerchief, and is so important in the
+case, that I shall keep it until the trial is over. Bedney, come to
+my office by nine o'clock to-morrow, as the Grand Jury may ask you
+some questions. Good bye, Dyce, shake hands; for I honor your
+loyalty to your poor young mistress, and her unfortunate child. You
+remind me of my own old mammy. Dear good soul, she was as true as
+steel."
+
+As Mr. Churchill left the house, Bedney accompanied him to the gate.
+When he returned, the door was locked. In vain he demanded
+admittance; in vain tried the windows; every entrance was securely
+barred, and though he heard Dyce moving about within, she deigned no
+answer to his earnest pleadings, his vehement expostulations, or his
+fierce threats of summary vengeance. The remainder of that night was
+spent by Pilot and his irate master in the great hay bin of the "Elm
+Bluff" stables. When the sun rose next morning, Bedney rushed
+wrathful as Achilles, to resent his wrongs. The door of his house
+stood open; a fire glowed on the well swept hearth, where a pot of
+boiling coffee and a plate of biscuit welcomed him; but Dyce was
+nowhere visible, and a vigorous search soon convinced him she had
+left home on some pressing errand.
+
+Two hours later, Mrs. Singleton opened the door of the small room
+adjoining her own bedchamber, to which she had insisted upon
+removing the prisoner.
+
+Beryl stood leaning against the barred window, and did not even turn
+her head.
+
+"Here is a negro woman, begging to see you for a few moments. She
+says she is an old family servant of General Darrington's."
+
+Standing with her back toward the door, the prisoner put out one
+hand with a repellent gesture:
+
+"I have surely suffered enough from General Darrington and his
+friends; and I will see nobody connected with that fatal place,
+which has been a curse to me."
+
+"Just as you please; but old Auntie here, says she nursed your
+mother, and on that account wants to see you."
+
+Without waiting for permission, Dyce darted past the warden's wife,
+into the room, and almost before Beryl was aware of her presence,
+stood beside her.
+
+"Are you Miss Ellie's daughter?"
+
+Listlessly the girl turned and looked at her, and Dyce threw her
+arms around her slender waist, and falling on her knees hid her face
+in Beryl's dress, sobbing passionately. In the violence of her
+emotion, she rocked back and forth, swaying like a reed in some
+fierce blast the tall form, to whom she clung.
+
+"Oh, my lovely! my lovely! To think you should be shut up here! To
+see Miss Ellie's baby jailed, among the off-scourings of the earth!
+Oh, you beautiful white deer! tracked and tore to pieces by wolves,
+and hounds, and jackalls! Oh, honey! Just look straight at me, like
+you was facing your accusers before the bar of God, and tell me you
+didn't kill your grandpa. Tell me you never dipped your pretty hands
+in ole Marster's blood."
+
+Tears were streaming down Dyce's cheeks.
+
+"If you knew my mother, how can you think it possible her child
+could commit an awful crime?"
+
+"Oh, God knows--I don't know what to think! 'Peers to me the world
+is turned upside down. You see, honey, you are half and half; and
+while I am perfectly shore of Miss Ellie's half of you, 'cause I can
+always swear to our side, the Darrington in you, I can't testify
+about your pa's side; he was a--a--"
+
+"He was as much a gentleman, as my mother was a lady; and I would
+rather be his daughter, than call a king my father."
+
+"I believe you! There ain't no drop of scrub blood in you, as I can
+see, and if you ain't thoroughbred, 'pearances are deceitful. I
+loved your ma; I loved the very ground her little feet trod on. I
+fed her out of my own plate many a time, 'cause she thought her
+Mammy's vittils was sweeter than what Mistiss 'lowed her to have;
+and she have slept in my bosom, and these arms have carried her, and
+hugged her, and--and--oh, Lord God A'mighty! it most kills me to see
+you, her own little baby here! In this awful, cussed den of thieves
+and villi-yans! Oh, honey! for God's sake, just gin me some 'surance
+you are as pure as you look; just tell me your soul is a lily, like
+your face."
+
+Beryl stooped, put her hand on the turbaned head, and bending it
+back, so as to look down into the swimming eyes, answered:
+
+"If I had died when I was a month old, my baby soul would not have
+faced God any more innocent of crime then, than I am to-day. I had
+no more to do with taking General Darrington's money and his life,
+than the archangels in Heaven."
+
+"Bless God! Now I am satisfied. Now I see my way clare. But it sets
+my blood afire to see you here; it's a burning shame to put my dear
+young Mistiss' child in this beasts' cage. I can't help thinking of
+that poor beautiful white deer, what Marster found crippled, down at
+our 'Bend' Plantation, that some vagabond had shot. Marster fotch it
+up home, and of all the pitifulist sights!"
+
+Dyce had risen, and covering her face with her white apron, she wept
+for some minutes.
+
+"Are you not the wife of Bedney, who saved my mother's life, when
+the barn burned?"
+
+"Yes, honey, I am Mam' Dyce, and if I am spared, I will try to save
+your'n. That is what has brung me here. You are 'cused of the
+robb'ry and the murder, and you have denied it in the court; but
+chile, the lie-yers are aworking day and night fur to hang you, and
+little is made of much, on your side, and much is spun out of
+little, on theirn. They are more cunning than foxes, and
+bloodthirstier than panters, and they no more git tired than the
+spiders, that spin and piece a web as fast as you break it. Three
+nights ago, I got down on my knees, and I kissed a little pink
+morocco slipper what your Ma wore the day when she took her first
+step from my arm to her own mother's knees, and I swore a solemn
+oath, if I could help free Miss Ellie's child, I would do it. Now I
+want to ask you one thing. Did you lose anything that day you come
+to our house, and had the talk with old Marster?"
+
+"Nothing, but my peace and happiness."
+
+"Are you shore you didn't drap your hank'cher?"
+
+"Yes, I am sure I did not, because I wrapped it around some
+chrysanthemums I gathered as I went away."
+
+"Well, a lady's hank'cher was found in Marster's room, and it did
+smell of chloryform. Bedney picked it up, and we said nothing and
+laid low, and hid the thing; but that Godforsaken and predestinated
+sinner, Miss Angeline, kept sarching and eavesdrapping, and set the
+lie-yers on the scent, and they have 'strained Bedney on peril of
+jailing him, to perduce it. When it got into their claws, and I
+thought it might belonk to you, my teeth chattered, and I felt like
+the back of my frock was a ice-warehouse. Now, honey, can you
+testify before God and man, that hank'cher ain't yourn?"
+
+"I certainly can. I had only three handkerchiefs with me when I left
+home, and I have them still. Here is one, the other two lie yonder.
+But that handkerchief is worth everything; because it must belong to
+the vile wretch who committed the crime, and it will help to prove
+my innocence. Where is it?"
+
+"The Grand Jury is setting on it."
+
+Here Dyce looked cautiously around, and tip-toed to the door;
+finding it ajar, closed it, then stole back. Putting her lips close
+to Beryl's ear, she whispered:
+
+"Did you lose a sleeve button?"
+
+"No. I did not wear any."
+
+"Thank God! I feel like all the bricks in the court-house was lifted
+off my heart, and flung away. I was in fear and trimbling about that
+button, 'cause I picked it up, just under the aidge of the rug,
+where ole Marster fell, when he got his death blow; and as sure as
+the coming of the Judgment Day, it was drapped by the pusson who
+killed him. I was so afeared it might belonk to you, that I have
+been on the anxious seat ever since I found it; and I concluded the
+safest way was to bring it here to you. I am scared to keep it at
+home, 'cause them yelping wolves as wears the sheepskins of Justice,
+are on my tracks. I would never give it up, if I was chopped to
+mince meat; but Bedney ain't got no more than enuff backbone for
+half of a man, and the lie-yers discomfrizzle him so, I could not
+trust him, when it comes to the scratch. Now that button is worth a
+heap, and I am precious careful of it. Look here."
+
+She took from her pocket two large pods of red pepper, which looked
+exactly alike, but the end of one had been cut out around the stem,
+then neatly fitted back, and held in place by some colorless cement.
+Beckoning Beryl to follow, Dyce went closer to the window, and with
+the aid of her teeth drew out the stem. Into her palm rolled a
+circular button of some opaque reddish-brown substance, resembling
+tortoise shell, and enamelled with gilt bunches of grapes, and
+inlaid leaves of mother-of-pearl. Across the top, embossed in gilt
+letters ran the word "Ricordo."
+
+The old woman lifted her open palm, and as Beryl saw the button, a
+gasping, gurgling sound broke from her. She snatched it, stared at
+it. Then the Gorgon head slipped through her fingers, she threw
+herself against the window, shook the iron bar frantically; and one
+desperate cry seemed to tear its way through her clinched teeth,
+over her ashy lips:
+
+"Oh, Mother! Mother--Mother! You are nailing me to a cross."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Nowhere in the vast vista of literature is there an episode more
+exquisitely pathetic than that serene picture of the Grove at
+Colonus, sacred to the "Semnai Theai;" where the dewy freshness, the
+floral loveliness, the spicery, and all the warbling witchery of
+nature pay tribute to the Avenging Goddesses.
+
+Twenty-two centuries have sifted their dust over the immortal
+figures seated on the marble bench within the precincts consecrated
+to the Eumenides, but in deathless tenacity, the rich aroma of
+Sophocles' narcissus, and the soft crocus light linger there still;
+while from thickets of olive, nightingales break their hearts in
+song, as thrilling as the melody that smote the ears of doomed and
+dying Oedipus.
+
+So in all ages, we, born thralls of grief, lift streaming eyes, and
+chant elegies to stony-hearted Mother-Earth, but her starry orbs
+shine on, undimmed by sympathetic tears; her smiling lips show only
+sunshine in their changeless dimples, and her myriad fingers
+sweeping the keys of the Universal Organ, drown our De Profundis in
+the rhythmic thunders of her Jubilate. Wailing children of Time, we
+crouch and tug at the moss-velvet, daisy-sprinkled skirts of the
+mighty Mater, praying some lullaby from her to soothe our pain; but
+human woe frets not her sublime serenity, as deaf as desert sphinx,
+she fronts the future.
+
+Some echo of this maddening mystery sounded in the ears of the
+lonely woman, who clutched the bars of her dungeon, and stared
+through its iron lattice, at the peaceful, happy, outside world. At
+her feet lay X---, divided by the silvery river, which, here rushed
+with arrowy swiftness under the gray stone arches of the bridge, and
+there widened into glassy lakelets, as if weary from the mad plunge
+over a distant rocky ledge in mid-stream, whence the dull steady
+roar of the "falls" thrilled the atmosphere, like the "tremolo" in a
+dim cathedral, where fading daylight dies on painted apse and gilded
+pipes. As a chessboard the squares of buildings were spread out,
+defined by wide streets, where humanity and its traffic sped, busy
+as ants. In a green plot, the sombre facade of the court-house
+surmounted by an eyeless stone statue of Justice, frowned on the
+frivolous throng below; and along the verge of the common, marble
+fingers pointed up to the heaven of blue that bent above "God's
+Acre"; while now and then, bulbous towers, and glittering steeple
+vanes, caught the sunshine on their polished crests. Beyond the
+whole, and bounding the valley filled with a billowy sea of bluish-
+green pine tops, rose a wooded eminence, wearing still its Persian
+robe of autumn foliage, and on its brow the colonnade and chimneys
+of "Elm Bluff" blotted the southern sky, like a threatening phantom.
+
+To-day forest, stream, earth and sky, appeared branded with one
+fatal word, as if the world's wide page held only "Ricordo!
+Ricordo!"
+
+Beryl shut her eyes and groaned; but the scene merely shifted to a
+dell under the shadow of Carrara hills, where olives set "Ricordo"
+among their silver leaves; and lemons painted "Ricordo" in their
+pale gold; and scarlet pomegranates and nodding violets, burning
+anemones and tender green of trailing maiden-hair ferns all blazoned
+"Ricordo."
+
+The fierce tide of wrath, that indignation and her keen sense of
+outraged innocence had poured like molten lead through her throbbing
+arteries, was oozing sluggishly, congealing under the awful spell of
+that one word "Ricordo." Hitherto, the shame of the suspicion, the
+degradation of the imprisonment had caught and empaled her thoughts;
+but by degrees, these became dwarfed by the growing shadow of a
+possibly ignominious death, which spread its sable pinions along the
+rosy dawn of her womanhood, and devoured the glorious sun of her
+high hopes. The freezing gloom was creeping nearer, and to-day she
+could expect no succor, save by one avenue.
+
+Islam believes that only the cimeter edge of Al Sirat divides
+Paradise from perdition. Beryl realized that in her peril, she trod
+an equally narrow snare, over yawning ruin, holding by a single
+thread of hope that handkerchief. Weak natures shiver and
+procrastinate, shunning confirmation of their dread; but to this
+woman had come a frantic longing to see, to grasp, to embrace the
+worst. She was in a death grapple with appalling fate, and that
+handkerchief would decide the issue.
+
+Physical exhaustion was following close upon the mental agony that
+had stretched her on the rack, for so many days and nights. To sit
+still was impossible, yet in her wandering up and down the narrow
+room, she reeled, and sometimes staggered against the wall, dizzy
+from weakness, to which she would not succumb.
+
+Human help was no more possible for her, than for Moses, when he
+climbed Nebo to die; and alone with her God, the brave soul
+wrestled. Wearily she leaned against the window bars, twining her
+hot fingers around them, pressing her forehead to the cold barrier;
+and everywhere "Ricordo" stabbed her eyes like glowing steel.
+
+The door opened, some words were uttered in an undertone, then the
+bolt clicked in its socket, and Mr. Dunbar approached the window.
+Mechanically Beryl glanced over her shoulder, and a shiver crept
+across her.
+
+"I believe you know me. Dunbar is my name."
+
+He stood at her side, and they looked into each other's eyes, and
+measured lances. Could this worn, pallid woman, be the same person
+who in the fresh vigor of her youthful beauty, had suggested to him
+on the steps of "Elm Bluff," an image of Hygeia? Here insouciante
+girlhood was dead as Manetho's dynasties, and years seemed to have
+passed over this auburn head since he saw it last. Human faces are
+Nature's highest type of etchings, and mental anguish bites deeper
+than Dutch mordant; heart-ache is the keen needle that traces finest
+lines.
+
+"Yes, I know you only too well. You are Tiberius."
+
+Her luminous deep eyes held his at bay, and despite his habitual,
+haughty equipoise, her crisp tone of measureless aversion stung him.
+
+"Sarcasm is an ill-selected arbiter between you and me; and your
+fate for all time, your future weal or woe is rather a costly
+shuttlecock to be tossed to and fro in a game of words. I do not
+come to bandy phrases, and in view of your imminent peril, I cannot
+quite understand your irony."
+
+"Understand me? You never will. Did the bloodthirsty soul of
+Tiberius comprehend the stainless innocence of the victims he
+crushed for pastime on the rocks below Villa Jovis? There is but one
+arbiter for your hatred, the hang-man, to whom you would so gladly
+hurry me. Hunting a woman to the gallows is fit sport for men of
+your type."
+
+Unable to withdraw his gaze from the magnetism of hers, he frowned
+and bit his lip. Was she feigning madness, or under the terrible
+nervous strain, did her mind wander?
+
+"Your language is so enigmatical, that I am forced to conclude you
+resort to this method of defence. The exigencies of professional
+duty compel me to assume toward you an attitude, as painfully
+embarrassing to me as it is threatening to you. Because the stern
+and bitter law of justice sometimes entails keen sorrow upon those
+who are forced to execute her decrees, is it any less obligatory
+upon the appointed officers to obey the solemn behests?"
+
+"Justice! Into what a frightful mockery have such as you degraded
+her worship! No wonder justice fled to the stars. You are the
+appointed officer of a harpy screaming for the blood of the
+innocent. How dare you commit your crimes, raise your red hands, in
+the sacred name of justice? Call yourself the priest of a frantic
+vengeance, for whom some victim must be provided; and libel no more
+the attribute of Jehovah."
+
+Scorn curled her lips, and beneath her glowing eyes, his grew
+restless, as panoplied in conscious innocence she seemed to defy
+attack.
+
+"You evidently credit me with motives of personal animosity, which
+would alike disgrace my profession and my manhood. For your sake,
+rather than my own, I should like to remove this erroneous
+impression from your mind. If you could only understand--"
+
+She threw up her hand, with an imperious gesture of disdain.
+
+"Save your sophistries; they are wasted here. Why multiply cobwebs?
+I understand you. If doves have a sixth sense that warns them before
+they hear the hawk's cry, or discern the shadow of his circling
+wings, and if mice, dumb in a cat's claws, surmise the exact value
+of the preliminary caresses, the graceful antics, the fatal fondling
+of the velvet paw, so we, the prey of legal 'Justice' know
+instinctively what the swinging of censers, and the chanting of her
+high priest mean, when he draws near us. I understand you. You
+intend to hang me if you can."
+
+He drew his breath with a hissing sound, and a dark flush Stained
+his broad smooth brow.
+
+"On my honor as a gentleman, I came here to-day solely to--"
+
+"Solely to assure yourself of some doubtful link you must weld into
+your chain; solely to plunge the scalpel of some double-edged
+question. If there must be an ante mortem examination, we will wait,
+if you please, for the legal dissection when I am stretched before
+the jury-box. Until then, you have no right to intrude upon the
+misery you have brought on an innocent woman."
+
+They stood so near each other, that he could count the fierce
+throbbing of the artery in her round snowy throat, and see the
+shadow of her long lashes; and again some electric current flashed
+from her feverishly bright eyes, burning its way to the secret
+chambers of his selfish heart, melting the dross that ambition and
+greed had slowly cemented, and dropping one deathless spark into a
+deep adytum, of the existence of which he had never even dreamed.
+Unconsciously he leaned toward her, but she pressed back against the
+iron bars, and drew her dress aside as if shunning a leper. There
+was no petulance in the motion, but its significance pricked him,
+like a dagger point.
+
+"It was the hope of finding you an innocent woman, that must plead
+my pardon for what you consider an unwarrantable 'intrusion.' Will
+you believe me, if I swear to you, that I have come as a friend?"
+
+"As a friend to me? No. As a friend to General Darrington and his
+adopted son Prince? Yes. Oh, Tiberius! Your rosy apples are flavored
+like those your forefather offered Agrippina."
+
+"Do you regard me as an unscrupulous, calculating villain, who
+pretending kindness, plots treachery? Do you deliberately offer me
+this wanton insult?"
+
+His swart face reddened, and the fine lines of his handsome mouth
+hardened.
+
+She shrank a few inches closer to the window, and compressed her
+lips.
+
+"If you were a man, I should swiftly resent the affront you have
+thrust upon me, and suitable redress would be peculiarly sweet and
+welcome; but you are a defenceless and unfortunate woman, and my
+hands are tied. I desire to help you; you repulse me and insult my
+manhood. I will do my painful duty, because it is sternly and
+inexorably my duty; but, I wish to God, I had never set my eyes on
+you."
+
+The sudden passionate ring in his voice surprised her, and she
+looked searchingly at him, wondering into what pitfall it was
+intended to lure her.
+
+"If you had never set your eyes on me? Ah, would to God I had died
+ten thousand times before I encountered their evil spell! If you had
+never set your eyes on me? I should be now, a happy, hopeful girl,
+with life beckoning me like the rosy Syrian plains that smiled on
+the desert-weary. The world looked so bright to me that day, when
+first I smelled the sweet resinous pines, and dreamed of my work,
+and all the glory of the victory, I knew that I should win over
+poverty and want. I was so poor in worldly goods, but oh!--Croesus
+could not have bought my proud hopes! So rich, so overflowing with
+high hope! As I think of my feelings that day, among the primroses
+and pine cones, it seems a hundred years ago, and I recall the image
+of a girl long dead; such a proud girl; so happy in the beautiful
+world of the art she loved! Then some strange awful curse that had
+lain in wait, ambushed among the flowers I gathered that last day of
+my dead existence, fell upon me--I saw you! No wonder I shivered,
+when you met me. I saw you. Then my sun sickened and went out, and
+my hopes crumbled, and my youth shrivelled and perished forever; and
+the wide world is a rayless dungeon, and the girl Beryl is buried so
+deep, that the Angels of the Resurrection will never find her!--and
+I?--I am only a withered, disgraced woman, hurled into a den;
+trampled, branded; with a soul devoured by despairing bitterness,
+with a broken heart, a brain on fire! If you had drawn a knife
+across my throat, or sent a bullet through my temples, my spirit
+might have rested in the Beyond, and I could have forgiven that
+which hastened me to heaven; but you strangled my hopes, and
+mutilated my youth, and dishonored my father's name!--You robbed me
+of my stainless character, and cast me among outlaws and fiends!--
+Worse yet, oh! blackest of all your crimes!--you have almost
+throttled my faith in Christ. You have torn away my hold upon the
+eternal God! You are the curse of my life. You wish you had never
+set your eyes on me? Take courage, finish your work; the best of me
+is utterly dead already, and when you have taken my blood, and laid
+my polluted body in a convict's shallow grave, your enmity will be
+satiated. Then I, at least, I shall be free from my hideous curse.
+If there be any comfort left me, it lurks in the knowledge that when
+you succeed in convicting me, the same world will no longer hold us
+both."
+
+Was it the fever of disease, or incipient madness that blazed in her
+eyes, flamed on her cheeks, and lent such thrilling cadence to her
+pure clear voice? Was she a consummate actress, or had he made a
+frightful mistake, and goaded an innocent girl to the verge of
+frenzy? Some occult influence seemed clouding his hitherto
+infallible perceptions, melting his heart, paralyzing his will. He
+walked up and down the floor, with his hands clasped behind him,
+then came close to the prisoner.
+
+"If I have unjustly suspected and persecuted you, may God forgive
+me! If I have wronged you by suspicion and accusation of a crime
+which you did not commit, then my atonement shall be your triumphant
+vindication. I would give a good deal to know that your hands are as
+pure as they look, and innocent of theft and murder. Tell me--tell
+me the truth. I will save you, I will give you back all that you
+have lost, and tenfold more. For God's sake, for your own sake, and
+for mine, I entreat you to tell me the truth. Did you go back to
+'Elm Bluff' that night, after I met you in the pine woods?"
+
+His dark face was close to hers, and his keen blue eyes seemed to
+probe the recesses of her soul. If she answered, would the steel
+springs of some trap close upon her?
+
+"I did not go back to 'Elm Bluff.' My hands, my heart, my soul are
+as free from crime as they were when God sent them into the world. I
+am innocent--innocent--innocent as any baby only a week old, lying
+dead in its little coffin. Innocent--but defiled, disgraced;
+innocent as the Lord Jesus was of the sins for which He died; but
+you can not save what you have destroyed. You have ruined my life."
+
+He was a strong man, cold, collected, priding himself upon his
+superb physique, his nerves of steel; but as he watched and
+listened, he trembled, and the girl's eyes dilated, sparkled through
+the sudden moisture that so strangely and unexpectedly gathered in
+his own.
+
+"Then you must prove the truth of your solemn words; and it was this
+faint hope that induced me to come here to-day. Only one
+circumstance stands between the Grand Jury and your indictment for
+murder; and time presses. Now tell me, do you know this?"
+
+He took from his coat pocket a small parcel wrapped in paper, and
+tore off the covering. Beryl stood faint and dizzy, resting against
+the window, but erect, on guard and defiant. He shook out and held
+up a square of fine linen, daintily hem-stitched. Along the border
+ran graceful arabesques, swelling into scallops and dotted with
+stars, embroidered in some rich red thread; and in one corner,
+enclosed in a wreath of exquisitely designed fuchsias, the large,
+elaborately ornate capitals "B. B." were worked in fadeless scarlet
+scrolls to match the wreath. Above the drooping flowers, poised the
+red wings of a descending butterfly. Artistic instincts had
+outlined, and deft delicate touches filled in, with the glowing
+embroidery.
+
+Did she know it? Could she ever forget that serene May day when the
+air was liquid gold, and the Mediterranean molten sapphire, wreathed
+with pearls, as the wavelets crested; when the rosy oleanders and
+silvery flakes of orange blossoms floated down upon the ferny cliff,
+where sitting by her father's side, she had drawn this design,
+spreading the linen on the back of her father's worn copy of
+Theocritus? If she lived a thousand years, would it be possible to
+forget the thin, almost transparent white hand, with its blue veins
+swollen like cords, which had gently taken the pencil from her
+fingers, and retouched and rounded the sweep of the curves; the dear
+wasted hand that she had stooped and kissed, as it corrected her
+work?
+
+As on the golden background of a cherished Byzantine picture, memory
+held untarnished every tint and outline of that blessed day, when
+she and her father had looked for the last time on the sunny sea
+they loved so well.
+
+Did fell fate hover, even then, in that sparkling perfumed air, and
+in sinister prescience trace this tangling web of threads, with grim
+intent to snare her unwary feet?
+
+Savants tell us, that ages ago, in the dim dawn, primeval rain drops
+made their pattering print, and left it to harden on the stone
+pages, awaiting decipherment by human eyes and human brains, not yet
+
+"Born of the brainless Nature, Who knew not that which she bore."
+
+Is there an analogous iron chain linking the merest trifles, the
+frivolous accidents, the apparently worthless coincidences that
+swell the sum of what we are pleased to call the nobly independent
+life of the "free-agent" Man? In the matrix of time, do human tears
+and human blood-drops leave their record, to be conned when Nemesis
+holds her last assize?
+
+As the handkerchief swayed in the lawyer's grasp, Beryl saw the red
+"B. B." like a bloody brand. At that instant she felt that the death
+clutch fastened upon her throat; that fate had cast her adrift, on
+the black waves of despair. In her reeling brain kaleidoscopic
+images danced; her father's face, the lateen sail of fishing boats
+rocking on blue billows, white oxen browsing amid purple iris
+clusters; she heard her mother's voice, her brother's gay laugh; she
+smelled the prussic acid fragrance of the vivid oleanders, then over
+all, like tongues of devouring flames, flickered "Ricordo." "B. B."
+
+In the frenzy of her desperation she sprang forward, seized the arms
+that held up the fatal handkerchief, and shook the man, as if he had
+been an infant. Her eyes full of horror, were fixed on the scrap of
+linen, and a frantic cry rang from her lips.
+
+"Father! Father! There is no hereafter for you and me! Prayer is but
+the mockery of fools! There is no heaven for the pure, because there
+is no God! No God!--to hear, to save the innocent who trusted in
+Him. Oh--no God!"
+
+Mr. Dunbar dropped the handkerchief, and as the irresistible
+conviction of her guilt rolled back, crushing the hope he had
+cherished a moment before, a spasm of pain seized his heart, and
+with a groan that would not be repressed, he covered his eyes to
+shut out the vision of the despairing woman, whose doom seemed
+sealed. Her right hand which unconsciously clutched his left
+shoulder, shivered like an aspen, and he knew that for the moment
+she was entirely oblivious of his presence; blind to everything but
+the assurance of her ruin.
+
+After all, he had made no mistake; his keen insight was well nigh
+infallible; but his triumph was costly. The luscious fruit of
+professional success left an acrid flavor; the pungent dead sea
+ashes sifted freely. He set his heel on the embroidered butterfly,
+and in his heart cursed the hour he had first seen it. His coveted
+bread was petrifying between his teeth.
+
+The grasp on his shoulder relaxed, the hand fell heavily. When he
+looked in the face of his victim, he caught his breath at the
+strange, inexplicable change a few minutes had wrought. Protest and
+resistance had come to an end. Surrender was printed on every
+feature. The wild fury of the passionate struggle that convulsed
+her, had spent itself; and as after a violent wintry tempest the
+gale subsides, and the snow compassionately shrouds the scene,
+burning the dead sparrows, the bruised flowers, so submission laid
+her cold touch on this quivering face, and veiled and froze it.
+
+From afar the sound of rushing waters seemed to smite Beryl's ears,
+to surge nearer, to overflow her brain. She sank suddenly to the
+floor, clinging with one hand to the window bar, and her auburn head
+fell forward on the up-lifted arm. Thinking that  she had fainted,
+Mr. Dunbar stooped and raised her face, holding it in his palms. The
+eyes met his, unflinching but mournful as those of a tormented deer
+whom the hunters drag from worrying hounds. She writhed, freed
+herself from his touch; and resting against the window sill, drew a
+long deep breath.
+
+"You have succeeded in your mission today. You have the only clue
+you needed. You have no occasion to linger. Now--will you leave me?"
+
+He picked up the handkerchief.
+
+"This is your handkerchief?"
+
+She made no answer. A leaden hand was pressing upon her heart, her
+brain, her aching eyes.
+
+"You have basely deceived me. You did go back that night, and you
+left this, to betray you. Saturated with chloroform you laid it over
+your grandfather's face. Load your soul with no more falsehoods.
+Confess the deeds of that awful night."
+
+"I did not go back. I never saw 'Elm Bluff' after I met you. I know
+no more of the chloroform than you do. I have told the truth first
+and last, and always. I have no confession to make. I am as innocent
+as you are. Innocent! Innocent! You are going to hang me for a crime
+I did not commit. When you do, you will murder an innocent woman."
+
+She spoke slowly, solemnly, and at intervals, as if she found it
+difficult to express her meaning. The passionless tone was that of
+one, standing where the river of death flowed close to her feet, and
+her beautiful face shone with the transfiguring light of conscious
+purity.
+
+"Hold up your hand, and tell me this is not your handkerchief; and I
+will yet save you."
+
+"It was my handkerchief, but I am innocent. Finish your work."
+
+"How can you expect me to believe your contradictory statements?"
+
+Wearily she turned her head, and looked at him. A strange drowsiness
+dimmed her vision, thickened her speech.
+
+"I expect nothing from you--but--death."
+
+"Will you explain how your handkerchief chanced to be found on your
+grandfather's pillow? Trust me, I am trying to believe you. Tell
+me."
+
+In his eagerness he seized her hand, clasped it tightly, bent over
+her. She made no reply, and the silky black lashes sank lower, lower
+till they touched the violet circle suffering had worn under her
+eyes. Like a lily too heavy for its stem, the glossy head fell upon
+her breast. Her hot fingers throbbed in his palm, and when he felt
+her pulse, the rapid bounding tide defied his counting. Kneeling
+beside her, he laid the head against his shoulder.
+
+"Are you ill? What is the matter? Speak to me."
+
+Her parched lips unclosed, and she muttered with a sigh, like a
+child falling asleep after long sobbing:
+
+"My handkerchief--Tiberius--my--han--"
+
+She had fought against fearful odds, with sleepless nights and
+fasting days sapping her strength; and when the battle ended, though
+the will was unfaltering, physical exhaustion triumphed, and
+delirium mercifully took the tortured spirit into her cradling arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+When Leo Gordon celebrated her twenty-second birthday, Judge Dent,
+appreciating the importance of familiarizing her with the business
+details and technicalities of commercial usage, incident to the
+management of her large estate, had insisted upon terminating his
+guardianship, and transferring to her all responsibility for the
+future conduct of her financial affairs. New books were placed in
+her hands, in which he required her to keep systematically and
+legibly all her accounts; she drew and signed her own checks, and
+semi-annually furnished for his inspection a neat balance-sheet.
+
+As adviser, and agent for the collection of dividends and rents, the
+change or renewal of investments, he maintained only a general
+supervision, and left her untrammelled the use of her income. As a
+dangerous innovation upon time-honored customs, which  under the
+ante bellum regime, had kept Southern women as ignorant of practical
+business routine, as of the origin  of the Weddas of Ceylon, Miss
+Patty bitterly opposed and lamented her brother's decision; dismally
+predicting that  the result must inevitably be the transformation of
+their refined, delicate,  clinging "Southern lady", into that
+abhorred monster--"a strong-minded independent business woman".
+
+Intensely loyal to the social standard, usages and traditions of an
+aristocracy, that throughout the South had guarded its patrician
+ranks with almost Brahmin jealousy, she sternly decried every
+infringement of caste custom and etiquette. Nature and education had
+combined to deprive her of any adaptability to the new order of
+things; and she rejected the idea that "a lady should transact
+business", with the same contemptuous indignation that would have
+greeted a proposition to wear "machine-sewed garments", that last
+resort of impecunious plebeianism. However unwelcome Leo had found
+this assumption of the grave duties of mature womanhood, she met the
+responsibility unflinchingly, and gathered very firmly the reins
+transferred to her fair hands for guidance. Judge Dent and Miss
+Patty were the last of their family, except the orphan niece who had
+been left to their care, and as their earthly possessions would
+ultimately descend to her, she had been reared in the conviction
+that their house was her only home.
+
+Study and travel, potent factors in the march of progress, had so
+enlarged the periphery of Leo's intellectual vision, that she
+frequently startled her prim aunt, by the enunciation of views much
+too extended and cosmopolitan to fit that haughty dame's Procrustean
+limits of "Southern ladyhood". Blessed with a discriminating
+governess and chaperon, who while fostering a genuine love of the
+beautiful, had endeavored to guard her pupil from straying into any
+of those fashionable "art crazes", which in their ephemeral
+exaggeration approach caricatures of aestheticism, Leo became deeply
+imbued with the spirit of classic literature and art; and grew
+especially fond of the study of Greek and Roman architecture.
+
+Believing that the similarity of climate in her native State,
+justified the revival of an archaic style of building, she ardently
+desired and finally obtained her uncle's consent to the erection (as
+an addition to the Dent mansion), of a suite of rooms, designed in
+accordance with her taste, and for her own occupancy. Hampered by no
+prudential economic considerations, and fearless of criticism as
+regarded archaeological anachronisms, Leo allowed herself a wide-
+eyed eclecticism, that resulted in a thoroughly composite structure,
+eminently satisfactory at least to its fastidious owner. A single
+story in height, it contained only four rooms, and on a reduced
+scale resembled the typical house of Pansa, except that the flat
+roof rose in the center to a dome. Constituting a western wing of
+the old brick mansion which it adjoined, the entrance fronting
+north, opened from a portico with clustered columns, into a square
+vestibule; which led directly to a large, octagonal atrium,
+surrounded by lofty fluted pillars with foliated capitals that
+supported the arched and frescoed ceiling. In the centre, a circular
+impluvium was sunk in the marble paved floor, where in summer a jet
+of spray sprang from the water on whose surface lily pads floated;
+and in winter, shelves were inserted, which held blooming pot
+plants, that were arranged in the form of a pyramid. The dome
+overarching this, was divided into three sections; the lower
+frescoed, the one above it filled with Etruscan designs in stained
+glass; the upper, formed of white ground glass sprinkled with gilt
+stars representing constellations, was so constructed, that it could
+be opened outward in panels, and thus admit the fresh air.
+
+On the east side of this atrium, Leo's bed-room connected with that
+occupied by Miss Patty in the old house; and opposite, on the west,
+was a large square Pompeian library, with dark red dado, daintily
+frescoed panels, and richly tinted glowing frieze. At the end of
+this apartment, and concealed by purple velvet curtains lined with
+rose silk, an arch opened into a small semi-circular chapel or
+oratory, lighted by stained glass windows, whose brilliant hues fell
+on a marble altar upheld by two kneeling figures; and here lay the
+family Bible of Leo's great-grandfather, Duncan Gordon, with tall
+bronze candelabra on each side, holding wax candles. At the right of
+two marble steps that led to the altar, was spread a rug, and upon
+this stood an ebony reading-desk where a prayer-book rested. Filling
+a niche in the wall on the left side, the gilded pipes of an organ
+rose to meet a marble console that supported a Greek cross.
+
+In order to secure an unobstructed vista from the front door, that
+portion of the building which corresponded to the ancient tablinum,
+was used merely as an aviary, where handsome brass cages of various
+shapes showed through their burnished wires snowy cockatoos, gaudy
+paroquets, green and gold canaries, flaming red and vivid blue
+birds, and one huge white owl, whose favorite perch when allowed his
+freedom, was a bronze Pallas on a projecting bracket.
+
+Conspicuous among these, was a peculiar cage made of tortoise shell,
+ivory and silver wire, which Leo had assigned to a scarlet-crested,
+crimson-throated Australian cockatoo. Beyond this undraped rear
+vestibule stretched the peristyle, a parallelogram, surrounded by a
+lofty colonnade. The centre of this space was adorned by a rockery
+whence a fountain rose; flower beds of brilliant annuals and coleus
+encircled it like a mosaic, and the ground was studded with orange
+and lemon trees, banana and pineapple plants; while at the farther
+side delicate exotic grape vines were trained from column to column.
+
+In summer this beautiful court was entirely open to the sky, but at
+the approach of winter a movable framework of iron pillars was
+erected, which supported a glass roof, that sloped southward, and
+garnered heat and sunshine. Neither chimneys nor fireplaces were
+visible, but a hidden furnace thoroughly warmed the entire house,
+and in each apartment the registers represented braziers of classic
+design.
+
+Except for the external entrances, doors had been abolished;
+portieres of plush, satin, and Oriental silk closed all openings in
+winter; and during long sultry Southern summers were replaced by
+draperies of lace, and wicker-work screens where growing ivy and
+smilax trained their cool green leaves, and graceful tendrils.
+Wooden floors had accompanied the doors to Coventry; and everywhere
+squares of marble, and lemon and blue tiles showed shimmering
+surfaces between the costly rugs, and fur robes scattered lavishly
+about the rooms. Surrounded by a gilded wreath of olive leaves, and
+incised on an architrave fronting the vestibule, the golden "Salve"
+greeted visitors; just beneath it, on an antique shaped table of
+topaz-veined onyx, stood a Vulci black bowl or vase, decorated in
+vermilion with Bacchanal figures; and this Leo filled in summer with
+creamy roses, in winter, with camellias. Where the shrines and Lares
+stood in ancient houses, a square, burnished copper pedestal
+fashioned like an altar had been placed, and upon it rose from a bed
+of carved lilies, a copy in white marble of Palmer's "Faith".
+
+From the front portico, one could look through the vestibule, the
+atrium, the aviary, and on into the peristyle, where among vine
+branches and lemon boughs, the vista was closed by a flight of stone
+steps with carved cedar balustrade, leading up to the flat roof,
+where it sometimes pleased the mistress to take her tea, or watch
+the sunset. In selecting and ordering designs for the furniture, a
+strict adherence to archaic types had been observed; hence the
+couches, divans, chairs, and tables, the pottery and bric-a-brac,
+the mirrors and draperies, were severely classic.
+
+An expensive whim certainly, far exceeding the original estimate of
+its cost; and Miss Patty bewailed the "wicked extravagance of
+squandering money that would have built a handsome church, and
+supported for life two missionaries in mid-China"; but Judge Dent
+encouraged and approved, reviving his classical studies to
+facilitate the successful accomplishment of the scheme. When the
+structure was completed and Leo declared herself perfectly satisfied
+with the result, it was her uncle who had proposed to celebrate her
+twenty-fourth birthday by a mask-ball in which every costume should
+be classic, distinctively Roman or Greek; and where the mulsum
+dispensed to the guests should be mixed in a genuine Cratera.
+
+To this brilliant fete, one cloudless June night, friends from
+distant States were invited; and fragrant with the breath of its
+glowing roses, the occasion became memorable, embalmed forever in
+Leo's happy heart, because then and there, beside the fountain in
+the peristyle, she had pledged her hand and faith to Mr. Dunbar.
+
+Sitting to-day in front of the library window, whence she had looped
+back the crimson curtains, to admit the November sunshine, Leo was
+absorbed in reading the description of the private Ambar-valia
+celebrated by Marius at "White Nights". Under the spell of the
+Apostle of Culture, whose golden precept: "BE PERFECT IN REGARD TO
+WHAT IS HERE AND NOW," had appealed powerfully to her earnest
+exalted nature, she failed to observe the signals of her pet ring-
+doves cooing on the ledge outside. Finally their importunate tapping
+on the glass arrested her attention, and she raised the sash and
+scattered a handful of rice and millet seed; whereupon a cloud of
+dainty wings swept down, and into the library, hovering around her
+sunny head, and pecking the food from her open palms. One dove
+seemed particularly attracted by the glitter of the diamond in her
+engagement ring, and perched on her wrist, made repeated attempts to
+dislodge the jewel from its crown setting. Playfully she shook it
+off several times, and amused by its pertinacity, finally closed her
+hands over it, and rubbed her soft cheek against the delicate
+silvery plumage.
+
+"No, no, you saucy scamp! I can't afford to feed you on diamonds
+from my sacred ring! Did you get your greedy nature from some sable
+Dodonean ancestress? If we had lived three thousand years ago, I
+might be superstitious, and construe your freak into an oracular
+protest against my engagement. Feathered augurs survive their
+shrines. Clear out! you heretic!"
+
+As she tossed it into the garden and closed the window, the portiere
+of the library was drawn aside, and her maid approached, followed by
+a female figure draped in a shawl and wearing a lofty turban.
+
+"Miss Leo, Aunt Dyce wants to see you on some particular business."
+
+"Howdy do, Aunt Dyce? It is a long time since you paid us a visit.
+Justine, push up a chair for her, and then open the cages and let
+the birds out for an hour. What is the matter, Aunt Dyce, you look
+troubled? Sit down, and tell me your tribulations."
+
+"Yes, Miss Leo, I am in deep waters; up to my chin in trouble, and
+my heart is dragging me down; for it's heavier 'an a bushel of lead.
+You don't remember your own ma, do you?"
+
+"I wish I did; but I was only five months old when I lost her."
+
+"Well, if she was living to-day, she would stretch her two hands and
+pull me out of muddy waves; and that's why I have come to you. You
+see, Miss Marcia and my young Mistiss, Miss Ellice, was bosom
+friends, playmates, and like sisters. They named their dolls after
+one another, and many a time your ma brought her wax doll to our
+house, for me to dress it just like Miss Ellice's, 'cause I was the
+seamstus in our family, and I always humored the childun about their
+doll clothes. They had their candy pullins, and their birthday
+frolics, and their shetlan' ponies no bigger 'an dogs, and, oh Lord!
+what blessed happy times them was! Now, your ma's in glory, and you
+is the richest belle in the State; and my poor young mistiss is in
+the worst puggatory, the one that comes before death; and her child,
+her daughter that oughter be living in style at 'Elm Bluff', like
+you are here, where is she? Where is she? Flung down among vilyans
+and mallyfactors, and the very off-scourings of creation, in the
+penitenchery! Tears to me like, if old mistiss is as high-headed and
+proud as she was in this world, her speerit would tear down the
+walls and set her grandchild free. When I saw that beautiful young
+thing beating her white hands agin the iron bars, it went to my
+heart like a carving knife, and--"
+
+Dyce burst into tears, and covered her face with her apron, Leo
+patted her shoulder softly, and essayed to comfort her.
+
+"Don't cry so bitterly; try to be hopeful. It is very, very sad, but
+if she is innocent, her stay in prison will be short."
+
+"There ain't no 'ifs'--when it comes to 'cusing my mistiss' child of
+stealing and murdering. Suppose the sheriff was to light down here
+this minute, and grab you up and tell folks 'spectable witnesses
+swore you broke open your Uncle Mitchell's safe, and brained him
+with a handi'on? Would you think it friendly for people to say, if
+she didn't they will soon turn her aloose? Would that be any warm
+poultice to your hurt feelin's? It's the stinging shame and the
+awful, disgrace of being 'spicioned, that you never would forgive."
+
+"Yes, it is very dreadful, and I pity the poor girl; but it seems
+that appearances are all against her, and I fear she will find it
+difficult to explain some circumstances."
+
+"If your ma was here to-day, she wouldn't say that. When she was a
+friend, she was stone deaf and mole blind to every evil report agin
+them she loved. Miss Marcia would go straight to that jail, and put
+her arms 'round Miss Ellice's child, and stand by her till her last
+breath; and the more she was pussecuted, the closer she would stick.
+Miss Leo, you must take your ma's place, you must heir her
+friendship just like you do her other property. I have come to you,
+'cause I am going away to New York, and can't feel easy 'till you
+promise me you will do what you can. Miss Ellice is laying at the
+pint of death, and her poor child is so deestracted about her
+needing comforts, that I tole her I'de go on an' nuss her ma for
+her, 'till she was sot free and could hurry back. I dreampt last
+night that ole mistiss called me and Bedney, and said 'Take good
+care of Ellice'; and I got right out of bed and packed my trunk. I'm
+just from the penitenchery, and that poor tormented child don't know
+me, don't know nothing. Trouble have run her plum crazy, and what
+with brain fever and them lie-yers, God only knows what's to become
+of her. Handi'ons ain't the only godforsaken things folks are
+murdered with. Miss Leo, promise me you will go to see her while I
+am gone, and 'tend to it that she has good nussing."
+
+"I will do what is possible for her comfort; and as it will be an
+expensive journey to you, I will also help you to pay your passage
+to New York. How much money--"
+
+"I don't want your money, Miss Leo. Bedney and me never is beholdin'
+to nobody for money. We was too sharp to drap our savings in the
+'Freedman's Bank', 'cause we 'spicioned the bottom was not soddered
+tight, and Marster's britches' pocket was a good enough bank for us.
+We don't need to beg, borrow, nor steal. As I tole you, I was the
+seamstress, and just before Miss Ellice run away from the school,
+ole mistiss had a fine lot of bran-new clothes made ready for her
+when she come home to be a young lady. She never did come home, and
+when ole mistiss died I jist tuck them new clothes I had made, and
+packed 'em in a wooden chist, and kept 'em hid away; 'cause I was
+determed nobody but Miss Ellice should wear 'em. I've hid 'em
+twenty-three years, and now I've had 'em done up, and one-half I
+tuck to that jail, for that poor young thing, and the rest of 'em
+I'm gwine to carry to Miss Ellice. They shan't need money nor
+clothes; for Bedney and me has got too much famly pride to let
+outsiders do for our own folks; but Miss Leo, you can do what nobody
+else in this wide world can. I ain't a gwine to walk the devil
+'round the stump, and you mustn't take no 'fence when I jumps plum
+to the pint. Mars Lennox is huntin' down Miss Ellice's child like a
+hungry hound runs a rabbit, and I want you to call him off. If he
+thinks half as much of you as he oughter, you can stop him. Oh, Miss
+Leo, for God's sake--call him off--muzzle him!"
+
+Leo rose haughtily, and a quick flush fired her cheek; but as she
+looked at the old woman's quivering mouth and streaming eyes,
+compassion arrested her displeasure.
+
+"Aunt Dyce, there are some things with which ladies should not
+meddle; and I cannot interfere with any gentleman's business
+affairs."
+
+"Oh, honey! if Miss Marcia was living, she wouldn't say that! She
+would just put her arm round Miss Beryl and tell Mars Lennox: 'If
+you help to hang my friend's child, you shan't marry my daughter!'
+Your ma had pluck enuff to stop him. Mark what I say; that poor
+child is innercent, and the Lord will clear up everything some day,
+and then He will require the blood of them that condemned the
+innercent. Suppos'n appearances are agin her? Wasn't appearances all
+agin Joseph's bruthren when the money and the silver cup was found
+in their bags, and them afleein home? And if the 'Gyptian lie-yers
+could have got their claws on that case, don't you know they would
+have proved them innercent boys guilty, and a hung em? Oh, I am
+afeerd of Mars Lennox, for he favors his pa mightily; he has got the
+keenest scent of all the pack; and he went up yonder, and 'cused,
+and 'bused, and browbeat and aggervated and tormented that poor,
+helpless young creetur,'till she fell down in a dead faint on the
+jail floor; and sence then, the Doctor says her mind is done clean
+gone. Don't get mad with me, Miss Leo; I am bound to clare my
+conscience, and now I have done all I could, I am gwine to leave my
+poor young mistiss' child in God's hands, and in yourn, Miss Leo;
+and when I come back, you must gim'me an account of your stewudship.
+You are enuff like Miss Marcia, not to shirk your duty; and as you
+do, by that pussecuted child, I pray the Lord to do by you."
+
+She seized Leo's hand, kissed it, and left the room.
+
+For some moments Leo sat, with one finger between the creamy leaves
+of her favorite book, but the charm was broken; her thoughts
+wandered far from the stories of Apuleius, and the oration of
+Aurelius, and after mature deliberation, she put aside the volume
+and rang the library bell.
+
+"Justine, is Mrs. Graham here?"
+
+"She is coming now; I see the carriage at the gate."
+
+"Do not invite her into Aunt Patty's room, until I have seen her.
+Tell Andrew to harness Gypsy, and bring my phaeton to the door; and
+Justine, carry my felt hat, driving gloves and fur jacket to Aunt
+Patty's room."
+
+Confined to her bed by a severe attack of her chronic foe,
+inflammatory rheumatism, Miss Dent had sent for her dearest friend
+and faithful colleague in church work, Mrs. Graham, who came to
+spend a day and night, and discuss the affairs of the parish.
+
+"Aunt Patty, Mrs. Graham is in the parlor, and as I am well aware
+you can both cheerfully dispense with my society for the present, I
+am going into town. Dyce Darrington has been here, and I have
+promised to go and see that unfortunate girl who is in prison."
+
+"Leo Gordon, you don't mean to tell me that you are going into the
+penitentiary!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"It is highly improper for a young lady to visit such places, and I
+am astonished that you should feel any inclination to see the
+countenances of the depraved wretches herded there. I totally
+disapprove of such an incomprehensible freak."
+
+"Then I will hold the scheme in abeyance, until I ask Uncle
+Mitchell's advice. I shall call at his office, and request him to go
+with me."
+
+"Don't you know that the Grand Jury brought in a true bill against
+that young woman? She is indicted for murder, robbery and the
+destruction of her grandfather's will. Mitchell tells me the
+evidence is overwhelming against her, and you know he was disposed
+to defend her at first."
+
+"Yes, Aunty. I am aware that everything looks black for the
+unfortunate girl; but I learn she is very ill, and as it cannot
+possibly injure me to endeavor to contribute to her physical
+comfort. I shall go and sec her, unless Uncle Mitchell refuses his
+consent to my visit to the prison."
+
+"But, Leo. what do you suppose Mr. Dunbar will think and say, when
+he hears of this extraordinary procedure?"
+
+"Mr. Dunbar is neither the custodian of my conscience, nor the
+guardian and dictator of my actions. Good-bye, Aunty dear. Justine,
+show Mrs. Graham in."  "Mr. Dunbar will never forgive such a step;
+because, like all other men, no matter how much license he allows
+himself, he is very exacting and fastidious about the demeanor of
+his lady-love."
+
+"I shall not ask absolution of Mr. Dunbar, and I hope my womanly
+intuitions are a safer and more refined guide, than any man's
+fastidiousness. Remember, Aunt Patty, religion's holiest work
+consists in ministering to souls steeped in sin. Are we too pure to
+follow where Christ led the way?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+"Madam, I ordered the prisoner's head shaved. Did you understand my
+instructions?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Why were my orders not obeyed?"
+
+"Because I don't intend you shall make a convict of her, before she
+has been tried and sentenced. She has the most glorious suit of hair
+I ever looked at, and I shall save it till the last moment. Doctor
+Moffat, you need not swear and fume, for I don't allow even my
+husband to talk ugly to me. You directed a blister put on the back
+of the neck, as close as possible to the skull; it is there, and it
+is drawing fast enough to satisfy any reasonable person. I divided
+the hair into four braids and plaited them, and you can see I have
+hung up the ends here just loose enough to save any pulling, and yet
+the hair is out of the way, so that I keep her head cool with this
+India-rubber ice-bag. I will be responsible for the  blister."
+
+Mrs. Singleton spread her arms over the sick girl, as a hen shelters
+her brood from a swooping hawk.
+
+"But, Susie, the Doctor knows better what is--"
+
+"Hush, Ned. Perhaps he does; but I 'detailed' myself to nurse this
+case; and I don't propose to surrender all my common sense, and all
+my womanly judgment, and maternal experience, in order to keep the
+Doctor in a good humor. I will have my own head shaved before hers
+shall be touched."
+
+Mr. Singleton discreetly withdrew from the conference, softly
+closing the door behind him; and Doctor Moffat bent over the
+thermometer with which he was testing the temperature. When he
+raised his head, a kindly smile lurked in his deep set eyes:
+
+"I can't afford to quarrel with you, madam; you are too faithful and
+watchful a nurse. After all, the chances are, that it will
+ultimately make very little difference; she grows worse so rapidly.
+I will come in again before bed-time, and meanwhile make no change
+in the medicine."
+
+The warden's wife replenished the ice in a bowl, whence a tube
+supplied the cap or bag on the head of the sufferer, and taking a
+child's apron from her work-basket on the floor, resumed her sewing.
+After a while, the door opened noiselessly, and glancing up, she saw
+Mr. Dunbar.
+
+"May I come in?"
+
+"Yes. You need repentance; and this is a good place to begin."
+
+"Is there any change?"
+
+"Only for the worse. No need now to tip-toe; she is beyond being
+disturbed by noise. I think the first sound she will notice, will be
+the harps of the angels."
+
+"I trust the case is not so hopeless?"
+
+"Queer heart you must have! You are afraid she will slip through
+your fingers, and get to heaven without the help of the gallows and
+the black cap? Death cheats even the lawyers, sometimes, and seems
+to be snatching at your prey. You don't believe in prayer, and you
+have no time to waste that way. I do; and I get down here constantly
+on my knees, and pray to my God to take this poor young thing out of
+the world now, before you all convict her, and punish her for crimes
+she never committed."
+
+"Madam, her conviction would grieve me as much as it possibly could
+you; and unless she can vindicate herself, I earnestly hope she may
+never recover her consciousness."
+
+The unmistakable sincerity of his tone surprised the little woman,
+and scanning him keenly as he stood, hat in hand, at the foot of the
+cot, her heart relented toward him.
+
+"You still consider her guilty?"
+
+"Since my last interview with her, I have arrived at no conclusion.
+Whether she be innocent or guilty, is known only by her, and her
+God. All human judgments in such cases are but guesses at the truth.
+Is she entirely unconscious, or has she lucid intervals?"
+
+"Mr. Dunbar, on your honor as a gentleman, answer me. Are you here
+hunting evidence on a death-bed? Would you be so diabolical as to
+use against her any utterances of delirium?"  The flash of his eyes
+reminded her of the peculiar blue flame that leaps from a glowing
+bed of anthracite coal; and she had her reply before his lips moved.
+
+"Am I a butcher, madam? Your insinuations are so insulting to my
+manhood, that it is difficult for me to remember my interrogator is
+a lady; doubly difficult for me to show you the courtesy your sex
+demands. Sooner than betray the secrets of a sick room, or violate
+the sanctity of the confidence which that poor girl's condition
+enjoins, I would cut off my right arm."
+
+"I intend no discourtesy, sir; but my feelings are so deeply
+enlisted, that I cannot stop to choose and pick phrases, in talking
+to the person who caused that child to be shut up here. She thinks
+you are the most vindictive and dangerous enemy she has; and I had
+no reason to contradict her. Don't be offended, Mr. Dunbar."
+
+He deigned no answer, but the dilation of his thin nostrils, and the
+stern contraction of his handsome lips, attested his wrath. Mrs.
+Singleton rose and laid her fingers on his coat sleeve.
+
+"If I felt sure I could trust you--"
+
+"I decline your confidence. Madam, if I could only tell you, that
+your vile suspicions are too contemptible to merit the indignation
+they arouse, I should to some extent feel relieved."
+
+"Then having said it, I will let you off without an apology; and
+wipe the slate, and start fresh. You are sensitive about your honor,
+and I am determined to find out just how much it is worth. Trusting
+you as an honorable gentleman, I am going to ask you to do something
+for me, which may be of service to my patient; and I ask it, because
+I have unlimited faith in your skill. Find out who 'Ricordo' is."
+
+"Why? I must thoroughly understand the import of whatever I
+undertake, and if your reasons are too sacred to be communicated to
+me, you must select some other agent. I do not solicit your
+confidence, mark you; but I must know all, or nothing."
+
+"The day she was taken so ill, I was undressing her, and she looked
+at me very strangely, and said she believed she was losing her mind.
+Then she raised her hands and prayed:
+
+"'Lord, be merciful! Lord, seal my lips! Seal my lips!'
+
+"Since then she has not known me, but several times she cried out
+'Ricordo'! Last night she sat up suddenly, and stared at something
+she seemed to see right before her in the air. She shook her head at
+first, and said--'Oh, no! it cannot be possible'. Then she clutched
+at some invisible object, and a look of horror came into her eyes.
+She struck her palms together, and I never heard such an agonizing
+cry, 'There is no help! I must believe it--oh Ricordo!--Ricordo--
+Ricordo'. She fell back and shivered as if she had an ague. I tried
+to soothe her, and told her she had a bad dream. She kept saying:
+'Oh, horrible--it was, it was Ricordo!' Once, early this morning,
+she pulled me down to her and whispered: 'Don't tell mother--it
+would break her heart to know it was Ricordo!' She has not spoken
+distinctly since, though she mutters to herself. Now, Mr. Dunbar, if
+I did not feel as sure of her innocence as I am of my own, I should
+never tell you this; but I want your aid to hunt and catch this
+'Ricordo', because I am satisfied it will help to clear her."
+
+"Was it not 'Ricardo'?"
+
+"No, sir--it sounded as if spelled with an o not an a--and it was
+'Ricordo'."
+
+"Ricardo is a proper name, but I am under the impression that
+'Ricordo' is an Italian word that means simply a remembrance, a
+souvenir, sometimes a warning. I am glad, however, to have the clue,
+and I will do all I can to discover what connection exists between
+that word, and the crime. Can you tell me nothing more?"
+
+"Sometimes she seems to be drawing and painting, and talks to her
+father about pictures; and once she said: 'Hush! hush--mother is
+ill. She must not know I died, because I promised her I would bear
+everything. She made me promise'."
+
+At this moment the keen wail of a young child, summoned the warden's
+wife to her own apartment, and Mr. Dunbar sat down in the rocking-
+chair beside the iron cot.
+
+In that strange terra incognita, the realm of psychology, are there
+hidden laws that defy alike the ravages of cerebral disease, and the
+intuitions of the moral nature; inexorable as the atomic affinities,
+the molecular attractions that govern crystallization? Is the day
+dawning, when the phenomena of hypnotism will be analyzed and
+formulated as accurately as the symbols of chemistry, or the
+constituents of protoplasm, or the weird chromatics of spectroscopy?
+Beryl's head, that hitherto had turned restlessly on its pillow,
+became motionless; the closed eyes opened suddenly, fastened upon
+the lawyer's; and some inexplicable influence impelled her to
+stretch out her hand to him.
+
+"Tiberius, you have come for me."
+
+"I have come to ask if you are better to-day."
+
+Her burning fingers closed tightly over his, and the fever flame
+lent an indescribable splendor to eyes that seemed to penetrate his
+heart. Bending over her, he gently lifted a shining fold of hair
+from her white temple, and still clasping her hand, said in a low
+voice:
+
+"Beryl, do you know me? Are you better?"
+
+"Wait till I finish the sketch from San Michele. After I am hung,
+you will sell it. The light is so lovely."
+
+Up and down, her right hand moved through the air, making imaginary
+strokes as on canvas, but her luminous gaze, held by some powerful
+fascination, never left his. The gray depths had darkened, swallowed
+by the widening pupils that made them almost black; and as Mr.
+Dunbar recognized the complete surrender of physical and mental
+faculties, her helplessness stirred some unknown sea of tenderness
+in the man's hard, practical, realistic nature.
+
+Phlegmatic rather than emotional, and wholly secretive, he had
+accustomed himself to regard romantic ideality, and susceptibility
+to sentimentality as a species of intellectual anaemia; holding
+himself always thoroughly in hand, when subjected to the softening
+influences that now and then invaded professional existence, and
+melted the conventional selfish crust over the hearts of his
+colleagues, as the warm lips and balmy breath of equatorial currents
+kiss away the jagged ledges of drifting icebergs. In his laborious
+life, that which is ordinarily denominated "love" had been so
+insignificant a factor, that he had never computed its potentiality;
+much less realized its tremendous importance in solving the problem
+of his social, financial, and professional success. Beauty had not
+allured, nor grace enthralled his fancy; and his betrothal was a
+mere incident in the quiet tenor of business routine, a necessary
+means for the accomplishment of a cherished plan.
+
+To-day, while those hot slender fingers clung to his, and he leaned
+over the pillow, watching his victim, a rising tide surged, rolled
+up from some unexplored ocean of strange sensations, and its
+devouring waves threatened to demolish and engulf the stately
+structure pride and ambition had combined to rear. A brilliant
+alliance that insured great wealth, that promised a secure stepping-
+stone to political preferment, was apparently a substantial bulwark
+against the swelling billows of an unaccountable whim; yet he was
+impotent to resist the yearning tenderness which impelled him to
+forget all else, in one determined effort to rescue and shelter the
+life he had been the chief agent in imperilling. Clear eyed, keen
+witted, he did not for an instant deceive himself; and he knew that
+neither compassion for misfortune, nor yet a chivalrous remorse for
+having consigned a helpless woman to a dungeon, explained this new
+emotion that threatened to dominate all others.
+
+Cool reason assured him that under existing entanglements, the
+girl's speedy death would prove the most felicitous solution of this
+devouring riddle, which so unexpectedly crossed his smooth path;
+then what meant the vehement protest of his throbbing heart, the
+passionate longing to snatch her from disease, and disgrace, and
+keep her safe forever in the close cordon of his arms?
+
+The door was cautiously opened and closed, and noiselessly as a
+phantom, Leo Gordon stood within the room. One swift survey enabled
+her to grasp all the details. The small, comfortless, dismal
+apartment, the barred narrow window, the bare floor, the low iron
+cot in one corner, with its beautiful burden; the watching attitude
+of the man, who for years had possessed her heart. Resting one elbow
+on his knee, his chin leaned on his left hand, but the light fell
+full on his handsome face, and she started, marvelled at the
+expression of the brilliant eyes fixed upon the sufferer; eyes
+suffused and eloquent with tenderness, never before seen in their
+cold sparkling depths.
+
+Mighty indeed must be the compassion, evocative of that intense
+yearning look in his usually guarded, irresponsive countenance. A
+painfully humiliating sense of her own personal incompetence to
+arouse the feeling, so legibly printed on her lover's features,
+jarred upon Leo's heart like a twanging dissonance breaking the
+harmonious flow of minor chords; but a noble pity strangled this
+jealous thrill, and she softly approached the cot.
+
+The rustle of her dress attracted his attention, and glancing up, he
+saw his betrothed at his side. One might have counted ten, while
+they silently regarded each other; and as if conscious of having
+unmasked some disloyalty, scarcely yet acknowledged to himself,
+haughty defiance hardened and darkened his face. Involuntarily his
+hold on Beryl's fingers tightened.
+
+"Prison wards are not proper fields for the cultivation and display
+of Miss Gordon's amateur kid glove charity. I hope, at least, it was
+a species of exaggerated high-flown sentimentality, rather than mere
+feminine curiosity that tempted you to precincts revolting to the
+delicacy and refinement with which my imagination invested you."
+
+"My motives I shall not submit to the crucible of your criticism;
+and a little reflection will probably suggest to you, that perhaps
+you are unduly enlarging the limits, and prematurely exercising the
+rights of anticipated censorship. There are blunders that trench
+closely upon the borders of crime, and if professional zeal has
+betrayed you into the commission of a great wrong upon an innocent
+woman, it is a sacred duty to your victim, as well as my privilege
+as your betrothed, to alleviate her suffering as much as possible,
+and to repair the injury for which you are responsible. When human
+life and reputation are at stake, hypercritical fastidiousness is
+less pardonable than the deplorable mistake that endangers both."
+
+"And if I have not blundered; and she be guilty?"
+
+"Then your presence here, can only be explained by motives so
+malignant and contemptible, that I blush to ascribe them to you."
+
+"If I am morbidly sensitive about your line of conduct you should
+understand and pardon my jealous espionage."
+
+"If I, realizing that you are act infallible, entertain a nervous
+dread that unintentionally you may have inflicted an irreparable
+wrong, you at least should not feel offended, because I am sensitive
+as regards reflections upon your honor as a gentleman, and your
+astuteness as a lawyer."
+
+Her fair face had flushed; his grew pale.
+
+"Leo, is this to be our first quarrel?"
+
+"If so, you are entitled to the role of protagonist."
+
+He put out his left hand, and took hers, while his right was closely
+clasping one that lay upon the chintz coverlid.
+
+What strange obliquity of vision, what inscrutable perversity
+possessed him, he asked himself, as he looked up at the slight
+elegant figure, clad in costly camel's-hair garments, with Russian
+sables wrapped about her delicate throat, with a long drifting plume
+casting flickering shadows over her sweet flowerlike face; the
+attractive embodiment of patrician birth and environment of riches,
+and all that the world values most--then down at the human epitome
+of wretchedness, represented by a bronze-crowned head, with
+singularly magnetic eyes, crimsoned cheeks, and a perfect mouth,
+whose glowing, fever-rouged lips were curved in a shadowy smile, as
+she muttered incoherently of incidents, connected with the life of a
+poverty-stricken adventuress? Was friendly fate flying danger
+signals by arranging and accentuating this vivid contrast, in order
+to recall his vagrant wits, to cement his wavering allegiance?
+
+He was a brave man, but he shivered slightly, as he confronted his
+own insurgent and defiant heart; and involuntarily, his fingers
+dropped Leo's, and his right hand tightened on the hot palm
+throbbing against it.
+
+On that dark tossing main, where delirium drove Beryl's
+consciousness to and fro like a rudderless wreck, did some
+mysterious communion of spirits survive? Did some subtle mesmeric
+current telegraph her soul, that her foul wrongs were at last
+avenged? Whatever the cause, certainly a strangely clear, musical
+laugh broke suddenly from her lovely lips, mingled with a triumphant
+"Che sara, sara!" The heavy lids slowly drooped, the head turned
+wearily away.
+
+Smothering a long drawn sigh, which his pride throttled, Mr. Dunbar
+rose and stood beside his fiancee.
+
+"You have been feeling her pulse, how is the fever?" asked Leo.
+
+"About as high as it can mount. The pulse is frightfully rapid. I
+did not even attempt to count it."
+
+"Mrs. Singleton tells me she is entirely unconscious--recognizes no
+one."
+
+"At times, I think she has partly lucid glimpses; for instance, a
+little while ago she called me 'Tiberius', the same appellation she
+unaccountably bestowed on me the day of her preliminary examination.
+Evidently she associates me with every cruel, brutal monster, and
+even in delirium maintains her aversion."
+
+Miss Gordon's hand stole into his, pressing it gently in mute
+attestation of sympathy. After a moment, she said in a low tone:
+
+"She is very beautiful. What a noble, pure face? How exquisitely
+turned her white throat, and wrists, and hands."
+
+He merely inclined his head in assent.
+
+"It seems a profanation to connect the idea of crime with so lovely
+and refined a woman. Lennox?"
+
+He turned, and looked into her brown eyes, which were misty with
+tears.
+
+"Well, my dear Leo, what is burdening your generous heart?"
+
+"Do you, can you, believe her guilty? Her whole appearance is a
+powerful protest."
+
+"Appearances are sometimes fatally false. I think you told me, that
+the purest and loveliest face, guileless as an angel's, that you saw
+in Europe, was a portrait of Vittoria Accoramboni; yet she was
+veritably the 'White Devil', 'beautiful as the leprosy, dazzling as
+the lightning'. Do I believe her guilty? From any other lips than
+yours, I should evade the question; but I proudly acknowledge your
+right to an expression of my opinion, when--"
+
+"I withdraw the question, because I arrogate no 'rights'. I merely
+desire the privilege of sympathizing, if possible, with your views;
+of sharing your anxiety in a matter involving such vital
+consequences. Privilege is the gift of affection; right, the stern
+allotment of law. Tell me nothing now; I shall value much more the
+privilege of receiving your confidence unsolicited."
+
+He took both her hands, drew her close to him, and looked steadily
+down into her frank tender eyes.
+
+"Thank you, my dear Leo. Only your own noble self could so
+delicately seek to relieve me from a painful embarrassment; but our
+relations invest you with both rights and privileges, which for my
+sake at least, I prefer you should exercise. You must allow me to
+conclude my sentence; you are entitled to my opinion--when matured.
+As far as I am capable of judging, the evidence against her is--
+overwhelmingly condemnatory. I thought so before her arrest;
+believed it when her preliminary examination ended, and subsequent
+incidents strengthen and confirm that opinion; yet a theory has
+dawned upon me, that may possibly lighten her culpability. I need
+not tell you, that I feel acutely the responsibility of having
+brought her here for trial, and especially of her present pitiable
+condition, which causes me sleepless nights. If she should live, I
+shall make some investigation in a distant quarter, which may to
+some extent exculpate her, by proving her an accessory instead of
+principal. My--generous Leo, you shall be the first to whom I
+confide my solution--when attained. I am sorely puzzled, and
+harassed by conflicting conjectures; and you must be patient with
+me, if I appear negligent or indifferent to the privileges of that
+lovely shrine where my homage is due."
+
+"If you felt less keenly the distressing circumstances surrounding
+you, I should deeply regret my misplaced confidence in your
+character; and certainly you must acquit me of the selfishness that
+could desire to engross your attention at this juncture."
+
+Desirous of relieving him of all apprehension relative to a possible
+misconstruction of his motives and conduct, she left one hand in
+his, and laid the other with a caressing touch on his arm; an
+unprecedented demonstration, which at any other time would have
+surprised and charmed him.
+
+"Ah, what a melancholy sight! So much delicate refined beauty, in
+this horrible lair of human beasts! Lennox, let us hope that the
+mercy of God will call her speedily to His own bar of justice,
+before she suffers the torture and degradation of trial, by earthly
+tribunals."
+
+She felt the slight shudder that crept over him, the sudden start
+with which he dropped her hand, and bent once more over the cot.
+
+"God forbid she should die now, leaving the burden of her murder on
+my soul!"
+
+His countenance was averted, but the ferver of his adjuration filled
+her with a vague sense of painful foreboding.
+
+"Is it friendly to desire the preservation of a life, whose probable
+goal seems the gallows, or perpetual imprisonment? Poor girl! In the
+choice of awful alternatives, death would come here as an angel of
+mercy."
+
+Leo took Beryl's hand in hers, and tears filled her eyes as she
+noted the symmetry of the snowy fingers, the delicate arch of the
+black brows, the exceeding beauty of the waving outline where the
+rich mahogany-hued hair touched the forehead and temples, that
+gleamed like polished marble.
+
+"Is it friendly to wish an innocent girl to go down into her grave,
+leaving a name stained for all time by suspicion, if not absolute
+conviction of a horrible crime?"
+
+Mr. Dunbar spoke through set teeth, and Leo's astonishment at the
+expression of his countenance, delayed an answer, which was
+prevented by the entrance of Mrs. Singleton.
+
+"Miss Gordon, your uncle wishes to know whether you are ready to go
+home; as he has an engagement that calls him away?"
+
+Did Leo imagine the look of relief that seemed to brighten Mr.
+Dunbar's face, as he said promptly:
+
+"With your permission, I will see you safely down stairs, and commit
+you to Judge Dent's care."
+
+Standing beside the cot, she watched Mrs. Singleton measure the
+medicine from a vial into a small glass. When the warden's wife
+knelt down, and putting one arm under the pillow elevated it
+slightly, while she held the glass to the girl's lips, Beryl
+attempted to push it aside.
+
+"Take it for me, dear child; it will make you sleep, and ease your
+pain."
+
+The beautiful eyes regarded her wistfully, then wandered to the face
+of the lawyer and rested, spellbound.
+
+"Here, swallow this. It is not bad to take."
+
+Mrs. Singleton patted her cheek and again essayed to administer the
+draught, but without success.
+
+"Let me try."
+
+Mr. Dunbar took the glass, but as he bent down, the girl began to
+shiver as though smitten with a mortal chill. She writhed away, put
+out her shuddering hands to ward it off; and starting up, her eyes
+filled with a look of indescribable horror and loathing, as she
+cried out:
+
+"Ricordo! Oh, mother--it is Ricordo! I see, it! Father--it was my
+Pegli handkerchief!--with the fuchsias you drew! Father--ask Christ
+to pity me!"
+
+She sank back quivering with dread, pitiable to contemplate; but
+after a few moments her hands sought each other, and her trembling
+lips moved evidently in prayer, though the petition was inaudible.
+Mrs. Singleton sponged her forehead with iced water, and by degrees
+the convulsive shivering became less violent. The wise nurse began
+in a subdued tone to sing slowly, "Nearer my God to Thee," and after
+a little while, the sufferer grew still, the heavy lids lifted once
+or twice, then closed, and the laboring brain seized on some new
+vision in the world of fevered dreams.
+
+Mrs. Singleton took the medicine from the attorney, and put it
+aside.
+
+"Sleep is her best physic. When these nervous shivers come on, I
+find a hymn chanted, soothes her as it does one of my babies. Poor
+child! she makes my heart ache so sometimes, that I want to scream
+the pain away. How people with any human nature left in them, can
+look at her and listen to her pitiful cries to her dead father, and
+her dying mother, and her far-off God, and then believe that her
+poor beautiful hands could shed blood, passes my comprehension; and
+all such ought to go on four feet, and browse like other brutes. I
+am poor, but I vow before the Lord, that I would not stand in your
+shoes, Mr. Dunbar, for all the gold in the Government vaults, and
+all the diamonds in Brazil."
+
+Tears were dripping on the costly furs about Leo's neck, as she
+moved closer to the attorney, and linked her arm in his:
+
+"Mr. Dunbar, we will detain my uncle no longer. Mrs. Singleton has
+told me, that one of her children is ill, had a spasm last night;
+and since maternal duties are most imperative, it is impossible for
+her to give undivided attention to this poor sufferer. If you will
+kindly take me down stairs, I will call at the 'Sheltering Arms',
+and secure the services of one of the 'Sisters' who is an
+experienced nurse. This will relieve Mrs. Singleton, and we shall
+all feel assured that our poor girl has careful and tender watching,
+and every comfort that anxious sympathy can provide."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+It was midnight in November, keenly cold, but windless; and in the
+purplish sky, the wintry crown of stars burned with silvery lustre,
+unlike the golden glow of constellations throbbing in sultry summer,
+and their white fires sparkled, flared as if blown by interstellar
+storms. The large family of Lazarus huddled over dying embers on
+darkening hearths, and shivered under scanty shreds of covering; but
+the house of Dives was alight with the soft radiance of wax candles,
+fragrant with the warm aroma of multitudinous exotics, and brimming
+with waves of riotous music, on which merry-hearted favorites of
+fashion swam in measured mazes. The "reception" given by Judge
+Parkman to the Governor and his staff, on the occasion of a review
+of State troops at X--, was at its height; and several counties had
+been skimmed for the creme de la creme of most desirable
+representatives of wit, wealth and beauty.
+
+Miss Gordon had arrived unusually late, and as she entered the room,
+leaning on her uncle's arm, she noticed that Mr. Dunbar was the
+centre of a distinguished group standing under the chandelier. He
+was gently fanning his hostess, who stood beside the Governor, and
+evidently he was narrating some spicy incident, or uttering some
+pungent witticism, whereat all laughed heartily. The light fell full
+on his fine figure, which rose above all surrounding personages, and
+was faultlessly apparelled in evening dress; and Leo's heart filled
+with tender pride, at the consciousness that he was all her own. The
+exigencies of etiquette prevented for more than an hour any nearer
+approach, but when Mr. Dunbar had rendered "Caesar's things" to
+social Caesar, and paid tribute of bows, smiles, compliments and
+persiflage into the coffer of custom, he made his way through the
+throng, to the spot where his betrothed stood resting after her
+third dance.
+
+"Will Miss Gordon grant me a promenade in lieu of the dance, which
+misfortunes conspired to prevent me from securing earlier in the
+evening?"
+
+He drew her hand under his arm, and his eyes ran with proprietorial
+freedom over the details of her costume, pale blue satin, creamy
+foam of white lace, soft sheen of large pearls, and bouquet of
+exquisite half blown La France roses.
+
+Since their betrothal, he had claimed the privilege of sending the
+flowers she wore, on special occasions, and she had invariably
+expressed her appreciation through the dainty lips of a boutonniere
+arranged by her own fingers. Now while he recognized the roses
+resting on her corsage, her eyes dwelt on her favorite double lilac
+violets, nestling in the buttonhole of his coat.
+
+"You were very late to-night. I loitered in ambush about the
+precincts of the dressing-room, hoping for the pleasure of
+conducting you down-stairs; but 'the best laid schemes o' mice and
+men gang aft aglee', and I became the luckless prey of similar
+tactics. That marauding Tomyris, Mrs. Halsey, sallied out at the
+head of her column of daughters, espied me lurking behind the
+portiere, and proclaiming her embarras de richesse, 'paid me the
+compliment' of consigning one fair campaigner, Miss Eloise Hermione,
+to my care. Fancy the strain on courtesy, as I accepted my 'quite
+unexpected good fortune'!"
+
+He spoke with a nervous rapidity, at variance with his usual
+imperturbable deliberateness of manner, and she thought she had
+never seen his eyes so restless and brilliant.
+
+"I was unusually late, owing to the fact that the Governor and staff
+dined with Uncle Mitchell, and they lingered so long over their
+cigars and wine, that I was delayed in the drawing-room, waiting for
+them; consequently was very late in changing my dress. We were sorry
+you were prevented from joining us. Uncle pronounced the dinner a
+perfect success; and certainly Governor Glenbeigh was in his
+happiest mood, and particularly agreeable."
+
+"Given his hostess, and entourage, could he possibly have been less?
+Rumor's hundred tongues wag with the announcement, that his
+Excellency is no longer inconsolable for his wife's death; and
+desires to testify to the happiness of conjugal relations, by a
+renewal of the sweet bondage; a curiously subtile compliment to the
+deceased. If I may be pardoned the enormity of the heresy, I think
+Shakspeare blundered supremely, when he gave Iago's soul to a man.
+Diabolical cunning, shrewd malevolence pure and simple, armed with
+myriads of stings for hypodermic incisions that poison a man's
+blood, should be appropriately costumed in a moss-green velvet robe,
+should wear frizzled bangs as yellow as yonder bouquet of Marechal
+Neils, so suggestive of the warning flag flying over pest-houses!"
+
+"It is very evident you are not equally generous in surrendering the
+amiability of Timon, along with the depravity of Iago, to the
+arsenal of feminine weapons. What corroding mildew of discontent has
+fallen from Mrs. Parkman's velvet dress, and rusted the bright blade
+of your chivalry?"
+
+"The very breath of Iago, filling my ears and firing my heart with
+the architectural details of her coveted 'castle in Spain.'
+Glenbeigh is her cousin. The ladder of his preferment is set up
+before my eyes, and his Excellency springs up the rounds, from
+Governor to Senatorship, thence to a place in the Cabinet, certainly
+to an important foreign embassy; where, in the eternal fitness of
+things, somebody, somebody with tender brown eyes like a thrush's,
+and the voice of a siren, and the red lips of Hebe--will be invited
+to reign as l'ambassadrice! If I am not as mad with jealous despair
+as Othello, attribute my escape either to a sublime faith in your
+adorable constancy and incorruptibility, or to my own colossal
+vanity, fatuous beyond absolution."
+
+He pressed her arm closer to his side, and covered with one hand the
+gloved fingers resting on his sleeve; then added:
+
+"You must permit me to congratulate you upon your beautiful toilette
+to-night. The harmony of the dress, and the grace of the wearer
+leave nothing to be desired. Although debarred the pleasure of
+dining with you, I had hoped to enter, at least, with the coffee,
+but the freight train upon which I returned, was delayed; and I had
+no choice but to await your arrival here."
+
+He indulged so rarely in verbal compliments, that she flushed with
+profound gratification at flip fervor of his tone.
+
+"I am glad you like my dress, to which your roses lend the loveliest
+garniture. I was not aware that X--could furnish at this season such
+superb La France buds. Where did you find them?"
+
+"They travelled several hundred miles, for the privilege of nestling
+against my Leo's heart."
+
+Spartan thieves are not the only heroic sufferers who smile and make
+no moan, clasping close the hidden fangs ravening on their vitals.
+
+"As you mentioned in your note that very important business had
+called you unexpectedly away, I hope your mission proved both
+pleasant and successful."
+
+A shadow drifted over his countenance, like that cast by some summer
+cloud long becalmed, which sets sail before a sudden gust.
+
+"Only a modicum of success to counterbalance the disagreeable
+features of a journey in a freight train caboose."
+
+"Why do you hazard that dangerous schedule, instead of waiting for
+the passenger express?"
+
+"Business exigencies narrow the limits of choice; moreover, had I
+waited for the express, I should have missed the coveted pleasure of
+this meeting with you. The rosy glamour of happy anticipation
+conquers even the discomfort of a freight caboose."
+
+Did she suspect that some sullen undercurrent of intense feeling
+drove these eddying foam bells of flattery into the stream of
+conversation; or was her reply merely a chance ricochet shot, more
+accurately effective than direct fire?
+
+"This afternoon I had a note from Sister Serena, asking for a few
+articles conducive to the comfort of a sick room; and I really
+cannot determine whether we should feel regret, or relief at the
+tidings that that unfortunate girl--can scarcely--"
+
+"Spare me the Egyptian mummy at my feast! The memento mori when I
+would fain forget. Let me inhale the perfume of your roses, without
+hearing that possibly a worm battens on their petals. Will you ride
+with me tomorrow afternoon?"
+
+"I am sorry that an engagement to dine will prevent, as the
+afternoons are so short."
+
+"Are you going to the Percy's?"
+
+"Yes. Will you not be there?"
+
+"Too bad! I have just declined attending that dinner, because I had
+planned the horseback ride. Formerly fate seemed to smile upon me;
+now she shows herself a scowling capricious beldam. I have lost this
+evening, waiting to see you, and now, I must steal away unnoticed;
+because of an important matter which admits of no delay. Have you
+promised to dance with Mayfield? Here he comes. Good-night, my dear
+Leo, expect to see me at 'The Lilacs' at the earliest possible
+moment."
+
+Unobserved he made his escape, and hurried away. At a livery stable
+he stopped to order his horse saddled, and brought to his door, and
+a few moments later, stood before the grate in his law office, where
+the red glow of the coals had paled under ashy veils. From the
+letter-rack over the mantel, he took a note containing only a line:
+
+"She has reached the crisis. We have no hope."
+"SINGLETON."
+
+In the hot embers, it smoked, shrivelled, disappeared; and the
+attorney crossed his arms over his chest to crush back the heavy
+sigh struggling for escape. The long overcoat buttoned from throat
+to knee, enhanced his height, and upon his stern, handsome features
+had settled an expression of sorrowful perplexity; while his keen
+eyes showed the feverish restlessness that, despite his efforts,
+betrayed heartache. Above the heads of the gay throng he had just
+left, he had seen all that evening a slender white hand beckoning to
+him from the bars of a dungeon; and dominating the music of the ball
+room, the laughter of its dancers, had risen the desperate, accusing
+cry:
+
+"You have ruined my life!"
+
+Was it true, that his hand had dashed a foul blot of shame upon the
+fall pure page of a girl's existence, and written there the fatal
+finis? If she died, could he escape the moral responsibility of
+having been her murderer? Amid the ebb and flow of conflicting
+emotions, one grim fact stared at him with sardonic significance. If
+he had ruined her life, retribution promptly exacted a costly
+forfeit; and his happiness was destined to share her grave.
+
+He neither analyzed nor understood the nature of the strange
+fascination which he had ineffectually striven to resist; and he
+ground his teeth, and clinched his hands with impotent rage, under
+the stinging and humiliating consciousness that his unfortunate
+victim had grappled his heart to hers, and would hold it forever in
+bondage. No other woman had ever stirred the latent and unsuspected
+depths of his tenderness; but at the touch of her hand, the flood
+burst forth, sweeping aside every barrier of selfish interest,
+defying the ramparts of worldly pride. Guilty or innocent, he loved
+her; and the wretchedness he had inflicted, was recoiling swiftly
+upon himself.
+
+Unbuttoning his overcoat, he took from an inside pocket, the torn
+half of a large envelope, and unlocking the drawer of his desk,
+hunted for a similar fragment. Spreading them out before him, he
+fitted the zigzag edges with great nicety, and there lay the well-
+known superscription: "Last Will and Testament of Robert Luke
+Darrington." One corner of the last found bit was brown and mud-
+stained, but the handwriting was in perfect preservation. As he
+stooped to put it all back in a secret drawer, something fell on the
+floor. He picked up the dainty boutonniere of pale sweet violets,
+and looked at it, while a frown darkened his countenance, as though
+he recognized some plenipotentiary pleading for fealty to a sacred
+compact.
+
+"Poor Leo! how little she suspects disloyalty. How infinite is her
+trust, and what a besotted ingrate I am!"
+
+He tossed the accusing flowers into the grate, took his riding-whip
+and went down to the door, where his horse was champing the bit, and
+pawing with impatience. Along the deserted streets, out of the
+sleeping town, he rode toward the long stone bridge that spanned the
+winding river. When he had reached the centre, his horse darted
+aside, because of the sudden leap of a black cat from the coping of
+the nearest pier, whence she sped on, keeping just ahead of him. The
+spectral sickle of a waning moon hung on the edge of the sky, and up
+and down the banks of the stream floated phantoms of silvery mist,
+here covering the water with impalpable wreaths, and there drifting
+away to enable Andromeda to print her starry image on the glassy
+surface.
+
+Behind stretched the city, marked by lines of gas lamps; in front
+rose the hill clothed with forests; and frowning down upon the
+rider, the huge shadow of the dismal dungeon crouched like a
+stealthy beast ready to spring upon him. Dark as the deeds of its
+inmates, the mass of stone blotted the sky, save in one corner,
+where a solitary light shone through iron lattice work. Was it a
+beacon of hope, or did the rays fall on features cold under the kiss
+of death?
+
+Spurring his horse up the rocky hill, Mr. Dunbar was greeted by the
+baying of two bloodhounds within the enclosure; and soon after, Mr.
+Singleton conducted him up the steps leading to the room where Beryl
+had been placed.
+
+"She is alive; that is all. The doctor said she could not last till
+midnight, but it is now half-past one; and my wife has never lost
+hope. She has sent the nurse off to get some sleep, and you will
+find Susie in charge."
+
+The hazel eyes of the gaoler's wife were humid with tears, as she
+glanced up at the attorney, and motioned him to the low chair she
+vacated.
+
+"I knew you would come, and when I heard you gallop across the
+bridge, I sent Sister Serena off to bed. There is nothing to be done
+now, but watch and pray. If she ever wakes in this world she will be
+rational, and she will get well. The nurse thinks she will pass away
+in this stupor; but I have faith that she will not die, until she
+clears her name."
+
+Nature makes some women experts in the fine art of interpreting
+countenance and character, and by a mysterious and unerring
+divination, Mrs. Singleton knew that her visitor desired no
+companion in his vigils; hence, after flitting about the room for a
+few moments, she added:
+
+"If you will sit here a while, I can look after my babies. Should
+any change occur, tap at my door; I shall not be long away."
+
+What a melancholy change in the sleeper, during the few days of his
+absence; how much thinner the hollow cheek, how sunken the closed
+eyes; how indescribably sharpened the outlines of each feature. The
+face which had formerly suggested some marble statue, had now the
+finer tracery as of an exquisite cameo; and oblivion of all earthly
+ills had set there the seal of a perfect peace. She lay so
+motionless, with her hands on her breast, that Mr. Dunbar bent his
+head close to hers, to listen to her respiration; but no sound was
+audible, and when his ear touched her lips, their coldness sent a
+shiver of horror through his stalwart frame. Pure as the satin folds
+of an annunciation lily pearled with dew, was the smooth girlish
+brow, where exhaustion hung heavy drops; and about her temples the
+damp hair clung in glossy rings, framing the pallid, deathlike face.
+
+At her wrist, the fluttering thread eluded his grasp, and kneeling
+beside the cot, he laid his head down on her breast, dreading to
+find no pulsation; but slow and faint, he felt the tired heart beat
+feebly against his cheek; and tears of joy, that reason could
+neither explain nor justify, welled up and filled his eyes. Leaning
+his head on her pillow, he took one hand between both his, and
+watched the profound sleep that seemed indeed twin sister of death.
+
+Softened by distance came the deep mellow sound of the city clock
+striking two. Down among the willows fringing the river bank, some
+lonely water-fowl uttered its plaintive cry, whereat the bloodhounds
+bayed hoarsely; then velvet-sandalled silence laid her soothing
+touch upon the world, and softly took all nature into her restful
+arms.
+
+In the searching communion which he held with his own heart, during
+that solemn watch, Mr. Dunbar thrust aside all quibbles and
+disguises, and accepted as unalterable, two conclusions.
+
+She was innocent of crime, and he loved her; but she knew who had
+committed the murder, and would suffer rather than betray the
+criminal. The conjecture that she was shielding a lover, was
+accompanied by so keen a pang of jealous pain, that it allowed him
+no room to doubt the nature or intensity of the feeling which she
+had inspired.
+
+In her wan loveliness, she seemed as stainless as a frozen snowdrop,
+and while his covetous gaze dwelt upon her he felt that he could lay
+her in her coffin now, with less suffering, than see her live to
+give her brave heart to any other man. To lift her spotless and
+untrampled from the mire of foul suspicion, where his hand had
+hurled her, was the supreme task to which he proposed to devote his
+energies; but selfishness was the sharpest spur; she must be his,
+only his, otherwise he would prefer to see her in the arms of death.
+
+So the night waned; and twice, when the warden's wife stole to the
+door, he lilted his head and waved her back. When the clock in the
+tower struck four, he felt a slight quiver in the fingers lying
+within his palm, and Beryl's face turned on the pillow, bringing her
+head against his shoulder. Was it the magnet of his touch drawing
+her unconsciously toward him, or merely the renewal of strength,
+attested already by the quickened throb of the pulse that beat under
+his clasp? By degrees her breathing became audible to his strained
+ear, and once a sigh, such as escapes a tired child, told that
+nature was rallying her physical forces, and that the tide was
+turning. Treacherous to his plighted troth, and to the trusting
+woman whom he had assiduously wooed and won, he yielded to the
+hungry yearning that possessed him, and suddenly pressed his lips to
+Beryl's beautiful mouth. Under that fervent touch, consciousness
+came back, and the lids lifted, the dull eyes looked into his with
+drowsy wonder. Stepping swiftly to the door which stood ajar, he met
+Mrs. Singleton, and put his hand on her shoulder.
+
+"She is awake, and will soon be fully conscious, but perfect quiet
+is the only safeguard against relapse. When she remembers, leave her
+as much alone as possible, and answer no questions."
+
+Holding her baby on her breast, Mrs. Singleton whispered:
+
+"Put out the lamp, so that she can see nothing to remind her."
+
+As he took his hat, and put his hand on the lamp, he looked back at
+the cot, and saw the solemn eyes fixed upon him. He extinguished the
+light, and passed into the room where Susie Singleton stood waiting.
+
+"She will not know Sister Serena, and for a day or two I will keep
+out of sight when she is awake. Mr. Dunbar, God has done His part,
+now see that you do yours. Have you found out who 'Ricordo' is?"
+
+"Certainly, it is a thing; not a person. As yet the word has given
+no aid."
+
+"Then you have discovered nothing new during your absence?"
+
+"Yes, I have found the missing half of the envelope which contained
+General Darrington's will; but ask me no questions at present. For
+her sake, I must work quietly. Send me a note at twelve o'clock,
+that I may know her exact condition, and the opinion of the doctor.
+Has nothing been heard from Dyce?"
+
+"As far as I know, not a syllable."
+
+They shook hands, and once more Mr. Dunbar sprang into his saddle.
+Overhead the constellations glowed like crown jewels on black
+velvet, but along the eastern horizon, where the morning-star
+burned, the sky had blanched; and the air was keen with the
+additional iciness that always precedes the dawn. Earth was powdered
+with rime, waiting to kindle into diamonds when the sun smote its
+flower crystals, and the soft banners of white fog trailed around
+the gray arches and mossy piers of the old bridge. At a quick gallop
+Mr. Dunbar crossed the river, passed through the heart of the city,
+and slackened his pace only when he found himself opposite the
+cemetery, on the road leading to "Elm Bluff." As the iron gate
+closed behind him, he walked his horse, up the long avenue, and when
+he fastened him to the metal ring in the ancient poplar, which stood
+sentinel before the deserted House, the deep orange glow that paves
+the way for coming suns, had dyed all the sky, blotting out the
+stars; and the new day smiled upon a sleeping world. The peacock
+perched upon the balustrade of the terrace greeted him vociferously,
+and after some moments his repeated knock was answered by the
+cautious opening of the front door, and Bedney's gray head peered
+out.
+
+"Lord--Mars Lennox! Is it you? What next? 'Pears to me, there's
+nothing left to happen; but howsomever, if ther's more to come, tell
+us what's to pay now?"
+
+"Bedney, I want you to help me in a little matter, where your
+services may be very valuable; and as it concerns your old master's
+family, I am sure you will gladly enter into my plan--"
+
+"Bless your soul, Mars Lennox, you are too good a lieyer to be shore
+of anything, but the undertaker and the tax collector. I am so old
+and broke down in sperrits, that you will s'cuse me from undertaking
+of any jobs, where I should be obleeged to pull one foot out'en the
+grave before I could start. I ain't ekal to hard work now, and like
+the rest of wore-out stock, I am only worth my grabs in old fields."
+
+Sniffing danger, Bedney warily resolved to decline all overtures, by
+taking refuge in his decrepitude; but the attorney's steady
+prolonged gaze disconcerted him.
+
+"You have no interest, then, in discovering the wretch who murdered
+your master? That is rather suspicious."
+
+"What ain't 'spicious to you, Mars Lennox? It comes as natchal to
+you to 'spicion folks, as to eat or sleep, and it's your trade. You
+believe I know something that I haven't tole; but I swear I done
+give up everything to Mars Alfred; and if my heart was turned inside
+out, and scraped with a fine-tooth comb, it wouldn't be no cleaner
+than what it is. I know if I was lying you would ketch me, and I
+should own up quick; 'cause your match doesn't go about in human
+flesh; but all the lancets and all the doctors can't git no blood
+out'en a turnup."
+
+"You are quite willing, then, to see General Darrington's
+granddaughter suffer for the crime?"
+
+"'Fore Gord! Mars Lennox, you don't tote fair!  'Pears to me you are
+riding two horses. Which side is you on?"
+
+"Always on the side of justice and truth, and it is to help your
+poor young mistress that I came to see you; but it seems you are too
+superannuated to stretch out your hand and save her."
+
+"Ain't you aiming to prove she killed old marster? That's what you
+sot out to do; and tarrapin's claws are slippery, compared to your
+grip, when you take holt."
+
+The old negro stood with his white head thrown back, and unfeigned
+perplexity printed on his wrinkled features, while he scanned the
+swart face, where a heavy frown gathered.
+
+"I set out this morning to find a faithful, old family servant,
+whose devotion has never before been questioned; but evidently I
+have wasted my confidence as well as my time. Where is Dyce? She is
+worth a hundred superannuated cowards."
+
+"Don't call no names, Mars Lennox. If there's one mean thing I
+nachally despises as a stunnin' insult, it's being named white-
+livered; and my Confederate record is jest as good as if I wore
+three gilt stars on my coat collar. You might say I was a liar and a
+thief, and maybe I would take it as a joke; but don't call Bedney
+Darrington no coward! It bruises my feelins mor'n I'le stand. Lem'me
+tell you the Gord's truth; argufying with lie-yers is wuss than
+shootin' at di-dappers, and that is sport I don't hanker after. I
+ain't spry enuff to keep up with the devil, when you are whipping
+him around the stump; and I ain't such a forsaken idjut as to jump
+in the dark. Tell me straight out what you want me to do. Tote fair,
+Mars Lennox."
+
+"I am about to offer a reward of two hundred and fifty dollars, and
+I thought I would allow you privately the opportunity of securing
+the money, before I made it public. Where is Dyce?"
+
+"You might as well ax the man in the moon. The only satisfaction she
+gin me when she left home, was--she was gwine to New York to hunt
+for Miss Ellie. I tole her she was heading for a wild goose chase,
+and her answer signified she was leaving all of them fowls behind.
+If she was here, she'd be only a 'clean chip in your homny pot'; for
+she wouldn't never touch your job with a forty-foot pole, and what's
+more, she'd tie my hands. I ain't afeard of my ole 'oman, but I
+respects her too high to cross her; and if ever you git married, you
+will find it's a mighty good rule to 'let sleeping dogs lay'. Who do
+you expect me to ketch for two hundred and fifty dollars?"
+
+"A lame negro man, about medium size, who was seen carrying a bundle
+on the end of a stick, and who was hanging about the railroad
+station on the night of General Darrington's death. He probably
+lives on some plantation south of town, as he was travelling in that
+direction, after the severe storm that night. I want him, not
+because he had any connection with your master's murder, but to
+obtain from him a description of a strange white man, whom he
+directed to the railroad water-tank. If you can discover that lame
+negro, and bring him to my office, I will pay you two hundred and
+fifty dollars, and give him a new suit of clothes. The only hope for
+General Darrington's granddaughter is in putting that man on the
+witness stand, to corroborate her statement of a conversation which
+she heard. This is Wednesday. I will give you until Saturday noon to
+report. If you do not succeed I shall then advertise. If you wish to
+save Miss Brentano, help me to find that man."
+
+He swung himself into the saddle, and rode away, leaving Bedney
+staring after him, in pitiable dubiety as to his own line of duty.
+
+"Wimmen are as hard to live peaceable with as a hatful of hornets,
+but the'r brains works spryer even than the'r tongues; and they do
+think as much faster 'an a man, as a express train beats er eight
+ox-team. Dyce is the safest sign-post! If she was only here now, I
+couldn't botch things, for she sees clare through a mill-stone, and
+she'd shove me the right way. If I go a huntin', I may flounder into
+a steel trap; if I stand still, wuss may happen. Mars Lennox is too
+much for me. I wouldn't trust him no further 'n I would a fat
+possum. I am afeard of his oily tongue. He sot out to hang that poor
+young gal, and now he is willing to pay two hundred and fifty
+dollars to show the court he was a idjut and a slanderer! I ain't
+gwine to set down on no such spring gun as that! Dyce ought to be
+here. When Mars Lennox turns summersets in the court, before the
+judge, I don't want to belong to his circus--but, oh Lord! If I
+could only find out which side he raily is on?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+During the early stages of her convalescence, Beryl, though
+perfectly rational, asked no questions, made no reference to her
+gloomy surroundings and maintained a calm, but mournful taciturnity,
+very puzzling to Mrs. Singleton, who ascribed it at first to mental
+prostration, which rendered her comparatively obtuse; but ere long,
+a different solution presented itself, and she marvelled at the
+silence with which a desperate battle was fought. With returning
+consciousness, the prisoner had grasped the grievous burden of her
+fate, unflinchingly lifted and bound it upon her shoulders; and
+though she reeled and bent under it, made no moan, indulged no
+regret, uttered no invective.
+
+One cold dismal day, when not a rift was visible in the leaden sky,
+and a slanting gray veil of sleety rain darkened the air and pelted
+the dumb, shivering earth, Beryl sat on the side of her cot, with
+her feet resting on the round of a chair, and her hands clasped at
+the back of her head. Her eyes remarkably large from the bluish
+circles illness had worn beneath them, were fixed in a strained,
+unwinking, far-away gaze upon the window, where black railing showed
+the outside world as through some grim St. Lawrence's gridiron.
+
+From time to time the warden's wife glanced from her sewing toward
+the motionless figure, reluctant to obtrude upon her revery, yet
+equally loath to leave her a prey to melancholy musing. After a
+while, she saw the black lashes quiver, and fall upon the waxen
+cheeks, then, as she watched, great tears glittered, rolled slowly,
+dripped softly, but there was no sigh, no sound of sobs. Leaning
+closer, she laid her arm across the girl's knee.
+
+"What is it, dearie? Tell me."
+
+There was no immediate reply; when Beryl spoke, her voice was calm,
+low and measured, as in one where all the springs of youth, hope,
+and energy are irreparably broken.
+
+"Every Gethsemane has its strengthening Angels. The agony of the
+Garden brought them to Christ. I thank God, mine did not fail me. If
+they had not come, I think I could never have borne this last misery
+that earth can inflict upon me. My mother is dead."
+
+"Why distress yourself with sad forebodings? Weakness makes you
+despondent, but you must try to hope for the best; and I dare say in
+a few days, you will have good news from your mother."
+
+"I shook hands with Hope, and in her place sits the only companion
+who will abide with me during the darkness that is coming on--
+Patience, pale-browed, meek-eyed, sad-lipped Patience. If I can only
+keep my hold upon her skirts, till the end. To me, no good news can
+ever come. As long as mother lived, I had an incentive to struggle;
+now I am alone, and they who thirst for my blood are welcome to take
+it speedily. I know my mother is dead; I have seen her."
+
+"Wake up, child. Your brain is weak yet and full of queer delirious
+visions, and when you doze, realities and dreams are all jumbled
+together. You have a deal too much sense to harbor any crazy
+spiritual crankiness. Take your wine, and lie down. You have sat up
+too long, and tired yourself."
+
+"No. I have wanted to tell you for several days, because you have
+been so good, and I have heard you praying here at night that God
+would be merciful to me; but I waited until I had strength to be
+calm. I have lain here day after day, and night after night, face to
+face with desolation and despair, and now I have grown accustomed to
+the horror. I know that in this world there is no escape, no help,
+no hope; so--the worst is over. When you consent to fate, and
+stretch out your arms to meet death, there is no more terror, only
+waiting, weary waiting. I am not superstitious, and unfortunately I
+am not one of the victims of dementia, whose spectral woes are born
+of disordered brains. I am sadly sane; and what I am about to tell
+you is no figment of feverish fancy. I do not know how long I have
+been sick, but one night great peace and ease came suddenly upon me.
+I swung in some soft tender arms, close to the gates of Release, and
+the iron bars melted away, and my soul was borne toward the
+wonderful light; but suddenly a shock, a strange thrill ran through
+me, and the bars rose again, and the light faded. Then all at once
+my father and my mother stood beside me, bent over me. Father said:
+'Courage, my daughter, courage! Bear your cross a little longer,' My
+mother wept, and said, 'My good little girl. So faithful, so true. I
+died in peace, trusting your promise. For my sake can you endure
+till the end?' They faded away; and sorrow sat down once more,
+clutching my heart; and death, the Angel who keeps the key of the
+Gate of Release, turned his back upon me. I had almost escaped; I
+was close to the other world, and I was conscious. I saw my mother's
+spirit; it was no delirious fancy. I know that she is dead. Even in
+the world of the released, she grieves over the awful consequences
+of my obedience to her wishes. Mortal agony of body and soul brings
+us so near to the borderland, that we have glimpses; and those we
+love, lean across the boundary line and compassionate us. So my
+Gethsemane called down the one strengthening Angel of all the
+heavenly hosts, who had most power to comfort my heart, and gird me
+for my fate, my father, my noble father. God, in pity, sent him to
+exhort me to bear my cross bravely."
+
+The low solemn voice ceased, and in the silence that followed, only
+the dull patter of the rain, and the persistent purring of a kitten
+curled up on the cot were audible. Mrs. Singleton finished the
+buttonhole in Dick's apron, and threaded her needle.
+
+"If it comforts you at all to believe that, I have no right to say
+anything."
+
+"You think, however, that I am the victim of some hallucination?"
+
+"Not even that. I think you had a very vivid dream, and being
+exhausted, you mistook a feverish vision for a real apparition. I
+can't believe your mother is dead, because if such were the case,
+Dyce would have returned at once, and told us."
+
+"Dyce has a kind heart, and shrinks from bringing me the sad news;
+for she knows my cup was already full. I know that my mother is
+dead. Time will show you that I make no mistake. The veil was
+lifted, and I saw beyond."
+
+"Maybe so; may be not. I am stubborn in my opinions, and I never
+could think it possible for flesh to commune with spirits. Don't let
+us talk about anything that disturbs you, until you regain your
+strength. Why will you not try a little of this port wine? Miss
+Gordon brought it yesterday, and insisted I should give it to you,
+three times a day. It is very old and mellow. Look at things
+practically. God kept you alive for some wise purpose, and since you
+are obliged to face trouble, is it not better to arm yourself with
+all the physical vigor possible? Drink this, and lie down."
+
+As Beryl mechanically drained the glass and handed it back, Mrs.
+Singleton added:
+
+"I believe I told you, Miss Gordon is Mr. Dunbar's sweetheart. Their
+engagement is no secret, and he is a lucky man; for she is as good
+as she is pretty, and as sweet as she is rich. She has shown such a
+tender interest in you, and manifests so much sympathy, that I am
+sure she will influence him in your favor, and I feel so encouraged
+about your future."
+
+A shadowy smile crossed the girl's wan face,
+
+"Invest no hope in my future; for escape is as impossible for me, as
+for that innocent victim foreordained to entangle his horns in the
+thicket on Mount Moriah. He could have fled from the sacrificial
+fire, and from Abraham's uplifted knife, back to dewy green pastures
+poppy-starred, back to some cool dell where Syrian oleanders flushed
+the shade, as easily as I can defy these walls, loosen the chain of
+fate, elude my awful doom."
+
+"It is because you are not yet yourself, that you take such a
+despairing view of matters. After a while, things will look very
+different, and you are too plucky to surrender your life without a
+brave fight. A great change has come over Mr. Dunbar, and there is
+no telling what he cannot do, when he sets to work. If ever a
+lawyer's heart has been gnawed by remorse, it is his. He and Miss
+Gordon together can pull you out of the bog, and I believe they
+will."
+
+"Mr. Dunbar's professional reputation is more precious in his sight
+than a poor girl's life; moreover, even if he desired to undo his
+work, he could not. I am beyond human succor. Fate nails me to a
+cross, but God consents; so I make no struggle, for behind fate
+stands God--and my father."
+
+Wearily she leaned back on her pillows, and turned her face to the
+wall. Mrs. Singleton drew the blankets over her, folded her own
+shawl about the shoulders, and smoothing away the hair, kissed her
+on the temple; then stole into the adjoining room, where her
+children slept.
+
+Before the fire that leaped and crackled in the wide chimney, and
+leaning forward to rest her turbaned head against the mantelpiece,
+while she spread her hands toward the blaze, stood a much muffled
+figure.
+
+"Dyce!"
+
+Mrs. Singleton had left the door ajar, and the old woman turned and
+pointed to it, laying one finger on her lips; but the warning came
+too late.
+
+"Hush! I don't want her to know I am here. Your husband told me she
+was sitting up, and in her right mind, but too weak to stand any
+more trouble. I wish I could run away, and never see her again, for
+when I go in there, I feel like I was carrying a knife to cut the
+heart out of a fawn, what the hounds had barely left life in. I
+can't bear the thought of having to tell her--"
+
+Dyce covered her face with her shawl, to stifle her sobs, and her
+large frame shook. Mrs. Singleton whispered:
+
+"Tell me quick. What is it."
+
+"Miss Ellie is dead. I got there three days after she was buried."
+
+The warden's wife sank into a chair, and drew the weeping negro into
+one beside her.
+
+"Do you know exactly what time she died?"
+
+"Yes--I had it all put down in black and white. She died on Tuesday
+night, just as the clock struck two; and the hospital nurse says--
+Lord, amercy, Miss Susan! are you going to faint? You have turned
+ashy!"
+
+As Mrs. Singleton's thoughts recurred to the fact that it was at
+that hour that Beryl lay in the stupor of the crisis, from which she
+awoke perfectly conscious, and recalled the dream that the sick girl
+held as a vision, she felt a vague but bewildering dread seize her
+faculties, in defiance of cool reason, and scoffing scepticism.
+
+"Go on, Dyce. I felt a little sick. Tell me--"
+
+She paused and listened to an unusual and inexplicable noise issuing
+from the next room; the harsh sound of something scraping the bare
+floor.
+
+"You must pick your time to break this misery to that poor young
+thing. I can't do it. I would run a mile sooner than face her with
+the news, that her ma is dead; and I have grieved and cried, till I
+feel like my brains had been put in a pot and biled. The Lord knows
+His bizness, of course; yes, of course He knows the best to do; but
+'pears to me, His mercy hid its face behind His wrath, when He saw
+fit to let that poor innercent young creetur in there get well,
+after her ma was laid in the grave. It will be a harder heart than
+mine what can stand by, and tell her she is motherless."
+
+"There is no need to tell her. She knows it."
+
+"How? Did she get the letter the Doctor said he wrote?"
+
+"No. She thinks her mother--"
+
+The noise explained itself. Too feeble to walk alone, Beryl had
+pushed a chair before her, until she reached the door, and now stood
+grasping it, swaying to and fro, as she endeavored to steady
+herself. One hand held at her throat the black shawl, whose loosened
+folds fell like a mourning mantle to her feet, the other clutched
+the door, against the edge of which she leaned for support.
+
+"Dyce, I have known for some days that I have no mother in this
+world. I have seen her. Your kind heart dreads giving me pain, but
+nothing can hurt me now. I cannot suffer any more, because I am
+bruised and beaten to numbness. I want to see you alone; I want to
+know everything."
+
+At sight of her, the old woman darted forward and caught the tall,
+wasted, tottering form in her strong arms. Lifting her as though she
+had been a child, she bore her back to her small bleak room, laid
+her softly on her cot, then knelt down, and burst into a fit of
+passionate crying.
+
+As if to shut out some torturing vision, Beryl clasped her hands
+over her eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was very unsteady:
+
+"Did you see mother alive?"
+
+"Oh, honey, I was too late! I was three days too late to see her at
+all. When I got to New York, and found the Doctor's house, he was
+not at home; had just gone to Boston a half hour before I rung the
+bell. His folks couldn't tell me nothin', so I had to wait two days.
+When I give him your note, he looked dreadful cut up, and tole me
+Miss Ellie had all the care and 'tention in the world, but nothin'
+couldn't save her. He said she didn't suffer much, but was 'lirious
+all the time, until the day before she died, when all of a sudden
+her mind cleared. Then she axed for you, honey--God bless you, my
+poor lamb! I hate to harrify your heart. The Doctor comforted her
+all he could, and tole her bizness of importance had done kept you
+South. Miss Ellie axed how long she could live; he said only a few
+hours. She begged him to prop her up, so she could write a few
+words. He says he held the paper for her, and she wrote a little,
+and rested; and then she wrote a little mere and fell back
+speechless. He pat the piece of paper in a invellop and sealed it,
+and axed her if she wished it given to her daughter Beryl. She
+couldn't talk then, but she looked at him and nodded her head. That
+was about four o'clock in the evening of Tuesday. She had a sort of
+spasm, and went to sleep. At two o'clock, she woke up in Heaven. He
+said he felt so sorry for you--dear lamb! He wouldn't let them burry
+her where most was hurried that died in the hospital. He had her
+laid away in his own lot in some graveyard, where his childun was
+burried, 'till he could hear from you. He tole me, she was tenderly
+handled, and everything was done as you would have wanted it; and he
+cut off some of the beautiful hair--and--"
+
+Dyce smothered her sobs in the bedclothes, but Beryl lay like a
+stone image.
+
+"Oh, honey! It jest splits my heart in two, to tell you all this--"
+
+"Go on, Dyce."
+
+"The doctor gin me a note to the nuss at the hospital, what 'tended
+the ward Miss Ellie was in, and I got all her clothes, and packed
+'em in a box and brought 'em home. She told me pretty much what the
+doctor had said, only she was shore your ma spoke jest before she
+died, and called twice--'Ignace! Ignace!' She said she was beautiful
+as a angel and her hair was a wonder to all who saw her, it was so
+long and so lovely. She tole me the doctor hissef put a big bunch of
+white carnations and tuberoses in her hand, after they put her in
+the coffin, and she looked like a queen. The doctor wrote you a
+letter 'splainin' everything, and sent it to the postmaster here. He
+seemed dreadfull grieved and 'stonished when I tole him how I had
+left you, and said if he could help you, he would be very glad to do
+it. I tole him we would pay his bill, as soon as this here trial
+bizness was over; and he answered: 'Tut--tut; bill indeed! That poor
+unfortunate girl need never worry over any bill of mine. I did all I
+could for her mother, but the best of us fail sometimes. Tell that
+poor child to come and see me, as soon as she gets out of the
+clutches of those fire-eating devils down South.' Honey, I couldn't
+be satisfied without seeing for myself, where they had laid my dear
+young mistiss. I got 'rections from the doctor, and I spent good
+part of a day huntin' the cemetery, and at last a man in a uniform
+showed me Doctor Grantlin's lot. Oh, my lamb! That was the first and
+only comfort I had, when I stood in front of that grand lovely
+marble potico--with great angels kneeling on the four corners, and
+knew my dear young mistiss was resting in such a beautiful place. I
+felt so proud that ole mistiss' chile was among the best people,
+sleeping with flowers in her hands, in that white marble house! I
+wanted to be shore there warn't no mistake, and the keeper of the
+graveyard tole me a lady had been put 'temporary' in the vault, four
+days before. I had bought a bunch of violets from a flower shop, but
+I could not get nearer than the door, where some brass rods was
+stretched like a kind of a net; so I laid my little bunch down on
+the marble steps, close as I could push it agin the rod; and though
+I couldn't see my dear young mistiss, maybe--up in heaven--she will
+know her poor ole mammy did not forgit her, and--"
+
+The old woman cried bitterly, and one thin hand, white as a
+snowflake, fell upon her bowed head, and softly stroked her black
+wrinkled face. After some minutes, when the paroxysm of weeping had
+spent itself, Dyce took the hand, kissed it reverently, and pressed
+into it a package.
+
+"The doctor tole me to put that into your hands. He said he knew it
+would be very precious to you, but he felt shore he could trust me
+to bring it safe. Now, honey, I know you want to be by yourself,
+when you read your ma's last words. I will go and set in yonder by
+the fire, till you call me. My heart aches and swells fit to bust,
+and I can't stan' no more misery jest now, sech as this."
+
+For some moments, Beryl lay motionless, then the intolerable agony
+clutched her throat with an aching sense of suffocation, and she sat
+up, with nerveless hands lying on the package in her lap. She was
+prepared for, expectant of the worst, but the details added keener
+stings to suffering that had benumbed her. At last, with a
+shuddering sigh, she broke the seal, and took from folds of tissue
+paper, a long thick tress of the beautiful black hair. Shaking it
+out of its satin coil, she held it up, then wrapped it smoothly over
+her hand, and laid it caressingly against her cheek.
+
+Prison walls melted away; she stood again in the New York attic, and
+combed, and brushed, and braided those raven locks, and saw the wan
+face of the beloved invalid, and the jasmine and violets she had
+pinned at her throat.
+
+What had become of the proud, high-spirited ambitious girl, who
+laughed at adverse fortune, and forgot poverty in lofty aspirations?
+How long ago it seemed, since she kissed the dear faded cheek, and
+knelt for her mother's farewell benediction. Was it the same world?
+Was she the same Beryl; was the eternal and unchanging God over all,
+as of yore? She had shattered and ruined the sparkling crystal
+goblet of her young life, scattering in the dust the golden wine of
+happy hope, in the effort to serve and comfort that loved sufferer,
+who, languishing on a hospital cot, had died among strangers; had
+been shrouded by hirelings. That any other hand than hers had
+touched her sacred dead, seemed a profanation; and at the thought of
+the last rites rendered, the loyal child shivered as though some
+polluting grasp had been laid upon herself. Out of the envelope
+rolled a broad hoop of reddish gold, her mother's wedding ring; and
+in zigzag lines across a sheet of paper was written the last
+message:
+
+"My dear, good little girl, so faithful, so true, my legacy of love
+is your mother's blessing. You must be comforted to know I am dying
+in peace, because I trust in your last promise--"
+
+Then a blot, some unintelligible marks, and a space. Lower still,
+scarcely legible characters were scrawled:
+
+"Tell my darling--to wear my ring as a holy--"
+
+In death as in life, the last word, and the deepest feeling were not
+for her; the sacred souvenir was left for the hand that had so often
+stabbed the idolatrous heart, now stilled forever.
+
+In all ages the ninety and nine that go not astray, never feel the
+caressing touch which the yearning Shepherd lays on the obstinate
+wanderer, who would not pasture in peace; and from the immemorial
+dawn of inchoate civilization, prodigals have possessed the open
+sesame to parental hearts that seemed barred against the more
+dutiful. By what perverted organon of ethics has it come to pass in
+sociology, that the badge of favoritism is rarely the guerdon of
+merit?
+
+To the orphaned, forsaken, disgraced captive, sitting amid the
+sombre ruins of her life, drinking the bitter lees of the fatal cup
+a mother's hand had forced to her reluctant lips, there seemed
+nothing strange in the injustice meted out; for had not the second
+place in maternal love always been hers? As the great gray eyes
+darkening behind their tears, like deep lakes under coming rain,
+read and re-read the blurred lines, the frozen mouth trembled, and
+Beryl kissed the hair, folded it away in the letter, and pinned both
+close to her heart. Staggering to her feet, she held up the ring,
+and said in a broken, half audible voice:
+
+"When I am dead, your darling shall have it; until then lend it to
+your little girl, as a strengthening amulet. The sight of it will
+hold me firm, will girdle my soul with fortitude, as it girdles my
+finger; will set a yet holier seal to the compact whereby I pledged
+my life, that you might die in peace. If, in the last hour, you had
+known all my peril, all that my promise entails, would you have
+released me? Would you have died content knowing that your idol was
+guarded and safe, behind the cold shield of your little girl's
+polluted body? The blood in my veins flowed from yours; I slept on
+your heart, I was the last baby whose lips fed at your bosom.
+Mother! Mother, if you had known all, could you have seen the load
+of guilt and shame and woe laid on your innocent child, and bought
+the life of your first-born, by the sacrifice of a scapegoat? Dear
+mother, my mother, would you shelter him, and leave your baby to
+die?"
+
+Slipping the ring on her finger, she kissed it twice. The hot flood
+of tears overflowed, and she fell on her knees beside the cot,
+clasping her hands above her bowed head.
+
+"Alone in my desolation! Oh, father! keep close to my soul, and pray
+that I may have strength to bear my burden, even to the end. My God!
+My God! sustain me now. Help me to be patient, and when the
+sacrifice is finished, accept it for Christ's sake, and grant that
+the soul of my brother may be ransomed, because I die for his sins."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+"Well, dear child, what is the trouble? Into what quagmire have your
+little feet slipped? When you invite me so solemnly to a private
+conference in this distractingly pretty room, the inference is
+inevitable that some disaster threatens. Have you overdrawn your
+bank account?"
+
+Judge Dent leaned back, making himself thoroughly comfortable in a
+deep easy chair in Leo's luxurious library; and taking his niece's
+hand, looked up into her grave, sweet face.
+
+"I want you to honor my draft for a large amount. I am about to draw
+upon your sympathy; can I ever overdraw my account with that royal
+bank?"
+
+"Upon my sympathy, never; but mark you, this does not commit me to
+compliance with all your Utopian schemes. If you were raving mad, I
+should sympathize, but nevertheless I should see that the strait-
+jacket was brought into requisition. When your generosity train
+dashes recklessly beyond regulation schedules of safety, I must
+discharge engineer sympathy, and whistle down the brakes. What new
+hobby do you intend that I shall ride?"
+
+"I have no intention of sharing that privilege even with you; I
+merely desire you to inspect the accoutrements, to examine reins,
+and girth, and stirrup. I lend my hobby to no one, and it is far too
+mettlesome to 'carry double'. Uncle Mitchell, I feel so unhappy
+about that poor girl, that I must do something to comfort her, and
+only one avenue presents itself. I want you to have her brought into
+court on a writ of Habeas Corpus, and to use your influence with
+Judge Parkman to grant her bail. I desire to give the amount of bond
+he may require, because I think it would gratify her, to have this
+public assurance that she possessed the confidence of her own sex;
+for nothing so strengthens and soothes a true woman as the sympathy
+and trust of women."
+
+"Looking at the case dispassionately from a professional point of
+view, I am sorry to tell you that the judge would scarcely be
+warranted in granting bail. Were I still upon the bench, I could not
+conscientiously release her, in the face of constantly accumulating
+evidence against her, although she has my deepest compassion.
+Conceding, however, for the moment, that Parkman consents to the
+petition and the girl is set at liberty, are you prepared to pay the
+large forfeit, if she, realizing the fearful odds against her
+acquittal, should take permanent bail by absconding before the
+trial? Abstract sympathy and generous sentiments are one phase of
+this matter; positively paying a fifteen or a twenty-thousand-
+dollar-bond is quite another. Weigh it carefully. We pity this
+unfortunate prisoner, but we know absolutely nothing in her favor,
+to counterbalance the terrible array of accusing circumstances fate
+has piled against her. If she be guilty, can she resist the
+temptation to escape by flight; and if indeed she be innocent, how
+much more difficult to await all that is involved in this trial, and
+abide the issue? Because she is beautiful, has a refined and noble
+air, and seems unsullied as some grand snow image, do not blind
+yourself to the fact, that for aught we can prove to the contrary,
+she may have a heart as black as Tullias', hands as bloody as
+Brunehaut's."
+
+"You believe that as little as I do. I have pondered the matter in
+all its aspects, and I take the risk."
+
+"You can afford to pay for her flight?"
+
+"I will pay for her flight, no matter what it may cost."
+
+Judge Dent took her hand between both his.
+
+"Let us be frank."
+
+                       "'The things we do--
+     We do; we'll wear no mask, as if we blushed!'"
+
+"Are you so assured of the woman's fidelity; or do you deliberately
+leave the door ajar, foreseeing the result, deeming this the most
+expedient method of cutting the Gordian knot?"
+
+For a moment she hesitated, then her soft brown eyes looked down
+bravely into his.
+
+"I believe she is innocent, and that she will be loyal if released
+on bail; but if I mistake her character, and she should flee for her
+life from the lifted sword of justice, then I shall gladly pay the
+expense of playing Alexander's role; and shall feel rejoiced that
+she lives to repent her crime; and that the man to whom I have
+promised my hand, has been relieved of the awful responsibility of
+hunting her to death."
+
+"Have you made him acquainted with this scheme?"
+
+"Certainly not. I owed it to you to secure your approbation and co-
+operation, before mentioning the matter to him."
+
+"Have you considered the opposition which, without inconsistency, he
+cannot fail to offer? As prosecuting attorney for the Darringtons he
+would be recreant to his client, if he consented to release on
+bail."
+
+"His sympathy is deeply enlisted in her behalf, and I do not
+anticipate opposition; nevertheless, it would not deter me from the
+attempt to free her, at least temporarily from prison. As you have
+no connection with the trial, I can see no impropriety in your
+telling Judge Parkman, that the girl's health demands a change of
+air and scene, and that it is my desire to furnish any bond he may
+deem suitable, and then bring the prisoner under my own roof, until
+the day fixed for her trial. If you are unwilling to speak to him,
+will you permit me to mention the subject to him?"
+
+"I fear enthusiasm is hurrying you into a proposal, the possibly
+grave consequences of which you do not realize. You would run a
+great risk in bringing here that unfortunate woman, over whose head
+has gathered so black a cloud of suspicion. In becoming her gaoler,
+you assume a fearful responsibility."
+
+"I fully comprehend all the hazard, and with your permission, I
+shall not shrink. I have a conviction, for which I can offer no
+adequate grounds, that this girl is as innocent as I am; and if all
+the world hissed and jeered, I should stretch out my hand to her. Do
+you recollect Ortes' booty when Antwerp fell into Alva's hands? The
+keys of the dungeons. I would rather swing wide the barred doors of
+yonder human cage across the river, and lead that woman out under
+God's free sky, than wear all of Alva's jewels, own his gold. Uncle,
+will you speak, or shall I?"
+
+"I must first talk with Churchill and Dunbar. Your effort might
+result only in injury to the prisoner; because if she were brought
+into Court on writ of Habeas Corpus, and refused bail, as I fear
+would be the case, the failure would operate very unfavorably for
+her cause, on public opinion, of which after all, in nineteen cases
+out of twenty, the jury verdict is a reflection. Some new evidence
+has been presented since the preliminary examination, and its
+character will determine the question of bail. If I can see any
+chance of your success I will speak to Parkman; for, indeed, my dear
+child, I honor your motive, and share your hope; but unless I find
+more encouragement than I expect, I will not complicate matters by a
+futile attempt, which would certainly recoil disastrously."
+
+"Thank you, Uncle Mitchell. Please act promptly. I have set my heart
+of hearts on having that poor young woman here to spend Christmas.
+Her freedom to walk about in the sunshine, is the one Christmas gift
+I covet; and I know you will gratify me if possible. You have only
+four days in which to secure my present."
+
+"When do you expect to see Dunbar?"
+
+"I promised to ride with him this afternoon; but I prefer not to
+discuss this subject, as he has earnestly requested me 'to abstain
+from any reference to that gloomy business during his hours of
+recreation;' and I have no intention of setting black care en croupe
+to share our canter to-day. Having told me that when he leaves his
+office to visit us, he locks his professional affairs in his desk,
+you can readily understand that good taste enforces respect for his
+wishes, at least in the matter of avoiding tabooed topics."
+
+"Does it occur to you that he will object very strenuously to seeing
+the personification of 'that gloomy business' sitting at your
+hearth-stone? That he may refuse to lock up in his law office the
+significant and disagreeable reflection, that the woman whom he
+arrested find prosecutes for a vile crime, is championed and housed
+by one whom he claims as his promised wife? Dunbar has a keen eye
+for the 'eternal fitness of things,' and, where you are concerned,
+is a jealous stickler for social convenance. I warn you he will be
+bitterly offended, if you bring General Darrington's granddaughter
+under this roof."
+
+Her delicate flower-like face flushed; and the slight figure became
+proudly erect.
+
+"It is my house, and I acquit him of the presumption of desiring to
+dictate to whom its doors shall be opened. If he has no confidence
+in my discretion, no respect for my motives, no tolerance for
+difference of opinion in a matter of vital importance, then the
+sooner our engagement is annulled the better for both of us. When I
+have taken my vows, I hope I shall steadfastly keep them, but
+meantime I am still a Gordon. The irrevocable ubi tu Caius, ego
+Caia, has not yet been uttered, and while it would grieve me very
+much to wound his feelings, I claim the exercise of my own judgment.
+I am not indifferent to his wishes; on the contrary, I ardently
+desire, as far as is consistent with my self-respect, to defer to
+them; but when I pledged him my faith, I did not surrender my will,
+nor obliterate my individuality."
+
+Judge Dent rose, put his arm around her shoulders, and drew the
+sunny head to his breast.
+
+"Leo, listen to me. There is no heaven on earth, but the nearest
+approach to it, the outlying suburbs whence we get bewildering
+glimpses of beatitude beyond, is the season of courtship and
+betrothal. In the magical days of sweetheartdom, a silvery
+glorifying glamour wraps the world, brims jagged black chasms with
+glittering mist, paves rugged paths with its shimmering folds, and
+tenderly covers very deep in rose leaves, the clay feet of our
+idols. That wonderful light shines only once full upon us, but the
+memory of it streams all along the succeeding journey; follows us up
+the arid heights, throws its mellow afterglow on the darkening road,
+as we go swiftly down the slippery hill of life. It comes to all, as
+hope's happy prophecy, this sparkling prologue, and we never dream
+that it is the sweetest and best of the drama that follows; but let
+me tell you, enjoy it while you may. Beautiful, hallowing sweetheart
+days, keep them unclouded, guard them from strife; hold them for the
+precious enchantment they bring, and take an old man's advice, do
+not quarrel with your sweetheart."
+
+He kissed her cheek, and when the door closed behind him, she sat
+down and covered her face with her hands.
+
+Was that witching light already fading in her sky? Was the storm
+even now muttering, that would rudely toss aside the rose leaves
+that garlanded the feet of her beloved? In the midst of her eloquent
+prologue would darkness smite suddenly, and end the drama? Life had
+poured its richest wine into the cup she held to her lips; should
+she risk spilling the priceless draught? She could turn a deaf ear
+to teazing whispers of suspicion, she could shut her eyes to the
+spectre that threw up warning hands, and so drift on; but the dream
+would be broken perhaps too late, and all time could not repair the
+possible shipwreck. Into the chill shadow of this problem plunged
+Miss Patty, bringing through the room the penetrating spicery of an
+apron full of pinks, which she was sorting and tying in star-shaped
+clusters.
+
+"An extraordinary and most unexpected thing has happened, and I know
+you will be surprised."
+
+"What is it, Aunt Patty? Something very pleasant, I hope."
+
+"I have actually changed my opinion; and you know how tenacious I
+usually am of my well-matured views, because they are always founded
+on such sound reasons. Quite surprised, aren't you, dear?"
+
+"That is far too mild and inadequate a term to express my
+sensations. Your views and opinions bear the same royal, inviolable
+seal as those of the Medes and Persians, and from their
+unchangeableness must have floated down the stream of Aryan
+migration, from some infallible fountain in Bactria. I should not be
+much more astonished to hear that Cynosure had grown giddy, had
+swung down and waltzed in the arms of Sirius."
+
+"Leo, that sounds very pedantic, and there is nothing I dislike
+more. A woman bedecked with rags and tags of farfetched learning, is
+about as attractive an object as if she had turned out a full beard
+and mustache. I am very sure you have heard me assert more than
+once, that I verily believe Venus herself would scare all the men
+into monasteries, if she wore blue stockings. Too much learning in a
+lady's conversation is as utterly unpardonable as a waste of lemon
+and nutmeg in a chicken-pie; or a superfluity of cheese in Turbot a
+la creme; just a hint of the flavor, the merest soupcon is all that
+is admissible in either. I came in to tell you, that I have
+experienced quite a change of feeling with reference to that poor
+young lady, whom Mr. Dunbar with such officious haste arrested and
+threw into gaol. I am now convinced that a great wrong has been
+committed."
+
+For a moment Leo stooped to stroke the head of her Siberian hound,
+crouching on the velvet rug at her feet; then she frankly met the
+twinkling black eyes that peered over their gold-rimmed spectacles.
+
+"I am glad to hear it; but to what circumstance is so deckled a
+revulsion of sentiment attributable?"
+
+"You know I have great confidence in Sister Serena's sagacity, and
+during the past fortnight she has talked frequently with me on the
+subject of the prisoner. When she undertook to nurse the poor child,
+she too considered her guilty of the unnatural crime; but by degrees
+she began to doubt it. About ten days ago, she says she went to the
+penitentiary, and found the prisoner reading a Bible which she had
+borrowed from the gaoler's wife. She asked her if she would like her
+to offer up a prayer, in her behalf, and they knelt down side by
+side. Sister Serena prayed that God would melt her heart if she was
+guilty, and help her to repent. While they were still on their
+knees, Sister Serena put one arm around her and said:
+
+"'God knows whether you are the criminal; and if so, let me beg of
+you to make a full confession; it will unload your conscience, and
+may be the means of arousing more sympathy in the public heart.' She
+says that the poor girl looked at her a moment so reproachfully, and
+answered: 'When we meet in heaven, you will understand how cruelly
+your words hurt me. I know that appearances are hopelessly against
+me, and I expect to die; but I am so innocent, I keep my soul close
+to God, for He who knows the truth, will help me to bear man's
+injustice.' Then she prayed aloud for herself, that she might endure
+patiently and meekly an awful punishment which she did not deserve;
+and while she prayed, her countenance was so pure, so angelic, and
+there was such unmistakable fervor and sincerity in her petition,
+that Sister Serena says she could not help bursting into tears, and
+she actually begged the girl's pardon for having doubted her
+innocence. She has fallen completely in love with the poor young
+creature, and tells me she finds her wonderfully talented and
+cultivated. This morning she showed me some of the most beautiful
+designs for decorating our altar on Christmas, which the prisoner
+sketched for her. She cut all the models for her, and gave her such
+lovely suggestions, and when Sister Serena thanked her, she says the
+most touching smile she ever saw came into that child's face, as she
+answered: 'I ought to thank you for the privilege of decorating my
+Savior's altar, at the last Christmas I shall spend on earth. Next
+year, I shall spend Jesus' birthday with Him.' I felt so
+uncomfortable when I heard all that passed between her and Sister
+Serena, that I could not be easy until I had seen for myself; and as
+Sister Serena was going over to carry some letters to be painted and
+gilded, I went with her. I have seen her, and talked with her, and I
+pity the hard, bitter, unregenerate and vindictive heart of the man
+who is prosecuting her for murder. I do not believe that in all the
+world, Mr. Dunbar can find twelve men idiotic and vicious enough to
+convict that beautiful orphan girl; and his failure will do as
+little credit to his intellect, as success would to his moral
+nature."
+
+"While I prefer to exclude Mr. Dunbar's name from our discussions, I
+think it merely bare justice to the absent, to assure you that he
+desires her conviction even less than you or I; and will do all in
+his power to avert it. I feel more interest in this matter than you
+can possibly realize, and, believing her innocent, I will befriend
+her to the last extremity. Did Sister Serena succeed in fitting the
+black dress I sent?"
+
+"The poor child had on a mourning dress, but I was not aware you
+sent it. Losing her mother seems almost to have broken her heart.
+Poor Ellice Darrington! Petted and fostered like a hot-house flower,
+and then to die a pauper in a hospital! What an awful retribution
+for her disobedience to her parents? There is the bell."
+
+"Yes, Auntie, and I must ask you to excuse me. Some of my Sunday-
+school class are coming to practise their carols, and conclude a
+little holiday preparation, and I hear them now on the steps."
+
+"Did Mitchell show you Leighton's telegram?"
+
+"He told me the good news, that at the last moment Leighton had
+filled his pulpit for the holidays, and would preach for us on
+Christmas. How delightfully it will revive the dear old days to have
+him back? Fancy our hanging up our stockings once more at the foot
+of Uncle Mitchell's bed! Your letter must have been eloquent,
+indeed, to entice him from the splendors of the metropolis, to the
+yule log at our quiet 'Lilacs'; and his coming is a tribute of
+gratitude to you, for all your loving care of him. I know you are so
+happy at the thought of taking the Holy Communion from the hand of
+your dear boy, that it will consecrate this Christmas above all
+others; and I congratulate you heartily, dear Aunt Patty."
+
+It was late in the afternoon of Saturday, Christmas Eve, when Leo
+knocked at the door of Mrs. Singleton's room. A dispirited
+expression characterized the countenance usually serene and happy,
+and between her brows a perpendicular line marked the advent of
+anxious foreboding. Her hopeful scheme had dissolved, vanished like
+a puff of steam on icy air, leaving only a teazing memory of mocking
+failure. Judge Dent's conference with the District Solicitor, had
+convinced him of the futility of any attempt to secure bail;
+moreover, a message from the prisoner earnestly exhorted them to
+abandon all intercessory designs in her behalf, as she would not
+accept release on bail, and preferred to await her trial.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Gordon. If you want to see her, Ned will show
+you the way to the chapel, where I left her a while ago. Since her
+mother's death, the only comfort she gets, is from the organ; so we
+let her go there very often. I would go with you, but I want to
+finish a black shawl I am crocheting for her."
+
+The warden escorted his visitor through the chill dim corridors that
+had formerly so appalled Beryl's soul, and upon the steps of the
+chapel, both paused to listen. On the small cabinet organ, a skilful
+hand was playing a grand and solemn aria, which Leo had heard once
+before in the cool depths of Freiburg Cathedral. It had impressed
+her then most powerfully, as the despairing invocation of some
+doomed Titan; to-day it thrilled her with keen and intolerable pain.
+Waving the warden back, she softly entered the chapel, closed the
+door, and sat down.
+
+Through the narrow windows, the afternoon sunlight, fettered by
+shadowy bars, fell on the bare floor, and the radiance smote the
+organ and the wan face of the musician, gilding the dark reddish-
+brown hair coiled loosely on her nobly poised head. Her black dress
+enhanced the extreme pallor of delicate features, which, outlined
+against that golden background, bore a strong resemblance to the
+lovely portrait of Titian's wife in the Louvre. Unmindful of the
+keys, across which her fingers strayed, she was gazing off into
+space, as if seeking some friendly face; and to the same sombre,
+passionate, plaintive melody she sang:
+
+    "The way is dark, my Father! Cloud upon cloud
+     Is gathering thickly o'er my head, and loud
+     The thunders roar above me. O, see--I stand
+     Like one bewildered! Father, take my hand--
+     And through the gloom lead safely home Thy Child!
+     The day declines, my Father! and the night
+     Is drawing darkly down. My faithless sight
+     Sees ghostly visions. Fears like a spectral band
+     Encompass me. O, Father, take my hand,
+     And from the night lead up to light Thy Child!
+     The cross is heavy, Father! I have borne
+     It long, and still do bear it. I cannot stand
+     Or go alone. O, Father, take my hand,
+     And reaching down, lead to the crown Thy Child!"
+
+The voice was wonderfully sweet and rich, vibrating with the intense
+pathos of minor chords in a mellow old violoncello, and either from
+physical weakness, or the weight of woe, it quivered at last into a
+thrilling cry. Tears were dripping over Leo's cheeks, as she went up
+to the chancel railing, and leaning across, put out her hand. Beryl
+rose and came forward, and so, with only the pine balustrade
+between, the two stood palm in palm. No moisture dimmed the
+prisoner's eyes, but around her beautiful mouth sorrowful curves
+betokened the fierceness of the ordeal she was enduring; and her
+lips trembled a little, like rose leaves under a sudden rude gust.
+
+"I have wanted very much to see you, Miss Gordon, to thank you for
+the great kindness that prompted your effort to help me; and yet, I
+have no hope of expressing adequately the comfort I derived from
+this manifestation of your confidence. The knowledge that you
+offered security for me, above all, that you were willing to take
+me--an outcast, almost a convicted criminal--into the holy shelter
+of your own home, oh! you can never realize, unless you stood in my
+place, how it soothes my heart, how it will always make a bright
+spot in the blackness of my situation. The full sympathy of a noble
+woman is the best tonic for a feeble sufferer, who knows the world
+has turned its back upon her. If I were unworthy, your goodness
+would be the keenest lash that could scourge me; but forlorn though
+I seem, your friendship brings me measureless balm, and while I
+could never have accepted your generous offer, I thank you
+sincerely."
+
+"Why were you so unwilling that I should try to release you?"
+
+"I have not a dollar to pay my expenses anywhere, and I appreciated
+too fully all that was involved in your hospitable offer, to take me
+under your roof, to be willing to avail myself of it. Here I am
+provided for, by those who believe me guilty; and here I have the
+kind sympathy of Mr. and Mrs. Singleton, who were my first friends
+when the storm broke over my doomed head. To go out of prison into
+the world now, would be torturing, because I am proud and sensitive;
+and these dark walls screen me from the curious observation from
+which I shrink, as from being flayed. To the desolate and homeless,
+change of place brings no relief; and since there is no escape for
+me, I prefer to wait here for the end, which, after all, cannot be
+very distant."
+
+"Do you refer to the trial next month?"
+
+"No, to that which yawns behind the trial; a shallow gash out there
+under the pines, where the sound of the penitentiary bell tolls
+requiems for the souls of its mangled victims."
+
+"Hush! hush! You wrong yourself by imagining the possibility of such
+horrible results. Gloomy surroundings, coupled with your great
+bereavement, render you morbidly despondent; and it was the hope of
+cheering you, that made me so anxious to get you away. If I could
+only take you home, even for one week!"
+
+"The wish has cheered me inexpressibly. How good, how noble, how
+tender you are! Miss Gordon, because I am so grateful, let me now
+say one thing. You cannot help me in future, and it would grieve me
+to think that I fell, as an unlifting shadow, between your heart and
+the sunshine that warms it. In the night of my wretchedness, you
+have groped your way to me, and in defiance of the circumstances
+that are so cruelly leagued to strangle me, you throw your
+confidence like a warm mantle around my shivering soul; you have
+courageously laid your pure, womanly hands in mine--oh, God bless
+you! God reward you! Do you think I could bear to know that I had
+caused even a hand's breadth of cloud to drift over the heavenly
+blue of your happy sky? The bow of promise that spans your life is
+no secret. Let no thought of me jar the harmony that reigned before
+I came here. Leave me to my doom, which human hands cannot avert
+now; and be happy without questioning. Inexorable fate stands behind
+men; makes them, sometimes, irresponsible puppets."
+
+A deep flush had risen to Leo's temples, and withdrawing her hand,
+she shaded her face for a moment. The great bell below the tower
+clock rang sullenly.
+
+"Good-bye, Miss Gordon. I had permission to stay here only till the
+bell sounded. Pray for me, but do not come again. Visits to me could
+bring you nothing but sorrow in return for your compassion, and that
+would add to my misery. I wish you a pleasant Christmas, a happy New
+Year, and as cloudless a life as your great goodness deserves."
+
+Once more their hands met, in a long close clasp, then Leo laid on
+the chancel railing a large square envelope.
+
+"It is only a Christmas card, but so lovely, I know your artistic
+taste cannot fail to admire it; and it may brighten your cheerless
+room. It is the three-hundred-dollar-prize-card, and particularly
+beautiful."
+
+"Thank you, dear Miss Gordon. It may help to deaden the merciless
+stings of memory, which all day long has tortured me by unrolling
+the past, where my Christmas days stand out like illuminated
+capitals on black-letter pages."
+
+Deaden the stings of memory? What spell suddenly evoked the image of
+her invalid mother, all the details of the attic room, the litter of
+pencils on the table; the windows of a florist's shop where,
+standing on the pavement, she had studied hungrily the shapes of the
+blossoms poverty denied her as models; the interior of the Creche,
+which she had penetrated in order to sketch the heads of sleeping
+babies, as a study for cherubs?
+
+Leo had almost reached the door, when a passionate, indescribably
+mournful cry arrested her steps.
+
+"Too late!--too late! O, God! What a cruel mockery!"
+
+Beryl stood leaning against the railing of the altar, with the light
+of the setting sun falling aslant on the gilded card she held up in
+one hand; on her white convulsed face, where tears fell in a
+scalding flood. Retracing her steps, Leo said falteringly:
+
+"In my efforts to comfort you, have I only wounded more sorely? How
+have I hurt you? What can I do?"
+
+"No--no! you are an angel of pity, hovering over an abyss of ruin,
+whose darkest horrors you only imagine faintly. What can you do?
+Nothing, but pray to God to paralyze my tongue, and grant me death,
+before I lose my last clutch on faith, and curse my Creator, and
+drift down to eternal perdition! It was hard enough before, but this
+mockery maddens."
+
+With a sudden abandonment, she hurled the card away, threw her arms
+around Leo's neck and sobbed unrestrainedly. Tenderly the latter
+held her shivering form, as the proud head fell on her shoulder; and
+after a time, Beryl lifted a face white as an annunciation lily,
+drenched by tropical rain.
+
+"I thought misfortune had emptied all her vials, and that I was
+nerved, because there was nothing more to dread. But the worst is
+always behind, and this is the irony of fate. You think that merely
+a rhetorical metaphor, a tragic trope? How should you know? That
+Christmas card is the solitary dove I sent out to hunt a resting-
+place for mother and for me, when the flood engulfed us. It was my
+design sent to Boston, to compete for the prizes offered. How I
+dreamed, how I toiled! Haunting the flower shops for a glimpse of
+heartsease, and passion flowers, and stars of Bethlehem; begging a
+butcher at the abattoir to spare a lamb, until I could sketch it;
+kneeling by cradles in the public Creche to get the full red curve
+of a baby's sucking lips, as they forsook the bottle, the dimple in
+the tiny hands, the tendrils of hair on the satin brow! Over that
+card I sang, and I wept; I worked, hoped, prayed, believed! So much
+depended upon it! Could the Christ to whom I dedicated it, fail to
+answer my prayer for success? Three hundred dollars! What a mint! It
+would pay the doctor, and make mother comfortable, and get her a
+warm new suit for coming winter. Oh! it is so easy to believe in
+God, until He denies us; and to trust Christ, till He hurls our
+prayers back, and the stones crush us. Only three hundred dollars
+between life and death; between a happy, proud girl with a noble
+future, and a disgraced, broken-hearted wreck trampled into a
+convict's grave! It would have saved all; all the awful consequences
+of the journey here, which only dire extremity of need forced upon
+me. On the fatal day I started South, I went at the last moment,
+hoping that some tidings from my card would come on angel wings. The
+decision had been made, but the awards were not yet published, and
+so my doom was sealed. To-morrow, happy women, no more innocent than
+I am, will smile at my Christmas card, and give it with warm kisses
+and loving words to their dear ones; and to-day, my white dove of
+hope, flies back in my face, with the talons of a harpy, to devour
+me with maddening reminders of 'what might have been'. My coveted
+three hundred dollars! Three hundred taunting fiends! to jeer and
+torment me. The Christmas sun will shine on a pauper's empty cot in
+a charity hospital; on a disgraced, insulted, forsaken convict. Take
+away this last mockery, it is more than I can bear. There on the
+back in gilt letters--Prize Card--Three Hundred Dollars! Yet a
+stranger paid for my mother's coffin, and--. Three hundred furies to
+lash my heart out! Too late! Take it away! too late! oh, too late!
+This is worse than the pangs of death."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+The Christmas Sabbath dawned cold and dim, and along the eastern sky
+gray marbled masses of cloud with dun, stratified bases, built
+themselves into the likeness of vast teocallis to Tonatiuh, over
+whose apex the struggling rays fell red and presageful. Dulled by
+the stained glass windows, the light that filled the semi-circular
+chapel at "The Lilacs", was chill and sombre, until the fair
+sacristan held a taper over the tall wax candles on each side of the
+altar, whence a mellow radiance soon streamed over all; flashing
+along the golden letters under the cross, and upon the gilded pipes
+of the little organ. On the marble steps in front of the altar were
+two baskets filled with white camellias, and great spikes of pink
+and blue hyacinths, that seemed to break their hearts in waves of
+aromatic incense. The family Bible of the Gordons lay open, on the
+reading desk, and upon its yellow pages rested a Maltese cross of
+snowy Roman hyacinths. Looping back the purple velvet portiere over
+the arch leading into the library, Leo sat down on the organ bench
+to await the coming of the family, leisurely arranged the stops, and
+marked in her prayer-book the Collect for Christmas. In her morning
+robe of crimson cashmere, with its cascade of soft rich lace foaming
+from throat to feet, and wearing a dainty cluster of double white
+violets fastened just below one ear, where the wax light kissed her
+sunny hair, she appeared a St. Cecilia, very fair and sweet, to the
+eyes of the man who stood a moment unperceived beneath the arch. A
+figure of medium height, clad in priestly garments, with a white
+surplice sweeping to the marble floor; a finely modelled head
+thickly fleeced with light brown hair, a serene pleasant face, with
+regular features, deep-set black eyes magnified by spectacles, and
+an expression of habitual placidity, that bespoke a soul consecrated
+by noble aims, and at perfect peace with his God.
+
+Hearing his step as he crossed the floor, Leo looked over her
+shoulder, smiled, and began to play softly, while he ascended the
+steps and knelt before the altar. After some moments Miss Patty
+rustled in, sank on her knees and finally settled herself
+comfortably on one of the crescent-shaped, cushioned sofas; then
+Judge Dent entered, followed by Justine and the aged negro butler,
+Joel, the two servants finding seats just behind their master.
+Doctor Leighton Douglass selected his hymns, and the leaves of five
+prayer-books fluttered, as Collects were found, but Leo continued to
+play.
+
+Twice she turned and looked around the chapel, seeking some one,
+delaying the commencement of the service. Finally accepting defeat,
+her pretty fingers fell from the keys, and with them dropped two
+tears, forced from her by the keen disappointment that robbed this
+occasion of all its anticipated pleasure. Singularly free from
+fashionable elocutionary affectations, and certain declamatory stage
+tricks, by which the recitation of the Creed and the Lord's Prayer
+becomes a competitive test of lungs in the race for breath, Leighton
+Douglass read the morning service, in a well-modulated voice, and
+with a profound solemnity that left its impress on each heart. The
+responses were fervent, and the Christmas hymns were sung with
+joyful earnestness; then priestly arms rose like the wings of a
+great snowy dove, and from holy, priestly lips fell the mellow music
+of the benediction:
+
+"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
+fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen."
+
+Even while he pronounced the words, a whirring rustle filled the
+beautiful oratory, and two of Leo's pet ring-doves, fluttering round
+and round the frescoed ceiling, descended swiftly. One perched upon
+her head, cooing softly, and its mate nestled down with outspread
+pinions, pecking at the white muslin folds on Doctor Douglass'
+shoulder.
+
+"Paracletes, dun plumed! Leo, let us accept them as happy auguries,
+prophetic of divine blessing on our future work in the Master's
+vineyard. My cousin, I wish you a very happy Christmas."
+
+He had approached the organ where she sat, and held out his hand.
+
+"Happy Christmas, Leighton, and many thanks to you for this
+consecrating service in my place of prayer. After today, it will
+always seem a more hallowed shrine, and before you leave us, we will
+gather here as a family, and join in the celebration of the Holy
+Communion."
+
+They stood a moment hand in hand, looking into each other's eyes;
+and watching them, Miss Patty's heart swelled with pardonable pride
+in the two, whom her loving arms had so tenderly cradled. Pinching
+her brother's hand, as she walked with him under the velvet
+draperies, she whispered:
+
+"What a noble match for both! And he's only her second cousin."
+
+Leo's eyes were wet with tears, which Doctor Douglass ascribed to
+devotional fervor; and withdrawing her hand, she opened one of the
+windows, and called the doves to the stone ledge, putting them very
+gently out upon the ivy wreaths that clambered up the wall, and
+peeped into the chapel.
+
+"I believe you are sacristan here?" he said, pointing to the candles
+that flared, as the wind rushed in,
+
+"Yes, here I sweep, dust, decorate daily, allowing no other touch;
+and here I bring my daintiest, rarest flowers, as tribute to Him who
+tapestried the earth with blossoms, and sprinkled it with perfumes--
+when? Not until just before the advent of humanity, whose material
+kingdom was perfected, and furnished in anticipation of his
+arrival."
+
+Extinguishing the candles, she closed the old Bible, covered it with
+a square of velvet, and hung the cross of hyacinths upon the folded
+hands of one of the marble angels that upheld the altar,
+
+"Pure-handed women are natural priestesses, meet for temple
+ministration; and I have no doubt your exoteric labors here, merely
+typify the secret daily sweeping out of evil thoughts, the dusting
+away of motes of selfishness, the decorating with noble beautiful
+aims, and holy deeds, whereby you sanctify that inner shrine, your
+own soul."
+
+"Praise from you means so much, that you need not stoop to flatter
+me. The very vestments of you Levites should exhale infectious
+humility; and I especially need exhortations against pride, my
+besetting sin. I built this chapel, not because I am good, but in
+order to grow better. Every dwelling has its room in which the
+inmates gather to eat, to study, to work, to sleep; why not to pray,
+the most important privilege of many that divide humanity from
+brutes? After all, the pagans were wiser than we, and the heads of
+families were household priests, setting examples of piety at every
+rising of the sun."
+
+"Let us see. Greek and Roman fathers laid a cake dripping with wine,
+a wreath of violets, a heart of honey-comb, a brace of doves on the
+home altar, and immediately thereafter, set the example of violating
+every clause in the Decalogue. Mark you, paganism drew fine lines in
+morals, long anterior to the era of monotheism and of Moses, and
+furnished immortal types of all the virtues; yet the excess of its
+religious ceremonial, robbed it of vital fructifying energies. The
+frequency and publicity of sacerdotal service, usurped the place of
+daily individual piety. The tendency of all outward symbolical
+observances, unduly multiplied, is to substitute mere formalism for
+fervor."
+
+"Leighton, humanity craves the concrete. All the universe is God's
+temple, yet the chill breath of the abstract freezes our hearts; and
+we pray best in some pillared niche consecrated and set apart, I
+recall a day in Umbria, when the wonderful light of sunset fell on
+ilex and olive, on mountain snows, on valleys billowing between
+vine-mantled hills, on creamy marble walls, on columned campaniles;
+and standing there, I seemed verily to absorb, to become saturated
+as it were, with the reigning essence of beauty. I walked on, a few
+steps, lifted a worn, frayed leather curtain, and looked into a
+small gray, dingy church, where a mist of incense blurred the lights
+on the ancient altar, and the muffled roll of an organ broke into
+sonorous waves, like reverberations of far-away thunder; and why was
+it, tell me, that the universal glory thrilled me only as a sensuous
+chord of color, but in the dark corner consecrated to the worship of
+our God, my soul expanded, as if a holy finger touched it, and I
+fell on my knees, and prayed? Each of us comes into this world
+dowered with the behest to make desperate war against that
+indissoluble 'Triple Alliance, the World, the Flesh and the Devil,'
+and needing all the auxiliaries possible, I resort to conscription
+wherever I can recruit. Since I am two thousand years too young to
+set up a statue of Hestia yonder in my imitation prostas, I have
+built instead this small sacred nook for prayer, which helps me
+spiritually, much as the Ulah aids Islam."
+
+"Your oratory is lovely, and I wish its counterpart adorned every
+homestead in our land; but are you quite sure that in your
+individual experience you are not mistaking effect for cause? Your
+holy heart demands fit shrine for--"
+
+"I am quite sure I will not allow you to stand a moment longer on
+this cold floor; and I do not intend that you shall pay me
+undeserved compliments. It is derogatory to your dignity, and
+dangerous to my modicum of humility. As soon as you are ready for
+breakfast, come to the dining-room, where Santa Klaus left his
+remembrances last night. O, Leighton! I had half a mind to hang up
+two stockings at uncle's bed, for the sake of dear old lang syne. If
+we could only shut our eyes, and drift back to the magical time of
+aprons, short clothes, and roundabouts, when a sugar rooster with
+green wings and pink head, and a doll that could open and shut her
+eyes, were considered more precious than Tiffany's jewels, or
+Collamore's Crown Derby! Can Delmonico offer you a repast half as
+appetizing as the hominy, the tea cakes, the honey and the sweet
+milk which you and I used to enjoy at our supper just at sunset, at
+our own little table set under the red mulberry trees in the back
+yard?"
+
+"Why should my cousin, whose present is so rose-colored, whose
+future so blissful, turn to rake amid the ashes of the past?"
+
+"Because, like Lot's wife, we are all prone to stare backward. Who
+lives in the present? Do you? When we are young we pant for the
+future, that pitches painted tents before us. When we are older, we
+live in the past, that wraps itself in a sacred gilding glamour, and
+is vocal with the happy echoes which alone survive. Far-off fields
+before and behind us are so dewy, so vividly green; and the present
+is gray and stony, and barren of charm, and we turn fretfully. It is
+part of the grim tyranny of Time that it is tideless; that the
+stream bears remorselessly on, and on, never back to the dear old
+spots; always on, to lose itself in the eternal and unknown. So, to-
+day's Christmas lacks the zest of its predecessors."
+
+Leo loosened the gilded chain that looped the curtains, and as the
+purple folds fell behind her, hiding the arch, Doctor Douglass said
+gently:
+
+"There is a solemn truth and wise admonition in one of Rabbi Tyra's
+dicta: 'Thy yesterday is thy past; thy to-day is thy future; thy to-
+morrow is a secret.'"
+
+"Leo, here is a package and a note which arrived during service, and
+as Mr. Dunbar's servant said there was no answer expected, he did
+not wait."
+
+As Miss Patty delivered the parcel to her niece, the minister walked
+away to lay aside his vestments, but he noted the sudden hardening
+of his cousin's face, the flush of displeasure, the haughty curl of
+her lips; and on his ears fell his aunt's voice:
+
+"You expected and waited for him at morning prayer?"
+
+"I invited him to join us, if he felt disposed to do so."
+
+"What possible excuse can he offer for such negligence, when he knew
+that Leighton would read the service?"
+
+An uwonted sparkle leaped into Leo's mild hazel eyes, and without
+examination she handed the package and note to Justine.
+
+"Lay them in the drawer of my writing-desk, and then call all the
+servants into the dining-room. Auntie, tardy excuses must wait
+longer for an audience than we waited for the writer. Come to
+breakfast; uncle will be impatient, and I want to enjoy his surprise
+when he sees his Santa Klaus."
+
+She was sorely disappointed, deeply affronted by Mr. Dunbar's
+failure to present himself on an occasion at which she had
+especially desired his presence; and as she recalled the
+affectionate phraseology of her note of invitation, her fair cheek
+burned with an intolerable sense of humiliation. Was it partition,
+or total loss, of her precious kingdom? In after years, she
+designated this Christmas as the era when the "sceptre departed from
+Judah;" but putting away the chagrin, and sealing the well of
+bitterness in her heart, she exchanged holiday greetings, and
+proudly wore her royal robes throughout the day, holding sternly off
+the spectre, which grimly bided its time--the hour of her
+abdication.
+
+Through the benevolent and compassionate efforts of Mr. and Mrs.
+Singleton, some faint reflection of the outside world festivities
+penetrated the dismal monotony of prison routine; and the hearts of
+the inmates were softened and gladdened by kind tokens of
+remembrance, that carried the thoughts of bearded convicts back to
+Christmas carols in innocent youth, and to the mother's knees where
+prayers were lisped.
+
+Illness had secured to Beryl immunity from contact with her comrades
+in misery, and except to visit the little chapel, she never left the
+sheltering walls of her small comfortless room, grateful for the
+unexpected boon of silent seclusion. Her Christmas greeting had been
+little Dick's sweet lips kissing her cheek, as he deposited upon her
+narrow bed the black and white shawl his mother had knitted, and a
+box left by Miss Gordon on the previous day, which contained half a
+dozen pretty handkerchiefs with mourning borders, some delicate
+perfume and soaps, toilet brushes and a sachet.
+
+An hour later, when Mrs. Singleton and her babies had gone to spend
+the day with relatives in the city, Beryl went to the window, pushed
+the sash up, and listened to the ringing of the Sabbath-school
+bells, as every church beyond the river called its nursery to the
+altar, to celebrate the day. The metallic clangor was mellowed by
+distance, rising and falling like rhythmic waves, and the faint
+echo, filtered through dense pine forests behind the penitentiary,
+had the ghostly iteration of the Folge Fond.
+
+A gaunt yellow kitten, with a faded red ribbon knotted about its
+neck, and vicious, amber-colored eyes that were a perpetual
+challenge, had fled from the tender mercies of Dick to the city of
+refuge under Beryl's cot; and community of suffering had kindled an
+attachment that now prompted the lesser waif to spring into the
+girl's folded arms, and rub its head against her shoulder.
+Mechanically Beryl's hand stroked the creature's ear, while it
+purred softly under the caress; but suddenly its back curved into an
+arch, the tail broadened, the purr became a growl. Had association
+lifted the brute's instincts to the plane of human antipathies?
+
+The warden had opened the door and quickly closed it, after ushering
+in a tall figure, who wore an overcoat which was buttoned from
+throat to knees. At sight of Mr. Dunbar, the cat plunged to the
+floor, and sped away to the darkest corner under the iron bedstead.
+
+"Good morning. I dare not utter here the greetings of the day,
+because you would construe it into a heartless mockery."
+
+He came forward hesitatingly, and she turned swiftly away, pressing
+her face against the bars of the window, waving him back.
+
+"Why will you persist in regarding as an enemy, the one person in
+all the world who is most anxious to befriend you?"
+
+Still no answer; only the repellent gesture warning him away.
+
+"Will you allow me, this Christmas morning, to comfort myself in
+some degree, by leaving here a few flowers to brighten your desolate
+surroundings?"
+
+He held out a bouquet of rare and brilliant hothouse blossoms, whose
+delicious fragrance had already pervaded the room. They stood side
+by side, yet she shrank farther, and kept her face averted,
+shivering perceptibly. Lifting one arm he drew down the sash to shut
+out the freezing air.
+
+"You are resolved neither to look at nor speak to me? So be it. At
+least you must listen to me. You may not care to hear that I have
+been absent, but perhaps it will interest you to know that I went in
+search of the man for whose crime you are paying the penalty."
+
+If he expected her to wince under the probe, her nerves were taut,
+and she defied the steel; but the face she now turned fully to him
+was so blanched by illness, so hopeless in its rigid calm, that he
+felt a keen pain at his own heart.
+
+"Prisoners, victims of justice, have, it seems, no privileges; else
+my one request, my earnest prayer to be shielded from your presence,
+might have protected me from this intrusion. Are you akin to
+Parrhasius that you come to gloat over the agonies of a moral and
+mental vivisection? The sight of suffering to which you have brought
+a helpless woman, is scarcely the recompense I was taught to suppose
+agreeable to a chivalrous Southern gentleman. If, wearing the red
+livery of Justice, undue zeal for vengeance betrayed you into the
+fatal mistake of trampling me into this horrible place, there might
+be palliation; but for the brutal persistency with which you thrust
+your tormenting presence upon me, not even heavenly charity could
+possibly find pardon. Literally you are heaping insult upon awful
+injury. Is it a refinement of cruelty that brings you here to watch
+and analyze my suffering, as a biologist looks through lenses at an
+insect he empales, or Pasteur scrutinizes the mortal throes of the
+victims into whose veins he has injected poison?"
+
+If she had drawn a lash across his face, it would not have stung
+more keenly than her words, so expressive of detestation.
+
+"Will you consider for a moment the possibility that other motives
+actuate me; that ceaseless regret, remorse, if you choose, for a
+terrible mistake, impels me to come here in the hope of making
+reparation?"
+
+"Such a supposition is as inconceivable as the idea of reparation.
+When a reaper goes forth to his ripe harvest, his lawful labor, and
+wantonly turns aside into a by-path, to try the edge of his sickle
+on an humble, unoffending stalk that fights for life among the grass
+and weeds, and struggles to get its head sufficiently in the
+sunshine to bloom--when he cuts it off unopened, crushes it into the
+sod, can he make reparation? Although it is neither bearded yellow
+wheat, nor yet a black tare, it proved the temper of his blade; and
+all the skill, all the science of universal humanity, cannot re-
+erect the stem, cannot remove the stains, cannot unfold the bruised
+petals. There are wrongs that all time will never repair. Your sword
+of justice needs no whetting; one stroke has laid me low."
+
+"I purpose to file it two-edged, in order to make no more mistakes.
+Before long I shall cut down the real criminal, the principal, who
+shall not escape, and for whom you shall not suffer."
+
+"Then 'a life for a life' no longer satisfies? How many are
+required? The law has need of a sacrificial stone wide as that of
+the Aztecs. Is justice a'daughter of the horse-leech'?"
+
+"So help me God--"
+
+"Hush! Take not His name upon your lips. Men like you cannot afford
+to credit the existence of a holy God. This is Christmas--at least
+according to the almanac--now as a 'chivalrous Southern gentleman,'
+will you grant me a very great favor if I humbly crave it? Ah,
+noblesse oblige! you cannot deny me. I beg of you, then, leave me
+instantly; come here no more. Never let me see your face again, or
+hear your voice, except in the court-room, when I am tried for the
+crime which you have told the world I committed. This boon is the
+sole possible reparation left you."
+
+She had clasped her hands so tightly, that the nails were bloodless,
+and the fluttering in her white throat betrayed the throbbing of her
+heart.
+
+"You are afraid of me, because you dread my discovering your secret,
+which is--"
+
+"You have done your worst. You have locked me away from a dying
+mother; disgraced an innocent life; broken a girl's pure, happy
+heart; what else is there to dread? Although a bird knows full well
+when it has received its death wound, instinct drives it to flutter,
+drag itself as far as possible from the gaze of the sportsman, and
+gasp out its agony in some lonely place."
+
+"When I hunt birds, and a partridge droops its wings, and hovers
+almost at my feet, inviting capture, I know beyond all peradventure
+that it is only love's ruse; that something she holds dearer than
+her own life, is thereby screened, saved. You are guilty of a great
+crime against yourself, you are submitting tacitly, consenting to an
+awful doom, in order to spare and protect the real murderer."
+
+He bent closer, watching breathlessly for some change in her white
+stony face; but her sad eyes met his with no wavering of the lids,
+and only her delicate nostrils dilated slightly. She raised her
+locked hands, rested her lips a moment on her mother's ring, as if
+drinking some needed tonic, and answered in the same low, quiet
+tone:
+
+"Then, prime minister of justice, set me free, and punish the
+guilty. Who murdered General Darrington?"
+
+"You have known from the beginning; and I intend to set you free,
+when that cowardly miscreant has been secured. You would die to save
+your lover; you, proud, brave, noble natured, would sacrifice your
+precious life for that wretched, vile poltroon, who flees and leaves
+you to suffer in his stead! Truly, there is no mystery so profound,
+so complex, so subtle as a woman's heart. To die for his crimes,
+were a happier fate than to sully your fair soul by alliance with
+one so degraded; and, by the help of God, I intend to snatch you
+from both!"
+
+He had put his hands for an instant upon her shoulders, and his
+handsome face flushed, eloquent with the feeling that he no longer
+cared to disguise, was so close to hers, that she felt his breath on
+her cheek.
+
+Swiftly, unerringly she comprehended everything; and the suddenness
+of the discovery dazzled, awed her, as one might feel under the blue
+flash of a dagger when thrust into one's clasp for novice fingers to
+feel the edge. Was the weapon valued merely because of the
+possibility of fleshing it in the heart of him who had darkened her
+life? Did he understand as fully the marvellous change in the
+beautiful face, that had lured him from his chapel tryst with his
+betrothed? He was on the alert for signals of distress, of
+embarrassment, of terror; but what meant the glad light that leaped
+up in her eyes, the quick flush staining her wan cheek, the
+triumphant smile curving lips that a moment before might have
+belonged to Guercino's Mater Dolorosa, the relaxation of figure and
+features, the unmistakable expression of intense relief that stole
+into the countenance?
+
+"Will you be so good as to tell me my lover's name, and where the
+fox terriers of the law unearthed him?"
+
+"I will tell you something which you do not already know; that I
+have found a clue, that I shall hunt him out, hide, crouch where he
+may; that here, where he sinned, he shall expiate his crime, and
+that when your lover is hung, your name, your honor, shall be
+vindicated. So much, Lennox Dunbar promises you, on his honor as a
+gentleman."
+
+"Words, vapid words! Empty, worthless as last year's nests. My
+lover," she laughed scornfully, "is quite safe even from your
+malevolence. If indeed 'one touch of nature makes the whole world
+kin,' one might expect some pity from the guild of love swains; and
+it augurs sadly for Miss Gordon's future, that the spell is so
+utterly broken."
+
+His dark face reddened, lowered.
+
+"If you please, we will keep Miss Gordon's name out of the
+conversation, and hereafter when--"
+
+"Enough! I shall keep her image in my grateful heart, the few
+tedious months I have to live; and there seems indeed a sort of
+poetic justice in the fact that the bride you covet, has become the
+truest, tenderest friend of the hapless girl whom you are
+prosecuting for murder."
+
+"Beryl--"
+
+"I forbid such insolent presumption! You shall not utter the name my
+father gave me. It is holy as my baptism; it must be kept unsullied
+for my lover's lips to fondle. This is your last visit here, for if
+you dare to intrude again, I will demand protection from the warden.
+I will bear no more."
+
+As he looked at her, the witchery of her youthful loveliness,
+heightened by the angry sparkle in her deep eyes, by the vivid
+carnation of her curling lips, mastered him; and when he thought of
+the brown-haired woman to whom he was pledged, he set his teeth
+tight, to smother an execration. He moved toward the door, paused,
+and came back.
+
+"Will it comfort you to know that I suffer even more than you do;
+that I am plunged into a fiercer purgatory than that to which I have
+condemned you? I am devoured by regret; but I will atone. I came
+here as your friend; I can never be less, and in defiance of your
+hatred, I shall prove my sincerity. Because I bemoan my rash haste,
+will you say good-bye kindly? Some day, perhaps, you will
+understand."
+
+He held out his hand, and his blue eyes lost their steely glitter,
+filled with a prayer for pardon.
+
+She picked up the bouquet which had fallen from the window sill to
+the floor, and without hesitation put it into his fingers:
+
+"I think I understand all that words could ever explain. My short
+stream of life is very near the great ocean of rest. I have ceased
+to struggle, ceased to hope; and since the end is so close, I wish
+no active warfare even with those who wronged me most foully. If you
+will spare me the sight of you, I will try to forget the added
+misery of the visits you have forced upon me, and perhaps some of
+the bitterness may die out. Take the flowers to Miss Gordon; leave
+no trace to remind me of your persecution. We bear chastisement
+because we must, but the sight of the rod renews the sting; so,
+henceforth, I hope to see you no more. When we meet before our God,
+I may have a new heart, swept clean of earthly hate, but until then-
+-until then--"
+
+He caught her fingers, crushed his lips against them, and walked
+from the room, leaving the bouquet a shattered mass of perfume in
+the middle of the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+Standing before Leon Gerome's tragic picture, and listening to the
+sepulchral echo that floats down the arcade of centuries. "Ave,
+Imperator, morituri te salutant," nineteenth century womanhood
+frowns, and deplores the brutal depravity which alone explains the
+presence of that white-veiled vestal band, whose snowy arms are
+thrust in signal over the parapet of the bloody arena; yet fair
+daughters of the latest civilization show unblushing flower faces
+among the heaving mass of the "great unwashed" who crowd our court-
+rooms--and listen to revolting details more repugnant to genuine
+modesty, than the mangled remains in the Colosseum. The rosy thumbs
+of Roman vestals were potent ballots in the Eternal City, and
+possibly were thrown only in the scale of mercy; but having no voice
+in verdicts, to what conservative motive may be ascribed the
+presence of women at criminal trials? Are the children of Culture,
+the heiresses of "all the ages", really more refined than the proud
+old dames of the era of Spartacus?
+
+Is the spectacle of mere physical torture, in gladiatorial combats,
+or in the bloody precincts of plaza de toros, as grossly
+demoralizing as the loathsome minutiae of heinous crimes upon which
+legal orators dilate; and which Argus reporters, with magnifying
+lenses at every eye, reproduce for countless newspapers, that serve
+as wings for transporting moral dynamite to hearthstones and
+nurseries all over our land? Is there a distinction, without a
+difference, between police gazettes and the journalistic press?
+
+If extremes meet, and the march of human progress be along no
+asymtotic line, is the day very distant when we shall welcome the
+Renaissance of that wisdom which two thousand years ago held its
+august tribunal in the solemn hours of night, when darkness hid from
+the Judges everything save well-authenticated facts? The supreme aim
+of civil and criminal law being the conservation of national and
+individual purity, to what shall we attribute the paradox presented
+in its administration, whereby its temples become lairs of libel,
+their moral atmosphere defiled by the monstrous vivisection of
+parental character by children, the slaughter of family reputation,
+the exhaustive analysis of every species of sin forbidden by the
+Decalogue, and floods of vulgar vituperation dreadful as the
+Apocalyptic vials? Can this generation
+
+     "--in the foremost files of time--"
+
+afford to believe that a grim significance lurks in the desuetude of
+typical judicial ermine?
+
+Traditions of ante bellum custom proclaimed that "good society" in
+the town of X--, formerly considered the precincts of courts as
+unfit for ladies as the fetid air of morgues, or the surgical
+instruments on dissecting tables; but the vanguard of cosmopolitan
+freedom and progress had pitched tents in the old-fashioned place,
+and recruited rapidly from the ranks of the invaded; hence it came
+to pass, that on the second day of the murder trial, when the
+preliminaries of jury empanelling had been completed, and all were
+ready to launch the case, X--announced its social emancipation from
+ancient canons of decorum, by the unwonted spectacle of benches
+crowded with "ladies", whose silken garments were crushed against
+the coarser fabrics of proletariat. Despite the piercing cold of a
+morning late in February, the mass of human furnaces had raised the
+temperature to a degree that encouraged the fluttering of fans, and
+necessitated the order that no additional spectators should be
+admitted.
+
+Viewed through the leaden haze of fearful anticipation, the horror
+of the impending trial had seemed unendurable to the proud and
+sensitive girl, whom the Sheriff placed on a seat fronting the sea
+of curious faces, the battery of scrutinizing eyes turned on her
+from the jury-box. Four months of dread had unnerved her, yet now
+when the cruel actuality seized her in its iron grasp, that superb
+strength which the inevitable lends to conscious innocence, so
+steeled and fortified her, that she felt lifted to some lonely
+height, where numbness eased her aching wounds.
+
+Pallid and motionless, she sat like a statue, save for the slow
+strokes of her right hand upon the red gold of her mother's ring;
+and the sound of a man's voice reading a formula, seemed to echo
+from an immeasurable distance. She had consented to, had
+deliberately accepted the worst possible fate, and realized the
+isolation of her lot; but for one thing she was not prepared, and
+its unexpectedness threatened to shiver her calmness. Two women made
+their way toward her: Dyce and Sister Serena. The former sat down in
+the rear of the prisoner, the latter stood for a few seconds, and
+her thin delicate hand fell upon the girl's shoulder. At sight of
+the sweet, placid countenance below the floating white muslin veil,
+Beryl's lips quivered into a sad smile; and as they shook hands she
+whispered:
+
+"I believe even the gallows will not frighten you two from my side."
+
+Sister Serena seated herself as close as possible, drew from her
+pocket a gray woollen stocking, and began to knit. For an instant
+Beryl's eyes closed, to shut in the sudden gush of grateful tears;
+when she opened them, Mr. Churchill had risen:
+
+"May it please the Court, Gentlemen of the Jury: If fidelity to duty
+involved no sacrifice of personal feeling, should we make it the
+touchstone of human character, value it as the most precious jewel
+in the crown of human virtues? I were less than a man, immeasurably
+less than a gentleman, were I capable of addressing you to-day, in
+obedience to the behests of justice, and in fulfilment of the stern
+requirements of my official position, without emotions of profound
+regret, that implacable Duty, to whom I have sworn allegiance,
+forces me to hush the pleading whispers of my pitying heart, to
+smother the tender instincts of human sympathy, and to listen only
+to the solemn mandate of those laws, which alone can secure to our
+race the enjoyment of life, liberty and property. An extended
+professional career has hitherto furnished me no parallel for the
+peculiarly painful exigencies of this occasion; and an awful
+responsibility scourges me with scorpion lash to a most unwelcome
+task. When man crosses swords with man on any arena, innate pride
+nerves his arm and kindles enthusiasm, but alas, for the man! be he
+worthy the name, who draws his blade and sees before him a young,
+helpless, beautiful woman, disarmed. Were it not a bailable offence
+in the court of honor, if his arm fell palsied? Each of you who has
+a mother, a wife, a lily browed daughter, put yourself in my place,
+lend me your sympathy; and at least applaud the loyalty that
+strangles all individuality, and renders me bound thrall of official
+duty. Counsel for the defence has been repeatedly offered, nay,
+pressed upon the prisoner, but as often persistently rejected; hence
+the almost paralyzing repugnance with which I approach my theme.
+
+"The Grand Jury of the county, at its last sitting, returned to this
+court a bill of indictment, charging the prisoner at the bar with
+the wilful, deliberate and premeditated murder of Robert Luke
+Darrington, by striking him with a brass andiron. To this indictment
+she has pleaded 'Not Guilty,' and stands before her God and this
+community for trial. Gentlemen of the jury, you represent this
+commonwealth, jealous of the inviolability of its laws, and by
+virtue of your oaths, you are solemnly pledged to decide upon her
+guilt or innocence, in strict accordance with the evidence that may
+be laid before you. In fulfilling this sacred duty, you will, I feel
+assured, be governed exclusively by a stern regard to the demands of
+public justice. While it taxes our reluctant credulity to believe
+that a crime so hideous could have been committed by a woman's hand,
+could have been perpetrated without provocation, within the borders
+of our peaceful community, nevertheless, the evidence we shall
+adduce must inevitably force you to the melancholy conclusion that
+the prisoner at the bar is guilty of the offence, with which she
+stands charged. The indictment which you are about to try, charges
+Beryl Brentano with the murder.
+
+"In outlining the evidence which will be presented in support of
+this indictment, I earnestly desire that you will give me your
+dispassionate and undivided attention; and I call God to witness,
+that disclaiming personal animosity and undue zeal for vengeance, I
+am sorrowfully indicating as an officer of the law, a path of
+inquiry, that must lead you to that goal where, before the altar of
+Truth, Justice swings her divine scales, and bids Nemesis unsheathe
+her sword.
+
+"On the afternoon of October the twenty-sixth, about three o'clock,
+a stranger arrived in X--and inquired of the station agent what road
+would carry her to 'Elm Bluff', the home of General Darrington;
+assuring him she would return in time to take the north-bound train
+at 7.15, as urgent business necessitated her return. Demanding an
+interview with Gen'l Darrington, she was admitted, incognito, and
+proclaimed herself his granddaughter, sent hither by a sick mother,
+to procure a certain sum of money required for specified purposes.
+That the interview was stormy, was characterized by fierce invective
+on her part, and by bitter denunciation and recrimination on his, is
+too well established to admit of question; and they parted
+implacable foes, as is attested by the fact that he drove her from
+his room through a rear and unfrequented door, opening into a flower
+garden, whence she wandered over the grounds until she found the
+gate. The vital import of this interview lies in the great stress
+Gen'l Darrington placed upon the statement he iterated and
+reiterated; that he had disinherited his daughter, and drawn up a
+will bequeathing his entire estate to his step-son Prince.
+
+"Miss Brentano did not leave X--at 7.15, though she had ample time
+to do so, after quitting 'Elm Bluff'. She loitered about the station
+house until nearly half-past eight, then disappeared. At 10 P.M. she
+was seen and identified by a person who had met her at 'Elm Bluff',
+crouching behind a tree near the road that led to that ill-fated
+house, and when questioned regarding her presence there, gave
+unsatisfactory answers. At half-past two o'clock she was next seen
+hastening toward the station office, along the line of the railroad,
+from the direction of the water tank, which is situated nearly a
+mile north of town. Meanwhile an unusually severe storm had been
+followed by a drenching rain, and the stranger's garments were wet,
+when, after a confused and contradictory account of her movements,
+she boarded the 3.05 train bound north.
+
+"During that night, certainly after ten o'clock, Gen'l Darrington
+was murdered. His vault was forced open, money was stolen, and most
+significant of all, the WILL was abstracted. Criminal jurisprudence
+holds that the absence of motive renders nugatory much weighty
+testimony. In this melancholy cause, could a more powerful motive be
+imagined than that which goaded the prisoner to dip her fair hands
+in her grandfather's blood, in order to possess and destroy that
+will, which stood as an everlasting barrier between her and the
+estate she coveted?
+
+"Crimes are referrible to two potent passions of the human soul;
+malice, engendering thirst for revenge, and the insatiable lust of
+money. If that old man had died a natural death, leaving the will he
+had signed, his property would have belonged to the adopted son, to
+whom he bequeathed it, and Mrs. Brentano and her daughter would have
+remained paupers. Cut off by assassination, and with no record of
+his last wishes in existence, the beloved son is bereft of his
+legacy, and Beryl Brentano and her mother inherit the blood-bought
+riches they covet. When arrested, gold coins and jewels identified
+as those formerly deposited in Gen'l Darrington's vault, were found
+in possession of the prisoner; and as if every emissary of fate were
+armed with warrants for her detection, a handkerchief bearing her
+initials, and saturated with the chloroform which she had
+administered to her victim, was taken from the pillow, where his
+honored gray head rested, when he slept his last sleep on earth.
+Further analysis would insult your intelligence, and having very
+briefly laid before you the intended line of testimony, I believe I
+have assigned a motive for this monstrous crime, which must
+precipitate the vengeance of the law, in a degree commensurate with
+its enormity. Time, opportunity, motive, when in full accord,
+constitute a fatal triad, and the suspicious and unexplainable
+conduct of the prisoner in various respects, furnishes, in
+connection with other circumstances of this case, the strongest
+presumptive evidence of her guilt. These circumstances, far beyond
+the realm of human volition, smelted and shaped in the rolling mills
+of destiny, form the tramway along which already the car of doom
+thunders; and when they shall have been fully proved to you, by
+unassailable testimony, no alternative remains but the verdict of
+guilty. Mournful as is the duty, and awfully solemn the necessity
+that leaves the issue of life and death in your hands, remember,
+gentlemen, Curran's immortal words: 'A juror's oath is the
+adamantine chain that binds the integrity of man to the throne of
+eternal justice'."
+
+No trace of emotion was visible on the prisoner's face, except at
+the harsh mention of her mother's name; when a shudder was
+perceptible, as in one where dentist's steel pierces a sensitive
+nerve. In order to avoid the hundreds of eyes that stabbed her like
+merciless probes, her own had been raised and fixed upon a portion
+of the cornice in the room where a family of spiders held busy camp;
+but a fascination song resisted, finally drew their gaze down to a
+seat near the bar, and she encountered the steady, sorrowful regard
+of Mr. Dunbar.
+
+Two months had elapsed since the Christmas morning on which she had
+rejected his floral offering, and during that weary season of
+waiting, she had refused to see any visitors except Dyce and Sister
+Serena; resolutely denying admittance to Miss Gordon. She knew that
+he had been absent, had searched for some testimony in New York, and
+now meeting his eyes, she saw a sudden change in their expression--a
+sparkle, a smile of encouragement, a declaration of success. He
+fancied he understood the shadow of dread that drifted over her
+face; and she realized at that instant, that of all foes, she had
+most to apprehend from the man who she knew loved her with an
+unreasoning and ineradicable fervor. How much had he discovered? She
+could defy the district solicitor, the judge, the jury; but only one
+method of silencing the battery that was ambushed in those gleaming
+blue eyes presented itself. To extinguish his jealousy, by removing
+the figment of a rival, might rob him of the motive that explained
+his persistent pursuit of the clue she had concealed; but it would
+simultaneously demolish, also, the barrier that stretched between
+Miss Gordon's happy heart and the bitter waves of a cruel
+disappointment. If assured that her own affection was unpledged,
+would the bare form and ceremonial of honor bind his allegiance to
+his betrothed? Absorbed in these reflections, the prisoner became
+temporarily oblivious of the proceedings; and it was not until
+Sister Serena touched her arm, that she saw the vast throng was
+watching her, waiting for some reply. The Judge repeated his
+question:
+
+"Is it the desire of the prisoner to answer the presentation of the
+prosecution? Having refused professional defence, you now have the
+option of addressing the Court."
+
+"Let the prosecution proceed."
+
+There was no quiver in her voice, as cold, sweet and distinct it
+found its way to the extremity of the wide apartment; yet therein
+lurked no defiance. She resumed her seat, and her eyes sank, until
+the long black fringes veiled their depths. Unperceived, Judge Dent
+had found a seat behind her, and leaning forward he whispered:
+
+"Will you permit me to speak for you?"
+
+"Thank you--no."
+
+"But it cuts me to the heart to see you so forsaken, so helpless."
+
+"God is my helper; He will not forsake me."
+
+The first witness called and sworn was Doctor Ledyard, the physician
+who for many years had attended General Darrington; and who
+testified that when summoned to examine the body of deceased, on the
+morning of the inquest, he had found it so rigid that at least eight
+hours must have elapsed since life became extinct. Had discovered no
+blood stains, and only two contusions, one on the right temple,
+where a circular black spot was conspicuous, and a bluish bruise
+over the region of the heart. He had visited deceased on the morning
+of previous day, and he then appeared much better, and almost
+relieved of rheumatism and pains attributable to an old wound in the
+right knee. The skull had not been fractured by the blow on the
+temple, but witness believed it had caused death; and the andiron,
+which he identified as the one found on the floor close to the
+deceased, was so unusually massive, he was positive that if hurled
+with any force, it would produce a fatal result.
+
+Mr, Churchill: "Did you at that examination detect any traces of
+chloroform?"
+
+"There was an odor of chloroform very perceptible when we lifted the
+hair to examine the skull; and on searching the room, we found a
+vial which had contained chloroform, and was beside the pillow,
+where a portion had evidently leaked out."
+
+"Could death have occurred in consequence of inhaling that
+chloroform?"
+
+"If so, the deceased could never have risen, and would have been
+found in his bed; moreover, the limbs were drawn up, and bent into a
+position totally inconsistent with any theory of death produced by
+anaesthetics; and the body was rigid as iron."
+
+The foregoing testimony was confirmed by that of Doctor Cranmar, a
+resident physician, who had been summoned by the Coroner to assist
+Doctor Ledyard in the examination, reported formally at the inquest.
+
+"Here, gentlemen of the jury, is the fatal weapon with which a
+woman's hand, supernaturally nerved in the struggle for gain, struck
+down, destroyed a venerable old man, an honored citizen, whose gray
+hairs should have shielded him from the murderous assault of a
+mercenary adventuress. Can she behold without a shudder, this tell-
+tale instrument of her monstrous crime?"
+
+High above his head, Mr. Churchill raised the old-fashioned andiron,
+and involuntarily Beryl glanced at the quaint brass figure, cast in
+the form of a unicorn, with a heavy ball surmounting the horn.
+
+"Abednego Darrington!"
+
+Sullen, crestfallen and woe-begone was the demeanor of the old
+negro, who had been brought vi et armis by a constable, from the
+seclusion of a corner of the "Bend Plantation", where he had
+secreted himself, to avoid the shame of bearing testimony against
+his mistress' child. When placed on the witness stand, he crossed
+his arms over his chest, planted his right foot firmly in advance,
+and fixed his eyes on the leather strings that tied his shoes.
+
+After some unimportant preliminaries, the District Solicitor asked:
+
+"When did you first see the prisoner, who now sits before you?"
+
+"When she come to our house, the evening before ole Marster died."
+
+"You admitted her to your Master's presence?"
+
+"I never tuck no sech libberties. He tole me to let her in."
+
+"You carried her to his room?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"About what time of the day was it?"
+
+"Don't know."
+
+"Gen'l Darrington always dined at three o'clock. Was it before or
+after dinner?"
+
+"After."
+
+"How long was the prisoner in the General's room?"
+
+"Don't know."
+
+"Did she leave the house by the front door, or the side door?"
+
+"Can't say. Didn't see her when she come out."
+
+"About how long was she in the house?"
+
+"I totes no watch, and I never had no luck guessing. I'm shore to
+land wrong."
+
+"Was it one hour or two?"
+
+"Mebbe more, mebbe less."
+
+"Where were you during that visit?"
+
+"Feedin' my game pullets in the backyard."
+
+"Did you hear any part of the conversation between the prisoner and
+Gen'l Darrington?"
+
+"No, sir! I'm above the meanness of eavesdrapping."
+
+"How did you learn that she was the granddaughter of Gen'l
+Darrington?"
+
+"Miss Angerline, the white 'oman what mends and sews, come to the
+back piazer, and beckoned me to run there. She said ther must be a
+'high ole fracas', them was her words, agoin' on in Marster's room,
+for he was cussin' and swearin', and his granddaughter was jawing
+back very vicious. Sez I, 'Who'? Sez she, 'His granddaughter; that
+is Ellice's chile'. Sez I, 'How do you know so much'? Sez she, 'I
+was darning them liberry curtains, and I couldn't help hearing the
+wrangle'. Sez I, 'You picked a oncommon handy time to tackle them
+curtains; they must be mighty good to cure the ear-itch'. She axed
+me if I didn't see the family favor in the 'oman's face; and I tole
+her no, but I would see for myself. Sez she, to me, 'No yow won't,
+for the Gen'l is in a tearing rage, and he's done drove her out, and
+kicked and slammed the doors. She's gone.'"
+
+"Then you did not see her?"
+
+"I went to the front piazer, and I seen her far down the lawn, but
+Marster rung his bell so savage, I had to run back to him."
+
+"Did he tell you the prisoner was his granddaughter?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Did you mention the fact to him?"
+
+"I wouldn't 'a dared to meddle with his fambly bizness!"
+
+"He appeared very angry and excited?"
+
+"He 'peard to want some ole Conyyac what was in the sideboard, and I
+brung the bottle to him."
+
+"Do you remember whether his vault in the wall was open, when you
+answered the bell?"
+
+"I didn't notice it."
+
+"Where did you sleep that night?"
+
+"On a pallet in the middle passage, nigh the star steps."
+
+"Was that your usual custom?"
+
+"No, sir. But the boy what had been sleepin' in the house while ole
+Marster was sick, had gone to set up with his daddy's corpse, and I
+tuck his place."
+
+"Did you hear any unusual noise during the night?"
+
+"Only the squalling of the pea-fowul what was oncommon oneasy, and
+the thunder that was ear-splitting. One clap was so tremenjous it
+raised me plum off'en the pallet, and jarred me to my backbone, as
+if a cannon had gone off close by."
+
+"Now, Bedney, state carefully all the circumstances under which you
+found your master the next morning; and remember you are on your
+oath, to speak the truth, and all the truth."
+
+"He was a early riser, and always wanted his shavin' water promp'.
+When his bell didn't ring, I thought the storm had kep' him awake,
+and he was having a mornin' nap, to make up for lost time. The clock
+had struck eight, and the cook said as how the steak and chops was
+as dry as a bone from waitin', and so I got the water and went to
+Marster's door. It was shet tight, and I knocked easy. He never
+answered; so I knocked louder; and thinkin' somethin' was shorely
+wrong, I opened the door--"
+
+"Go on. What did you find?"
+
+"Mars Alfred, sir, it's very harryfyin to my feelins."
+
+"Go on. You are required to state all you saw, all you know."
+
+Bedney drew back his right foot, advanced his left. Took out his
+handkerchief, wiped his face and refolded his arms.
+
+"My Marster was layin' on the rug before the fireplace, and his
+knees was all drawed up. His right arm, was stretched out, so--and
+his left hand was all doubled up. I know'd he was dead, before I
+tetched him, for his face was set; and pinched and blue. I reckon I
+hollered, but I can't say, for the next thing I knowed, the horsler
+and the cook, and Miss Angerline, and Dyce, my ole 'oman, and Gord
+knows who all, was streamin' in and out and screamin'."
+
+"What was the condition of the room?"
+
+"The front window was up, and the blinds was flung wide open, and a
+cheer was upside clown close to it. The red vases what stood on the
+fire-place mantle was smashed on the carpet, and the handi'on was
+close to Marster's right hand. The vault was open, and papers was
+strowed plentiful round on the floor under it. Then the neighburs
+and the Doctor, and the Crowner come runnin' in, and I sot down by
+the bed and cried like a chile. Pretty soon they turned us all out
+and hilt the inquess."
+
+"You do not recollect any other circumstance?"
+
+"The lamp on the table was burnin'--and ther' wan't much oil left in
+it. I seen Miss Angerline blow it out, after the Doctor come."
+
+"Who found the chloroform vial?"
+
+"Don't know."
+
+"Did you hear any name mentioned as that of the murderer?"
+
+"Miss Angerline tole the Crowner, that ef the will was missin',
+Gen'l Darrington's granddaughter had stole it. They two, with some
+other gentleman, sarched the vault, and Miss Angerline said
+everything was higgledy piggledy and no will there."
+
+"You testified before the Coroner?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Why did you not give him the handkerchief you found?"
+
+"I didn't have it then."
+
+"When and where did you get it? Be very careful now."
+
+For the first time Bedney raised his eyes toward the place where
+Dyce sat near the prisoner, and he hesitated. He took some tobacco
+from his vest pocket, stowed it away in the hollow of his cheek, and
+re-crossed his arms.
+
+"When Marster was dressed, and they carried him out to the drawing-
+room, Dyce was standin' cryin' by the fireplace, and I went to the
+bed, and put my hand under the bolster, where Marster always kep'
+his watch and his pistol. The watch was ther' but no pistol; and
+just sorter stuffed under the pillow case--was, a hank'cher. I tuk
+the watch straight to the gentlemen in the drawin'-room, and they
+come back and sarched for the pistol, and we foun' it layin' in its
+case in the table draw'. Of all the nights in his life, ole Marster
+had forgot to lay his pistol handy."
+
+"Never mind about the pistol. What became of the handkerchief?"
+
+"When I picked it up, an injun-rubber stopper rolled out, and as
+ther' wan't no value in a hank'cher, I saw no harm in keepin' it--
+for a'mento of ole Marster's death."
+
+"You knew it was a lady's handkerchief."
+
+"No, sir! I didn't know it then; and what's more, I don't know it
+now."
+
+"Is not this the identical handkerchief you found?"
+
+"Cant say. 'Dentical is a ticklish trap for a pusson on oath. It do
+look like it, to be shore; but two seed in a okrey pod is ezactly
+alike, and one is one, and t'other is t'other."
+
+"Look at it. To the best of your knowledge and belief it is the
+identical handkerchief you found on Gen'l Darrington's pillow?"
+
+"What I found had red specks sewed in the border, and this seems
+jest like it; but I don't sware to no dentical--'cause I means to be
+kereful; and I will stand to the aidge of my oath; but--Mars Alfred-
+-don't shove me over it."
+
+"Can't you read?"
+
+"No, sir; I never hankered after book-larnin' tomfoolery, and other
+freedom frauds."
+
+"You know your A B C's?"
+
+"No more 'n a blind mule."
+
+As the solicitor took from the table in front of the jury box, the
+embroidered square of cambric, and held it up by two corners, every
+eye in the court-room fastened upon it; and a deadly faintness
+seized the prisoner, whitening lips that hitherto had kept their
+scarlet outlines.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, if the murdered man could stand before you,
+for one instant only, his frozen finger would point to the fatal
+letters which destiny seems to have left as a bloody brand. Here in
+indelible colors are wrought 'B. B.'!--Beryl Brentano. Do you
+wonder, gentlemen, that when this overwhelming evidence of her guilt
+came into my possession, compassion for a beautiful woman was
+strangled by supreme horror, in the contemplation of the depravity
+of a female monster? If these crimson letters were gaping wounds,
+could their bloody lips more solemnly accuse yonder blanched,
+shuddering, conscience-stricken woman of the sickening crime of
+murdering her aged, infirm grandfather, from whose veins she drew
+the red tide that now curdles at her heart?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+As the third day of the trial wore away, the dense crowd in the
+court-room became acquainted with the sensation of having been
+unjustly defrauded of the customary public peruisite; because the
+monotonous proceedings were entirely devoid of the spirited verbal
+duels, the microscopic hair splitting, the biting sarcasms of
+opposing counsel, the brow-beating of witnesses, the tenacious
+wrangling over invisible legal points, which usually vary and spice
+the routine and stimulate the interest of curious spectators. When a
+spiritless fox disdains to double, and stands waiting for the
+hounds, who have only to rend it, hunters feel cheated, and deem it
+no chase.
+
+To the impatient spectators, it appeared a very tame, one-sided, and
+anomalous trial, where like a slow stream the evidences of guilt
+oozed, and settled about the prisoner, who challenged the
+credibility of no witness, and waived all the privileges of cross-
+examination. Now and then, the audience criticised in whispers the
+"undue latitude" allowed by the Judge, to the District Solicitor;
+but their "exceptions" were informal, and the prosecution received
+no serious or important rebuff.
+
+Was the accused utterly callous, or paralyzed by consciousness of
+her crime; or biding her time for a dramatic outburst of vindicating
+testimony? To her sensitive nature, the ordeal of sitting day after
+day to be stared at by a curious and prejudiced public, was more
+torturing than the pangs of Marsyas; and she wondered whether a
+courageous Roman captive who was shorn of his eyelids, and set under
+the blistering sun of Africa, suffered any more keenly; but
+motionless, apparently impassive as a stone mask, on whose features
+pitiless storms beat in vain, she bore without wincing the agony of
+her humiliation. Very white and still, she sat hour by hour with
+downcast eyes, and folded hands; and those who watched most closely
+could detect only one change of position; now and then she raised
+her clasped hands, and rested her lips a moment on the locked
+fingers, then dropped them wearily on her lap.
+
+Even when a juryman asked two searching questions of a witness, she
+showed no sign of perturbation, and avoided meeting the eyes in the
+jury-box, as though they belonged to basilisks. Was it only three
+days since the beginning of this excruciating martyrdom of soul; and
+how much longer could she endure silently, and keep her reason?
+
+At times, Sister Serena's hand forsook the knitting, to lay a soft,
+caressing touch of encouragement and sympathy on the girl's
+shoulder; and Dyce's burning indignation vented itself in frequent
+audible grating of her strong white teeth. So passed Monday,
+Tuesday, Wednesday, in the examination of witnesses who
+recapitulated all that had been elicited at the preliminary
+investigation; and each nook and cranny of recollection in the mind
+of Anthony Burk, the station agent; of Belshazzer Tatem, the lame
+gardener; of lean and acrid Miss Angeline, the seamstress, was
+illuminated by the lurid light of Mr. Churchill's adroit
+interrogation. Thus far, the prosecution had been conducted by the
+District Solicitor, with the occasional assistance of Mr. Wolverton,
+who, in conjunction with Mr. Dunbar, had appeared as representative
+of the Darrington estate, and its legal heir, Prince; and when court
+adjourned on Wednesday, the belief was generally entertained that no
+defence was possible; and that at the last moment, the prisoner
+would confess her crime, and appeal to the mercy of the jury. As the
+deputy sheriff led his prisoner toward the rear entrance, where
+stood the dismal funereal black wagon in which she was brought from
+prison to court, Judge Dent came quickly to meet her.
+
+"My niece, Miss Gordon, could not, of course, come into the court-
+room, but she is here in the library, with her aunt, and desires to
+see you for a moment?"
+
+"Tell her I am grateful for her kind motives, but I wish to see no
+one now."
+
+"For your own sake, consider the--ah! here is my niece."
+
+"I hope you need no verbal assurance of my deep sympathy, and my
+constant prayers," said Leo, taking one passive hand between hers,
+and pressing it warmly.
+
+"Miss Gordon, I am comforted by your compassion, and by your
+unwavering confidence in a stranger whom your townsmen hold up as a
+'female monster'. Because I so profoundly realize how good you are,
+I am unwilling that you should identify yourself with my hopeless
+cause. My sufferings will soon be over, and then I want no shadowy
+reflex cast upon the smiling blue sky of your future. I have nothing
+more to lose, save the burden of a life--that I shall be glad to lay
+down; but you--! Be careful, do not jeopardize your beautiful dream
+of happiness."
+
+"Why do you persist in rejecting the overtures of those who could
+assist, who might successfully defend you? I beg of you, consent to
+receive and confer with counsel, even to-night."
+
+"You will never understand why I must not, till the earth gives up
+her dead. You tremble, because only one more link can be added to
+the chain that is coiling about my neck, and that link is the
+testimony of the man whose name you expect to bear. Miss Gordon"--
+she stooped closer, and whispered slowly: "Do not upbraid your
+lover; be tender, cling to him; and afford me the consolation of
+knowing that the unfortunate woman you befriended, and trusted, cast
+not even a fleeting shadow between your heart and his. Pray for me,
+that I may be patient and strong. God bless you."
+
+Turning swiftly, she hurried on to the officer, who had courteously
+withdrawn a few yards distant. As he opened the door of the wagon,
+he handed her a loosely folded sheet of paper.
+
+"I promised to deliver your answer as soon as possible."
+
+By aid of the red glow, burning low in the western sky, she read:
+
+"Mr. Dunbar requests that for her own sake, Miss Brentano will grant
+him an interview this evening."
+
+"My answer must necessarily be verbal. Say that I will see no one."
+
+To the solitude and darkness of prison she fled for relief, as into
+some merciful sheltering arms; and not even the loving solicitude of
+Mrs. Singleton was permitted to penetrate her seclusion, or share
+her dreary vigil. Another sleepless night dragged its leaden hours
+to meet the dawn, bringing no rest to the desolate soul, who
+silently grappled with fate, while every womanly instinct shuddered
+at the loathsome degradation forced upon her. Face downward on her
+hard, narrow cot, she recalled the terrible accusations, the
+opprobrious epithets, and tearless, convulsive sobs of passionate
+protest shook her from head to foot.
+
+Tortured with indignation and shame, at the insults heaped upon her,
+yet sternly resolved to endure silently, these nights were veritable
+stations along her Via Dolorosa; and fortified her for the daily
+flagellation in front of the jury-box.
+
+On Thursday a slow, sleeting rain enveloped the world in a gray
+cowl, bristling with ice needles; yet when Judge Parkman took his
+seat at nine o'clock, there was a perceptible increase in the living
+mass, packed in every available inch of space.
+
+For the first time, Mr. Dunbar's seat between his colleagues was
+vacant; and Mr. Churchill and Mr. Wolverton were conversing in an
+animated whisper.
+
+Clad in mourning garments, and with a long crape veil put back from
+her face, the prisoner was escorted to her accustomed place; and
+braced by a supreme effort for the critical hour, which she felt
+assured was at hand, her pale set features gleamed like those of a
+marble statue shrouded in black.
+
+Called to the stand, Simon Frisby testified that "he was telegraph
+operator, and night train despatcher for railway in X--. On October
+the twenty-sixth, had just gone on duty at 8 P.M. at the station,
+when prisoner came in, and sent a telegram to New York. A copy of
+that message had been surrendered to the District Solicitor. Witness
+had remained all night in his office, which adjoined the ladies'
+waiting-room, and his attention having been attracted by the unusual
+fact that it was left open and lighted, he had twice gone to the
+door and looked in, but saw no one. Thought the last inspection was
+about two o'clock, immediately after he had sent a message to the
+conductor on train No. 4. Saw prisoner when she came in, a half hour
+later, and heard the conversation between her and Burk, the station
+agent. Was very positive prisoner could not have been in the ladies'
+waiting-room during the severe storm."
+
+Mr. Churchill read aloud the telegram addressed to Mrs. Ignace
+Brentano: "Complete success required delay. All will be
+satisfactory. Expect me Saturday. B. B."
+
+He commented on its ambiguous phraseology, sent the message to the
+jury for inspection, and resumed his chair.
+
+"Lennox Dunbar."
+
+Sister Serena's knitting fell from her fingers; Dyce groaned
+audibly, and Judge Dent, sitting quite near, uttered a heavy sigh.
+The statue throbbed into life, drew herself proudly up; and with a
+haughty poise of the head, her grand eloquent gray eyes looked up at
+the witness, and for the first time during the trial bore a
+challenge. For fully a moment, eye met eye, soul looked into soul,
+with only a few feet of space dividing prisoner from witness; and as
+the girl scanned the dark, resolute, sternly chiselled face, cold,
+yet handsome as some faultless bronze god, a singular smile unbent
+her frozen lips, and Judge Dent and Sister Serena wondered what the
+scarcely audible ejaculation meant:
+
+"At the mercy of Tiberius!"
+
+No faintest reflection of the fierce pain at his heart could have
+been discerned on that non-committal countenance; and as he turned
+to the jury, his swart magnetic face appeared cruelly hard,
+sinister.
+
+"I first saw the prisoner at 'Elm Bluff', on the afternoon previous
+to Gen'l Darrington's death. When I came out of the house, she was
+sitting bareheaded on the front steps, fanning herself with her hat,
+and while I was untying my horse, she followed Bedney into the
+library. The blinds were open and I saw her pass the window, walking
+in the direction of the bedroom."
+
+Mr. Churchill: "At that time did you suspect her relationship to
+your client, Gen'l Darrington?"
+
+"I did not."
+
+"What was the impression left upon your mind?"
+
+"That she was a distinguished stranger, upon some important errand."
+
+"She excited your suspicions at once?"
+
+"Nothing had occurred to justify suspicion. My curiosity was
+aroused. Several hours later I was again at 'Elm Bluff' on legal
+business, and found Gen'l Darrington much disturbed in consequence
+of an interview with the prisoner, who, he informed me, was the
+child of his daughter, whom he had many years previous disowned and
+disinherited. In referring to this interview, his words were: 'I was
+harsh to the girl, so harsh that she turned upon me, savage as a
+strong cub defending a crippled, helpless dam. Mother and daughter
+know now that the last card has been played; for I gave the girl
+distinctly to understand, that at my death Prince would inherit
+every iota of my estate, and that my will had been carefully written
+in order to cut them off without a cent.'"
+
+"You were led to infer that Gen'l Darrington had refused her
+application for money?"
+
+"There was no mention of an application for money, hence I inferred
+nothing."
+
+"During that conversation, the last which Gen'l Darrington held on
+earth, did he not tell you he was oppressed by an awful presentiment
+connected with his granddaughter?"
+
+"His words were: 'Somehow I am unable to get rid of the strange,
+disagreeable presentiment that girl let behind her as a farewell
+legacy. She stood there at the glass door, and raised her hand:
+'Gen'l Darrington, when you lie down to die, may God have more mercy
+on your poor soul, than you have shown to your suffering child.'
+
+"I advised him to sleep off the disagreeable train of thought, and
+as I bade him good night, his last words were:
+
+"'I shall write to Prince to come home.'"
+
+"What do you know concerning the contents of your client's will?"
+
+"The original will was drawn up by my father in 187-, but last May,
+Gen'l Darrington required me to re-write it, as he wished to
+increase the amount of a bequest to a certain charitable
+institution. The provisions of the will were, that with the
+exception of various specified legacies, his entire estate, real and
+personal, should be given to his stepson Prince; and it was
+carefully worded, with the avowed intention of barring all claims
+that might be presented by Ellice Brentano or her heirs."
+
+"Do you recollect any allusion to jewelry?"
+
+"One clause of the will set aside a case of sapphire stones, with
+the direction that whenever Prince Darrington married, they should
+be worn by the lady as a bridal present from him."
+
+"Would you not deem it highly incompatible with all you know of the
+Gen'l's relentless character, that said sapphires and money should
+have been given to the prisoner?"
+
+"My surmises would be irrelevant and valueless to the Court; and
+facts, indisputable facts, are all that should be required of
+witnesses."
+
+"When and where did you next see the prisoner?"
+
+Cold, crisp, carefully accentuated, his words fell like lead upon
+the ears of all present, whose sympathies were enlisted for the
+desolate woman; and as he stood, tall, graceful, with one hand
+thrust within his vest, the other resting easily on the back of the
+bench near him, his clear cut face so suggestive of metallic
+medallions, gave no more hint of the smouldering flame at his heart
+than the glittering ice crown of Eiriksjokull betrays the fierce
+lava tides beating beneath its frozen crust.
+
+"At 10 o'clock on the same night, I saw the prisoner on the road
+leading from town to 'Elm Bluff', and not farther than half a mile
+from the cedar bridge spanning the 'branch', at the foot of the hill
+where the iron gate stands."
+
+"She was then going in the direction of 'Elm Bluff?'"
+
+"She was sitting on the ground, with her head leaning against a pine
+tree, but she rose as I approached."
+
+"As it was at night, is there a possibility of your having mistaken
+some one else for the prisoner?"
+
+"None whatever. She wore no hat, and the moon shone full on her
+face."
+
+"Did you not question her about her presence there, at such an
+hour?"
+
+"I asked: 'Madam, you seem a stranger; have you lost your way?' She
+answered, 'No, sir.' I added: 'Pardon me, but having seen you at
+"Elm Bluff" this afternoon, I thought it possible you had missed the
+road.' She made no reply, and I rode on to town."
+
+"She betrayed so much trepidation and embarrassment, that your
+suspicion was at once aroused?"
+
+"She evinced neither trepidation nor embarrassment. Her manner was
+haughty and repellent, as though designed to rebuke impertinence.
+Next morning, when informed of the peculiar circumstances attending
+Gen'l Darrington's death, I felt it incumbent upon me to communicate
+to the magistrate the facts which I have just narrated."
+
+"An overwhelming conviction of the prisoner's guilt impelled you to
+demand her arrest?"
+
+"Overwhelming conviction rarely results from merely circumstantial
+evidence, but a combination of accusing circumstances certainly
+pointed to the prisoner; and following their guidance, I am
+responsible for her arrest and detention for trial. To the scrutiny
+of the Court I have submitted every fact that influenced my action,
+and the estimate of their value decided by the jurymen, must either
+confirm the cogency of my reasoning, or condemn my rash fallibility.
+Having under oath conscientiously given all the evidence in my
+possession, that the prosecution would accept or desire, I now
+respectfully request, that unless the prisoner chooses to exercise
+her right of cross-examination, my colleagues of the prosecution,
+and his Honor, will grant me a final discharge as witness."
+
+Turning toward Beryl, Judge Parkman said:
+
+"It is my duty again to remind you, that the cross-examination of
+witnesses is one of the most important methods of defence; as
+thereby inaccuracies of statement regarding time, place, etc., are
+often detected in criminal prosecutions, which otherwise might
+remain undiscovered. To this invaluable privilege of every
+defendant, I call your attention once more. Will you cross-question
+the witness on the stand?"
+
+Involuntarily her eyes sought those of the witness, and despite his
+locked and guarded face, she read there an intimation that vaguely
+disquieted her. She knew that the battle with him must yet be
+fought.
+
+"I waive the right."
+
+"Then, with the consent of the prosecuting counsel, witness is
+discharged, subject to recall should the necessities of rebuttal
+demand it."
+
+"By agreement with my colleagues, I ask for final discharge, subject
+to your Honor's approval."
+
+"If in accordance with their wishes, the request is granted."
+
+The clock on the turret struck one, the hour of adjournment, and ere
+recess was declared, Mr. Churchill rose.
+
+"Having now proved by trustworthy and unquestioned witnesses, a dark
+array of facts, which no amount of additional testimony could either
+strengthen, or controvert, the prosecution here rest their case
+before the jury for inspection; and feeling assured that only one
+conclusion can result, will call no other witness, unless required
+in rebuttal."
+
+Desiring to be alone, Beryl had shut out even Sister Serena, and as
+the officer locked her into a dark antechamber, adjoining the court-
+room, she began to pace the floor. One tall, narrow window, dim with
+inside dust, showed her through filmy cobwebs the gray veil of rain
+falling ceaselessly outside, darkening the day that seemed a fit
+type of her sombre-hued life, drawing swiftly to its close, with no
+hope of rift in the clouds, no possibility of sunset glow even to
+stain its grave. Oh! to be hidden safely in mother earth--away from
+the gaping crowd that thirsted for her blood!--at rest in darkness
+and in silence; with the maddening stings of outraged innocence and
+womanly delicacy stilled forever. Oh! the coveted peace of lying
+under the sod, with only nodding daisies, whispering grasses,
+crystal chimes of vernal rain, solemn fugue of wintry winds between
+her tired, aching eyes and the fair, eternal heavens! Harrowing days
+and sleepless, horror-haunted nights, invincible sappers and miners,
+had robbed her of strength; and the uncontrollable shivering that
+now and then seized her, warned her that her nerves were in revolt
+against the unnatural strain. The end was not far distant, she must
+endure a little longer; but that last battle with Mr. Dunbar? On
+what ground, with what weapons would he force her to fight? Kneeling
+in front of a wooden bench that lined one side of the room, she laid
+her head on the seat, covered her face with her hands, and prayed
+for guidance, for divine help in her hour of supreme desolation.
+
+"God of the helpless, succor me in my need. Forbid that through
+weakness the sacrifice should be incomplete. Lead, sustain, fortify
+me with patience, that I may ransom the soul I have promised to
+save."
+
+After a time, when she resumed her walk, a strange expedient
+presented itself. If she sent for Mr. Dunbar, exacted an oath of
+secrecy, and confided the truth to his keeping, would it avail to
+protect her secret; would it silence him? Could she stoop so low as
+to throw herself upon his mercy? Therein lay the nauseous lees of
+her cup of humiliation; yet if she drained this last black drop,
+would any pledge have power to seal his lips, when he saw that she
+must die?
+
+The deputy sheriff unlocked the door, and she mechanically followed
+him.
+
+"I wish you would drink this glass of wine. You look so exhausted,
+and the air in yonder is so close, it is enough to stifle a mole.
+This will help to brace you up."
+
+"Thank you very much, but I could not take it. I can bear my wrongs
+even to the end, and that must be very near."
+
+As he ushered her into the court-room, Judge Dent met her, took her
+hand, and led her to the seat where Dyce and Sister Serena awaited
+her return.
+
+"My poor child, be courageous now; and remember that you have some
+friends here, who are praying God to help and deliver you."
+
+"Did He deliver His own Son from the pangs of death? Pray, that I
+may be patient to endure."
+
+One swift glance, showed her that Mr. Dunbar, forsaking his former
+place beside the district attorney, was sitting very near, just in
+front of her. The jurymen filed slowly into their accustomed seats,
+and the judge, who had been resting his head on his hand,
+straightened himself, and put aside a book. There was an ominous
+hush pervading the dense crowd, and in that moment of silent
+expectancy, Beryl shut her eyes and communed with her God. Some
+mystical exaltation of soul removed her from the realm of nervous
+dread; and a peace, that this world neither gives nor takes away,
+settled upon her. Sister Serena untied and took off the crape veil
+and bonnet, and as she resumed her seat, Judge Parkman turned to the
+prisoner.
+
+"In assuming the responsibility of your own defence you have adopted
+a line of policy which, however satisfactory to yourself, must, in
+the opinion of the public, have a tendency to invest your cause with
+peculiar peril; therefore I impress upon you the fact, that while
+the law holds you innocent, until twelve men agree that the evidence
+proves you guilty, the time has arrived when your cause depends upon
+your power to refute the charges, and disprove the alleged facts
+arrayed against you. The discovery and elucidation of Truth, is the
+supreme aim of a court of justice, and to its faithful ministers the
+defence of innocence is even more imperative than the conviction of
+guilt. The law is a Gibraltar, fortified and armed by the consummate
+wisdom of successive civilizations, as an impregnable refuge for
+innocence; and here, within its protecting bulwarks, as in the house
+of a friend, you are called on to plead your defence. You have heard
+the charges of the prosecution; listened to the testimony of the
+witnesses; and having taken your cause into your own hands, you must
+now stand up and defend it."
+
+She rose and walked a few steps closer to the jury, and for the
+first time during the trial, looked at them steadily. White as a
+statue of Purity, she stood for a moment, with her wealth of shining
+auburn hair coiled low on her shapely head, and waving in soft
+outlines around her broad full brow. Unnaturally calm, and
+wonderfully beautiful in that sublime surrender, which like a halo
+illumines the myth of Antigone, it was not strange that every heart
+thrilled, when upon the strained ears of the multitude fell the
+clear, sweet, indescribably mournful voice.
+
+"When a magnolia blossom or a white camellia just fully open, is
+snatched by violent hands, bruised, crushed, blackened, scarred by
+rents, is it worth keeping? No power can undo the ruin, and since
+all that made it lovely--its stainless purity--is irrevocably
+destroyed, why preserve it? Such a pitiable wreck you have made of
+the young life I am bidden to stand up and defend. Have you left me
+anything to live for? Dragged by constables before prejudiced
+strangers, accused of awful crimes, denounced as a female monster,
+herded with convicts, can you imagine any reason why I should
+struggle to prolong a disgraced, hopelessly ruined existence? My
+shrivelled, mutilated life is in your hands, and if you decide to
+crush it quickly, you will save me much suffering; as when having,
+perhaps unintentionally, mangled some harmless insect, you
+mercifully turn back, grind it under your heel, and end its torture.
+My life is too wretched now to induce me to defend it, but there is
+something I hold far dearer, my reputation as an honorable Christian
+woman; something I deem most sacred of all--the unsullied purity of
+the name my father and mother bore. Because I am innocent of every
+charge made against me, I owe it to my dead, to lift their honored
+name out of the mire. I have pondered the testimony; and the awful
+mass of circumstances that have combined to accuse me, seems indeed
+so overwhelming, that as each witness came forward, I have asked
+myself, am I the victim of some baleful destiny, placed in the
+grooves of destroying fate-foreordained from the foundations of the
+world to bear the burden of another's guilt? You have been told that
+I killed Gen'l Darrington, and stole his money and jewels, and
+destroyed his will, in order to possess his estate. Trustworthy
+witnesses have sworn to facts, which I cannot deny, and you believe
+these facts; and yet, while the snare tightens around my feet, and I
+believe you intend to condemn me, I stand here, and look you in the
+face--as one day we thirteen will surely stand at the final
+judgment--and in the name of the God I love, and fear, and trust, I
+call you each to witness, that I am innocent of every charge in the
+indictment. My hands are as unstained, my soul is as unsullied by
+theft or bloodshed, as your sinless babes cooing in their cradles.
+
+"If you can clear your minds of the foul tenants thrust into them,
+try for a little while to forget all the monstrous crimes you have
+heard ascribed to me, and as you love your mothers, wives,
+daughters, go back with me, leaving prejudice behind, and listen
+dispassionately to my most melancholy story. The river of death
+rolls so close to my weary feet, that I speak as one on the brink of
+eternity; and as I hope to meet my God in peace, I shall tell you
+the truth. Sometimes it almost shakes our faith in God's justice,
+when we suffer terrible consequences, solely because we did our
+duty; and it seems to me bitterly hard, inscrutable, that all my
+misfortunes should have come upon me thick and fast, simply because
+I obeyed my mother. You, fathers, say to your children, 'Do this for
+my sake,' and lovingly they spring to accomplish your wishes; and
+when they are devoured by agony, and smothered by disgrace, can you
+sufficiently pity them, blind artificers of their own ruin?
+
+"Four months ago I was a very poor girl, but proud and happy,
+because by my own work I could support my mother and myself. Her
+health failed rapidly, and life hung upon an operation and certain
+careful subsequent treatment, which it required one hundred dollars
+to secure. I was competing for a prize that would lift us above
+want, but time pressed; the doctor urged prompt action, and my
+mother desired me to come South, see her father, deliver a letter
+and beg assistance. As long as possible, I resisted her entreaties,
+because I shrank from the degradation of coming as a beggar to the
+man who, I knew, had disinherited and disowned his daughter.
+
+"Finally, strangling my rebellious reluctance, I accepted the bitter
+task. My mother kissed me good-bye, laid her hands on my head and
+blessed me for acceding to her wishes; and so--following the finger
+of Duty--I came here to be trampled, mangled, destroyed. When I
+arrived, I found I could catch a train going north at 7.15, and I
+bought a return ticket, and told the agent I intended to take that
+train. I walked to 'Elm Bluff,' and after waiting a few moments was
+admitted to Gen'l Darrington's presence. The letter which I
+delivered was an appeal for one hundred dollars, and it was received
+with an outburst of wrath, a flood of fierce and bitter denunciation
+of my parents. The interview was indescribably painful, but toward
+its close, Gen'l Darrington relented. He opened his safe or vault,
+and took out a square tin box. Placing it on the table, he removed
+some papers, and counted down into my hand, five gold coins--twenty
+dollars each. When I turned to leave him, he called me back, gave me
+the morocco case, and stated that the sapphires were very costly,
+and could be sold for a large amount. He added, with great
+bitterness, that he gave them, simply because they were painful
+souvenirs of a past, which he was trying to forget; and that he had
+intended them as a bridal gift to his son Prince's wife; but as they
+had been bought by my mother's mother as a present for her only
+child, he would send them to their original destination, for the
+sake of his first wife, Helena.
+
+"I left the room by the veranda door, because he bade me do so, to
+avoid what he termed 'the prying of servants.' I broke some clusters
+of chrysanthemums blooming in the rose garden, to carry to my
+mother, and then I hurried away. If the wages of disobedience be
+death, then fate reversed the mandate, and obedience exacts my life
+as a forfeit. Think of it: I had ample time to reach the station
+before seven o'clock, and if I had gone straight on, all would have
+been well. I should have taken the 7.15 train, and left forever this
+horrible place. If I had not loitered, I should have seen once more
+my mother's face, have escaped shame, despair, ruin--oh! the
+blessedness of what 'might have been!'
+
+"Listen, my twelve judges, and pity the child who obeyed at all
+hazards. Poor though I was, I bought a small bouquet for my sick
+mother the day that I left her, and the last thing she did was to
+arrange the flowers, tie them with a wisp of faded blue ribbon, and
+putting them in my hand, she desired me to be sure to stop at the
+cemetery, find her mother's grave in the Darrington lot, and lay the
+bunch of blossoms for her upon her mother's monument. Mother's last
+words were: 'Don't forget to kneel down and pray for me, at mother's
+grave.'"
+
+The voice so clear, so steady hitherto, quivered, ceased; and the
+heavy lashes drooped to hide the tears that gathered; but it was
+only for a few seconds, and she resumed in the same cold, distinct
+tone:
+
+"So I went on, and fate tied the last millstone around my neck.
+After some search I found the place, and left the bunch of flowers
+with a few of the chrysanthemums; then I hastened toward town, and
+reached the station too late; the 7.15 train had gone. Too late!--
+only a half hour lost, but it carried down everything that this
+world held for me. I used to wonder and puzzle over that passage in
+the Bible, 'The stars in their courses fought against Sisera!' I
+have solved that mystery, for the stars in their courses' have
+fought against me; heaven, earth, man, time, circumstances,
+coincidences, all spun the web that snared my innocent feet. When I
+paid for the telegram to relieve my mother's suspense, I had not
+sufficient money (without using the gold) to enable me to incur
+hotel bills; and I asked permission to remain in the waiting-room
+until the next train, which was due at 3.05. The room was so close
+and warm I walked out, and the fresh air tempted me to remain. The
+moon was up, full and bright, and knowing no other street, I
+unconsciously followed the one I had taken in the afternoon. Very
+soon I reached the point near the old church where the road crosses,
+and I turned into it, thinking that I would enjoy one more breath of
+the pine forest, which was so new to me. It was so oppressively hot
+I sat down on the pine straw, and fanned myself with my hat. How
+long I remained there, I know not, for I fell asleep; and when I
+awoke, Mr. Dunbar rode up and asked if I had lost my way. I answered
+that I had not, and as soon as he galloped on, I walked back as
+rapidly as possible, somewhat frightened at the loneliness of my
+position. Already clouds were gathering, and I had been in the
+waiting-room, I think about an hour, when the storm broke in its
+fury. I had seen the telegraph operator sitting in his office, but
+he seemed asleep, with his head resting on the table; and during the
+storm I sat on the floor, in one corner of the waiting-room, and
+laid my head on a chair. At last, when the tempest ended, I went to
+sleep. During that sleep, I dreamed of my old home in Italy, of some
+of my dead, of my father--of gathering grapes with one I dearly
+loved--and suddenly some noise made me spring to my feet. I heard
+voices talking, and in my feverish dreamy state, there seemed a
+resemblance to one I knew. Only half awake, I ran out on the
+pavement. Whether I dreamed the whole, I cannot tell; but the
+conversation seemed strangely distinct; and I can never forget the
+words, be they real, or imaginary:  "'There ain't no train till
+daylight, 'cepting it be the through freight.'
+
+"Then a different voice asked: 'When it that due?'"
+
+"'Pretty soon I reckon, it's mighty nigh time now, but it don't stop
+here; it goes on to the water tank, where it blows for the bridge.'"
+
+'"How far is the bridge?'"
+
+"'Only a short piece down the track, after you pass the tank.'"
+
+"When I reached the street, I saw no one but the figure of an old
+man, I think a negro, who was walking away. He limped and carried a
+bundle on the end of a stick thrown over his shoulder. I was so
+startled and impressed by the fancied sound of a voice once familiar
+to me, that I walked on down the track, but could see no one. Soon
+the 'freight' came along; I stood aside until it passed, then
+returned to the station, and found the agent standing in the door.
+When he questioned me about my movements; I deemed him impertinent;
+but having nothing to conceal, stated the facts I have just
+recapitulated. You have been told that I intentionally missed the
+train; that when seen at 10 P.M. in the pine woods, I was stealing
+back to my mother's old home; that I entered at midnight the bedroom
+where her father slept, stupefied him with chloroform, broke open
+his vault, robbed it of money, jewels and will; and that when Gen'l
+Darrington awoke and attempted to rescue his property, I
+deliberately killed him. You are asked to believe that I am 'the
+incarnate fiend' who planned and committed that horrible crime, and,
+alas for me! every circumstance seems like a bloodhound to bay me.
+My handkerchief was found, tainted with chloroform. It was my
+handkerchief; but how it came there, on Gen'l Darrington's bed, only
+God witnessed. I saw among the papers taken from the tin box and
+laid on the table, a large envelope marked in red ink, 'Last Will
+and Testament of Robert Luke Darrington'; but I never saw it
+afterward. I was never in that room but once; and the last and only
+time I ever saw General Darrington was when I passed out of the
+glass door, and left him standing in the middle of the room, with
+the tin box in his hand.
+
+"I can call no witnesses; for it is one of the terrible fatalities
+of my situation that I stand alone, with none to corroborate my
+assertions. Strange, inexplicable coincidences drag me down; not the
+malice of men, but the throttling grasp of circumstances. I am the
+victim of some diabolical fate, which only innocent blood will
+appease; but though I am slaughtered for crimes I did not commit, I
+know, oh! I know, that BEHIND FATE, STANDS GOD!--the just and
+eternal God, whom I trust, even in this my hour of extremest peril.
+Alone in the world, orphaned, reviled, wrecked for all time, without
+a ray of hope, I, Beryl Brentano, deny every accusation brought
+against me in this cruel arraignment; and I call my only witness,
+the righteous God above us, to hear my solemn asseveration: I am
+innocent of this crime; and when you judicially murder me in the
+name of Justice, your hands will be dyed in blood that an avenging
+God will one day require of you. Appearances, circumstances,
+coincidences of time and place, each, all, conspire to hunt me into
+a convict's grave; but remember, my twelve judges, remember that a
+hopeless, forsaken, broken-hearted woman, expecting to die at your
+hands, stood before you, and pleaded first and last--Not Guilty! Not
+Guilty!--"
+
+A moment she paused, then raised her arms toward heaven and added,
+with a sudden exultant ring in her thrilling voice, and a strange
+rapt splendor in her uplifted eyes:
+
+"Innocent! Innocent! Thou God knowest! Innocent of this sin, as the
+angels that see Thy face."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+As a glassy summer sea suddenly quivers, heaves, billows under the
+strong steady pressure of a rising gale, so that human mass surged
+and broke in waves of audible emotion, when Beryl's voice ceased;
+for the grace and beauty of a sorrowing woman hold a spell more
+potent than volumes of forensic eloquence, of juridic casuistry, of
+rhetorical pyrotechnics, and at its touch, the latent floods of pity
+gushed; people sprang to their feet, and somewhere in the wide
+auditory a woman sobbed. Habitues of a celebrated Salon des
+Etrangers recall the tradition of a Hungarian nobleman who,
+apparently calm, nonchalant, debonair, gambled desperately; "while
+his right hand, resting easily inside the breast of his coat,
+clutched and lacerated his flesh till his nails dripped with blood."
+With emotions somewhat analogous, Mr. Dunbar sat as participant in
+this judicial rouge et noir, where the stakes were a human life, and
+the skeleton hand of death was already outstretched. Listening to
+the calm, mournful voice which alone had power to stir and thrill
+his pulses, he could not endure the pain of watching the exquisite
+face that haunted him day and night; and when he computed the
+chances of her conviction, a maddening perception of her danger made
+his brain reel.
+
+To all of us comes a supreme hour, when realizing the adamantine
+limitations of human power, the "thus far, no farther" of relentless
+physiological, psychological and ethical statutes under which
+humanity lives, moves, has its being--our desperate souls break
+through the meshes of that pantheistic idolatry which kneels only to
+"Natural Laws"; and spring as suppliants to Him, who made Law
+possible. We take our portion of happiness and prosperity, and while
+it lasts we wander far, far away in the seductive land of
+philosophical speculation, and revel in the freedom and
+irresponsibility of Agnosticism; and lo! when adversity smites, and
+bankruptcy is upon us, we toss the husks of the "Unknowable and
+Unthinkable" behind us, and flee as the Prodigal who knew his
+father, to that God whom (in trouble) we surely know.
+
+Certainly Lennox Dunbar was as far removed from religious tendencies
+as conformity to the canons of conventional morality and the habits
+of an honorable gentleman in good society would permit; yet to-day,
+in the intensity of his dread, lest the "consummate flower" of his
+heart's dearest hope should be laid low in the dust, he
+involuntarily invoked the aid of a long-forgotten God; and through
+his set teeth a prayer struggled up to the throne of that divine
+mercy, which in sunshine we do not see, but which as the soul's
+eternal lighthouse gleams, glows, beckons in the blackest night of
+human anguish. In boyhood, desiring to please his invalid and slowly
+dying mother, he had purchased and hung up opposite her bed, an
+illuminated copy of her favorite text; and now, by some subtle
+transmutation in the conservation of spiritual energy, each golden
+letter of that Bible text seemed emblazoned on the dusty wall of the
+court-room: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in
+trouble."
+
+When a stern reprimand from the Judge had quelled all audible
+expression of the compassionate sympathy that flowed at the
+prisoner's story--as the flood at Horeb responded to Moses' touch--
+there was a brief silence.
+
+Mr. Dunbar rose, crossed the intervening space and stood with his
+hand on the back of Beryl's chair; then moved on closer to the jury
+box.
+
+"May it please your Honor, and Gentlemen of the Jury: Sometimes
+mistakes are crimes, and he who through unpardonable rashness
+commits them, should not escape 'unwhipped of justice'. When a man
+in the discharge of that which he deemed a duty, becomes aware that
+unintentionally he has perpetrated a great wrong, can he parley with
+pride, or dally, because the haunting ghost of consistency waves him
+back from the path of a humiliating reparation? Error is easy,
+confession galling; and stepping down from the censor's seat to
+share the mortification of the pillory, is at all times a peculiarly
+painful reverse; hence, powerful indeed must be the conviction which
+impels a man who prided himself on his legal astuteness, to come
+boldly into this sacred confessional of truth and justice and plead
+for absolution from a stupendous mistake. Two years ago, I became
+Gen'l Darrington's attorney, and when his tragic death occurred in
+October last, my professional relations, as well as life-long
+friendship, incited me to the prompt apprehension of the person who
+had murdered him. After a careful and apparently exhaustive
+examination of the authenticated facts, I was convinced that they
+pointed only in one direction; and in that belief, I demanded and
+procured the arrest of the prisoner. For her imprisonment, her
+presence here to-day, her awful peril, I hold myself responsible;
+and now, gentlemen of the jury, I ask you as men having hearts of
+flesh, and all the honorable instincts of manhood, which alone could
+constitute you worthy umpires in this issue of life or death, do
+you, can you wonder that regret sits at my ear, chanting mournful
+dirges, and remorse like a harpy fastens her talons in my soul, when
+I tell you, that I have committed a blunder so frightful, that it
+borders on a crime as heinous as that for which my victim stands
+arraigned? Wise was the spirit of a traditional statute, which
+decreed that the author of a false accusation should pay the penalty
+designed for the accused; and just indeed would be the retribution,
+that imposed on me the suffering I have entailed on her.
+
+"Acknowledging the error into which undue haste betrayed me, yet
+confident that divine justice, to whom I have sworn allegiance, has
+recalled me from a false path to one that I can now tread with
+absolute certainty of success, I come to-day into this, her sacred
+temple, lay my hand on her inviolate altar, and claiming the
+approval of her officiating high-priest, his Honor, appeal to you,
+gentlemen of the jury, to give me your hearty co-operation in my
+effort to repair a foul wrong, by vindicating innocence.
+
+"Professors of ophthalmology in a diagnosis of optical diseases,
+tell us of a symptom of infirmity which they call pseudoblepsis, or
+'false sight.' Legal vision exhibits, now and then, a corresponding
+phase of unconscious perversion of sight, whereby objects are
+perceived that do not exist, and objects present become transformed,
+distorted; and such an instance of exaggerated metamorphosia is
+presented to-day, in the perverted vision of the prosecution. In the
+incipiency of this case, prior to, and during the preliminary
+examination held in October last, I appeared in conjunction with Mr.
+Wolverton, as assistant counsel in the prosecution, represented by
+the Honorable Mr. Churchill, District Solicitor; the object of said
+prosecution being the conviction of the prisoner, who was held as
+guilty of Gen'l Darrington's death. Subsequent reflection and search
+necessitated an abandonment of views that could alone justify such a
+position; and after consultation with my colleagues I withdrew; not
+from the prosecution of the real criminal, to the discovery and
+conviction of whom I shall dedicate every energy of my nature, but
+from the pursuit of one most unjustly accused. Anomalous as is my
+attitude, the dictates of conscience, reason, heart, force me into
+it; and because I am the implacable prosecutor of Gen'l Darrington's
+murderer, _I_ COME TO PLEAD IN DEFENSE OF THE PRISONER, whom I hold
+guiltless of the crime, innocent of the charge in the indictment. In
+the supreme hour of her isolation, she has invoked only one witness;
+and may that witness, the God above us, the God of justice, the God
+of innocence, grant me the inspiration, and nerve my arm to snatch
+her from peril, and triumphantly vindicate the purity of her noble
+heart and life."
+
+Remembering the important evidence which he had furnished to the
+prosecution, only a few hours previous, when on the witness stand,
+people looked at one another questioningly; doubting the testimony
+of their own senses; and VOX POPULI was not inaptly expressed by the
+whispered ejaculation of Bedney to Dyce.
+
+"Judgment day must be breaking! Mars Lennox is done turned a double
+summersett, and lit plum over on t'other side! It's about ekal to a
+spavinned, ring-boned, hamstrung, hobbled horse clearin' a ten-rail
+fence! He jumps so beautiful, I am afeered he won't stay whar he
+lit!"
+
+Comprehending all that this public recantation had cost a proud man,
+jealous of his reputation for professional tact and skill, as well
+as for individual acumen, Beryl began to realize the depth and
+fervor of the love that prompted it; and the merciless ordeal to
+which he would subject her. Inflicting upon himself the smarting
+sting of the keenest possible humiliation, could she hope that in
+the attainment of his aim he would spare her? If she threw herself
+even now upon his mercy, would he grant to her that which he had
+denied himself?
+
+Dreading the consequences of even a moment's delay, she rose, and a
+hot flush crimsoned her cheeks, as she looked up at the Judge.
+
+"Is it my privilege to decide who shall defend me? Have I now the
+right to accept or reject proffered aid?"
+
+"The law grants you that privilege; secures you that right."
+
+"Then I decline the services of the counsel who offers to plead in
+my defence. I wish no human voice raised in my behalf, and having
+made my statement in my own defence, I commit my cause to the hands
+of my God."
+
+For a moment her eyes dwelt upon the lawyer's, and as she resumed
+her seat, she saw the spark in their blue depths leap into a flame.
+Advancing a few steps, his handsome face aglow, his voice rang like
+a bugle call:
+
+"May it please your Honor: Anomalous conditions sanction,
+necessitate most anomalous procedure, where the goal sought is
+simple truth and justice; and since the prisoner prefers to rest her
+cause, I come to this bar as Amicus Curiae, and appeal for
+permission to plead in behalf of my clients, truth and justice, who
+hold me in perpetual retainment. In prosecution of the real
+criminal, in order to unravel the curiously knitted web, and bring
+the culprit to summary punishment, I ask you, gentlemen of the jury,
+to ponder dispassionately the theory I have now the honor to submit
+to your scrutiny.
+
+"The prisoner, whom I regard as the victim of my culpable haste and
+deplorably distorted vision, is as innocent of Gen'l Darrington's
+murder as you or I; but I charge, that while having no complicity in
+that awful deed, she is nevertheless perfectly aware of the name of
+the person who committed it. Not particeps crimmis, neither
+consenting to, aiding, abetting nor even acquainted with the fact of
+the crime, until accused of its perpetration; yet at this moment in
+possession of the only clue which will enable justice to seize the
+murderer. Conscious of her innocence, she braves peril that would
+chill the blood of men, and extort almost any secret; and shall I
+tell you the reason? Shall I give you the key to an enigma which she
+knows means death?
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, is there any sacrifice so tremendous, any
+anguish so keen, any shame so dreadful, any fate so overwhelmingly
+terrible as to transcend the endurance, or crush the power of a
+woman's love? Under this invincible inspiration, when danger
+threatens her idol, she knows no self; disgrace, death affright her
+not; she extends her arms to arrest every approach, offers her own
+breast as a shield against darts, bullets, sword thrusts, and counts
+it a privilege to lay down life in defence of that idol. O! loyalty
+supreme, sublime, immortal! thy name is woman's love.
+
+"All along the march of humanity, where centuries have trailed their
+dust, traditions gleam like monuments to attest the victory of this
+immemorial potency, female fidelity; and when we of the nineteenth
+century seek the noblest, grandest type of merely human self-
+abnegation, that laid down a pure and happy life, to prolong that of
+a beloved object, we look back to the lovely image of that fair
+Greek woman, who, when the parents of the man she loved refused to
+give their lives to save their son, summoned death to accept her as
+a willing victim; and deeming it a privilege, went down triumphantly
+into the grave. Sustained, exalted by this most powerful passion
+that can animate and possess a human soul, the prisoner stands a
+pure, voluntary, self-devoted victim; defying the terrors of the
+law, consenting to condemnation--surrendering to an ignominious
+death, in order to save the life of the man she loves.
+
+"Grand and beautiful as is the spectacle of her calm mournful
+heroism, I ask you, as men capable of appreciating her noble self-
+immolation, can you permit the consummation of this sacrifice? Will
+you, dare you, selected, appointed, dedicated by solemn oaths to
+administer justice, prove so recreant to your holy trust as to aid,
+abet, become accessories to, and responsible for the murder of the
+prisoner by accepting a stainless victim, to appease that violated
+law which only the blood of the guilty can ever satisfy?
+
+"In order to avert so foul a blot on the escutcheon of our State
+judiciary, in order to protect innocence from being slaughtered, and
+supremely in order to track and bring to summary punishment the
+criminal who robbed and murdered Gen'l Darrington, I now desire, and
+request, that your Honor will permit me to cross-examine the
+prisoner on the statement she has offered in defence."
+
+"In making that request, counsel must be aware that it is one of the
+statutory provisions of safety to the accused, whom the law holds
+innocent until proved guilty, that no coercion can be employed to
+extort answers. It is, however, the desire of the court, and
+certainly must accrue to the benefit of the prisoner, that she
+should take the witness stand in her own defence."
+
+For a moment there was neither sound nor motion.
+
+"Will the prisoner answer such questions as in the opinion of the
+court are designed solely to establish her innocence? If so, she
+will take the stand."
+
+With a sudden passionate movement at variance with her demeanor
+throughout the trial, she threw up her clasped hands, gazed at them,
+then pressed them ring downward as a seal upon her lips; and after
+an instant, answered slowly:
+
+"Now and henceforth, I decline to answer any and all questions. I am
+innocent, entirely innocent. The burden of proof rests upon my
+accusers."
+
+As Mr. Dunbar watched her, noted the scarlet spots burning on her
+cheeks, the strange expression of her eyes that glowed with
+unnatural lustre, a scowl darkened his face; a cruel smile curved
+his lips, and made his teeth gleam. Was it worth while to save her
+against her will; to preserve the heart he coveted, for the vile
+miscreant to whom she had irrevocably given it? With an upward
+movement of his noble head, like the impatient toss of a horse
+intolerant of curb, he stepped back close to the girl, and stood
+with his hand on the back of her chair.
+
+"In view of this palpable evasion of justice through obstinate non
+responsion, will it please the Court to overrule the prisoner's
+objection?"
+
+Several moments elapsed before Judge Parkman replied, and he gnawed
+the end of his grizzled mustache, debating the consequences of
+dishonoring precedent--that fetich of the Bench.
+
+"The Court cannot so rule. The prisoner has decided upon the line of
+defence, as is her inalienable right; and since she persistently
+assumes that responsibility, the Court must sustain her decision."
+
+The expression of infinite and intense relief that stole over the
+girl's countenance, was, noted by both judge and jury, as she sank
+back wearily in her chair, like one lifted from some rack of
+torture. Resting thus, her shoulder pressed against the hand that
+lay on the top of the chair, but he did not move a finger; and some
+magnetic influence drew her gaze to meet his. He felt the tremor
+that crept over her, understood the mute appeal, the prayer for
+forbearance that made her mournful gray eyes so eloquent, and a
+sinister smile distorted his handsome mouth.
+
+"The spirit and intent of the law, the usages of criminal practice,
+above all, hoary precedent, before which we bow, each and all
+sanction your Honor's ruling; and yet despite everything, the end I
+sought is already attained. Is not the refusal of the prisoner proof
+positive, 'confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ' of the truth
+of my theory? With jealous dread she seeks to lock the clue in her
+faithful heart, courting even the coffin, that would keep it safe
+through all the storms of time. Impregnable in her citadel of
+silence, with the cohorts of Codes to protect her from escalade and
+assault, will the guardians of justice have obeyed her solemn
+commands when they permit the prisoner to light the funeral pyre
+where she elects to throw herself--a vicarious sacrifice for
+another's sins? For a nature so exalted, the Providence who endowed
+it has decreed a nobler fate; and by His help, and that of your
+twelve consciences, I purpose to save her from a species of suicide,
+and to consign to the hangman the real criminal. The evidence now
+submitted, will be furnished by the testimony of witnesses who, at
+my request, have been kept without the hearing of the Court."
+
+He left Beryl's chair, and once more approached the jury,
+
+"Isam Hornbuckle."
+
+A negro man, apparently sixty years old, limped into the witness
+stand, and having been sworn, stood leaning on his stick, staring
+uneasily about him.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Isam Clay Hornbuckle."
+
+"Where do you live?"
+
+"Nigh the forks of the road, close to 'Possum Ridge."
+
+"How far from town?"
+
+"By short cuts I make it about ten miles; but the gang what works
+the road, calls it twelve."
+
+"Have you a farm there?"
+
+"Yes'ir. A pretty tolerable farm; a cornfield and potato patch and
+gyarden, and parsture for my horgs and oxin, and a slipe of woods
+for my pine knots."
+
+"What is your business?"
+
+"Tryin' to make a livin', and it keeps me bizzy, for lans is poor,
+and seasons is most ginerally agin crops."
+
+"How long have you been farming?"
+
+"Only sence I got mashed up more 'an a year ago on the railroad."
+
+"In what capacity did you serve when working on the road?"
+
+"I was fireman under ingeneer Walker on the lokymotive 'Gin'l
+Borygyard,' what most ginerally hauled Freight No. 2. The ingines
+goes now by numbers, but we ole hands called our'n always
+'Borygyard'."
+
+"You were crippled in a collision between two freight trains?"
+
+"Yes'ir; but t'other train was the cause of the--"
+
+"Never mind the cause of the accident. You moved out to 'Possum
+Ridge; can you remember exactly when you were last in town?"
+
+"To be shore! I know exactly, 'cause it was the day my ole 'oman's
+step-father's granny's funeral sarmont was preached; and that was on
+a Thursday, twenty-sixth of October, an' I come up to 'tend it."
+
+"Is it not customary to preach the funeral sermons on Sunday?"
+
+"Most generally, Boss, it are; but you see Bre'r Green, what was to
+preach the ole 'oman's sarmont, had a big baptizin' for two Sundays
+han' runnin', and he was gwine to Boston for a spell, on the next
+comin' Saddy, so bein' as our time belonks to us now, we was free to
+'pint a week day."
+
+"You are positive it was the twenty-sixth?"
+
+"Oh, yes'ir; plum postiv. The day was norated from all the baptiss
+churches, so as the kinfolks could gether from fur and nigh."
+
+"At what hour on Thursday was the funeral sermon preached?"
+
+"Four o'clock sharp."
+
+"Where did you stay while in town?"
+
+"With my son Ducaleyon who keeps a barber-shop on Main Street."
+
+"When did you return home?"
+
+"I started before day, Friday mornin', as soon as the rain hilt up."
+
+"At what hour, do you think?"
+
+"The town clock was a strikin' two, jes as I passed the express
+office, at the station."
+
+"Now, Isam, tell the Court whom you saw, and what happened; and be
+very careful in all you say, remembering you are on your oath."
+
+"I was atoting a bundle so--slung on to a stick, and it gaided my
+shoulder, 'cause amongst a whole passel of plunder I had bought,
+ther was a bag of shot inside, what had slewed 'round oft the
+balance, and I sot down, close to a lamp-post nigh the station, to
+shift the heft of the shot bag. Whilst I were a squatting, tying up
+my bundle, I heered all of a suddent--somebody runnin', brip--brap--!
+and up kern a man from round the corner of the stationhouse, a
+runnin' full tilt; and he would a run over me, but I grabbed my
+bundle and riz up. Sez I: 'Hello! what's to pay?' He was most out of
+breath, but sez he: 'Is the train in yet?' Sez I: 'There ain't no
+train till daylight, 'cepting it be the through freight.' Then he
+axed me: 'When is that due?' and I tole him: 'Pretty soon, I reckon,
+but it don't stop here; it only slows up at the water tank, whar it
+blows for the Bridge.' Sez he: 'How fur is that bridge?' Sez I:
+'Only a short piece down the track, after you pass the tank.' He
+tuck a long breath, and kinder whistled, and with that he turned and
+heeled it down the middle of the track. I thought it mighty curus,
+and my mind misgive me thar was somethin' crooked; but I always
+pintedly dodges; 'lie-lows to ketch meddlers,' and I went on my way.
+When I got nigh the next corner whar I had to turn to cross the
+river, I looked back and I seen a 'oman standin' on the track, in
+front of the station-house; but I parsed on, and soon kem to the
+bridge (not the railroad bridge), Boss. I had got on the top of the
+hill to the left of the Pentenchry, when I hearn ole 'Bory' blow.
+You see I knowed the runnin' of the kyars, 'cause that through
+freight was my ole stormpin-ground, and I love the sound of that
+ingine's whistle more 'an I do my gran'childun's hymn chunes. She
+blowed long and vicious like, and I seen her sparks fly, as she lit
+out through town; and then I footed it home."
+
+"You think the train was on time?"
+
+"Bound to be; she never was cotched behind time, not while I stuffed
+her with coal and lightwood knots. She was plum punctchul."
+
+"Was the lamp lighted where you tied your bundle?"
+
+"Yes'ir, burnin' bright."
+
+"Tell the Court the appearance of the man whom you talked with."
+
+Mr. Dunbar was watching the beautiful face so dear to him, and saw
+the prisoner lean forward, her lips parted, all her soul in the
+wide, glowing eyes fastened on the countenance of the witness.
+
+"He was very tall and wiry, and 'peared like a young man what had
+parstured 'mongst wild oats. He seemed cut out for a gintleman, but
+run to seed too quick and turned out nigh kin to a dead beat. One-
+half of him was hanssum, 'minded me mightly of that stone head with
+kurly hair what sets over the sody fountin in the drug store, on
+Main Street. Oh, yes'ir, one side was too pretty for a man; but
+t'other! Fo' Gawd! t'other made your teeth ache, and sot you cross-
+eyed to look at it. He toted a awful brand to be shore."
+
+"What do you mean by one side? Explain yourself carefully now."
+
+"I dun'no as I can 'splain, 'cause I ain't never seed nothing like
+it afore. One 'zact half of him, from his hair to his shirt collar
+was white and pretty, like I tell you, but t'other side of his face
+was black as tar, and his kurly hair was gone, and the whiskers on
+that side--and his eye was drapped down kinder so, and that side of
+his mouth sorter hung, like it was unpinned, this way. Mebbee he was
+born so, mebbee not; but he looked like he had jes broke loose from
+the conjur, and caryd his mark."
+
+For one fleeting moment, the gates of heaven seemed thrown wide, and
+the glory of the Kingdom of Peace streamed down upon the aching
+heart of the desolate woman. She could recognize no dreaded
+resemblance in the photograph drawn by the witness; and judge, jury
+and counsel who scrutinized her during the recital of the testimony,
+were puzzled by the smile of joy that suddenly flashed over her
+features, like ilie radiance of a lamp lifted close to some marble
+face, dim with shadows.
+
+"Do you think his face indicated that he had been engaged in a
+difficulty, in a fight? Was there any sign of blood, or anything
+that looked as if he had been bruised and wounded by some heavy
+blow?"
+
+"Naw, sir. Didn't seem like sech bruises as comes of fightin'.
+'Peared to me he was somehow branded like, and the mark he toted was
+onnatral."
+
+"If he had wished to disguise himself by blackening one side of his
+face, would he not have presented a similar appearance?"
+
+"Naw, sir, not by no manner of means. No minstrel tricks fotch him
+to the pass he was at. The hand of the Lord must have laid too heavy
+on him; no mortal wounds leave sech terrifyin' prints."
+
+"How was he dressed?"
+
+"Dunno. My eyes never drapped below that curus face of his'n."
+
+"Was he bareheaded?"
+
+"Bar headed as when he come into the world."
+
+"He talked like a man in desperate haste, who was running to escape
+pursuit?"
+
+"He shorely did."
+
+"Did you mention to any person what you have told here to-day?"
+
+"I tole my ole 'oman, and she said she reckoned it was a buth mark
+what the man carryd; but when I seen him I thunk he was cunjured"
+
+"When you heard that Gen'l Darrington had been murdered, did you
+think of this man and his singular behavior that night?"
+
+"I never hearn of the murder till Christmas, 'cause I went down to
+Elbert County arter a yoke of steers what a man owed me, and thar I
+tuck sick and kep my bed for weeks. When I got home, and hearn the
+talk about the murder, I didn't know it was the same night what I
+seen the branded man."
+
+"Tell the Court how your testimony was secured."
+
+"It was norated in all our churches that a 'ward was offered for a
+lame cullud pusson of my 'scription, and Deacon Nathan he cum down
+and axed me what mischief I'de been a doin', that I was wanted to
+answer fur. He read me the 'vertisement, and pussuaded me to go with
+him to your office, and you tuck me to Mr. Churchill."
+
+Mr. Dunbar bowed to the District Solicitor, who rose and cross-
+examined.
+
+"Can you read?"
+
+"Naw, sir."
+
+"Where is your son Deucalion?"
+
+"Two days after I left town he want with a 'Love and Charity'
+scurschion up north, and he liked it so well in Baltymore, he staid
+thar."
+
+"When Deacon Nathan brought you up to town, did you know for what
+purpose Mr. Dunbar wanted you?"
+
+"Naw, sir."
+
+"Was it not rather strange that none of your friends recognized the
+description of you, published in the paper?"
+
+"Seems some of 'em did, but felt kind of jub'rus 'bout pinting me
+out, for human natur is prone to crooked ways, and they never hearn
+I perfessed sanctification."
+
+"Who told you the prisoner had heard your conversation with the man
+you met that night?"
+
+"Did she hear it? Then you are the first pusson to tell me."
+
+"How long was it, after you saw the man, before you heard the
+whistle of the freight train?"
+
+"As nigh as I kin rickolect about a half a hour, but not quite."
+
+"Was it raining at all when you saw the woman standing on the
+track?"
+
+"Naw, sir. The trees was dripping steady, but the moon was shining."
+
+"Do you know anything about the statement made by the prisoner?"
+
+"Naw, sir."
+
+"Fritz Helmetag."
+
+As Isam withdrew, a middle-aged man took the stand, and in answer to
+Mr. Dunbar's questions deposed: "That he was 'bridge tender' on the
+railroad, and lived in a cottage not far from the water tank. On the
+night of the twenty-sixth of October, he was sitting up with a sick
+wife, and remembered that being feverish, she asked for some fresh
+water. He went out to draw some from the well, and saw a man
+standing not far from the bridge. The moon was behind a row of
+trees, but he noticed the man was bareheaded, and when he called to
+know what he wanted, he walked back toward the tank. Five minutes
+later the freight train blew, and after it had crossed the bridge,
+he went back to his cottage. The man was standing close to the
+safety signal, a white light fastened to an iron stanchion at south
+end of the bridge, and seemed to be reading something. Next day,
+when he (witness) went as usual to examine the piers and under
+portions of the bridge, he had found the pipe, now in Mr. Dunbar's
+possession. Tramps so often rested on the bridge, and on the
+shelving bank of the river beneath it, that he attached no
+importance to the circumstance; but felt confident the pipe was left
+by the man whom he had seen, as it was not there the previous
+afternoon; and he put it in a pigeon-hole of his desk, thinking the
+owner might return to claim it. On the same day, he had left X--to
+carry his wife to her mother, who lived in Pennsylvania, and was
+absent for several weeks. Had never associated the pipe with the
+murder, but after talking with Mr. Dunbar, who had found the half of
+an envelope near the south end of the bridge, he had surrendered it
+to him. Did not see the man's face distinctly. He looked tall and
+thin."
+
+Here Mr. Dunbar held up a fragment of a long white em elope such as
+usually contain legal documents, on which in large letters was
+written "LAST WILL"--and underscored with red ink. Then he lifted a
+pipe, for the inspection of the witness, who identified it as the
+one he had found.
+
+As he turned it slowly, the Court and the multitude saw only a
+meerschaum with a large bowl representing a death's head, to which
+was attached a short mouth-piece of twisted amber.
+
+The golden gates of hope clashed suddenly, and over them flashed a
+drawn sword, as Beryl looked at the familiar pipe, which her baby
+fingers had so often strained to grasp. How well she knew the
+ghastly ivory features, the sunken eyeless sockets--of that
+veritable death's head? How vividly came back the day, when asleep
+in her father's arms, a spark from that grinning skull had fallen on
+her cheek, and she awoke to find that fond father bending in
+remorseful tenderness over her? Years ago, she had reverently packed
+the pipe away, with other articles belonging to the dead, and
+ignorant that her mother had given it to Bertie, she deemed it safe
+in that sacred repository. Now, like the face of Medusa it glared at
+her, and that which her father's lips had sanctified, became the
+polluted medium of a retributive curse upon his devoted child. So
+the Diabolus ex machina, the evil genius of each human life decrees
+that the most cruel cureless pangs are inflicted by the instruments
+we love best.
+
+Watching for some sign of recognition, Mr. Dunbar's heart was fired
+with jealous rage, as he marked the swift change of the prisoner's
+countenance; the vanishing of the gleam of hope, the gloomy
+desperation that succeeded. The beautiful black brows met in a spasm
+of pain over eyes that stared at an abyss of ruin; her lips
+whitened, she wrung her hands unconsciously; and then, as if numb
+with horror, she leaned back in her chair, and her chin sank until
+it touched the black ribbon at her throat. When after a while she
+rallied, and forced herself to listen, a pleasant-faced young man
+was on the witness stand.
+
+"My name is Edgar Jennings, and I live at T----, in Pennsylvania. I
+am ticket agent at that point, of----railway. One day, about the
+last of October (I think it was on Monday), I was sitting in my
+office when a man came in, and asked if I could sell him a ticket to
+St. Paul. I told him I only had tickets as far as Chicago, via
+Cincinnati. He bought one to Cincinnati and asked how soon he could
+go on. I told him the train from the east was due in a few minutes.
+When he paid for his ticket he gave me a twenty-dollar gold piece,
+and his hand shook so, he dropped another piece of the same value on
+the floor. His appearance was so remarkable I noticed him
+particularly. He was a man about my age, very tall and finely made,
+but one half of his face was black, or rather very dark blue, and he
+wore a handkerchief bandage-fashion across it. His left eye was
+drawn down, this way, and his mouth was one-sided. His right eye was
+black, and his hair was very light brown. He wore a close-fitting
+wool hat, that flapped down and his clothes were seal-brown in
+color, but much worn, and evidently old. I asked him where he lived,
+and he said he was a stranger going West, on a pioneering tour. Then
+I asked what ailed his face, and he pulled the handkerchief over his
+left eye, and said he was partly paralyzed from an accident. Just
+then, the eastern train blew for T----. He said he wanted some
+cigars or a pipe, as he had lost his own on the way, and wondered if
+he would have time to go out and buy some. I told him no; but that
+he could have a couple of cigars from my box. He thanked me, and
+took two, laying down a silver dime on top of the box. He put his
+hand in the inside pocket of his coat, and pulled out an empty
+envelope, twisted it, lit it by the coal fire in the grate, and
+lighted his cigar. The train rolled into the station; he passed out,
+and I saw him jump aboard the front passenger coach. He had thrown
+the paper, as he thought, into the fire, but it slipped off the
+grate, fell just inside the fender, and the flame went out. There
+was something so very peculiar in his looks and manner, that I
+thought there was some mystery about his movements. I picked up the
+paper, saw the writing on it, and locked it up in my cash drawer. He
+had evidently been a very handsome man, before his 'accident', but
+he had a jaded, worried, wretched look. When a detective from
+Baltimore interviewed me, I told him all I knew, and gave him the
+paper."
+
+Again Mr. Dunbar drew closer to the jury, held up the former
+fragment of envelope, and then took from his pocket a second piece.
+Jagged edges fitted into each other, and he lifted for the
+inspection of hundreds of eyes, the long envelope marked and
+underscored:-"LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ROBERT LUKE DARRINGTON."
+The lower edge of the paper was at one corner brown, scorched,
+somewhat burned.
+
+"Lucullus Grantlin."
+
+An elderly man of noble presence advanced, and Mr. Dunbar met and
+shook hands with him, accompanying him almost to the stand. At sight
+of his white head, and flowing silvery beard, Beryl's heart almost
+ceased its pulsation. If, during her last illness her mother had
+acquainted him with their family history, then indeed all was lost.
+It was as impossible to reach him and implore his silence, as though
+the ocean rocked between them; and how would he interpret the
+pleading gaze she fixed upon his face? The imminence of the danger,
+vanquished every scruple, strangled her pride. She caught Mr.
+Dunbar's eye, beckoned him to approach.
+
+When he stood before her, she put out her hand, seized one of his,
+and drew him down until his black head almost touched hers. She
+placed her lips close to his ear, and whispered:
+
+"For God's sake spare the secrets of a death-bed. Be merciful to me
+now; oh! I entreat you--do not drag my mother from her grave! Do not
+question Doctor Grantlin."
+
+She locked her icy hands around his, pressing it convulsively.
+Turning, he laid  his lips close to the silky fold of hair that had
+fallen across her ear:
+
+"If I dismiss this witness, will you tell me the truth? Will you
+give me the name of the man whom I am hunting? Will you confess all
+to me?"
+
+"I have no sins to confess. I have made my last statement. If you
+laid my coffin at my feet, I should only say I am innocent; I would
+tell you nothing more."
+
+"Then his life is so precious, you are resolved to die, rather than
+trust me?"
+
+She dropped his hand, and leaned back in her chair, closing her
+eyes. When she opened them, Doctor Grantlin was speaking:
+
+"I am on my way to Havana, with an invalid daughter, and stopped
+here last night, at the request of Mr. Dunbar."
+
+"Please state all that you know of the prisoner, and of the
+circumstances which induced her to visit X----."
+
+"I first saw the prisoner in August last, when she summoned me to
+see her mother, who was suffering from an attack of fever. I
+discovered that she was in a dangerous condition in consequence of
+an aneurism located in the carotid artery, and when she had been
+relieved of malarial fever, I told both mother and daughter that an
+operation was necessary, to remove the aneurism. Soon after, I left
+the city for a month, and on my return the daughter again called me
+in. I advised that without delay the patient should be removed to
+the hospital, where a surgeon--a specialist--could perform the
+operation. To this the young lady objected, on the ground that she
+could not assist in nursing, if her mother entered the hospital; and
+she would not consent to the separation. She asked what amount would
+be required to secure at home the services of the surgeon, a trained
+nurse, and the subsequent treatment; and I told her I thought a
+hundred dollars would cover all incidentals, and secure one of the
+most skilful surgeons in the city. I continued from time to time to
+see the mother, and administered such medicines as I deemed
+necessary to invigorate and tone up the patient's system for the
+operation. One day in October, the young lady came to pay me for
+some prescriptions, and asked if a few weeks' delay would enhance
+the danger of the operation. I assured her it was important to lose
+no time, and urged her to arrange matters so as to remove the
+patient to the hospital as soon as possible, offering to procure her
+admission. She showed great distress, and informed me that she hoped
+to receive very soon a considerable sum of money, from some artistic
+designs that she felt sure would secure the prize. A week later she
+came again, and I gave her a prescription to allay her mother's
+nervousness. Then, with much agitation, she told me that she was
+going South by the night express, to seek assistance from her
+mother's father, who was a man of wealth, but had disowned Mrs.
+Brentano on account of her marriage. She asked for a written
+statement of the patient's condition, and the absolute necessity of
+the operation. I wrote it, and as she stood looking at the paper,
+she said:
+
+"'Doctor do you believe in an Ahnung?' I said, 'A what?' She
+answered slowly and solemnly: 'An Ahnung--a presentiment? I have a
+crushing presentiment that trouble will come to me, if I leave
+mother; and yet she entreats, commands me to go South. It is my duty
+to obey her, but the errand is so humiliating I shrink, I dread it.
+I shall not be long away, and meanwhile do please be so kind as to
+see her, and cheer her up. If her father refuses to give me the one
+hundred dollars, I will take her to the hospital when I return.' I
+walked to the door with her, and her last words were: 'Doctor, I
+trust my mother to you; don't let her suffer.' I have never seen her
+again, until I entered this room. I visited Mrs. Brentano several
+times, but she grew worse very rapidly. One night the ensuing week,
+my bell was rung at twelve o'clock, and a woman gave me this note,
+which was written by the prisoner immediately after her arrest, and
+which enclosed a second, addressed to her mother."
+
+As he read aloud the concluding lines invoking the mother's prayers,
+the doctor's voice trembled. He took off his spectacles, wiped them,
+and resumed:
+
+"I was shocked and distressed beyond expression, for I could no more
+connect the idea of crime with that beautiful, noble souled girl,
+than with my own sinless daughter; and I reproached myself then, and
+doubly condemn myself now, that I did not lend her the money. All
+that was possible to alleviate the suffering of that mother, I did
+most faithfully. Under my personal superintendence she was made
+comfortable in the hospital; and I stood by her side when Doctor--
+operated on the aneurism; but her impaired constitution could not
+bear the strain, and she sank rapidly. She was delirious, and never
+knew why her daughter was detained; because I withheld the note.
+Just before the end came, her mind cleared, and she wrote a few
+lines which I sent to the prisoner. From all that I know of Miss
+Brentano, I feel constrained to say, she impressed me as one of the
+purest, noblest and most admirable characters I have ever met. She
+supported her mother and herself by her pencil, and a more refined,
+sensitive woman, a more tenderly devoted daughter I have yet to
+meet."
+
+"Does your acquaintance with the family suggest any third party, who
+would be interested in Gen'l Darrington's will, or become a
+beneficiary by its destruction?"
+
+"No. They seemed very isolated people; those two women lived without
+any acquaintances, as far as I know, and apared proudly indifferent
+to the outside world. I do not think they had any relatives, and the
+only name I heard Mrs. Brentano utter in her last illness was,
+'Ignace,--Ignace.' She often spoke of her'darling,' and her 'good
+little girl'."
+
+"Did you see a gentleman who visited the prisoner? Did you ever hear
+she had a lover?"
+
+"I neither saw any gentleman, nor heard she had a lover. In January,
+I received a letter from the prisoner enclosing an order on S--& E--,
+photographers of New York, for the amount due her, on a certain
+design for a Christmas card, which had received the Boston first
+prize of three hundred dollars. With the permission of the Court, I
+should like to read it. There is no objection?"
+
+"PENITENTIARY CELL, JANUARY 8TH
+
+"In the name of my dead, whom I shall soon join--I desire to thank
+you, dear Doctor Grantlin, for your kind care of my darling; and
+especially for your delicate and tender regard for all that remains
+on earth of my precious mother. The knowledge that she was treated
+with the reverence due to a lady, that she was buried--not as a
+pauper, but sleeps her last sleep under the same marble roof that
+shelters your dear departed ones, is the one ray of comfort that can
+ever pierce the awful gloom that has settled like a pall over me. I
+am to be tried soon for the black and horrible crime I never
+committed; and the evidence is so strong against me, the
+circumstances I cannot explain, are so accusing, the belief of my
+guilt is so general in this community, that I have no hope of
+acquittal; therefore I make my preparations for death. Please
+collect the money for which I enclose an order, and out of it, take
+the amount you spent when mother died. It will comfort me to know,
+that we do not owe a stranger for the casket that shuts her away
+from all grief, into the blessed Land of Peace. Keep the remainder,
+and when you hear that I am dead, unjustly offered up an innocent
+victim to appease justice, that must have somebody's blood in
+expiation, then take my body and mother's and have us laid side by
+side in the Potter's field. The law will crush my body, but it is
+pure and free from every crime, and it will be worthy still to touch
+my mother's in a common grave. Oh, Doctor! Does it not seem that
+some terrible curse has pursued me; and that the three hundred
+dollars I toiled and prayed for, was kept back ten days too late to
+save me? My Christmas card will at least bury us decently--away from
+the world that trampled me down. Do not doubt my innocence, and it
+will comfort me to feel that he who closed my mother's eyes,
+believes that her unfortunate child is guiltless and unstained. In
+life, and in death, ever
+
+"Most gratefully your debtor,
+
+"BERYL BRENTANO."
+
+A few moments of profound silence ensued: then Doctor Grantlin
+handed some article to Mr. Dunbar, and stepping down from the stand,
+walked toward the prisoner.
+
+She had covered her face with her hands, while he gave his
+testimony: striving to hide the anguish that his presence revived.
+He placed his hand on her shoulder, and whispered brokenly:
+
+"My child, I know you are innocent. Would to God I could help you to
+prove it to these people!"
+
+The terrible strain gave way suddenly, her proud head was laid
+against his arm, and suppressed emotion shook her, as a December
+storm smites and bows some shivering weed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+Friday, the fifth and last day of the trial, was ushered in by a
+tempest of wind and rain, that drove the blinding sheets of sleet
+against the court-house windows with the insistence of an icy flail;
+while now and then with spasmodic bursts of fury the gale
+heightened, rattled the sash, moaned hysterically, like invisible
+fiends tearing at the obstacles that barred entrance. So dense was
+the gloom pervading the court-room, that every gas jet was burning
+at ten o'clock, when Mr. Dunbar rose and took a position close to
+the jury-box. The gray pallor of his sternly set face increased his
+resemblance to a statue of the Julian type, and he looked rigid as
+granite, as he turned his brilliant eyes full of blue fire upon the
+grave, upturned countenances of the twelve umpires:
+
+"Gentlemen of the Jury: The sanctity of human life is the foundation
+on which society rests, and its preservation is the supreme aim of
+all human legislation. Rights of property, of liberty, are merely
+conditional, subordinated to the superlative divine right of life.
+Labor creates property, law secures liberty, but God alone gives
+life; and woe to that tribunal, to those consecrated priests of
+divine justice, who, sworn to lay aside passion and prejudice, and
+to array themselves in the immaculate robes of a juror's
+impartiality, yet profane the loftiest prerogative with which
+civilized society can invest mankind, and sacrilegiously extinguish,
+in the name of justice, that sacred spark which only Jehovah's fiat
+kindles. To the same astute and unchanging race, whose relentless
+code of jurisprudence demanded 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
+tooth, a life for a life,' we owe the instructive picture of
+cautious inquiry, of tender solicitude for the inviolability of
+human life, that glows in immortal lustre on the pages of the
+'Mechilti' of the Talmud. In the trial of a Hebrew criminal, there
+were 'Lactees,' consisting of two men, one of whom stood at the door
+of the court, with a red flag in his hand, and the other sat on a
+white horse at some distance on the road that led to execution. Each
+of these men cried aloud continually, the name of the suspected
+criminal, of the witnesses, and his crime; and vehemently called
+upon any person who knew anything in his favor to come forward and
+testify. Have we, supercilious braggarts of this age of progress,
+attained the prudential wisdom of Sanhedrim?
+
+"The State pays an officer to sift, probe, collect and array the
+evidences of crime, with which the criminal is stoned to death; does
+it likewise commission and compensate an equally painstaking, lynx-
+eyed official whose sole duty is to hunt and proclaim proofs of the
+innocence of the accused? The great body of the commonwealth is
+committed in revengeful zeal to prosecution; upon whom devolves the
+doubly sacred and imperative duty of defence? Are you not here to
+give judgment in a cause based on an indictment by a secret
+tribunal, where ex parte testimony was alone received, and the voice
+of defence could not be heard? The law infers that the keen instinct
+of self-preservation will force the accused to secure the strongest
+possible legal defenders; and failing in this, the law perfunctorily
+assigns counsel to present testimony in defence. Do the scales
+balance?
+
+"Imagine a race for heavy stakes; the judges tap the bell; three or
+four superb thoroughbreds carefully trained on that track,
+laboriously groomed, waiting for the signal, spring forward; and
+when the first quarter is reached, a belated fifth, handicapped with
+the knowledge that he has made a desperately bad start, bounds after
+them. If by dint of some superhuman grace vouchsafed, some latent
+strain, some most unexpected speed, he nears, overtakes, runs neck
+and neck, slowly gains, passes all four and dashes breathless and
+quivering under the string, a whole length ahead, the world of
+spectators shouts the judges smile, and number five wins the stakes.
+But was the race fair?
+
+"Is not justice, the beloved goddess of our idolatry, sometimes so
+blinded by clouds of argument, and confused by clamor that she fails
+indeed to see the dip of the beam? If the accused be guilty and
+escape conviction, he still lives; and while it is provided that no
+one can be twice put in jeopardy of his life for the same offence,
+vicious tendencies impel to renewal of crime, and Nemesis, the
+retriever of justice, may yet hunt him down. If the accused be
+innocent as the archangels, but suffer conviction and execution,
+what expiation can justice offer for judicially slaughtering him?
+Are the chances even?
+
+"All along the dim vista of the annals of criminal jurisprudence,
+stand grim memorials that mark the substitution of innocent victims
+for guilty criminals; and they are solemn sign-posts of warning,
+melancholy as the whitening bones of perished caravans in desert
+sands. History relates, and tradition embalms, a sad incident of the
+era of the Council of Ten, when an innocent boy was seized, tried
+and executed for the murder of a nobleman, whose real assassin
+confessed the crime many years subsequent. In commemoration of the
+public horror manifested, when the truth was published, Venice
+decreed that henceforth a crier should proclaim in the Tribunal just
+before a death sentence was pronounced, 'Ricordatevi del povero
+Marcolini! remember the poor Marcolini;' beware of merely
+circumstantial evidence.
+
+"To another instance I invite your attention. A devoted Scotch
+father finding that his own child had contracted an unfortunate
+attachment to a man of notoriously bad character, interdicted all
+communication, and locked his daughter into a tenement room; the
+adjoining apartment (with only a thin partition wall between) being
+occupied by a neighbor, who overheard the angry altercation that
+ensued. He recognized the voices of father and daughter, and the
+words 'barbarity,' 'cruelty, 'death,' were repeatedly heard. The
+father at last left the room, locking his child in as a prisoner.
+After a time, strange noises were heard by the tenant of the
+adjoining chamber; suspicion was aroused, a bailiff was summoned,
+the door forced open, and there lay the dying girl weltering in
+blood, with the fatal knife lying near. She was asked if her father
+had caused her sad condition, and she made an affirmative gesture
+and expired. At that moment the father returned, and stood stupefied
+with horror, which was interpreted as a consciousness of guilt; and
+this was corroborated by the fact that his shirt sleeve was
+sprinkled with blood. In vain he asserted his innocence, and showed
+that the blood stains were the result of a bandage having become
+untied where he had bled himself a few days before. The words and
+groans overheard, the blood, the affirmation of the dying woman,
+every damning circumstance constrained the jury to convict him of
+the murder. He was hung in chains, and his body left swinging from
+the gibbet. The new tenant, who subsequently rented the room, was
+ransacking the chamber in which the girl died, when, in a cavity of
+the chimney where it had fallen unnoticed, was found a paper written
+by this girl, declaring her intention to commit suicide, and closing
+with the words: 'My inhuman father is the cause of my death'; thus
+explaining her dying gestures. On examination of this document by
+the friends and relatives of the girl, it was recognized and
+identified as her handwriting; and it established the fact that the
+father had died innocent of every crime, except that of trying to
+save his child from a degrading marriage.
+
+"Now, mark the prompt and satisfactory reparation decreed by
+justice, and carried out by the officers of the law. The shrivelled,
+dishonored body was lowered from the gibbet, given to his relatives
+for decent burial, and the magistrates who sentenced him, ordered a
+flag waved over his grave, as compensation for all his wrongs.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, to save you from the commission of a wrong
+even more cruel, I come to-day to set before you clearly the facts,
+elicited from witnesses which the honorable and able counsel for the
+prosecution declined to cross-examine. An able expounder of the law
+of evidence has warned us that: 'The force of circumstantial
+evidence being exclusive in its nature, and the mere coincidence of
+the hypothesis with the circumstances, being, in the abstract,
+insufficient, unless they exclude every other supposition, it is
+essential to inquire, with the most scrupulous attention, what other
+hypothesis there may be, agreeing wholly or partially with the facts
+in evidence.'
+
+"A man of very marked appearance was seen running toward the
+railroad, on the night of the twenty-sixth, evidently goaded by some
+unusual necessity to leave the neighborhood of X--before the arrival
+of the passenger express. It is proved that he passed the station
+exactly at the time the prisoner deposed she heard the voice, and
+the half of the envelope that enclosed the missing will, was found
+at the spot where the same person was seen, only a few moments
+later. Four days afterward, this man entered a small station in
+Pennsylvania, paid for a railroad ticket, with a coin identical in
+value and appearance with those stolen from the tin box, and as if
+foreordained to publish the steps he was striving to efface,
+accidentally left behind him the trumpet-tongued fragment of
+envelope, that exactly fitted into the torn strip dropped at the
+bridge. The most exhaustive and diligent search shows that stranger
+was seen by no one else in X--; that he came as a thief in the
+night, provided with chloroform to drug his intended victim, and
+having been detected in the act of burglariously abstracting the
+contents of the tin box, fought with, and killed the venerable old
+man, whom he had robbed.
+
+"Under cover of storm and darkness he escaped with his plunder, to
+some point north of X--where doubtless he boarded (unperceived) the
+freight train, and at some convenient point slipped into a wooded
+country, and made his way to Pennsylvania. Why were valuable bonds
+untouched? Because they might aid in betraying him. What conceivable
+interest had he in the destruction of Gen'l Darrington's will? It is
+in evidence, that the lamp was burning, and the contents of that
+envelope could have possessed no value for a man ignorant of the
+provisions of the will; and the superscription it was impossible to
+misread. Suppose that this mysterious person was fully cognizant of
+the family secrets of the Darringtons? Suppose that he knew that
+Mrs. Brentano and her daughter would inherit a large fortune, if
+Gen'l Darrington died intestate? If he had wooed and won the heart
+of the daughter, and believed that her rights had been sacrificed to
+promote the aggrandizement of an alien, the adopted step-son Prince,
+had not such a man, the accepted lover of the daughter, a personal
+interest in the provisions of a will which disinherited Mrs.
+Brentano, and her child? Have you not now, motive, means, and
+opportunity, and links of evidence that point to this man as the
+real agent, the guilty author of the awful crime we are all leagued
+in solemn, legal covenant to punish? Suppose that fully aware of the
+prisoner's mission to X--, he had secretly followed her, and
+supplemented her afternoon visit, by the fatal interview of the
+night? Doubtless he had intended escorting her  home, but when the
+frightful tragedy was completed, the curse of Cain drove him, in
+terror, to instant flight; and he sought safety in western wilds,
+leaving his innocent and hapless betrothed to bear the penalty of
+his crime. The handkerchief used to administer chloroform, bore her
+initials; was doubtless a souvenir given in days gone by to that
+unworthy miscreant, as a token of affection, by the trusting woman
+he deserted in the hour of peril. In this solution of an awful
+enigma, is there an undue strain upon credylity; is there any
+antagonism of facts which the torn envelope, the pipe, the twenty-
+dollar gold pieces in Pennsylvania, do not reconcile?
+
+"A justly celebrated writer on the law of evidence has wisely said:
+'In criminal cases, the statement made by the accused is of
+essential importance in some points of view. Such is the complexity
+of human affairs, and so infinite the combinations of circumstances,
+that the true hypothesis which is capable of explaining and
+reuniting all the apparently conflicting circumstances of the case,
+may escape the acutest penetration: but the prisoner, so far as he
+alone is concerned, can always afford a clue to them; and though he
+may be unable to support his statement by evidence, his account of
+the transaction is, for this purpose, always most material and
+important. The effect may be to suggest a view, which consists with
+the innocence of the accused, and might otherwise have escaped
+observation.'
+
+"During the preliminary examination of this prisoner in October, she
+inadvertently furnished this clue, when, in explaining her absence
+from the station house, she stated that suddenly awakened from
+sleep, 'she heard the voice of one she knew and loved, and ran out
+to seek the speaker'. Twice she has repeated the conversation she
+heard, and every word is corroborated by the witness who saw and
+talked with the owner of that 'beloved voice'. When asked to give
+the name of that man, whom she expected to find in the street, she
+falters, refuses; love seals her lips, and the fact that she will
+die sooner than yield that which must bring him to summary justice,
+is alone sufficient to fix the guilt upon the real culprit.
+
+"There is a rule in criminal jurisprudence, that 'presumptive
+evidence ought  never to be relied on, when direct testimony is
+wilfully withheld'. She shudders at sight of the handkerchief; did
+she not give it to him, in some happy hour as a tender Ricordo? When
+the pipe which he lost in his precipitate flight is held up to the
+jury, she recognizes it  instantly as her lover's property, and
+shivers with horror at the danger of his detection and apprehension.
+Does not this array of accusing circumstances demand as careful
+consideration, as the chain held up to your scrutiny by the
+prosecution? In the latter, there is an important link missing,
+which the theory of the defence supplies. When the prisoner was
+arrested and searched, there was found in her possession only the
+exact amount of money, which it is in evidence, that she came South
+to obtain; and which she has solemnly affirmed was given to her by
+Gen'l Darrington. We know from memoranda found in the rifled box,
+that it contained only a few days previous, five hundred dollars in
+gold. Three twenty-dollar gold coins were discovered on the carpet,
+and one in the vault; what became of the remain ing three hundred
+and twenty dollars? With the exception of one hundred dollars found
+in the basket of the prisoner, she had only five copper pennies in
+her purse, when so unexpectedly arrested, that it was impossible she
+could have secreted anything. Three hundred and twenty dollars
+disappeared in company with the will, and like the torn envelope,
+two of those gold coins lifted their accusing faces in Pennsylvania,
+where the fugitive from righteous retribution paid for the wings
+that would transport him beyond risk of detection.
+
+"Both theories presented for your careful analysis, are based
+entirely upon circumstantial evidence; and is not the solution I
+offer less repugnant to the canons of credibility, and infinitely
+less revolting to every instinct of honor able manhood, than the
+horrible hypothesis that a refined, cultivated, noble Christian
+woman, a devoted daughter, irreproachable in antecedent life,
+bearing the fiery ordeal of the past four months with a noble
+heroism that commands the involuntary admiration of all who have
+watched her--that such a perfect type of beautiful womanhood as the
+prisoner presents, could deliberately plan and execute the vile
+scheme of theft and murder? Gentlemen, she is guilty of but one sin
+against the peace and order of this community: the sin of
+withholding the name of one for whose bloody crime she is not
+responsible. Does not her invincible loyalty, her unwavering
+devotion to the craven for whom she suffers, in vest her with the
+halo of a martyrdom, that appeals most powerfully to the noblest
+impulses of your nature, that enlists the warmest, holiest
+sympathies lying deep in your manly hearts? Analyze her statement;
+every utterance bears the stamp of innocence; and where she cannot
+explain truthfully, she declines to make any explanation. Hers is
+the sin of silence, the grievous evasion of justice by non-
+responsion, whereby the danger she will not avert by confession
+recoils upon her  innocent head. Bravely she took on her reluctant
+shoulders the galling burden of parental command, and stifling her
+proud repugnance, obediently came--a fair young stranger to 'Elm
+Bluff.' Receiving as a loan the money she came to beg for, she
+hurries away to fulfil another solemnly imposed injunction.
+
+"Gentlemen, is there any spot out yonder in God's Acre, where
+violets, blue as the eyes that once smiled upon you, now shed their
+fragrance above the sacred dust of your dead darlings; and the
+thought of which melts your hearts and dims your vision? Look at
+this mournful, touching witness, which comes from that holy cemetery
+to whisper to your souls, that the hands of the prisoner are as pure
+as those of your idols, folded under the sod. Only a little bunch of
+withered brown flowers, tied with a faded blue ribbon, that a poor
+girl bought with her hard earned pennies, and carried to a sick
+mother, to brighten a dreary attic; only a dead nosegay, which that
+mother requested should be laid as a penitential tribute on the tomb
+of the mother whom she had disobeyed; and this faithful young heart
+made the pilgrimage, and left the offering--and in consequence
+thereof, missed  the train that would have carried her safely back
+to her mother--and to peace. On the morning after the preliminary
+examination I went to the cemetery, and found the fatal flowers just
+where she had placed them, on the great marble cross that covers the
+tomb of 'Helena Tracey--wife of Luke Darringtun.'
+
+"You husbands and fathers who trust your names, your honor, the
+peace of your hearts-almost the salvation of your souls--to the
+women you love: staking the dearest interest of humanity, the
+sanctity of that heaven on earth--your stainless homes--upon the
+fidelity of womanhood, can you doubt for one instant, that the
+prisoner will accept death rather than betray the man she loves? No
+human plummet has sounded the depths of a woman's devotion; no
+surveyor's chain will ever mark the limits of a woman's faithful,
+patient endurance; and only the wings of an archangel can transcend
+that pinnacle to which the sublime principle of self-sacrifice
+exalts a woman's soul.
+
+"In a quaint old city on the banks of the Pegnitz, history records
+an instance of feminine self-abnegation, more enduring than
+monuments of brass. The law had decreed a certain provision for the
+maintenance of orphans; and two women in dire distress, seeing no
+possible avenue of help, accused themselves falsely of a capital
+crime, and were executed; thereby securing a support for the
+children they orphaned.
+
+"As a tireless and vigilant prosecutor of the real criminal, the
+Cain-branded man now wandering in some western wild, I charge the
+prisoner with only one sin, suicidal silence; and I commend her to
+your must tender compassion, believing that in every detail and
+minutiae she has spoken the truth; and that she is as innocent of
+the charge in the indictment as you or I. Remember that you have
+only presumptive proof to guide you in this solemn deliberation, and
+in the absence of direct proof, do not be deluded by a glittering
+sophistry, which will soon attempt to persuade you, that: 'A
+presumption which necessarily arises from circumstances,--is very
+often more convincing and more satisfactory than any other kind of
+evidence; it is not within the reach and compass of human abilities
+to invent a train of circumstances, which shall be so connected
+together as to amount to a proof of guilt, without affording
+opportunities of contradicting a great part, if not all, of these
+circumstances.'
+
+"Believe it not; circumstantial evidence has caused as much innocent
+blood to flow, as the cimeter of Jenghiz Khan. The counsel for the
+prosecution will tell you that every fact in this melancholy case
+stabs the prisoner, and that facts cannot lie. Abstractly and
+logically considered, facts certainly do not lie; but let us see
+whether the inferences deduced from what we believe to be facts, do
+not sometimes eclipse Ananias and Sapphira! Not long ago, the public
+heart thrilled with horror at the tidings of the Ashtabula railway
+catastrophe, in which a train of cars plunged through a bridge, took
+fire, and a number of passengers were consumed, charred beyond
+recognition. Soon afterward, a poor woman, mother of two children,
+commenced suit against the railway company, alleging that her
+husband had perished in that disaster. The evidence adduced was only
+of a circumstantial nature, as the body which had been destroyed by
+flames, could not be found. Searching in the debris at the fatal
+spot, she had found a bunch of keys, that she positively recognized
+as belonging to her husband, and in his possession when he died. One
+key fitted the clock in her house, and a mechanic was ready to swear
+that he had made such a key for the deceased. Another key fitted a
+chest she owned, and still another fitted the door of her house;
+while strongest of all proof, she found a piece of cloth which she
+identified as part of her husband's coat. A physician who knew her
+husband, testified that he rode as far as Buffalo on the same train
+with the deceased, on the fatal day of the disaster; and another
+witness deposed that he saw the deceased take the train at Buffalo,
+that went down to ruin at Ashtabula. Certainly the chain of
+circumstantial evidence, from veracious facts, seemed complete; but
+lo! during the investigation it was ascertained beyond doubt, to the
+great joy of the wife, that the husband had never been near
+Ashtabula, and was safe and well at a Pension Home in a Western
+State.
+
+"The fate of a very noble and innocent woman is now committed to
+your hands, and only presumptive proof is laid before you. 'The
+circumstance is always a fact; the presumption is the inference
+drawn from that fact. It is hence called presumptive proof, because
+it proceeds merely in opinion.' Suffer no brilliant sophistry to
+dazzle your judgment, no remnant of prejudice to swerve you from the
+path of fidelity to your oath. To your calm reasoning, your generous
+manly hearts, your Christian consciences, I resign the desolate
+prisoner; and as you deal with her, so may the God above us, the
+just and holy God who has numbered the hairs of her innocent head,
+deal here and hereafter with you and yours."
+
+That magnetic influence, whereby the emotions of an audience are
+swayed, as the tides that follow the moon, was in large measure the
+heritage of the handsome man who held the eyes of the jurymen in an
+almost unwinking gaze; and when his uplifted arm slowly fell to his
+side, Judge Dent grasped it in mute congratulation, and Mr.
+Churchill took his hand, and shook it warmly.
+
+Mr. Wolverton came forward to sum up the evidence for the
+prosecution, and laboriously recapitulated and dwelt upon the mass
+of facts which he claimed was susceptible of but one interpretation,
+and must compel the jury to convict, in accordance with the
+indictment.
+
+Upon the ears of the prisoner, his words fell as a harsh,
+meaningless murmur; and above the insistent mutter, rose and fell
+the waves of a rich, resonant voice, that surrounded, penetrated,
+electrified her brain; thrilled her whole being with a strange and
+inexplicable sensation of happiness. For months she had fought
+against the singular fascination that dwelt in those brilliant blue
+eyes, and lurked in every line of the swart, stern face; holding at
+bay the magnetic attraction which he exerted from the hour of the
+preliminary examination. Of all men. she had feared him most, had
+shrunk from every opportunity of contact, had execrated him as the
+malign personification, the veritable incarnation of the evil
+destiny that had hounded her from the day she first saw X----.
+
+Listening to his appeal for her deliverance, each word throbbing
+with the fervent beat of a heart that she knew was all her own, an
+exquisite sense of rest gradually stole over her; as a long-
+suffering child spent with pain, sinks, soothed at last in the
+enfolding arms of protective love. That dark, eloquent face drew,
+held her gaze with the spell of a loadstone, and even in the
+imminence of her jeopardy, she recalled the strange resemblance he
+bore to the militant angel she had once seen in a painting, where he
+wrestled with Satan for possession of the body of Moses. Disgrace,
+peril, the gaunt spectre of death suddenly dissolved, vanished in
+the glorious burst of rosy light that streamed into all the chill
+chambers of her heart; and she bowed her head in her hands, to hide
+the crimson that painted her cheeks.
+
+How long Mr. Wolverton talked, she never knew; but the lull that
+succeeded was broken by the tones of Judge Parkman.
+
+"Beryl Brentano, it is my duty to remind you that this is the last
+opportunity the law allows you, to speak in your own vindication.
+The testimony has all been presented to those appointed to decide
+upon its value. If there be any final statement that you may desire
+to offer in self-defence, you must make it now."
+
+Could the hundreds who watched and waited ever forget the sight of
+that superb, erect figure, that exquisite face, proud as Hypatia's,
+patient as Perpetua's; or the sound of that pathetic, unwavering
+voice? Mournfully, yet steadily, she raised her great grey eyes,
+darkened by the violet shadows suffering had cast, and looked at her
+judges.
+
+"I am guiltless of any and all crime. I have neither robbed, nor
+murdered; and I am neither principal, nor accomplice in the horrible
+sin imputed to me. I know nothing of the chloroform; I never touched
+the andiron; I never saw Gen'l Darrington but once. He gave me the
+gold and the sapphires, and I am as innocent of his death, and of
+the destruction of his will as the sinless little children who
+prattle at your firesides and nestle to sleep in your arms. My life
+has been disgraced and ruined by no act of mine, for I have kept my
+hands, my heart, my soul, as pure and free from crime as they were
+when God gave them to me. I am the helpless prey of suspicion, and
+the guiltless victim of the law. O, my judges! I do not crave your
+mercy--that is the despairing prayer of conscious guilt; I demand at
+your hands, justice."
+
+The rushing sound as of a coming flood filled her ears, and her
+words echoed vaguely from some immeasurably distant height. The
+gaslights seemed whirling in a Walpurgis maze, as she sat down and
+once more veiled her face in her hands.
+
+When she recovered sufficiently to listen, Mr. Churchill had risen
+for the closing speech of the prosecution.
+
+"Gentlemen of the Jury: I were a blot upon a noble profession, a
+disgrace to honorable manhood, and a monster in my own estimation,
+if I could approach the fatal Finis of this melancholy trial,
+without painful emotions of profound regret, that the solemn
+responsibility of my official position makes me the reluctant bearer
+of the last stern message uttered by retributive justice. How
+infinitely more enviable the duty of the Amicus Curiae, my gallant
+friend and quondam colleague, who in voluntary defence has so
+ingeniously, eloquently and nobly led a forlorn hope, that he knew
+was already irretrievably lost? Desperate, indeed, must he deem that
+cause for which he battles so valiantly, when dire extremity goads
+him to lift a rebellious and unfilial voice against the provisions
+of his foster-mother, Criminal Jurisprudence, in whose service he
+won the brilliant distinction and crown of laurel that excite the
+admiration and envy of a large family of his less fortunate foster-
+brothers. I honor his heroism, applaud his chivalrous zeal, and wish
+that I stood in his place; but not mine the privilege of mounting
+the white horse, and waving the red flag of the 'Lactees.' Dedicated
+to the mournful rites of justice, I have laid an iron hand on the
+quivering lips of pity, that cried to me like the voice of one of my
+own little ones; and very sorrowfully, at the command of conscience,
+reason and my official duty, I obey the mandate to ring down the
+black curtain on a terrible tragedy, feeling like Dante, when he
+confronted the doomed--
+
+"'And to a part I come, where no light shines.'"
+
+So clearly and ably has my distinguished associate, Mr. Wolverton,
+presented all the legal points bearing upon the nature and value of
+the proof, submitted for your examination, that any attempt to
+buttress his powerful argument, were an unpardonable reflection upon
+your intelligence, and his skill; and I shall confine my last effort
+in behalf of justice, to a brief analysis and comparison of the
+hypothesis of the defence, with the verified result of the
+prosecution.
+
+"Beautiful and sparkling as the frail glass of Murano, and equally
+as thin, as treacherously brittle, is the theory so skilfully
+manufactured in behalf of the accused; and so adroitly exhibited
+that the ingenious facets catch every possible gleam, and for a
+moment almost dazzle the eyes of the beholder. In attempting to cast
+a lance against the shield of circumstantial evidence, his weapon
+rebounded, recoiled upon his fine spun crystal and shivered it. What
+were the materials wherewith he worked? Circumstances, strained,
+well nigh dislocated by the effort to force them to fit into his
+Procrustean measure. A man was seen on the night of the twenty-
+sixth, who appeared unduly anxious to quit X--before daylight; and
+again the mysterious stranger was seen in a distant town in
+Pennsylvania, where he showed some gold coins of a certain
+denomination, and dropped on the floor one-half of an envelope, that
+once contained a will. In view of these circumstances (the
+prosecution calls them facts), the counsel for the defence PRESUMES
+that said stranger committed the murder, stole the will; and offers
+this opinion as presumptive proof that the prisoner is innocent. The
+argument runs thus: this man was an accepted lover of the accused,
+and therefore he must have destroyed the will that beggared his
+betrothed; but it is nowhere in evidence, that any lover existed,
+outside of the counsel's imagination; yet Asmodeus like he must
+appear when called for, and so we are expected to infer, assume,
+presume that because he stole the will he must be her lover. Does it
+not make your head swim to spin round in this circle of reasoning?
+In assailing the validity of circumstantial evidence, has he not cut
+his bridges, burned his ships behind him?
+
+"Gentlemen, fain would I seize this theory were it credible, and
+setting thereon, as in an ark, this most unfortunate prisoner, float
+her safely through the deluge of ruin, anchor her in peaceful
+security upon some far-off Ararat; but it has gone to pieces in the
+hands of its architect. Instead of rescuing the drowning, the wreck
+serves only to beat her down. If we accept the hypothesis of a lover
+at all, it will furnish the one missing link in the terrible chain
+that clanks around the luckless prisoner. The disappearance of the
+three hundred and twenty dollars has sorely perplexed the
+prosecution, and unexpectedly the defence offers us the one
+circumstance we lacked; the lover was lurking in the neighborhood,
+to learn the result of the visit, to escort her home; and to him the
+prisoner gave the missing gold, to him intrusted the destruction of
+the will. If that man came to 'Elm Bluff' prepared to rob and
+murder, by whom was he incited and instigated; and who was the
+accessory, and therefore particeps criminis? The prisoner's
+handkerchief was the medium of chloroforming that venerable old man,
+and can there be a reasonable doubt that she aided in administering
+it?
+
+"The prosecution could not explain why she came from the direction
+of the railroad bridge, which was far out of her way from 'Elm
+Bluff'; but the defence gives the most satisfactory solution: she
+was there, dividing her blood-stained spoils with the equally guilty
+accomplice--her lover. The prosecution brings to the bar of
+retribution only one criminal; the defence not only fastens the
+guilt upon this unhappy woman, by supplying the missing links, but
+proves premeditation, by the person of an accomplice. Four months
+have been spent in hunting some fact that would tend to exculpate
+the accused, but each circumstance dragged to light serves only to
+swell the dismal chorus, 'Woe to the guilty'. To-day she sits in the
+ashes of desolation, condemned by the unanimous evidence of every
+known fact connecred with this awful tragedy. To oppose this black
+and frightful host of proofs, what does she offer us? Simply her
+bare, solemnly reiterated denial of guilt. We hold our breath,
+hoping against hope that she will give some explanation, some
+solution, that our pitying hearts are waiting so eagerly to hear;
+but dumb as the Sphinx, she awaits her doom. You will weigh that
+bare denial in the scale with the evidence, and in this momentous
+duty recollect the cautious admonition that has been furnished to
+guide you: 'Cosceding that asseverations of innocence are always
+deserving of consideration by the executive, what is there to invest
+them with a conclusive efficacy, in opposition to a chain of
+presumptive evidence, the force and weight of which falls short only
+of mathematical demonstration?' The astute and eloquent counsel for
+defence, has cited some well-known cases, to shake your faith in the
+value of merely presumptive proof.
+
+"I offer for your consideration, an instance of the fallibility of
+merely bare, unsupported denial of guilt on the part of the accused.
+A priest at Lauterbach was suspected, arrested and tried for the
+murder of a woman, under very aggravated circumstances. He was
+subjected to eighty examinations; and each time solemnly denied the
+crime. Even when confronted at midnight with the skull of the victim
+murdered eight years before, he vehemently protested his innocence;
+called on the skull to declare him not the assassin, and appealed to
+the Holy Trinity to proclaim his innocence. Finally he confessed his
+crime; testified that while cutting the throat of his victim, he had
+exhorted her to repentance, had given her absolution, and that
+having concealed the corpse, he had said masses for her soul.
+
+"The forlorn and hopeless condition of the prisoner at this bar,
+appeals pathetically to that compassion which we are taught to
+believe coexists with justice, even in the omnipotent God we
+worship; yet in the face of incontrovertible facts elicited from
+reliable witnesses, of coincidences which no theory of accident can
+explain, can we stifle convictions, solely because she pleads 'not
+guilty'? Pertinent, indeed, was the ringing cry of that ancient
+prosecutor: 'Most illustrious Caesar! if denial of guilt be
+sufficient defence, who would ever be convicted?' You have been
+assured that inferences drawn from probable facts eclipse the
+stupendous falsehood of Ananias and Sapphira! Then the same family
+strain inevitably crops out, in the loosely-woven web of defensive
+presumptive evidence--whose pedigree we trace to the same parentage.
+God forbid that I should commit the sacrilege of arrogating His
+divine attribute--infallibility--for any human authority, however
+exalted; or claim it for any amount of proof, presumptive or
+positive. 'It is because humanity even when most cautious and
+discriminating is so mournfully fallible and prone to error, that in
+judging its own frailty, we require the aid and reverently invoke
+the guidance of Jehovah.' In your solemn deliberations bear in mind
+this epitome of an opinion, entitled to more than a passing
+consideration: 'Perhaps strong circumstantial evidence in cases of
+crime, committed for the most part in secret, is the most
+satisfactory of any from whence to draw the conclusion of guilt; for
+men may be seduced to perjury, by many base motives; but it can
+scarcely happen that many circumstances, especially if they be such
+over which the accuser could have no control, forming altogether the
+links of a transaction, should all unfortunately concur to fix the
+presumption of guilt on an individual, and yet such a conclusion be
+erroneous.'
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury: the prosecution believes that the
+overwhelming mass of evidence laid before you proves, beyond a
+reasonable doubt, that the prisoner did premeditatedly murder and
+rob Robert Luke Darrington; and in the name of justice, we demand
+that you vindicate the majesty of outraged law, by rendering a
+verdict of 'guilty'. All the evidence in this case points the finger
+of doom at the prisoner, as to the time, the place, the opportunity,
+the means, the conduct and the motive. Suffer not sympathy for
+youthful womanhood and wonderful beauty, to make you recreant to the
+obligations of your oath, to decide this issue of life or death,
+strictly in accordance with the proofs presented; and bitterly
+painful as is your impending duty, do not allow the wail of pity to
+drown the demands of justice, or the voice of that blood that cries
+to heaven for vengeance upon the murderess. May the righteous God
+who rules the destinies of the universe guide you, and enable you to
+perform faithfully your awful duty."
+
+Painfully solemn was the profound silence that pervaded the court-
+room, and the eyes of the multitude turned anxiously to the grave
+countenance of the Judge. Mr. Dunbar had seated himself at a small
+table, not far from Beryl, and resting his elbow upon it, leaned his
+right temple in the palm of his hand, watching from beneath his
+contracted black brows the earnest, expectant faces of the jurymen;
+and his keen, glowing eyes indexed little of the fierce, wolfish
+pangs that gnawed ceaselessly at his heart, as the intolerable
+suspense drew near its end.
+
+Judge Parkman leaned forward.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury: before entering that box, as the appointed
+ministers of justice, to arbitrate upon the most momentous issue
+that can engage human attention--the life or death of a fellow
+creature--you called your Maker to witness that you would divest
+your minds of every shadow of prejudice, would calmly, carefully,
+dispassionately consider, analyze and weigh the evidence submitted
+for your investigation; and irrespective of consequences, render a
+verdict in strict accordance with the proofs presented. You have
+listened to the testimony of the witnesses, to the theory of the
+prosecution, to the theory of the counsel for the defence; you have
+heard the statement of the accused, her repeated denial of the crime
+with which she stands charged; and finally you have heard the
+arguments of counsel, the summing up of all the evidence. The
+peculiar character of some of the facts presented as proof, requires
+on your part the keenest and most exhaustive analysis of the
+inferences to be drawn from them, and you 'have need of patience,
+wisdom and courage'. While it is impossible that you can contemplate
+the distressing condition of the accused without emotions of
+profound compassion, your duty 'is prescribed by the law, which
+allows you no liberty to indulge any sentiment, inconsistent with
+its strict performance'. You should begin with the legal presumption
+that the prisoner is innocent, and that presumption must continue,
+until her guilt is satisfactorily proved. This is the legal right of
+the prisoner; contingent on no peculiar circumstances of any
+particular case, but is the common right of every person accused of
+a crime. The law surrounds the prisoner with a coat of mail, that
+only irrefragable proofs of guilt can pierce, and the law declares
+her innocent, unless the proof you have heard on her trial satisfies
+you, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she is guilty. What constitutes
+reasonable doubt, it becomes your duty to earnestly and carefully
+consider. It is charged that the defendant, on the night of the
+twenty-sixth of October, did wilfully, deliberately, and
+premeditatedly murder Robert Luke Darrington, by striking him with a
+brass andiron. The legal definition of murder is the unlawful
+killing of another, with malice aforethought; and is divided into
+two degrees. Any murder committed knowingly, intentionally and
+wantonly, and without just cause or excuse, is murder in the first
+degree; and this is the offence charged against the prisoner at the
+bar. If you believe from the evidence, that the defendant, Beryl
+Brentano, did at the time and place named, wilfully and
+premeditatedly kill Robert Luke Darrington, then it will become your
+duty to find the defendant guilty of murder; if you do not so
+believe, then it will be your duty to acquit her. A copy of the
+legal definition of homicide, embracing murder in the first and
+second degrees, and of manslaughter in the first and second degrees,
+will be furnished for your instruction; and it is your right and
+privilege after a careful examination of all the evidence, to
+convict of a lesser crime than that charged in the indictment,
+provided all the evidence in this case, should so convince your
+minds, to the exclusion of a reasonable doubt.
+
+"In your deliberations you will constantly bear in memory, the
+following long established rules provided for the guidance of
+jurors:
+
+"'I.--The burden of proof rests upon the prosecution, and does not
+shift or change to the defendant in any phase or stage of the case.
+
+"'II.--Before the jury can convict the accused, they must be
+satisfied from the evidence that she is guilty of the offence
+charged in the indictment, beyond a reasonable doubt. It is not
+sufficient that they should believe her guilt only probable. No
+degree of probability merely, will authorize a conviction; but the
+evidence must be of such character and tendency as to produce a
+moral certainty of the prisoner's guilt, to the exclusion of
+reasonable doubt.
+
+"'III.--Each fact which is necessary in the chain of circumstances
+to establish the guilt of the accused, must be distinctly proved by
+competent legal evidence, and if the jury have reasonable doubt as
+to any material fact, necessary to be proved in order to support the
+hypothesis of the prisoner's guilt, to the exclusion of every other
+reasonable hypothesis, they must find her not guilty.
+
+"'IV.--If the jury are satisfied from the evidence, that the accused
+is guilty of the offence charged, beyond reasonable doubt, and no
+rational hypothesis or explanation can be framed or given (upon the
+whole evidence in the cause) consistent with the innocence of the
+accused, and at the same time consistent with the facts proved, they
+ought to find her guilty. The jury are the exclusive judges of the
+evidence, of its weight, and of the credibility of the witnesses. It
+is their duty to accept and be governed by the law, as given by the
+Court in its instructions.'
+
+"The evidence in this case is not direct and positive, but
+presumptive; and your attention has been called to some well known
+cases of persons convicted of, and executed for capital crimes,
+whose entire innocence was subsequently made apparent. These
+arguments and cases only prove that, 'all human evidence, whether it
+be positive or presumptive in its character, like everything else
+that partakes of mortality, is fallible. The reason may be as
+completely convinced by circumstantial--as by positive evidence, and
+yet may possibly not arrive at the truth by either.'
+
+"The true question, therefore, for your consideration, is not the
+kind of evidence in this case, but it is, what is the result of it
+in your minds? If it has failed to satisfy you of the guilt of the
+accused, and your minds are not convinced, vacillate in doubt, then
+you must acquit her, be the evidence what it may, positive or
+presumptive; but if the result of the whole evidence satisfies you,
+it you are convinced that she is guilty, then it is imperatively
+your duty to convict her, even if the character of the evidence be
+wholly circumstantial." Such is the law.
+
+"In resigning this case to you, I deem it my duty to direct your
+attention to one point, which I suggest that you consider. If the
+accused administered chloroform, did it indicate that her original
+intention was solely to rob the vault? Is the act of administering
+the chloroform consistent with the theory of deliberate and
+premeditated murder? In examining the facts submitted by counsel,
+take the suggestion just presented, with you, and if the facts and
+circumstances proved against her, can be accounted for on the theory
+of intended, deliberate robbery, without necessarily involving
+premeditated murder, it is your privilege to put that merciful
+construction upon them.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, I commit this mournful and terrible case to
+your decision; and solemnly adjure you to be governed in your
+deliberations, by the evidence as you understand it, by the law as
+furnished in these instructions, and to render such verdict, as your
+reason compels, as your matured judgment demands, and your
+conscience unhesitatingly approves and sanctions. May God direct and
+control your decision."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Drifting along the stream of testimony that rolled in front of the
+jury-box, an eager and excited public had with scarcely a dissenting
+voice arrived at the conclusion, that the verdict was narrowed to
+the limits of only two possibilities. It was confidently expected
+that the jury would either acquit unconditionally, or fail to agree;
+thus prolonging suspense, by a mistrial. It was six o'clock when,
+the jurors, bearing the andiron, handkerchief, pipe, and a diagram
+of the bedroom at "Elm Bluff", were led away to their final
+deliberation; yet so well assured was the mass of spectators, that
+they would promptly return to render a favorable verdict, that
+despite the inclemency of the weather, there was no perceptible
+diminution of the anxious crowd of men and women.
+
+The night had settled prematurely down, black and stormy; and though
+the fury of the gale seemed at one time to have spent itself, the
+wind veered to the implacable east, and instead of fitful gusts, a
+steady roaring blast freighted with rain smote the darkness. The
+officer conducted his prisoner across the dim corridor, and opened
+the door of the small anteroom, which frequent occupancy had
+rendered gloomily familiar.
+
+"I wish I could make you more comfortable, and it is a shame to shut
+you up in such an ice-box. I will throw my overcoat on the floor,
+and you can wrap your feet up in it. Yes, you must take it. I shall
+keep warm at the stove in the Sheriff's room. The Judge will not
+wait later than ten o'clock, then I'll take you back to Mrs.
+Singleton. It seems you prefer to remain here alone."
+
+"Yes, entirely alone."
+
+"You are positive, you won't try a little hot punch, or a glass of
+wine?"
+
+"Thank you, but I wish only to be alone."
+
+"Don't be too down-hearted. You will never be convicted under that
+indictment, at least not by this jury, for I have a suspicion that
+there is one man among them, who will stand out until the stars
+fall, and I will tell you why. I happened to be looking at him, when
+your Christmas card was shown by Mr. Dunbar. The moment he saw it,
+he started, stretched out his hand, and as he looked at it, I saw
+him choke up, and pass his hand over his eyes. Soon after Christmas,
+that man lost his only child, a girl five years old, who had scarlet
+fever. To divert her mind, they gave her a Christmas card to play
+with, that some friend had sent to her mother. She had it in her
+hand when she died, in convulsions, and it was put in her coffin and
+buried with her. My wife helped to nurse and shroud her, and she
+told me it was the card shown in court; it was your card. The law
+can't cut out the heartstrings of the jury, and I don't believe that
+man would lift his hand against your life, any sooner than he would
+strike the face of his dead child."
+
+He locked the door, and Beryl found herself at last alone, in the
+dreary little den where a single gas burner served only to show the
+surrounding cheerlessness. The furniture comprised a wooden bench
+along the wall, two chairs, and a table in the middle of the floor;
+and on the dusty panes of the grated window, a ray of ruddy light
+from a lamp post in the street beneath, broke through the leaden
+lances of the rain, and struggled for admission.
+
+The neurotic pharmacopoeia contains nothing so potent as despair to
+steady quivering nerves, and steel to superhuman endurance. For
+Beryl, the pendulum of suspense had ceased to swing, because the
+spring of hope had snapped; and the complete surrender, the mute
+acceptance of the worst possible to come, had left her numb,
+impervious to dread. As one by one the discovered facts spelled
+unmistakably the name of her brother, allowing no margin to doubt
+his guilt, the necessity of atonement absorbed every other
+consideration; and the desire to avert his punishment extinguished
+the last remnant of selfish anxiety. If by suffering in his stead,
+she could secure to him life--the opportunities of repentance, of
+expiation, of making his peace with God, of saving his immortal
+soul--how insignificant seemed all else. The innate love of life,
+the natural yearning for happiness, the once fervent aspirations for
+fame--the indescribable longing for the fruition of youth's high
+hopes, which like a Siren sang somewhere in the golden mists of
+futurity--all these were now crushed beyond recognition in the
+whirlwind that had wrecked her.
+
+Her father slept under silvery olives in a Tuscan dell, her mother
+within hearing of the waves that broke on the Atlantic shore; and if
+the wanderer could be purified by penitential tears, what mattered
+the shattering of the family circle on earth, when in the eternal
+Beyond, it would be indissolubly reformed? Over the black gulf that
+yawned in her young, pure life, the wings of her Christian faith
+bore her steadily, unwaveringly to the heavenly rest, that she knew
+remained for the people of God; and so, she seemed to have shaken
+hands with the things of time and earth, and to stand on the border
+land, girded for departure. To meet her beloved dead, with the
+blessed announcement that Bertie must join them after a while,
+because she had ransomed his precious soul; and that the family
+would be complete under the heavenly roof, was recompense so rich,
+that the fangs of disgrace, of physical and mental torture were
+effectually extracted. By day and by night the ladder of prayer
+lifted her soul into that serene realm, where the fountains of balm
+are never drained; and into her face stole the reflection of that
+peace which only communion with the Christian's God can bring to
+those whom grief has claimed for its own.
+
+To-night, as she listened to the Coronach chanted by the gale, and
+the dismal accompaniment of the pelting rain, she realized how
+utterly isolated was her position, and kneeling on the bare floor,
+crossed her arms on the table, bowed her bead upon them, and prayed
+for patience and strength. The ordeal had been fiery, but the end
+was at hand, and release must be near.
+
+She heard quick steps in the corridor, and the key was turned in the
+lock. Had the jury so promptly decided to destroy her? For an
+instant only, she shut her eyes; and when she opened them, Mr.
+Dunbar was leaning over her, folding closely about her shoulders
+some heavy wrap, whose soft fur collar his fingers buttoned around
+her throat. She had not known that she was cold, until the delicious
+sensation of warmth crept like a caressing touch over her chilled
+limbs. She did not stir, and neither spoke; but after a moment he
+turned toward the door; then she rose.
+
+"There is something I wish to say, and this is my last opportunity,
+as after to-night we shall not meet again. During the past four
+months I have said harsh, bitter things to you, and have unjustly
+judged you. In grateful recognition of all that you have so
+faithfully essayed to accomplish in my behalf, I ask you now to
+forget everything but my gratitude for your effort to save me; and I
+offer my hand to you, as the one friend who sacrificed even his
+manly pride, and endured humiliation in order to redress my wrongs.
+I thank you very sincerely, Mr. Dunbar."
+
+He took her outstretched hand, pressed it against his cheek, his
+eyes, held it to his lips; then a half smothered groan escaped him,
+and afraid to trust himself, he went quickly out.
+
+Believing that she stood on the confines of another world, she had
+possessed her soul in patience, waiting for the consummation of the
+sacrifice; yet at the crisis of her fate, that singular,
+incomprehensible influence, long resisted, drew her thoughts to him,
+whom she regarded as the chosen puppet of destiny to hurry her into
+an untimely grave. She had fought the battle with him, under fearful
+odds; conscious of sedition in the heart that defied him, warily
+clutching with one hand the throat of rebellion in her citadel,
+while with the other, she parried assault.
+
+Keeping lonely vigil, amid the strewn wreck of life and hope, she
+had waved away one persistent thought, that lit up the blackness
+with a sudden glory, that came with the face of an angel of light,
+and babbled with the silvery tongue of sorcery. As far as her future
+was concerned, this world had practically come to a premature end;
+but above the roar of ruin, and out of the yawning graves of
+slaughtered possibilities, rose and rang the challenge: If she had
+never come South, if she could have been allowed the chance of
+happiness that seemed every woman's birthright, if she had met and
+known Mr. Dunbar, before he was pledged to another; what then? If
+she were once more the Beryl of old, and he were free? If? What
+necromancy so wonderful, as the potentiality of if? Weighed in that
+popular balance--appearances--how stood the poor friendless
+prisoner, loaded with suspicion, tarnished with obloquy, on the
+verge of an ignominious death; in comparison with the fair, proud
+heiress, dowered with blue blood, powerful in patrician influence,
+rich in all that made her the envy of her social world?
+
+In the dazzling zenith of temporal prosperity, Leo Gordon considered
+the heart of her betrothed her most precious possession; the one
+jewel which she would gladly have given all else to preserve; and
+yet, fate tore it from her grasp, and laid it at the feet, nay
+thrust it into the white hand of the woman who must die for a
+fiendish crime. A latter-day seer tells us, that in all realms,
+"Between laws there is no analogy, there is Continuity"; then in the
+universe of ethical sociology, who shall trace the illimitable
+ramifications of the Law of Compensation?
+
+Up and down, back and forth, slowly, wearily walked the prisoner;
+and when the town clock struck eight, she mechanically counted each
+stroke. As in drowning men, the landmarks of a lifetime rise,
+huddle, almost press upon the glazing eyes, so the phantasmagoria of
+Beryl's past, seemed projected in strange luminousness upon the pall
+of the present, like profiles in silvery flame cast on a black
+curtain.
+
+Holding her father's hand, she walked in the Odenwald; sitting
+beside her mother on a carpet of purple vetches, she stemmed
+strawberries in a garden near Pistoja; clinging to Bertie's jacket,
+she followed him across dimpling sands to dip her feet in the blue
+Mediterranean waves, that broke in laughter, showing teeth of foam,
+where dying sunsets reddened all the beach. Through sunny arcades,
+flushed with pomegranate, glowing with orange, silvered with lemon
+blossoms, came the tinkling music of contadini bells, the bleating
+of kids, the twittering of happy birds, the distant chime of an
+Angelus; all the subtle harmony, the fragmentary melody that
+flickers through an Impromptu of Chopin or Schubert. She saw the
+simulacrum of her former self, the proud, happy Beryl of old,
+singing from the score of the "Messiah", in the organ loft of a
+marble church; she heard the rich tenor voice of her handsome
+brother, as he trilled a barcarole one night, crossing the Atlantic;
+she smelled the tuberoses at Mentone, the faint breath of lilies her
+father had loved so well, and then, blotting all else, there rose
+clear as some line of Morghen's, that attic room; the invalid's bed,
+the low chair beside it, the wasted figure, the suffering, fever-
+flushed face of the beloved mother, as she saw her last, with the
+Grand Duke jasmine fastened at her throat.
+
+The door was thrown open, and the officer beckoned her to follow
+him. Back into the crowded court-room, where people pressed even
+into the window sills for standing room, where Judge and counsel sat
+gravely expectant; where the stillness of death had suddenly fallen.
+The officer conducted her to the bar, then drew back, and Mr. Dunbar
+came and stood at her side; resting his hand on the back of her
+chair.
+
+In that solemn hush, the measured tramp of the jury advancing, and
+filing into their box, had the mournful, measured beat as of pall
+bearers, keeping step to a dismal dirge; and when the foreman laid
+upon the table the fatal brass unicorn, the muffled sound seemed
+ominous as the grating of a coffin lowered upon the cross bars of a
+gaping grave. As the roll was called, each man rose, and answered in
+a low but distinct tone. Then the clerk of the court asked:
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?"
+
+"We have," replied the foreman.
+
+"What say you! Guilty, or not guilty?"
+
+Beryl had risen, and the gaslight shining full upon her pale,
+Phidian face, showed no trace of trepidation. Only the pathetic
+patience of a sublime surrender was visible on her frozen features.
+The eyes preternaturally large and luminous were raised far above
+the sea of heads, and their strained gaze might almost have been
+fixed upon the unveiled face of the God she trusted. Her hands were
+folded over her mother's ring, her noble head thrown proudly back.
+
+"We the jury, in the case of the State against Beryl Brentano, find
+defendant not guilty as charged in the indictment; but guilty of
+manslaughter in the first degree; and we do earnestly commend her to
+the mercy of the Court."
+
+The girl staggered slightly, as if recoiling from a blow, and Mr.
+Dunbar caught her arm, steadied her. The long pent tide of popular
+feeling broke its barriers, and the gates of Pandemonium seemed to
+swing open. Women sobbed; men groaned. In vain the Judge thundered
+"Silence", "Order!" and not until an officer advanced to obey the
+command, to clear the court-room, was there any perceptible lull, in
+the storm of indignation.
+
+Turning to the Judge, Mr. Dunbar said:
+
+"In behalf of the prisoner, I most respectfully beg that the Court
+will end her suspense; and render her return to this bar unnecessary
+by promptly pronouncing sentence."
+
+"Is it the wish of the prisoner, that sentence should not be
+delayed?"
+
+"She wishes to know her fate."
+
+She had uttered no sound, but the lashes trembled, fell over the
+tired, aching, strained eyes; and lifting her locked hands she bowed
+her chin upon them.
+
+Some moments elapsed, before Judge Parkman spoke; then his voice was
+low and solemn.
+
+"Beryl Brentano, you have been indicted for the deliberate and
+premeditated murder of your grandfather, Robert Luke Darrington.
+Twelve men, selected for their intelligence and impartiality, have
+patiently and attentively listened to the evidence in this case, and
+have under oath endeavored to discover the truth of this charge. You
+have had the benefit of a fair trial, by unbiased judges, and
+finally, the jury in the conscientious discharge of their duty, have
+convicted you of manslaughter in the first degree, and commended you
+to the mercy of the Court. In consideration of your youth, of the
+peculiar circumstances surrounding you, and especially, in deference
+to the wishes and recommendation of the jury--whose verdict, the
+Court approves, I therefore pronounce upon you the lightest penalty
+which the law affixes to the crime of manslaughter, of which you
+stand convicted; which sentence is--that you be taken hence to the
+State Penitentiary, and there be kept securely, for the term of five
+years."
+
+With a swift movement, Mr. Dunbar drew the crape veil over her face,
+put her arm through his, and led her into the corridor. Hurriedly he
+exchanged some words in an undertone with the two officers, who
+accompanied him to the rear entrance of the court-house; and then,
+in answer to a shrill whistle, a close carriage drawn by two horses
+drew up to the door, followed by the dismal equipage set apart for
+the transportation of prisoners. The deputy sheriff stepped forward,
+trying to shield the girl from the driving rain, and assisted her
+into the carriage. Mr. Dunbar sprang in and seated himself opposite.
+The officer closed the door, ordered the coachman to drive on, and
+then entering the gloomy black box, followed closely, keeping always
+in sight of the vehicle in advance.
+
+The clock striking ten, sounded through the muffling storm a knell
+as mournful as some tolling bell, while into that wild, moaning
+Friday night, went the desolate woman, wearing henceforth the brand
+of Cain--remanded to the convict's home.
+
+She had thrown back her veil to ease the stifling sensation in her
+throat, and Mr. Dunbar could see now and then, as they dashed past a
+street lamp, that she sat upright, still as stone.
+
+At last she said, in a tone peculiarly calm, like that of one
+talking in sleep:
+
+"What did it mean--that verdict?"
+
+"That you went back to 'Elm Bluff' with no intention of attacking
+Gen'l Darrington."
+
+"That I went there deliberately to steal, and then to avoid
+detection, killed him? That was the verdict of the jury?"
+
+She waited a moment.
+
+"Answer me. That was the meaning? That was the most merciful verdict
+they could give to the world?"
+
+Only the hissing sound of the rain upon the glass pane of the
+carriage, made reply.
+
+They had reached the bridge, when a hysterical laugh startled the
+man, who leaned back on the front seat, with his arms crossed
+tightly over a heart throbbing with almost unendurable pain.
+
+"To steal, to rob, to plunder. Branded for all time a thief, a
+rogue, a murderess. I!--I--"
+
+A passionate wail told the strain was broken: "I, my father's
+darling, my father's Beryl! Hurled into a living tomb, herded with
+convicts, with the vilest outcasts that disgrace the earth--this is
+worse than a thousand deaths! It would have been so merciful to
+crush out the life they mangled; but to doom me to the slow torture
+of this loathsome grave, where death brings no release! To die is so
+easy, so blessed; but to live--a convicted felon! O, my God! my God!
+Hast Thou indeed forsaken me?"
+
+In the appalling realization of her fate, she rocked to and fro for
+a moment only, fiercely shaken by the horror of a future never
+before contemplated. Then the proud soul stifled its shuddering
+sigh, lifted its burden of shame, silently struggled up its awful
+Via Crucis. Mute and still, she leaned back in the corner of the
+carriage.
+
+"I could have saved you, but you would not accept deliverance. You
+thwarted every effort, tied the hands that might have set you free;
+and by your own premeditated course throughout the trial,
+deliberately dragged this doom down upon your head. You counted the
+cost, and you elected, chose of your own free will to offer yourself
+as a sacrifice, to the law, for the crime of another. You are your
+own merciless fate, decreeing self-immolation. You were willing to
+die, in order to save that man's life; and you can certainly summon
+fortitude to endure five years' deprivation of his society;
+sustained by the hope that having thereby purchased his security,
+you may yet reap the reward your heart demands, reunion with its
+worthless, degraded idol. I have watched, weighed, studied you;
+searched every stray record of your fair young life, found the clear
+pages all pure; and I have doubted, marvelled that you, lily-
+hearted, lily-souled, lily-handed, could cast the pearl of your love
+down in the mire, to be trampled by swinish feet."
+
+The darkness of the City of Dis that seemed to brood under the wings
+of the stormy night, veiled Beryl's face; and her silence goaded him
+beyond the limits of prudence, which he had warily surveyed for
+himself.
+
+"Day and night, I hear the maddening echo of your accusing cry, 'You
+have ruined my life!' God knows, you have as effectually ruined
+mine. You have your revenge--if it comfort you to know it; but I am
+incapable of your sublime renunciation. I am no patient martyr; I
+am, instead, an intensely selfish man. You choose to hug the ashes
+of desolation; I purpose to sweep away the wreck, to rebuild on the
+foundation of one hope, which all the legions in hell cannot shake.
+Between you and me the battle has only begun, and nothing but your
+death or my victory will end it. You have your revenge; I intend to
+enjoy mine. Though he burrow as a mole, or skulk in some fastness of
+Alaska, I will track and seize that cowardly miscreant, and when the
+law receives its guilty victim, you shall be freed from suspicion,
+freed from prison, and most precious of all boons, you shall be
+freed forever from the vile contamination of his polluting touch.
+For the pangs you have inflicted on me, I will have my revenge: you
+shall never be profaned by the name of wife."
+
+Up the rocky hill toiled the horses, arching their necks as they
+stooped their faces to avoid the blinding rain: and soon the huge
+blot of prison walls, like a crouching monster ambushed in
+surrounding gloom, barred the way.
+
+In two windows of the second story, burned lights that borrowed
+lurid rays in their passage through the mist, and seemed to glow
+angrily, like the red eyes of a sullen beast of prey. The carriage
+stopped. A moment after, the deputy-sheriff sprang from his wagon
+and rang the bell close to the great gate. Two dogs bayed hoarsely,
+and somewhere in the building an answering bell sounded.
+
+Beryl leaned forward.
+
+"Mr. Dunbar, there is one last favor I ask at your hands. I want my-
+-my--I want that pipe, that was shown in court. Will you ask that it
+may be given to me? Will you send it to me?"
+
+A half strangled, scarcely audible oath was his only reply.
+
+She put out her hand, laid it on his.
+
+"You dare caused me so much suffering, surely you will not deny me
+this only recompense I shall ever ask."
+
+His hand closed over hers.
+
+"If I bring it to you, will you confess who smoked it last?"
+
+"After to-night, sir, I think it best I should never see your face
+again."
+
+The officer opened the carriage door, the warden approached,
+carrying a lantern in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Mr.
+Dunbar stepped from the carriage and turning, stretched out his
+arms, suddenly snatched the girl for an instant close to his heart,
+and lifted her to the ground.
+
+The warden opened the gate, swinging his lantern high to light the
+way, and by its flickering rays Lennox Dunbar saw the beautiful
+white face, the wonderful, sad eyes, the wan lips contracted by a
+spasm of pain.
+
+She turned and followed the warden; the lights wavered; the great
+iron gate swung back in its groove, the bolt fell with a sullen
+clang; the massive key rattled, a chain clanked, and all was
+darkness as she was locked irrevocably into her living tomb.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+The annual resurrection had begun; the pulse of Nature quickened,
+rose, throbbed under the vernal summons; pale, tender grass-blades
+peeped above the mould, houstonias lifted their blue disks to the
+March sun, and while the world of birds commenced their preludes
+where silky young leaves shyly fluttered, earth and sky were wrapped
+in that silvery haze with which coy Springtime half veils her
+radiant face. The vivid verdure of wheat and oat fields, the cooler
+aqua marina of long stretches of rye, served as mere groundwork for
+displaying in bold relief the snowy tufts of plum, the creamy
+clusters of pear, and the glowing pink of peach orchards that
+clothed the hillsides, and brimmed the valleys with fragrant
+prophecies of fruitful plenty.
+
+Dimmed by distance to fine lines of steel, wavered the flocks of
+wild geese flying from steaming bayous to icy lakes in the far
+North, and now and then as the ranks dipped, a white flash lit the
+vignettes traced against the misty, pearl-gray sky.
+
+Spring sunshine had kissed the lips of death, and universal life
+sprang  palpitating to begin anew the appointed yearly cycle; yet
+amid the flush and  stir of mother earth, there lay hopelessly still
+and cold some human hopes,  which no divine "Come forth" would ever
+revivify.
+
+Into the face of Leo Gordon had crept that strange and indescribable
+change,  which is analogous to the peculiar aspect of the clear
+heavens when dark clouds  just faintly rim the horizon, below which
+they heap their sombre, sullen masses,  projecting upward weird
+shadows.
+
+Apparently the sun of prosperity burned in the zenith and gilded her
+path with  happiness, but analyzed by the prism of her consciousness
+the brightness faded,  the colors paled, and grim menace crossed
+all, like the dark lines of  Fraunhofer. To be chosen, loved, wooed
+and won exclusively for herself,  irrespective of all extraneous
+appurtenances and advantages, is the supreme hope  innate in every
+woman, and the dread that her wealth might invest her with  charms
+not intrinsic, had made Leo unusually distrustful of the motives of
+her  numerous suitors. That Leighton Douglass loved the woman, not
+the heiress, she  knew beyond the possibility of cavil or doubt, and
+when, after mature  deliberation, she promised her hand to Mr.
+Dunbar, she had felt equally sure  that no mercenary consideration
+biased his choice or inspired his professions of  attachment.
+
+For a nature so proudly poised, so averse to all impulsive
+manifestations of  emotion, her affections were surprisingly warm
+and clinging, and she loved him  with all the depth and fervor of
+her tender, generous heart; hence the slow  torture of her
+humiliation in the hour of disenchantment. To women who love is
+given a sixth sense, a subtile instinct whereby, as in an occult
+alembic, they  discern the poison that steals into their wine of
+joy; so Leo was not long in  ignorance that her coveted kingdom
+belonged by right of conquest to another, and that she reigned only
+nominally and by courtesy.
+
+The evil we most abhor generally espies us afar off, chases
+tirelessly, crouches at our feet, grimacing triumphantly at our
+impotence to escape its loathsome clutches; and Leo's pride bled
+sorely in the realization that she had sold her hand and heart for
+base counterfeit equivalents. In a crisis of keen disappointment,
+only very noble natures can remain strictly just, yet in arraigning
+her lover for disloyalty, this sorrowing woman abstained from
+casting all the blame upon him. He had not intentionally deceived
+her, had not deliberately betrayed her trust; he was the unwilling
+victim of an inexplicable fascination against which she felt assured
+he had struggled sullenly and persistently; and which, in destroying
+the beautiful edifice of their mutual hopes, offered him nothing but
+humiliation in exchange.
+
+Standing to-day beside the pyramid of scarlet geraniums, and
+velvety, gold-powdered begonias in the centre of the octagonal room,
+where the warm Spring sun shone down through the dome, falling
+aslant on the great snowy owl and the rose-colored cockatoo
+smoothing their plumes on the top of the glittering brass cages--Leo
+contrasted the luxurious and elegant details of her lovely home with
+the grim and bleak cell where, in shame and ignominy, dwelt the
+young stranger who had stolen her throne. A beggar by the road-side
+had filched from the queen in her palace, her crown and sceptre, and
+the pomp and splendor of royal surroundings only mocked and
+emphasized an empty sham. Merely a trifle paler than usual, and
+somewhat heavy-eyed from acquaintance with midnight vigils, she
+proudly bore her new burden of grief with her wonted easy grace; but
+the pretty mouth was compressed into harder, narrower lines, and the
+delicate nose dilated in a haughtier curve. Sooner or later we all
+learn the wisdom of the unwelcome admonition: "Fortune sells what we
+believe she gives."
+
+For two months Leo's relations with Mr. Dunbar had been distinctly
+strained, and while both carefully avoided any verbal attempt at
+explanation, her manner had grown more distant, his more
+scrupulously courteous, but pre-occupied, guarded and  cold. Knowing
+that abdication was inevitable, she slowly revolved the best  method
+of release, which promised the least sacrifice of womanly dignity,
+and the greatest economy of unpleasantness on the part of her
+betrothed.
+
+During the week of the trial, she had seen him but twice, and
+immediately after he had been summoned to attend some suit in New
+Orleans, and had hurriedly bidden her adieu in the presence of
+others. With punctilious regularity he wrote studiedly polished,
+graceful yet merely friendly letters, and like ice  morsels they
+slowly widened the glacier creeping between the two.
+
+To her council she admitted only her bruised pride, her bleeding
+heart, her relentless incorruptible conscience; and over the
+conclusion, she shed no tears, made no moan, allowed no margin for
+pity. Early on that Spring morning, she had received a glowing sheaf
+of La France and Duchess de Brabant roses, accompanied by a brief
+note announcing Mr. Dunbar's return, and requesting an interview at
+noon. The tone of her reply was markedly cordial, and after offering
+congratulations  upon his birthday, she begged his acceptance of a
+souvenir made for the occasion  by her own hands, a dainty "bit of
+embroidery which she flattered herself, he would value  for the sake
+of the donor."
+
+Who doubts that Vashti made a most elaborate toilette, on that day
+of humiliation, when discarded and discrowned she trailed her royal
+robes for the last time across the marble courts of Shushan, going
+forth to make room for Queen Esther? Amid the loops of lace at her
+throat, and into the jewelled clasp of her belt, Leo had fastened
+the exquisite roses, noting the perfect harmony of her costume, as
+she smoothed the folds of the sapphire velvet robe which she knew
+that Mr. Dunbar particularly admired. The lofty, beautiful room was
+aglow with rich color from oriental rugs strewn about the marble
+floor, from masses of hyacinths and crimson camellias in stands,
+baskets, vases; from brilliant tropical birds  flitting to and fro;
+and through the gilt wire vista of the aviary, the fountain in the
+peristyle beyond threw up its  silvery hands to arrest attention,
+and softly beat time to the music of the gold and green canaries.
+The large white  owl with wide, prescient, berylline eyes, rose
+suddenly, and on slow wings circled round and round, flying
+gradually to the ceiling of the dome, then swooped back to its
+perch; and the Siberian hound, a huge, dun-hued creature, lifted his
+head from the velvet rug and rubbed it against his mistress' dress.
+
+As the sound of a step she knew so well, rang in the vestibule, the
+blood leaped to Leo's cheeks, but she walked quickly forward, and
+met her visitor just beneath the "Salve" in the scroll of olives,
+putting out her hands across the onyx table with its red and black
+bowl of violets. Thus at arm's length, she held him a moment.
+
+"I am very glad to see you; and I wish you a happy birthday, hoping
+your new  year may be as bright as the sun that ushers it in; and as
+full of fragrance as these lovely roses, which I wear in honor of
+the day."
+
+Hand in hand, she smiled up into his handsome face, and certainly he
+had never looked more kingly, more worthy of her homage.
+
+"Thank you, dear Leo. The light and sweetness of my future can be
+blotted out, only by losing you. You must be the fulfilment of your
+own kind wishes."
+
+He raised her left hand, kissed it lightly, and as she withdrew her
+fingers and  resumed her seat, in front of an ottoman ablaze with a
+tangled mass of brilliant  Berlin wool, he sat down at her side.
+
+Ere she was aware of his intention, he pushed the ottoman beyond her
+reach, and  dexterously catching her hand, took the gold thimble
+from her finger and dropped it into his vest pocket.
+
+"Perish the fetich of needle-work, crochet and knitting! To-day at
+least it shall not come between us;--and I claim your eyes, your
+undivided attention. Now tell me how many of my rivals, how many
+audacious suitors you have held at bay, by these gay Penelope webs
+woven in my absence?"
+
+"Has Ulysses the right to be curious? Should not memories of Calypso
+incline him  to unlock the fetters of Penelope?"
+
+"Did she ever for one instant deem the silken cords she hugged to
+her loyal, tender heart--fetters? Sweet, patient incarnation of
+unquestioning fidelity, she stands the eternal antithesis of Mrs.
+Caudle. From Kittie's letter, I inferred you were not well; but
+certainly, my dear Leo, I never saw you look more lovely than to-
+day."
+
+"Just now Kittie's perceptions are awry, dazzled by the rose light
+that wrap? her world. Has Prince arrived?"
+
+"Yes, he came yesterday, and my little sister is entirely and
+overwhelmingly happy, for he is literally her Prince. Physically he
+is much improved; has developed surprisingly, but has the shy,
+taciturn manner of a student, and is, I fear, a hopeless bookworm."
+
+"Why should his literary taste disquiet you? He went to Germany to
+foster his scholarly inclination."
+
+"Why? Why should a man apprentice himself to a carpenter, and become
+an expert joiner, when he can never obtain the tools requisite to
+enable him to work successfully? His aspirations run along the
+grooves of science; and after dear little Kittie, his favorite
+Goddess is Biology. Trained in the laboratory of a German scientist,
+where every imaginable facility for researches in vivisection, and
+for the investigation of certain biological problems was afforded
+him, he lands in America empty-handed, and behold my carpenter minus
+tools."
+
+"Having fitted himself for the profession, you surely will not
+attempt now to discourage or dissuade him."
+
+"The logic of impecuniosity will doubtless accomplish more than the
+dissuasion of friends. Microscopic inspection of red and white
+corpuscles, of virus, tissues, protoplasm and chlorophyl is probably
+very interesting to lovers of microbes, and students of
+segmentation, but such abstract pursuits appertain to purple and
+fine linen. A profession means much; but ability to practise,
+infinitely more. Just now the paramount problem is, how Prince can
+best make his bread. Six months ago, he was prospectively so rich
+that he could indulge the whim of blowing scientific soap-bubbles
+labelled with abstruse symbols; at present, necessity directs his
+attention to paying his board bills."
+
+"I thought a liberal allowance had been settled upon him, and ample
+provision made for his future?"
+
+"So there certainly was, on paper; but the destruction of the record
+invalidated the gift."  "All the world knows that he has the rights
+of an adopted son."
+
+"All the world knows equally well, that failing to produce the will,
+Prince has  lost his legacy, and must enlist in the army of 'bread-
+winners'."
+
+"Then what becomes of 'Elm Bluff' and its fine estate?"
+
+"They descend in the line decreed alike by law and nature, to the
+nearest blood  relation."
+
+Leo felt the blood reddening her throat and cheeks, but under the
+quick glance of her hazel eyes, his handsome face always en garde
+showed no embarrassing consciousness. Fearful of silence, she said
+in a perplexed, inconsequent tone:
+
+"How manifestly unjust. Poor Kittie!"
+
+"Why poor Kittie? Her beaming face is eloquent repudiation of your
+pity, and she  verily believes her blond-headed, scholarly Prince a
+bountiful equivalent for  all Croesus' belongings. Rich little
+Kittie! After all, where genuine love reigns, worldly environment
+matters comparatively little; love makes happiness, and happiness is
+the reconciler."
+
+A throb of pain shook the woman's heart as she realized the bitter
+truth that he spoke from an experience born out of season: that he
+was athirst for that which her fortune, her love, her own fair,
+graceful self could never give him.
+
+She looked at him, with an arch smile lighting her face, but he saw
+the trembling of her lips, noted the metallic ring in her voice.
+
+"'Et in Arcadia Ego?' Recent associations have rendered you idyllic.
+I can  recall a period when 'love in a cottage' was the target that
+challenged the keenest arrows of your satire. Rich little Kittie has
+my warmest congratulations. Will Prince remain in X--?"
+
+"How can he? The demand here for amateur scientists is not
+sufficiently encouraging; and I rather think he gravitates toward a
+college professorship, which might at least supply him abundantly
+with rabbits, turtles, frogs and guinea-pigs for biological
+manipulation and experiment. One of the gay balloons floating
+through his mind, is a series of lectures to be delivered in the
+large cities. Heredity is his pet hobby, and he proposes to canter
+it under the saddle of Weismann's  theory (whatever that may be),
+expounding it to scientific Americans. As yet no plans have
+crystallized. His allowance was paid semi-annually, but of course it
+failed him last January, and no alternative presents itself but some
+attempt to utilize his technical lore. There is a vacancy in the
+faculty of C---University, and I shall write at once to the board of
+trustees."
+
+Like a moth, Leo flitted closer to the flame.
+
+"Will he make no attempt to secure his rights?"
+
+"He is too wise to waste his time in so fruitless an endeavor."
+
+"Have you advised him to submit tamely to the deprivation of his
+fortune?"
+
+"He has not consulted me, but Wolverton, who is his cousin,
+convinced him of the futility of any legal proceedings."
+
+"Does General Darrington's granddaughter understand that Prince's
+career will be ruined for want of the money to which he is
+entitled?"
+
+"I am not acquainted with the views Gen'l Darrington's granddaughter
+entertains concerning Prince, as I have not seen her since the trial
+ended. Have you?"
+
+Each looked steadily at the other, and under the gleam of his eyes,
+hers fell, and her color flickered.
+
+"I went once, but was denied admission. Even Sister Serena sees her
+no longer. You doubtless know that she is recovering slowly from a
+severe attack of illness."
+
+"I have heard nothing since the night she was convicted and
+sentenced. To-day I found a message at my office from Singleton,
+asking me to call at my earliest convenience at the penitentiary, on
+a matter of legal business. To what it refers, I know not, as I
+came immediately here."
+
+There was a brief silence, in which his gaze mercilessly searched
+her fair, proud face; then with a supreme effort she laid her hand
+suddenly on his, and looked up smiling:
+
+"I believe I was growing very impatient over your prolonged absence
+in New  Orleans. Time dragged dismally, and I was never more
+rejoiced than when I received your last letter, and knew that I
+should see you to-day. Lennox, I have set my heart  on something,
+which only your consent and acquiescence will secure to me. I am
+about to ask for a mammoth sugar-plum that has dangled temptingly
+before my eyes for nearly a year, and I shall enjoy it the more if
+you bestow it graciously. Can you be generous and indulge my selfish
+whim?"
+
+He felt a quiver in the cold fingers over which his warm hand
+closed, saw the throbbing of the artery in her white throat, the
+ebbing of the scarlet in lips that bravely held their coaxing,
+smiling curves, and he knew that the crisis he had long foreseen was
+drawing near.
+
+Leaning closer, he looked down into her brown eyes. The end must
+come; but he would not precipitate it. Like Francis at Pavia, he
+acknowledged to himself that all was lost, save honor.
+
+"Whenever my Leo convinces me she can be selfish, I promise all that
+she can possibly ask; but the selfishness must first be
+incontrovertibly established."
+
+He had never been dearer to her than at that moment, when his
+brilliant eyes seemed to search her soul and magnetize her; yet she
+did  not falter and the aching of her heart was a goad to her will.
+
+"You merely shower lesser sugar-plums, intending they shall surfeit.
+Lennox, you know how often I have longed to make the journey to
+Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt; you remember I have repeatedly
+expressed the wish? You--"
+
+"Pardon me, sweetheart, but this is the first time I ever heard it."
+"You forget. At last the consummation unfolds itself as smoothly as
+the fourth act of a melodrama. My friend and schoolmate, Alma
+Cutting, of New York, invites a small party of ladies and gentlemen
+to accompany her in a cruise through the Levant, on her father's new
+and elegant steam yacht 'Cleopatra'. I have pressing letters from
+Alma and Mr. Cutting, kindly urging me to join them in New York by
+the first of May, at which time they expect to start on a
+preliminary cruise through the North and Baltic seas; drifting
+southward so as to reach Sicily and Malta as soon as cool weather
+permits. Do you wonder that so charming and picturesque a tour
+tempts me sorely?"
+
+Unconsciously she had hurried her enunciation, but imperturbable as
+the bronze  he resembled, Mr. Dunbar listened; merely passing his
+left arm around her,  drawing her resisting form closer to him,
+holding her firmly.
+
+"I am waiting for the selfish aspect of this scheme, else I should
+answer at once, the coveted sugar-plum is yours, and we will make
+the tour whenever you like, with the minor difference of mere
+details; we will go in our own yacht."
+
+She caught her breath, and for an instant the world swam in a burst
+of dazzling light. Beyond the reach of the usurper's witchery, was
+it not possible that she might regain the alienated  heart? Love
+chanted, it is worth the trial; take him away, win him back. Pride
+sternly set foot upon this spark of hope, with cruel insistence
+answering: his love has never been yours; defrauded of the diamond,
+will you accept and patiently wear paste? The quick revulsion was
+tantalizing as  would have been the vanishing of the ram from
+Abraham's gladdened sight; the swift withdrawal of Diana's stag
+into the miraculous cloud at Aulis.
+
+"That would be too severe a tax upon your good nature and
+indulgence, and involves a sacrifice of your professional plans,
+which I certainly am not so intensely and monstrously selfish as to
+permit you to make. I am so well aware of the reasons that
+necessitate your remaining in America, in order to secure the
+appointment you are laboring to obtain, that I refuse the sugar plum
+if bought with your disappointment."
+
+"Selfishness not established; you must plead on some better ground.
+Suppose that the happiness of the woman who has done me the honor to
+promise me her hand, is just now my supreme aim, paramount to every
+other ambitious scheme; and that to insure it, I hazard all else?
+Remember the privilege of  choice is mine."
+
+It was the instinct not of affection, but of honor straining hard to
+hold him to  his allegiance, and her proud spirit thrilled under the
+consciousness of his motive in striving to spare her. A crimson spot
+burned on each cheek, a spark kindled in the soft, tender eyes. She
+struggled to free herself, but his clasp tightened.
+
+"Conceding the generosity that would impel you to immolate your
+feelings, in  order to gratify my willies, I decline the sacrifice.
+You must indulge my desire  to receive my sugar plum in the
+bonbonniere of the 'Cleopatra'."
+
+He pressed her sunny head against his shoulder, and rested his cheek
+on hers.
+
+"Is it my Leo's wish to leave me, to go alone?"
+
+"Yes, to accompany Alma."
+
+"For an absence of indefinite duration?"
+
+"Certainly for a year; possibly longer; but you must be gracious in
+yielding. If you really desire to promote my happiness, let me go
+feeling that you consent freely."
+
+He comprehended fully all that he was surrendering, the noble, pure,
+devoted heart; the refining, elevating companionship, the control of
+a liberal fortune, the proud distinction of calling her his wife;
+and yet above the refrain of many mingled regrets, he felt an
+infinite relief that he had been spared the responsibility of the
+estrangement.
+
+"Whatever your happiness demands, I cannot refuse to concede, but
+you can scarcely require me to receive 'graciously' the only
+construction I can possibly place upon your request; that I am no
+longer an essential element in your happiness."
+
+Knowing that he owed her every possible reparation, he was resolved
+to shield her womanly pride from any additional wounds. He withdrew
+his encircling arm, released her hand, walked to the end of the
+aviary, and stood watching the shimmer of the fountain, where two of
+the ring-doves held their wings aslant to catch the spray. After
+some moments she joined him, and laid her slender fingers on his
+arm.
+
+"Dear Lennox, I propose at least a temporary change in our
+relations, and even at the risk of incurring your displeasure, I
+prefer to be perfectly frank. When you asked me to become your wife,
+neither of us contemplated the long separation involved in this
+cruise abroad, which I ardently desire for many reasons to make; and
+I am unwilling to fetter either you or myself by an engagement
+during my absence. I want to be entirely free, bound by no promise;
+and could I ask release, unless you accepted yours?"
+
+He put his palm under her chin, and lifted the sweet, pure face,
+forcing her to return his gaze.
+
+"Have I forfeited your confidence?"
+
+"No. Lennox. I have an indestructible faith in your honor."
+
+Her clear, truthful eyes assured him she acquitted him of all
+intention to violate in any jot or tittle the forms of his
+allegiance.
+
+"You deem me incapable of intentionally betraying your noble trust?"
+
+"I do--indeed I do."
+
+"My peerless Leo, have you ceased to love me?"
+
+She shut her eyes an instant, and the delicate, flower face
+blanched; the treacherous lips quivered:
+
+"No."
+
+"Who has supplanted me in your heart, for once I know it was all my
+own?"
+
+"Lennox, you are still more to me than all the world beside; but I
+ask time, I must be free at present. Let me go away untrammelled;
+consider yourself as unfettered, as before our engagement, and when
+the year expires, if you deem me absolutely necessary to your
+happiness, you can readily ask a renewal of your bonds, and I can be
+sure by that time whether my happiness depends upon becoming your
+wife. After to-day I shall not wear your ring; and if, while away, I
+send it back to you, interpret it as a final decision that in the
+future we can only be very faithful and attached friends. I have
+sadly mistaken your character if you refuse me release from a
+compact which I now certainly desire to cancel."
+
+A shadow fell over his face, and he sighed heavily; but whether the
+utterance of regret or relief she never knew.
+
+"Your heart shall no longer be burdened by bonds which I can loosen.
+Because your peace and happiness are more to me than my own, I grant
+you complete release. When my ring affronts you with disagreeable
+memories of a past, which will always be hallowed and precious to
+me, as the one beautiful dream that brightened my youth, that
+crowned me for a season at least with the trust and love of the
+noblest woman I have ever known, do not return it; let it slip from
+the hand it made my own, and find in the blue sea a grave as deep as
+the chasm--that you will--shall divide our lives. I honor you too
+profoundly to question your course; yet there is an explanation
+which I owe to myself as well as to you. Leo, no man can ever be
+worthy to call you wife, but perhaps I am less unworthy than you
+probably deem me? While in New Orleans, I wrote a long letter, which
+I afterward decided not to send by mail. I brought it to-day,
+intending to put it into your hand."
+
+He took from the inside pocket of his coat, an envelope addressed to
+her, broke the seal and pointed at the head of the sheet to the
+date, some three weeks earlier. She surmised by that wonderful
+instinct which God grants women as armor against the slow, ponderous
+aggressiveness of man's tyranny, the nature of its contents. Had she
+merely anticipated by an hour his petition for release? Even the
+bitterness of this conjecture was neutralized by the testimony it
+bore to his integrity of purpose, his unwillingness to conceal his
+disloyalty. When temples are shattered and altars crumble, we save
+our idol and flee into the wilderness, exulting in the assurance
+that no clay feet defile it.
+
+Leo shook her head and gently put aside the proffered letter.
+
+"You wrote it for the eyes of one who had pledged herself to bear
+your name; the  revocation of that promise annuls my right to read
+it."
+
+Mr. Dunbar understood the apprehension that made her shiver
+slightly. She was marching away proudly with flying colors, having
+dictated the terms of his capitulation. Should he suffer the
+imputation of treachery and intentional deception, rather than turn
+the tide of battle, trail her banner in the dust,  and add to her
+pain by mortally stabbing that intense womanly pride which now
+swallowed up every emotion of her soul?
+
+The more thoroughly chivalrous a man's nature, the keener his
+craving for the honors of war.
+
+"Because henceforth our paths diverge, I prefer to offer you my
+exculpation, desiring amid the general wreck, to retain at least
+your undiminished esteem. Will you read my confession?"
+
+"No; that would entail the necessity of absolution, and I might not
+be able to command the requisite amiability, should occasion demand
+it. We have shaken hands with the past, and you owe me nothing now
+but pardon for any pain I may have given you, and occasional kind
+thoughts when the ocean divides us. I promise you my unwavering
+esteem; in exchange grant me your cordial friendship."
+
+She was growing strangely white, and her breath fluttered, but eyes
+and lips  came to the rescue with a steadfast smile.
+
+"You allow me no alternative but submission to your will; yet
+remember, dear Leo, that in surrendering your pledged faith, I hold
+myself as free from any intentional forfeiture, as on the day you
+gave me your promise."
+
+"In token that I believe it, I salute and wear your roses."
+
+She bent her head, touched with her lips the flowers at her throat,
+and smiling bravely, held out both hands. He took them, joined the
+palms, and kissed her softly, reverently on the forehead.
+
+"God bless you, dear Leo. To have known so intimately a nature as
+noble and exalted as yours, has left an indelible impression for
+good upon my life, which must henceforth be very kinely. Good-bye."
+
+With beat of drum, and blare of bugles, pride claimed the victory;
+but as Leo watched the tall, fine form pass out from the beautiful
+home she had fondly hoped to share with him, she clasped her hands
+across her lips to stifle the cry that told how dearly she had
+bought the semblance of triumph.
+
+When the quick echo of his horse's hoofs died away, she went swiftly
+to her writing desk.
+
+"Dear Uncle: Please send the enclosed telegram to Mr. Cutting. I had
+a sad but decisive interview with Mr. Dunbar, and after obtaining
+his consent to my tour, we thought it best to annul our engagement.
+Tell Aunt Patty, and spare me all questions. I have not been hasty,
+and I asked to be released, because I have deemed it best to leave
+him entirely free."
+
+Sealing the note she rang for Justine.
+
+"Take this to my uncle's study, and tell Andrew to bring my phaeton
+to the door at four o'clock. Until then, see that no one disturbs
+me."
+
+With averted face she held out the envelope, then the curtain fell;
+and in  solitude the aching heart went over the fatal field,
+silently burying its slain hopes, realizing the bitterness of its
+Cadmean victory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+Certainly, Prince, I understand your motives and applaud your
+decision, which is  creditable alike to your heart and head. At
+father's death he confided Kittie to my guardianship, and I cannot
+consent to her scheme of going abroad with you, until your studies
+have been completed. She has a few thousands, it is true, but her
+slim fortune would not suffice to accomplish your scientific object,
+and even if it were larger, you are quite right to decline with
+thanks'. Kittie must be patient, and you must be firm, for you are
+both quite young enough to afford to wait a few years. Loving little
+heart! She longed to aid you, and this was the only method that
+presented itself. If we can secure the commission I mentioned last
+week, your marriage need only be deferred until Kittie is twenty-
+one. After all, Prince, when you bartered your name and became a
+Darrington, for sake of this fair heritage, you only accomplished
+early in life that into which sooner or later all men are betrayed,
+the sale of a birthright for a mess of pottage; the clutching at the
+shadowy present, thereby losing the substantial future."
+
+"On that score I indulge no regrets. General Darrington was the only
+father I ever knew, and since it was his wish, I shall gladly wear
+the name with which he endowed me, in grateful recognition of the
+affection, confidence and generous kindness he  lavished upon me.
+That the rich legacy he designed for me has been diverted into the
+channel of all others most repugnant to him, is my misfortune, not
+his fault; for ho took every possible precaution to secure my
+inheritance. Had I been indeed his own son, he could not have done
+more, and I have a son's right to mourn sincerely over his cruel and
+untimely end."
+
+The two men sat on the front steps at "Elm Bluff", and as Prince's
+eyes wandered over the exceeding beauty of the "great greenery" of
+velvet lawn, the stately, venerable growth of forest trees, wearing
+the adolescent mask of tender young foliage, the  outlying fields
+flanking the park, the sunny acres now awave with crinkling mantles
+of grain, he sighed very heavily at the realization of all that
+adverse fortune had snatched away.
+
+Blond as Baldur of the Voluspa, with a wealth of golden brown beard
+veiling his lips and chin, he appeared far more than six years the
+junior of the clear cut, smoothly shaven face that belonged to his
+prospective brother-in-law; and their countenances contrasted as
+vividly as the portraiture of bland phlegmatic Norse Aesir, with
+some bronze image of Mercury, as keenly alert as his sacred symbolic
+cocks.
+
+Strolling leisurely through the flowery decoying fields, that beckon
+all around the outskirts of the vast, lonely wilderness of positive
+Science, the dewy freshness of the youthful amateur still clung to
+Prince's garments; even as souvenirs gathered by flitting Summer
+tourists prattle of glimpses of wild, towering fastnesses, where
+strewn bones of martyr pioneers whiten as monuments of failure. In
+the guise of a green-kirtled enchantress, with wild poppies and
+primroses wreathed above her starry eyes, Science was luring him
+through the borderland of her kingdom, toward that dark, chill,
+central realm where, transformed as a gnome, she clutches her
+votaries, plunges into the primeval abyss-the matrix of time--and
+sets them the Egyptian task of weighing, analyzing the  Titanic
+"potential" energy, the infinitesimal atomic engines, the "kinetic"
+force, the chemical motors, the subtle intangible magnetic currents,
+whereby in the thundering, hissing,  whirling laboratory of Nature,
+nebulae grow into astral and solar systems; the prophetic floral
+forms of crystals become, after disintegration, instinct with
+organic vegetable germs,--and the Sphinx Life--blur-eyed--deaf,
+blind, sets forth on her slow evolutionary journey through the
+wastes of aeons; mounting finally into that throne of rest fore-
+ordained through groping ages, crowned with the soul of Shakspeare,
+sceptred with the brain of Newton.
+
+Like a child with some Chinese puzzle far beyond the grasp of his
+smooth, uncreased baby brain, Prince played in unfeigned delight
+with his problem: "Given the Universe, to explain the origin and
+permanence of Law," without any assistance from the exploded
+hypothesis of a law maker. Equipped with hammer, chisel, microscope,
+spectroscope and crucibles, he essayed the solution, undismayed by
+memories of his classics, of Sisyphus and Tantalus; seeing only the
+nodding poppies, the gilded primroses of his dancing goddess.
+
+Will he discover ere long, that a lesser riddle would have been to
+stand in the manufactory of the Faubourg St. Marcel, and abolishing
+the  pattern of the designers, the directing touch of Lebrun, the
+restraint of the  heddle, demand that the blind, insensate automatic
+warp and woof should originate, design and trace as well as
+mechanically execute the weaving of the marvellous tapestries?
+
+"Prince. I learn from Kittie that you visited the penitentiary last
+week."
+
+"Yes. I could not resist the curiosity to see the author of my
+recent misfortunes; but I regret the sight. I am haunted by the
+painful recurrence of that blanched, hopeless, beautiful face, which
+reminds me of a pathetic picture I saw abroad--Charlotte Corday
+peering through the bars of her dungeon window."
+
+"With a difference surely! Marat's murderess gloried in her crime;
+an innocent prisoner languishes yonder, in that stone cage beyond
+the river."
+
+Mr. Dunbar pointed over the billowing sea of green tree tops, toward
+an irregular dark shadow that blurred the northern sky line; and
+his eagle eyes darkened as they discerned the prison outlines.
+
+"Did you ever see a sketch of Rossetti's 'Pandora'?" asked Prince.
+
+"No."
+
+"The face is somewhat like that young prisoner's; the same mystical,
+prescient melancholy in the wide eyes, as if she realized she was
+predestine to work woe. I am heartily glad I was spared the pain of
+the prosecution, for had I been here, compassion would almost have
+paralyzed the effort to secure justice; and now, while my loss is
+irreparable, the law insures punishment for father's wrongs. As I
+walk about this dear old place, which he intended I should possess,
+and recall all that we had planned, it seems hard indeed that I find
+myself so unable to execute his wishes. After a few days, when I
+shall leave it, I suppose that for the next five years the house
+will become an owl roost and den of bats and spiders. On Thursday I
+go temporarily to Charleston to visit my uncle, Doctor Thornton, who
+offers me a place in his office, and a home at his hearthstone."
+
+"Why specifically for five years?"
+
+"That is the term of her imprisonment. At the expiration of her
+sentence, I  presume Gen. Darringtor's grand-daughter will hasten to
+take possession of her  dearly-bought domain."
+
+A derisive smile unbent the tight lines of the lawyer's mouth.
+
+"Come here to live? She would sooner spring into the jaws of hell!"
+
+Prince Darrington's large light eyes opened wide, in a questioning
+stare.
+
+"If she is innocent, as you believe, why should she shrink from
+occupying the family homestead? If she be guilty, which I (having
+seen her) cannot credit, there is no probability that remorseful
+scruples would influence her. No conceivable contingency can ever
+again make it my home, and on Thursday I go away forever."
+
+"That which a man claims and expects, generally deserts and betrays
+him; it is the unforeseen, the unexpected that comes in the form of
+benediction. Time is the master magician, and 'Tout went a qui sait
+attendre'. Kittie may yet trail her velvet robe as chatelaine
+through these noble old halls and galleries. Come to my office at
+ten o'clock tomorrow; I may have  an answer to my letter to Doctor
+Balfour."
+
+Six months before, Mr. Dunbar had walked down these steps, mounted
+his horse and hurried away to keep tryst with the fair, noble woman,
+whose promised hand was the guerdon of ambitious schemes, and years
+of patient, persistent wooing. To-day he rode slowly to a parting
+interview, which would sever the last link that Bad so long held
+their lives in tender association. Whatever of regret mingled with
+the contemplation of his ruined matrimonial castle, lay hidden so
+deep in the debris, that no faintest reflection was visible in his
+inscrutable face.
+
+When he reached the railway station where a special car containing a
+small party, awaited the arrival of the north bound train that would
+attach it to its sinuous length, a number of friends had assembled
+to say good-bye to the departing favorite. The announcement of Miss
+Gordon's extended yachting trip, had excited much comment in social
+circles, and while people wondered at the prolongation of the
+engagement, none but her immediate family suspected that the
+betrothal had been cancelled.
+
+Leo's wonted gracious composure betrayed no hint of the truth, and
+she greeted Mr. Dunbar with outstretched hand and a friendly smile.
+
+"I am indebted to your kind courtesy, Lennox, for the most
+auspicious omen at the outset of my long journey; and I shall not
+attempt to tell you how cordially I appreciate your tasteful
+souvenir. Your roses are exquisite, and fragrant as the message they
+bring me."
+
+She glanced up at a large horseshoe made of her favorite pink roses,
+which had been hung by a silver wire directly over the seat she
+occupied.
+
+"Will you give me your interpretation of their message?"
+
+He swept aside a shawl and reticule, and sat down beside her.
+
+"It is written legibly all over their lovely petals. You wish me a
+rose-strewn itinerary, all conceivable forms of 'good luck'; as
+though you stood on tip-toe and shouted after me: 'Gluck auf.' As a
+happy augury, I accept it. Like the old Romans, you have offered up
+for me a dainty sacrifice to propitiate Domiduca--the goddess who
+grants travellers a safe return home."
+
+"Meanwhile I hope you see quite as clearly, that the thorns have all
+been stripped off and set thickly along my path?"
+
+Her smiling eyes met his steadily, and the brave heart showed no
+quailing.
+
+"If I imagine that complimentary inference is written between the
+lines, is it not pardonable to welcome the assurance that you will
+sometimes be sharply pricked into remembrance of your absent
+friend?"
+
+At this moment, with clanging bells and thundering wheels the train
+swept in, and Leo rose to exchange last greetings with numerous
+friends Judge Dent and Miss Patty accompanied her as far as New
+York, and when the car had been coupled at the end of the long line,
+and all was in readiness, Mr. Dunbar took his companion's hand.
+
+"When we parted last, I was angry and hasty. Now I desire to make
+one farewell request. You ask a release from our engagement. I grant
+it. I hold you perfectly free; but I will consider myself bound,
+pledged to you until the expiration of one year. Nothing you can say
+shall alter my determination; but twelve months hence, if you can
+trust your happiness to my hands, send me this message: 'I wear your
+ring.' Once more I offer you my letter of confession. Will you
+receive it now; will you look into the heart which I have bared for
+your scrutiny?"
+
+"No. I voluntarily forfeited that right, when I asked my freedom. If
+your letter contains aught that would change my high regard, my
+confidence, my affectionate interest in your happiness, I am doubly
+anxious to avoid acquaintance with its contents. You have long held
+the first place in my esteem, why seek to impair my valuation of
+your character? Let us be friends, now and forever."
+
+"Remember you broke your fetters; I hug mine--a year longer. Forget
+me if you will; but Leo, when your heart refuses to be strangled,
+suffer its cry to reach me. Whatever the future may decree, you
+shall always be my noble ideal of exalted womanhood, my own proud,
+sensitive, unselfish Leo; and from the depth of my heart I wish you
+a pleasant tour, and a safe and speedy return."
+
+A premonitory thrill shook the ear, and dropping the fingers that
+lay cold as marble in his, Mr. Dunbar swung himself to the station
+platform. The train moved off, but he knew that it would return in
+switching, and so he stood hat in hand.
+
+As it slowly glided back, he stepped close to the open window, and
+Leo's last look at the man she had loved so long and well, showed
+him with the sun shining on his superb form, and coldly locked face.
+He saw her hazel eyes dim in their mist of unshed tears, and the
+sweet, blanched lips trembling from the spasm that held her heart.
+She leaned down, laid her hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Dear Lennox, open your hand carefully; there--hold it close. Good-
+bye."
+
+Into his palm she dropped something; their faces almost touched,
+eyes met, heart looked into heart; then Leo smiled and drew back,
+lowering her veil, and as the cars shivered, lurched, moved on, Mr.
+Dunbar put on his hat and unclosed his fingers.
+
+The white fire leaping in the diamonds destroyed the last vestige of
+a betrothal, that he had once regarded as the summum bonum of his
+successful career; consumed in its incipiency the farewell compact,
+which his regard for Leo's womanly pride, and an honorable desire to
+cling as closely as possible to at least the loyal forms of
+allegiance, had prompted him to impose upon himself.
+
+Apparently unwounded, she would sail away victrix, with gay pennons
+flying through distant summer seas, while he remained, stranded on
+the reefs of adverse fate, a target for cynical society batteries, a
+victim of the condolence of sympathizing friends.
+
+In reality he felt the benignant touch of fortune still upon his
+head, and thanked her heartily that Leo had taken the initiative;
+that no overt act of disloyalty blurred his escutcheon, and above
+all, that he had been spared the humiliation of acknowledging his
+inability to resist the strange fascination that dragged him from
+his allegiance, as Auroras swing the needle from the pole. He did
+not attempt to underrate the vastness of his loss, nor to condone
+the folly which he designated as "infernal idiocy"; yet conscience
+acquitted him of intentionally betraying the trust a noble woman had
+reposed; and his vanity was appeased by the conviction that though
+Leo had cast him out of her life, she went abroad because she loved
+him supremely. Putting the ring in his pocket, he turned away as
+from a grave that had closed forever over that which once held ail
+the promise of life.
+
+Three hours later, that carefully written letter acknowledging to
+his fiancee that his heart had rebelliously swung from its moorings,
+under the magnetic strain of another woman, and asking her tender
+forbearance to aid him in conquering a weakness for which he
+blushed, had been reduced to a drab shadow on his office hearth; and
+the lawyer was engrossed by the preparation of a testamentary
+document, which embraced several pages of legal cap. Again and again
+he read it over, pausing now and then as if striving to recall some
+invisible scroll, and at last as if satisfied with the result,
+placed it in an envelope, thrust it into his pocket, and once more
+mounted his horse. The ceaseless and intense yearning to see again
+the young stranger, who seemed destined to play the role of Ate in
+so many lives, would no longer be denied; and at a swift gallop he
+took the road leading to the penitentiary.
+
+Four or five carriages were drawn up in front of the iron gate, and
+when, in answer to the bell, Jarvis, the underwarden, came forward
+to admit Mr. Dunbar, he informed him that the State Inspectors were
+making a tour of investigation through the building.
+
+"I want to see Singleton."
+
+"Just now he is engaged showing the inspectors around, and they
+generally turn everything upside down, and inside out. If you will
+step into the office and wait awhile, he will be at leisure."
+
+"Where is Mrs. Singleton?"
+
+"She has just gone into the women's workroom. One of the sewing gang
+is epileptic, and fell in a fit a few minutes ago, so I sent for
+her. Come this way and I will find her."
+
+The visitor hesitated, drew back.
+
+"Is Miss Brentano there also?"
+
+"No. She is still on the infirmary list."
+
+Jarvis opened the door of a long, well-lighted but narrow room, in
+the centre of which was a table extending to the lower end; and on
+each side of it sat women busily engaged in stitching and binding
+shoes, and finishing off various articles of clothing; while two
+were ticketing a pile of red flannel and blue hickory shirts. Four
+sewing-machines stood near the wall where grated windows admitted
+sunshine, and their hymn to Labor was the only sound that broke the
+brooding silence. The room was scrupulously clean and tidy, and the
+inmates, wearing the regulation uniform of blue-striped homespun,
+appeared comparatively neat; but sordid, sullen, repulsively coarse
+and brutish were many of the countenances bent over the daily task,
+and now and then swift, furtive glances from downcast eyes betrayed
+close kinship with lower animals.
+
+At one of the machines sat a woman whose age could not have exceeded
+twenty-eight years, with a figure of the Juno type, and a beautiful
+dark face where tawny chatoyant eyes showed the baleful fire of a
+leopardess. Winding a bobbin, she leaned back in her chair, with the
+indolent, haughty grace of a sultana, and when she held the bobbin
+up against the light for an instant, her slender olive hand and
+rounded wrist might have belonged to Cleopatra.
+
+"Who is that woman winding thread?"
+
+"Her name is Iva Le Bougeois, but we call her the 'Bloody Duchess'.
+She was sent up here two years ago, from one of the lower counties,
+for wholesale butchery. Seems her husband got a divorce, and was on
+the eve of marrying again. She posted herself about the second
+wedding, and managed to make her way into the parlor, where she hid
+behind the window curtains. Just as the couple stood up to be
+married, she cut her little boy's throat with a razor, dragged the
+body in front of the bride, and before any one could move, drew a
+revolver, blew the top of her husband's head off, and then shot
+herself. The ball passed through her shoulder and broke her arm, but
+as you see, she was spared, as many another wildcat has been. Her
+friends and counsel tried to prove insanity, but the plea was too
+thin; so she landed here for a term of twenty years, and it will
+take every day of it to cut her claws. She is as hard as flint, and
+her heart is as black as a wolf's mouth."
+
+"Medea's wrongs generally end in Medea's crimes," answered the
+visitor; watching the defiant poise of the small shapely head,
+covered with crisp, raven locks. Having less acquaintance with the
+classics than with the details of prison discipline, the under-
+warden stared.
+
+After a moment he pointed to a diminutive figure standing at the end
+of the long table, and engaged in folding some white garments.
+
+"See that pretty little thing, with the yellow head? Shouldn't you
+say she looks like an angel, and ought to be put on the altar to
+hear the prayers of sinners? Would you believe she is a mother?
+Arson is her hobby. She is a regular 'fire-bug'. She was adopted by
+a German couple, and one night, when the old farmer had come home
+with the money paid him for his sheep and hogs, she stole the last
+cent he had, pocketed all the oold frau's silver spoons, poured
+kerosene around the floor, set fire to the house in several places,
+locked the door and ran for her life. A peddler happened to seek
+quarters for the night, and finding the place on fire, managed to
+break through the windows and save the old folks from being roasted
+alive. When the case came to trial it was proved that she had set
+fire to two other buildings, but on account of her youth had escaped
+prosecution. They could not hang her, though she deserved the
+gallows, and her child was born three months after she came here.
+Looks innocent as a wax doll doesn't she? Eve Werneth she calls
+herself; and she is well named after the original mother of all sin.
+She is Satan's own imp, and we chain her every night, for she boasts
+that when things grow tiresome to her she always burns her way out.
+I think she is the worst case we have, except the young mulatto--I
+don't see her here just now--who was sent up for life, for poisoning
+a baby she was hired to nurse. There is Mrs. Singleton."
+
+The warden's wife came forward with a vial in one hand, and at sight
+of the visitor, paused and held out the other.
+
+"How'dy do, Mr. Dunbar. You are waiting to see Ned?"
+
+"I much prefer seeing you, if you have leisure for an interview.
+Singleton can join us when the inspectors take their leave."
+
+"Very well; come up stairs. Jarvis, send Ned up as soon as you can."
+
+She led the way to the room where her two children were at play, and
+breaking a ginger cake between them, dragged their toys into one
+corner, and bade them build block houses, without a riot.
+
+"I have never received even a verbal reply to the note which I
+requested your husband to place in Miss Brentano's hands."
+
+"Probably you never will. She took cold by being dragged back and
+forth to court during that freezing weather, and two days after her
+conviction she was taken ill with pneumonia. First one lung, then
+the other, and the case took a typhoid form. For six weeks she could
+not lift her head, and now though she goes about my rooms, and into
+the yard a little, she is awfully shattered, and has a bad cough,
+Once when we had scarcely any hope, she asked the doctor to give her
+no more medicine; said that it would be a mercy to let her die. Poor
+thing! her proud spirit is as broken as her body, and the thought of
+being seen seems to torture her. Dyce is the only person whom she
+allows to come near her."
+
+"Where is she?"
+
+"We were obliged to move her, after she was sentenced, but the
+doctor said one of those cells down stairs would be certain and
+quick death for her, with her lungs in such a condition; so we put
+her in the smallest room on this floor; the last one at the end of
+the corridor. It is only a closet it is true, but it is right in the
+angle, and has two narrow slits of windows, one opening south, the
+other west, and the sunshine gets in. The day after her trial ended,
+she sent for the sheriff, who happened to be here, and asked him if
+solitary confinement was not considered a more severe penalty than
+any other form here? When he told her it was, she said: Then it
+could not be construed into clemency or favoritism if you ordered me
+into solitary confinement? Certainly not, he told her. Whereupon she
+begged him to allow her to be shut up away from the others, as she
+would sooner sit in the dark and see no human being, than be forced
+to associate with the horrible, guilty outcasts down stairs. While
+he and Ned were consulting about her case, she was taken very ill.
+Of course you know Ned has a good deal of latitude and discretion
+allowed him, and the doctor is on our side, but even at best, the
+rules are stern. She takes her meals alone, and the only place where
+she meets the other convicts--isn't it a shame to call her one!--is
+the chapel; and even there she is separated, because Ned has given
+her charge of the organ. Everybody under sentence is obliged to
+work, but she does not go down into the general sewing room. The
+superintendent of that department apportions a certain amount of
+sewing, and her share is sent up daily to her. She really is not
+able to work, but begged that we should give her some employment."
+
+"She consented to see Mr. Prince Darrington?"
+
+"Oh, no! It was the merest accident that he succeeded in speaking to
+her. He happened to come the day that I took her out for the first
+time in the garden, for a little fresh air in the sunshine; and we
+met him and Ned on the walk. O, Mr. Dunbar! It was pitiful to see
+her face, when the young man took off his hat, and said:
+
+"'I am General Darrington's adopted son.'
+
+"She was so weak she had been leaning on me, but she threw up her
+head, and her figure stiffened into steel. 'You imagine that I am
+the person who robbed you of Gen'l Darrington's fortune? I suffer
+for crimes I did not commit; and am the innocent victim selected to
+atone for your injuries. My wrongs are more cruel than yours. You
+merely lost lands and money. Can you, by the wildest flight of fancy
+conjecture that aught but disgrace and utter ruin remain for me?'
+Ned and I walked away; and when we came back she had stepped into
+the hall, and drawn the inside door between them. He was standing
+bareheaded, gazing up at her, and she was looking down at him
+through the open iron lattice, as if he were the real culprit. That
+night she had a nervous chill that lasted several hours, and we
+promised that no one should be allowed to see her. Of course the
+inspectors go everywhere, and when Ned opened her door, I was with
+her, giving her the tonic the Doctor ordered three times a day. I
+had prepared her for their visit, but when the gentlemen crowded in,
+she put her hands over her face and hid it on the table. There was
+not a syllable uttered, and they walked out quickly."
+
+"Will you do me the kindness to persuade her to see me?"
+
+"I am sure, sir, she will refuse; because she desires most
+especially to be shielded from your visits."
+
+"Nevertheless, I intend to see her. Please say that I am here, and
+have brought the papers Mr. Singleton desired me to prepare for
+her."
+
+Ten minutes elapsed before the warden's wife returned, shaking her
+head:
+
+"She prefers not seeing you, but thanks you for the paper which she
+wishes left with Mr. Singleton. When she has read it, Mr. Singleton
+will probably bring you some message. She hopes you will believe
+that she is very grateful for your attention to her request."
+
+"Go back and tell her that unless she admits me, she shall never see
+the paper, for I distinctly decline to put it in any hand but hers;
+and, moreover, tell her she asked me to obtain for her a certain
+article which, for reasons best known to herself, she holds very
+dear. This is her only opportunity to receive it, which must be
+directly from me. Say that this is the last time I will insist upon
+intruding, and after to-day she shall not he allowed the privilege
+of refusing me an audience. I am here solely in her behalf, and I am
+determined to see her now."
+
+When Mrs. Singleton came back the second time, she appeared
+unwontedly subdued, perplexed; and her usually merry eyes were
+gravely fixed with curious intentness upon the face of her visitor.
+
+"The room straight ahead of you, with the door partly open, at the
+end of this corridor. She sees you 'only on condition that this is
+to be the final annoyance'. Mr. Dunbar, you were born to tyrannize.
+It seems to me you have merely to will a thing, in order to
+accomplish it."
+
+"If that were true, do you suppose I would allow her to remain one
+hour in this accursed cage of blood-smeared criminals?"
+
+Down the dim corridor he walked slowly, as if in no haste to finish
+his errand, stepped into the designated cell, and closed the door
+behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+The apartment eight by twelve feet possessed the redeeming feature
+of a high ceiling, and on either side of the southwest corner wall,
+a window only two feet wide allowed the afternoon sunshine to print
+upon the bare floor the shadow of longitudinal iron bars fastened
+into the stone sills. A narrow bedstead, merely a low black cot of
+interlacing iron straps, stood against the eastern side, and
+opposite, a broad shelf, also of iron, ran along the walls and held
+a tin ewer and basin, a few books, and a pile of clothing neatly
+folded.
+
+Across the angle niche between the windows a wooden bench had been
+drawn; in front of it stood a chair and oval table, on which lay
+some sheets of paper, pen and ink, and a great bunch of yellow
+jasmine, and wild pink azaleas that lavishly sprinkled the air with
+their delicate spicery. Pencils, crayons, charcoal and several large
+squares of cardboard and drawing-paper were heaped at one end of the
+bench, and beside these sat the occupant of the cell, leaning with
+folded arms on the table in front of her; and holding in her lap the
+vicious, ocelot-eyed yellow cat.
+
+Against the shimmering glory of Spring sunshine streaming down upon
+her, head and throat were outlined like those of haloed martyrs that
+Mantegna and Sodoma left as imperishable types of patient suffering.
+
+When the visitor came forward to the table that barred nearer
+approach, she made no attempt to rise, and for a moment both were
+mute. He saw the noble head shorn of its splendid coronal of braids,
+and covered thickly with short, waving, bronzed tendrils of silky
+hair, that held in its glistening mesh the reddish lustre of old
+gold, and the deep shadows of time-mellowed mahogany. That most
+skilful of all sculptors, hopeless sorrow, had narrowed to a perfect
+oval the wan face, waxen in its cold purity; and traced about the
+exquisite mouth those sad, patient curves that attest suffering
+which sublimates, that belong alone to the beauty of holiness. Eyes
+unusually large and shadowy now, beneath their black fringes, were
+indescribably eloquent with the pathos of a complete, uncomplaining
+surrender to woes that earth could never cure; and the slender
+wasted fingers, in their bloodless semi-transparency, might have
+belonged to some chiselled image of death. Every jot and tittle of
+the degrading external badges of felony had been meted out, and
+instead of the mourning garment she had worn in court, her dress to-
+day was of the coarse dark-blue home-spun checked with brown, which
+constituted the prison uniform of female convicts.
+
+As Mr. Dunbar noted the solemn repose, the pathetic grace with which
+she endured the symbols that emblazoned her ignominous doom, a dark
+red glow suffused his face, a flush of shame for the indignity which
+he had been impotent to avert.
+
+"Who dared to cut your hair--and thrust that garb upon you? They
+promised me you should be exempt from brands of felony."
+
+"When one is beaten with many stripes, a blow more or less matters
+little; is not computed. They kindly tell me that illness and the
+doctor's commands cost me the loss of my hair; and after all, why
+should I object to the convict coiffure? Nothing matters any more."
+
+"Why not admit at once that, Bernice-like, you freely offered up
+your beautiful hair as love's sacrifice?"
+
+He spoke hotly, and an ungovernable rage possessed him as he
+realized that though so near, and apparently so helpless, she was
+yet so immeasurably removed, so utterly inaccessible. Her drooping
+white lids lifted; she looked steadily up at him, and the mournful
+eyes held no hint of denial. He stretched his hand across the table,
+and all the gnawing hunger at his heart leaped into his voice, that
+trembled with entreaty.
+
+"For God's sake give me your hand just once, as proof that you
+forgive my share in this cruel, dastardly outrage."
+
+"Do not touch me. When we shake hands it must be as seal upon a very
+sacred compact, which you are not yet ready to make."
+
+She straightened herself, and her hands were removed from the table;
+fell to stroking the cat lying on her knee.
+
+"What conditions would you impose upon me?"
+
+"Sit down, Mr. Dunbar, and let us transact the necessary business
+which alone made this interview possible."
+
+With an imperious gesture, befitting some sovereign who reluctantly
+accords audience, she motioned him to the chair, and as he seated
+himself his eyes gleamed ominously.
+
+"It pleases you to ignore our past relations?"
+
+"Even so. To-day we meet merely as attorney and client to arrange
+the final QUID PRO QUO. You have brought the paper?"
+
+"I inferred from your message that you desired as exact a copy as
+memory permitted. Here it is."
+
+He took from his pocket a long legal envelope.
+
+"I believe you stated that your father originally drew up this
+paper, and that recently you altered and re-wrote it?"
+
+"Those are the facts relative to it."
+
+"Can you recall the date of the revision?"
+
+"Nearly a year ago. Last May it was signed in the presence of Doctor
+Ledyard and Colonel Powell, who also signed as witnesses, though
+ignorant of its contents."
+
+"You offer me this as a correct expression of Gen'l Darrington's
+wishes regarding the distribution of his estate, real and personal?"
+
+"At your request I furnish from memory a copy of Gen'l Darrington's
+will, which I have faithfully endeavored to recall, and I
+conscientiously believe this to be strictly accurate. Shall I read
+it?"
+
+A severe and prolonged fit of coughing delayed her reply; and when
+she held out her hand for the paper, her breathing was painfully
+rapid and labored.
+
+"I will not tax you. Let me glance over it."
+
+Spreading the long sheets open before her, she leaned over the table
+and read.
+
+In the palm of her right hand rested her temple, and the left
+smoothed and turned the leaves. Crossing his arms on the top of the
+table, the attorney bent forward and surrendered himself to the
+coveted delight of studying the face, that had made summary
+shipwreck of his matrimonial fortune. No slightest detail escaped
+him; the burnished locks curled loosely around the forehead smooth
+as a sleeping baby's, the broad arch of the delicately-pencilled
+black brows, the Madonna droop of the lids whose heavy sable fringes
+deepened the bluish shadows beneath the eyes, the straight, flawless
+nose, the perfect chin with its deeply-incised dimple, the
+remarkably beautiful mouth, which despairing grief had kissed and
+made its own.
+
+Pale as marble, the proud, patrician face was pure as some bending
+lily frozen on its graceful, rounded stem: and the tapering fingers
+with daintily curved, polished nails would have suited better the
+lace and velvet of royal robes than the rough home-spun sleeves
+folded back from the white wrists.
+
+Mr. Dunbar had met many lovely, gracious, high-bred women, yet
+escaped heart whole; and even the nobility and sweetness of his
+pretty fiancee, enhanced by the surrounding glamour of heiresship,
+failed to touch the flood gates of tender love that a pauper's hand
+had suddenly unloosed, to sweep as a destroying torrent through the
+fair garden of his most cherished hopes. What was the spell exerted
+by the young convict when she grappled his heart, and in the havoc
+of her own life carried down all the possibilities of his future
+peace? Personal ambition, calculating mercenary selfishness had
+melted away in the volcanic madness that seized him, and to his own
+soul he acknowledged that his dominant and supreme wish was to
+gather in his arms and hold forever the condemned woman, who wore
+with such sublime serenity the livery of felony.
+
+After all, have we misread our classics? Had not Homer a prevision
+of the faith that Aphrodites' altar belonged in the Temple of the
+Fates?
+
+Beryl refolded the paper and looked up. In the face so close to
+hers, she saw all the yearning tenderness, the over-mastering love
+that had convulsed his nature, and before the pleading magnetic eyes
+that essayed to probe her soul, hers fell.
+
+As out of a cloud, some burst of sunlight striking through the ruby
+vestments of apostles in a cathedral window falls aslant and
+suddenly crimsons the marble features of a sculptured angel guarding
+the high altar, so unexpectedly a vivid blush dyed the girl's
+cheeks. Her lips trembled; she swept her hand across her eyes as
+though blotting out some fascination upon which it was not her
+privilege to dwell; then the glow faded, she moved back on the
+bench, and leaned her head against the wall.
+
+"Where are the bonds and other securities described in this paper?"
+
+"In a compartment of the safety deposit vault of the--Bank, of which
+Gen'l Darrington was a large stockholder and director. His box was
+opened last week in presence of his adopted son, and we hoped to
+find perhaps a duplicate of the lost will; but there was not even a
+memorandum to indicate his last wishes."
+
+"Can you tell me whether Mr. Prince Darrington will take any legal
+steps to recover the legacy which the loss of the will appears to
+have cancelled?"
+
+"He certainly has no such intention."
+
+"Are you quite sure of his views?"
+
+"Absolutely sure, having talked with him this morning. I speak
+authoritatively."
+
+"He was entirely dependent on Gen'l Darrington?"
+
+"Wholly so with regard to pecuniary resources."
+
+"At present he is as much a beggar as I was that day when I first
+saw X--? Is it true that want of money obliged him to quit Germany
+before he obtained the university degree, for which his studies were
+intended to fit him?"
+
+"Strictly true. He sorely laments his inability to complete the
+course of study, and hopes at some future day to return and reap the
+distinction which he feels sure awaits him in scientific fields."
+
+A brief silence followed, and the girl's thoughts seemed to drift
+far from her gloomy surroundings to some lofty plane of peace beyond
+the ills of time. Once more a spasm of coughing seized her; then she
+looked at the attorney.
+
+"I learned in court that the destruction of Gen'l Darrington's will
+would secure to my mother the possession of all his estate. She has
+entered into Rest; into possession of her heritage in Christ's
+kingdom. Am I, her child, the lawful heir of Gen'l Darrington's
+fortune? Are there any legal quibbles that could affect my rights?"
+
+"I am aware of none. The estate is certainly yours, and the law will
+sustain your claims."
+
+"Claim? I only claim the right to repair as far as possible a wrong
+for which I suffer, yet am not responsible. I sent for a copy of the
+will because--"
+
+"May I tell you why? Because in order to execute its provisions, it
+was essential that you should know them accurately."
+
+The assurance that he interpreted so correctly her motive, brought a
+quick throb to her tired Heart, and a faint flush of pleasure to her
+thin cheeks.
+
+"Had you read as accurately my intentions, six months ago, when you
+woke me from my sleep under the pine trees, how different the
+current of many lives! Mr. Dunbar, my ignorance of legal forms
+constrains me to accept your assistance in a matter which I am
+unwilling to delay--" She hesitated, and he smiled bitterly.
+
+"You need be at no trouble to emphasize your reluctance. I quite
+understand your ineradicable repugnance. Nevertheless good luck
+ordains that only I can serve you at present, so be pleased to
+command me."
+
+"Thank you. I wish you to help me make my will."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"How long do you suppose I can endure this 'death in life?' I am
+patient because I hope and believe my release is not far distant.
+Galloping consumption is a short avenue to freedom."
+
+He caught his breath, and the blood ebbed from his lips, but he
+hurled aside the suggestion as though it were a coiled viper.
+
+"Life has for you one charm which will successfully hold death at
+bay. Love has sustained you thus far; it will lend wings to the
+years that must ultimately bring the recompense for which you long,
+the sight of him whose crime you expiate."
+
+He could not understand the peculiar smile that parted her lips, nor
+the far-away, preoccupied expression that crept into her sad eyes.
+
+"Nevertheless I have decided to make my will. I desire that in every
+detail it shall duplicate the provisions of the instrument I am
+punished for having stolen and destroyed; and I charge you to write
+it so carefully, that when all the legacies shall have been paid,
+the residue of the estate cannot fail to reach the hands of the son
+for whom it was intended. To Mr. Prince Darrington I give and
+bequeath, mark you now, ALL MY RIGHT AND TITLE to the fortune left
+by Gen'l Darrington."
+
+"Before I pledge myself to execute this commission, I wish you to
+know that of such testamentary disposition of your estate, I should
+become remotely a beneficiary. Mr. Darrington has asked my only
+sister to be his wife, and their marriage is contingent merely on
+his financial ability to maintain her comfortably. Mine is scarcely
+the proper hand to pour the rich stream of your possessions into his
+empty coffers."
+
+"I am well aware of the tie that binds your sister and Mr.
+Darrington."
+
+"Since when have you known it?"
+
+"No prison walls are sufficiently thick to turn the stream of
+gossip; it trickles, oozes through all barriers. Exactly when or how
+I became acquainted with your family secret is not germane to the
+subject under consideration."
+
+"Cognizant of the fact that Gen'l Darrington's adopted son was my
+prospective brother-in-law, you have paid me the compliment of
+believing that selfish, pecuniary motives incited my zeal in
+securing your prosecution, for the loss of the fortune I coveted?
+Your heart garners that insult to me?"
+
+The only storm signal that defied his habitual control, was the
+intense glow in his eyes where an electric spark rayed out through
+the blue depths.
+
+"I might tell you, that my heart is a sepulchre too crowded with
+dead hopes to hold resentment against their slayer; but you have a
+right to something more. I pay you the just tribute of grateful
+admiration for the unselfish heroism that prompted you to plead so
+eloquently in defence of a forsaken woman who, living or dead,
+defrauded your sister of a brilliant fortune. You fought
+courageously to save me, and I am quite willing you should know that
+it is partly due to my recognition of your bravery in leading that
+forlorn hope, that I am anxious by immediate reparation to restore
+matters to their original status. Life is so uncertain I can leave
+nothing to chance; and when my will is signed and sealed, and in
+your possession, I shall know that even if I should be suddenly set
+free, Mr. Darrington and your sister will enjoy their heritage. When
+you will have drawn up the paper send it to Mr. Singleton. I will
+sign it in his presence and that of the doctor, which will suffice
+for witnesses."
+
+"In view of the peculiar provisions of the will, I prefer you should
+employ some other instrument for its preparation. Judge Dent,
+Churchill or Wolverton, will gladly serve you, and I will send to
+you whomsoever you select. I decline to become the medium of
+transferring the accursed money that cost you so dearly, to the man
+whom my sister expects to marry."
+
+"As you will; only let there be no delay. Ask Judge Dent to prove
+his friendship for Gen'l Darrington by enabling me to execute his
+wishes."
+
+"Judge Dent went this morning to New York; but by the latter part of
+the week you may expect the paper for signature."
+
+"That relieves one anxiety, for while I was so ill I was tortured by
+the thought that I could not make just restitution to innocent
+sufferers. Mr. Dunbar, a yet graver apprehension now oppresses me.
+If I should live, how can I put the rightful owners in immediate
+possession? What process does the law prescribe for conveying the
+property directly to Mr. Darrington?"
+
+"Ordinarily the execution of a deed of gift from you to him, would
+accomplish that object."
+
+"Will you please write out the proper form on the paper in front of
+you?"
+
+"I certainly will not."
+
+"May I know why?"
+
+"For two reasons. Personally, the deed of gift would embarrass me
+even more than the will. Professionally, it occurs to me you are not
+of age; hence the transfer would be invalid at present. Pardon me,
+how old are you?"
+
+"I was eighteen on the fourth of July last. Grim sarcasm is it not,
+that the child of Independence Day should be locked up in a
+dungeon?"
+
+"The law of the State requires the age of twenty-one years to insure
+the validity of such a transaction as that which you contemplate."
+
+"Do you mean that my hands are tied; that if I should live, I can do
+nothing for more than two years?"
+
+"Such is the law."
+
+"Then the justice that fled from criminal law, steers equally clear
+of the civil code? What curious paradoxes, what subtleties of
+finesse lurk in those fine meshes of jurisprudence, ingeniously
+spread to succor wary guilt, to tangle and trip the careless feet of
+innocence! All the world knows that the dearest wish that warmed
+General Darrington's heart was to disinherit and repudiate his
+daughter, and to secure his worldly goods to his adopted son; and
+yet because a sheet of paper expressing that desire could not be
+produced in court, the will of the dead is defied, and the fortune
+is thrust into the hated hands which its owner swore should never
+touch it; hands that the law says murdered in order to steal. When
+the child of the disowned and repudiated, holding sacred the
+unfortunate man's wishes, refuses to accept the blood-bought
+heritage, and attempts to replace the fatal legacy in the possession
+of those for whom it was notoriously intended--this Tartufe of
+justice strides forward and forbids righteous restitution; postpones
+the rendering of 'Caesar's things to Caesar' for two years, in order
+to save the condemned the additional pang of regretting the
+generosity of her minority! Human wills, intentions and aims, no
+matter how laudable and well known, are blandly strangled by
+judicial red tape, and laid away with pompous ceremonial in the
+dusty catacombs of legal form. Grimly grotesque, this masquerade of
+equity! Something must be done for Mr. Darrington, to enable him to
+finish his studies and embark on the career his father designed."
+
+"He is a man, and can learn to carve his way unaided."
+
+She sighed wearily, and a troubled look crossed her face; while the
+visitor followed with longing eyes the slow motion of her delicate
+hand, beautiful as Herses', that softly stroked the cat purring
+against her shoulder.
+
+"Surely there is an outlet to this snare. You could help me if you
+would."
+
+"I? Do you imagine that after all the injuries I have inflicted on
+you, I can consent to help you beggar yourself?"
+
+"You know that I would sooner handle red-hot ploughshares, than
+touch a dollar, a cent, of that fortune. It would greatly relieve my
+mind and comfort me, if you would indicate some method by which I
+can convey to Mr. Darrington that which really belongs to him.
+Unless he can enjoy it, it might as well be in the grave now with
+its former owner. Do help me."
+
+The pathetic pleading of face and voice almost unnerved him, but he
+sat silent.
+
+"Cannot I dispose at least of the income or interest? If a definite
+amount should be allowed me each year, during my minority, could I
+do as I please with that sum?"
+
+"Certainly you have that right. I may as well tell you, there is one
+method of accomplishing your aim, by applying to the Legislature to
+legalize your acts by declaring you of age. At present the estate is
+in the hands of Mr. Wolverton, whom the Probate Court has appointed
+administrator; and at the expiration of eighteen months from the
+date of Gen'l Darrington's death, the control of the whole will
+devolve to some extent upon you. Meanwhile the administrator will
+allow you annually a reasonable amount."
+
+"Do you know what sum Mr. Darrington required while abroad?"
+
+"I am told his allowance was four thousand dollars per annum.
+Histology, morphology, and aetiology are whims too costly for
+impecunious students. Prince must reduce his stable of hobbies."
+
+"No, he is entitled to canter as many as he likes, and the money
+could not be better spent than in promoting the noble work of the
+advancement of Science. The problem is solved, and my earthly cares
+are at an end. Leave the copy you brought, and ask Mr. Wolverton to
+see me to-morrow. He shall write both the will and the deed of gift,
+which you think can be made valid, and meanwhile the annual
+allowance must be paid as formerly to the son. Whether I live or
+die, the wishes of the dead will be respected, and Prince Darrington
+shall have his own. It is an intense relief to know that two
+innocent and happy lives will never feel the fatal chill of my
+shadow; and when your sister enters 'Elm Bluff' as its mistress, the
+balance-sheet will be complete."
+
+As if some dreaded task had been finally accomplished, she drew a
+deep sigh of weariness that was cut short by a spell of coughing.
+
+"There is a Scriptural injunction concerning kindness to enemies,
+which amounts to heaping coals of fire on their heads; and to my
+unregenerate nature, it savors more of subtile inquisitorial
+cruelty, than of Christian charity."
+
+"Your sister is not my enemy, I hope, and need I so rank your
+sister's brother? There is one thing more, which even your sarcasm
+shall not prevent."
+
+She drew from beneath the cardboard a paper box, placed it on the
+table and removed the lid.
+
+"I presume the Sheriff meant kindly when he sent me this as my
+property, which having testified to suit the prosecution, was
+returned to the burglar in whose possession it was found. The sight
+of it was as humiliating as a blow on the cheek. Some gifts are
+fatal; nevertheless, you must ascribe no sinister motive to me, when
+I fulfil that injunction of Gen'l Darrington's last Will and
+Testament, which set apart these sapphires for his son's bride. They
+are just as I received them from his hands. My mother, for whom they
+were intended, never saw them; I thank God that she wears the
+eternal jewels that He provides for the faithful and the pure in
+heart. I wish you to deliver this case, and the gold pieces, one
+hundred dollars, to Mr. Darrington; and it will be a mercy to rid me
+of torturing reminders."
+
+She looked at the azure flame leaping from the superb stones, and
+pushed the box away with a gesture of loathing.
+
+"Beautifully blue as those weird nebulae in the far, far South; that
+brood over the ocean wastes where cyclones are born; but to me and
+to mine, the baleful medium of an inherited curse. Having
+accomplished my doom, may they bring only benison to your sister."
+
+"I would see adders fastened in her ears and twined around her neck
+sooner than those--"
+
+"At least take them out of my sight; give them to Mr. Darrington.
+They are maddening reminders of a perished past. Now, to the last
+iota, I have made all possible restitution, and the account is
+squared; for in exchange for that life, which I am condemned as
+having taken, my own is the forfeit. The expiation is complete."
+
+She seemed to have forgotten his presence, as her gaze rested on the
+ring she wore, and a happy smile momentarily glorified the pale
+face.
+
+"Beryl!--"
+
+She started, winced, shivered; and threw up her hand with the
+haughty denial he so well remembered.
+
+"Hush! Only my precious dead ever called me so. You must not dare!"
+
+Something she read in the face that leaned toward her, filled her
+with vague dread, and despite her efforts, she trembled visibly.
+
+"Mr. Dunbar, I am very weary; tired--oh! how tired, body and soul."
+
+"You dismiss me? Recollect I was warned that this would be the last
+interview accorded me, and I beg your indulgence. If you knew all,
+if you could imagine one-half the sorrow you have caused me, you
+would consider our accounts as satisfactorily balanced as your
+settlement with the Darringtons. Whether you have ruined my life, or
+are destined to purify and exalt it, remains to be determined. To
+see you as you are, is almost beyond my powers of endurance, and for
+my own sake--mark you--to ease my own heart, I shall redouble my
+efforts to have you liberated. There is one speedy process, the
+discovery of the man whom, thus far, you have shielded so
+effectually; and next week I begin the hunt in earnest by going
+West."
+
+He saw her fingers clutch each other, and the artery in her throat
+throb quickly.
+
+"How many victims are required to appease the manes of Gen'l
+Darrington? Be satisfied with having sacrificed me, and waste no
+more time in search that can bring neither recompense to you, nor
+consolation to me. If I can bear my fate, you, sir, have no right to
+interfere."
+
+"Then, like the selfish man I am, I usurp the right. What damnable
+infatuation can bind you to that miserable poltroon, who skulks in
+safety, knowing that the penalty of his evil deeds falls on you? One
+explanation has suggested itself: it haunts me like a fiend, and
+only you can exorcise it. Are you married to that brute, and is it
+loyalty that nerves you? For God's sake do not trifle, tell me the
+truth."
+
+He leaned across the table, caught her hands. She shook off his
+touch, and her eyes were ablaze.
+
+"Are you insane? How dare you cherish such a suspicion? The bare
+conjecture is an insult, and you must know it is false. Married? I?"
+
+"Forgive me if I wound you, but indeed I could conceive of no other
+solution of the mystery of your self-sacrifice; for it is utterly
+incredible that unless some indissoluble tie bound you, that
+cowardly knave could command your allegiance. It maddens me to think
+that you, so far beyond all other women, can tolerate the thought of
+that--"
+
+"Hush! hush! You conjure phantoms with which to taunt and torture.
+You pity me so keenly, that your judgment becomes distorted, and you
+chase chimeras. Banish imaginary husbands, Western journeys, even
+the thought of my wretched doom, and try henceforth to forget that I
+ever saw X--."
+
+"What does this mean? It was not on your hand when I held it so long
+that day--in my own. Tell me, and quiet my pain."
+
+He pointed to the heavy ring, which was much too large for the
+wasted finger where it glistened.
+
+"What does it mean? A tale of woe. It means that when my broken-
+hearted mother was dying among strangers, in a hospital, she kissed
+her wedding ring, and sent it with her love and blessing to the
+child--she idolized. It means--" She held up her waxen hand, and
+into her voice stole immeasurable tenderness:  "Shall I tell you all
+it means? This little gold hoop inscribed inside 'I. B. to E. D.,'
+girdles all that this world has left for me; memories of father,
+mother, sunny childhood in a peaceful home, lofty ambitions, happy,
+happy beautiful hopes that once belonged to the girl Beryl, whom
+pitiless calamity has broken on her cruel wheel. Walled up, dying
+slowly in a convict's tomb, the only light that shines into my
+desolate heart, flickers through this little circle; and clasping it
+close through the long, long nights, when horrible images brood like
+vampires, it soothes me, like the touch of the dear hand which it
+graced so long, and brings me dreams of the fair, sweet past."
+
+Was it the mist in his eyes that showed her almost glorified by the
+level rays of the setting sun, as like a tired child she leaned her
+head against the wall, a pale image of resignation?
+
+To lose her was a conjecture so fraught with pain, that his swart
+face blanched, and his voice quivered under its weight of tender
+entreaty.
+
+"What is it that sustains you in your frightful martyrdom? Why do
+you endure these horrors which might be abolished? You hurl me back
+upon the loathsome thought that love, love for a depraved, brutal
+wretch is the secret that baffles me. I might be able to see you
+die, to lay you, stainless snowdrop that you are, in the coffin that
+would keep you sacred forever; but please God! I will never endure
+the pain of seeing you leave these sheltering walls to walk into
+that man's arms. I swear to you by all I hold most precious, that if
+he be yet alive, I will hand him over to retribution."
+
+He had pushed aside the table, and stood before her, with the one
+wholly absorbing love of his life glowing in his face. She dared not
+meet the gaze that thrilled her with an exquisite happiness, and
+involuntarily rose. Had she not strangled the impulse, her
+fluttering heart would have prompted her to lean forward, rest her
+head against his arm, and tell him all; but close as they stood, and
+realizing that she reigned supreme in his affection, one seemed to
+rise reproachfully between them; that generous, gentle woman to whom
+his faith was pledged. No matter at what cost, she must guard Leo's
+peace of mind; and to dispel his jealous illusion now, would
+speedily overwhelm the tottering fabric of his allegiance. Folding
+her arms tightly across her breast, she answered proudly:
+
+"So be it then. Do your worst."
+
+"You admit it!"
+
+"I admit nothing."
+
+"You defy me?"
+
+"Defy? It seems I am always at the mercy of Tiberius."
+
+"Can you look at me, and deny that you are screening your lover?"
+
+She quickly lifted her head, with a peculiar haughty movement that
+reminded him of a desperate stag at bay, and he never forgot the
+expression of her eyes.
+
+"I deny that Miss Gordon's accepted lover has any right to catechise
+me concerning a subject which, were his suspicions correct, should
+invest it with a sanctity inviolable by wanton curiosity."
+
+He recoiled slightly as from a lash.
+
+"Miss Gordon is on the eve of sailing through the sunny isles of
+Greece; and while she is absent I purpose finding my nepenthe in my
+hunt for murderers among Montana wilds. You have defied me, and I
+will do my worst, nay, my very best to catch and hang that cowardly
+rogue who adroitly used your handkerchief as the instrument to aid
+his crime."
+
+She walked a few steps, putting once more between them the table,
+against which she leaned.
+
+"If you are successful, and the mystery of that awful murder should
+be unravelled, you will then comprehend something of the desperation
+that makes me endure even this crucifixion of soul; and in that day,
+when you discover the fugitive lover, you will blush for the taunts
+aimed at a defenceless and sorely-stricken woman."
+
+"Nevertheless, I bend my energies henceforth to his capture and
+punishment."
+
+"Because he is my lover? Or because he may be a criminal? Ask that
+question of your honor. Answer it to your own conscience, and to the
+noble heart of the trusting woman you asked to become your wife. Mr.
+Dunbar, you must leave me now; my strength is almost spent."
+
+Baffled, exasperated, he approached the table and took something
+from his vest-pocket.
+
+"I hold my honor flawless, and with the sanction of my conscience I
+prefer to answer to you--you alone--because he is your lover, I will
+have his life."
+
+She smiled, and her eyes drooped; but there was strange emphasis in
+her words as she clasped her hands:
+
+"God keep my lover now and forever. Mr. Dunbar, when you discover
+him, I have no fear that you will harm one hair in his dear head."
+
+"If you knew all you have cost me, you might understand why I will
+never forego my compensation. I bide my time; but I shall win. You
+asked me, as a special favor, to preserve and secure for you
+something which you held very valuable. Because no wish of yours can
+ever be forgotten, I have complied with your request and brought you
+this 'precious souvenir' of a tender past."
+
+He tore away the paper wrapping, and held toward her the meerschaum
+pipe, then dropped it on the table as though it burned his fingers.
+
+At sight of it, a sudden faintness made the girl reel, and she put
+her hand to her throat, as if to loosen a throttling touch. Her eyes
+filled, and in a whirling mist she seemed to see the beloved face of
+the father long dead, of the gay, beautiful young brother who had
+wrought her ruin. Weakness overpowered her, and  sinking to her
+knees, she drew the pipe closer, laid it against her cheek, folded
+her arms over it on the table and bowed her head.
+
+What a host of mocking phantoms leaped through the portals of the
+Bygone--babbling of the glorious golden dawn that was whitening into
+a radiant morning, when the day-star fell back below the horizon,
+and night devoured the new-born day. Memory comes, sometimes, in the
+guise of an angel, wearing fragrant chaplets, singing us the perfect
+harmonies of a hallowed past; but oftener still, as a fury scourging
+with serpents; and always over her shoulder peers the wan face and
+pitying eyes of a divine Regret.
+
+The sun had gone down behind the dense pine forest stretching beyond
+the prison, but the sky was a vast shifting flame of waning rose and
+deepening scarlet, and the glow from the West still defied the
+shadows gathering in the cell. Beryl was so still, that Mr. Dunbar
+feared she had fainted from exhaustion.
+
+He stepped to her side, and laid his hand on the bronzed head,
+smoothing caressingly yet reverently the short, silky hair. Ah, the
+unfathomable tenderness with which he bent over the only woman he
+ever loved; the intolerable pain of the thought that after all he
+might lose her. He heard the shuddering sob that broke from her
+overtaxed and aching heart, and despite his jealous rage he felt
+unmanned. When she raised her face, tears hung on her lashes.
+
+"I will thank you, Mr. Dunbar, as long as I live, for this last and
+greatest kindness. If I could tell you what this precious relic
+represents to me, oh, if you knew!  you would pity me indeed."
+
+"Tell me. Trust me. God knows I would never betray your confidence,
+no matter what it cost me."
+
+It was a powerful temptation to divulge the truth, and her heart
+whispered that Bertie's safety would be secured by removing all
+jealous incentive to his pursuit; but she remembered the fair,
+sweet, heroic woman who had dared her fiance's wrath in order to
+unbar those prison doors; who had faithfully and delicately thrown
+over the convict the mantle of her friendship; and the loyal soul of
+the prisoner strangled its weakness.
+
+Perishing in the desert where scorching sands stifled her, she had
+surrendered to death, when love sprang to her side, lifted her into
+the heavenly peace of dewy palms, and held to parched lips the
+sparkling draught a glimpse of which electrified her. Would
+starvation entitle her to drink? Over the head of pleading love
+stretched the arm of stony-eyed duty, striking into the dust the
+crystal drops, withering the palms; and following her stern beckon,
+the thirsty pilgrim re-trod the sands of surrender, more intolerable
+than before, because the oasis was still in sight. Duty! Rugged
+incorruptible Spartan dame, whose inflexible mandate is ever: "With
+your shield, or on it."
+
+Beryl put up her hand, drew his from her head to her lips, kissed it
+softly.
+
+"Good-bye, Mr. Dunbar. I promise you one thing. If I find I cannot
+live, I will send for you. Upon the border of the grave I will open
+my heart. You shall see all; and then you will understand, and
+deliver a message which I must leave in your hands. Give my grateful
+remembrance to Miss Gordon. Make her happy; and ask her to pray for
+me, that I may be patient. Now leave me, for I can bear no more."
+
+She put aside his hand, and hid her face once more. He stooped, laid
+his lips on the shining hair, and walked away. At the door he
+paused. The long corridor was very dim and gloomy, and the deep-
+toned bell in the tower was ringing slowly. Looking back into the
+cell, he saw that Beryl had risen, and against the sullen red glow
+on the western window, her face and figure outlined a silhouette of
+hopeless desolation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Each human soul is dowered with an inherent adaptability to its
+environment, with an innate energy which properly directed, grapples
+successfully with all assailing ills; and Time, the tireless
+reconciler, flies always low at our side, hardening the fibre of
+endurance, stealthily administering that supreme and infallible
+anaesthetic whereby the torturing throes of human woe are surely
+stilled. Existence involves strife; mental and moral growth depend
+upon the vigor with which it is waged, and scorning cowardice,
+Nature provides the weapons essential to victory. The evils that
+afflict humanity are meted out with a marvellously accurate
+reference to the idiosyncrasies of character; and no weight is
+imposed which cannot by heroic effort be sustained. The Socratic
+belief that if all misfortunes were laid in a heap, whence every man
+and woman must draw an equal portion, each would select the burden
+temporarily laid down and walk away comforted, was merely an
+adumbration of the sublimer truth, "As thy day, so shall thy
+strength be."
+
+Very slowly physical health and spiritual patience came back to
+Beryl; but by degrees she bravely lifted the stained and mutilated
+wreck of life, and staggered on her lonely way, finding that repose
+which means the death of hope.
+
+At one time death had smilingly pushed ajar the door that opened
+into eternal peace, and beckoned her bruised soul to follow; then
+mockingly barred escape, and left her to renew the battle. From that
+double window in the second story of the prison, she watched the
+silver of full moons shining on the spectral white columns that
+crowned "Elm Bluff", the fire of setting suns that blazed ruby-red
+as Gubbio wine, along the line of casements that pierced the front
+facade, a bristling perpetual reminder of the tragedy that cried to
+heaven for vengeance. She learned exactly where to expect the first
+glimpse of the slender opal crescent in the primrose west; followed
+its waxing brilliance as it sailed out of the green bights of the
+pine forest, its waning pallor, amid the sparkling splendor of
+planets that lit the far east.
+
+As the constellations trod the mazes of their stately minuet across
+the distant field of blue, their outlines grew familiar as human
+countenances; and from the darkness of her cell she turned to the
+great golden stars throbbing in midnight skies, peering in through
+the iron bars like pitying eyes of heavenly guardians. Locked away
+from human companionship, and grateful for the isolation of her
+narrow cell, the lonely woman found tender compensation in the
+kindly embrace of Nature's arms, drawn closely about her.
+
+The procession of the seasons became to her the advent of so many
+angels, who leaned in at her window and taught her the secret of
+floral runes; the mysterious gamut of bird melodies, the shrill and
+weird dithyrambics of the insect world; the recitative and andante
+and scherzo of wind and rain, of hail and sleet, in storm
+symphonies.
+
+The Angel of Spring, with the snow of dogwood, and the faint pink of
+apple blossoms on her dimpling cheeks; with violet censers swinging
+incense before her crocus-sandalled feet, and the bleating of young
+lambs that nestled in her warm arms.
+
+The Angel of Summer, full blown as the red roses flaunting amid the
+golden grain and amber silk tassels that garlanded her sunny brow;
+poised languorously on the glittering apex of salmon clouds at whose
+base lightning flickered and thunder growled,--watching through
+drowsy half shut lids the speckled broods of partridges scurrying
+with frantic haste through the wild poppies of ripe wheat fields,
+the brown covey of shy doves ambushed among purple morning glories
+swinging in the dense shade of rustling corn; listening as in a
+dream to the laughter of reapers, whetting scythes in the blistering
+glare of meadow slopes, yet hearing all the while, the low, sweet
+babble of the slender stream that trickled through pine roots, down
+the hillside, and added its silvery tinkle to the lullaby crooned by
+the river to its fringe of willows, its sleeping lily pads.
+
+The Angel of Autumn, radiant through her crystal veil of falling
+rain, as with caressing touches she deepened the crimson on orchard
+treasures, mellowed the heart of vineyard clusters, painted the
+leaves with hectic glory that reconciled to their approaching fall,
+smiled on the chestnuts that burst their burrs to greet her,
+whispered to the squirrels that the banquet was ready; kissed into
+starry bloom blue asters crowding about her knees, and left the
+scarlet of her lips on the kingdom of berries ordained to flush the
+forest aisles, where wolfish winds howled, when leaves had rustled
+down to die, and verdure was no more.
+
+The Angel of Winter, a sad, mute image, wan as her robes of snow,
+stretching white wings to shelter perishing birds huddled on the
+cold pall that covered a numb world,--crowned with icicles that
+clasped her silver locks, shedding tears that froze upon her marble
+cheeks; standing on the universal grave where Nature lay bound in
+cerements, hearkening to the dismal hooting of the owl at her feet,
+the sharp insistent cry of gray killdees hovering above icy marshes,
+the wailing tempest dirge over the dead earth; and while with one
+benignant hand she tenderly folded her mantle about the sleepers,
+the other kindled a conflagration along the western sky, that
+reddened and warmed even the wastes of snow, and when she beckoned,
+the attendant stars seemed to circle closer and closer, burning with
+an added lustre that made night glorious. Answering her call, the
+Auroral arch sprang out of the North, spanning the sky with waving
+banners of orange and violet flame, that illumined the Niobe of the
+Seasons, as she hovered with out-stretched glittering pinions, and
+mournful ice-dimmed eyes above her shrouded dead children.
+
+With returning health, had come to Beryl activity of those artistic
+instincts, which for a time, had slumbered in the torpor of despair;
+and when her daily task of work had been accomplished, the prisoner
+leaned with folded arms on the stone ledge of the window, and
+studied every changing aspect of earth and atmosphere. By degrees
+the old ambition stirred, and she began to sketch the slow panorama
+of July clouds, built of mist and foam into the likeness of domes of
+burnished copper, and campaniles of silver; the opaque mountain
+masses, stratified along the horizon, leaden in hue, with sullen
+bluish gorges where ravening January winds made their lair; the
+intricate, graceful tracery of gnaried bare boughs and interlacing
+twigs, that would serve as a framework when May hung up her green
+portieres to screen the down-lined boudoirs where happy birds
+nestled; the gray stone arches of the bridge in the valley below,
+the groups of cattle couched on the rocky hillside, up which the
+pine forest marched like ranks of giants.
+
+On sultry afternoons she watched lengthening tree-shadows creep
+across the reddish-brown carpeting of straw, and in the long nights
+when sleeplessness betrayed her into the clutches of torturing
+retrospection, she waited and longed for the pearly lustre that
+paved the east for the rosy feet of dawn; listened to the beating of
+Nature's heart in the solemn roar of the Falls two miles away, in
+the strophe and anti-strophe of winds quivering through pine tops,
+the startled cry of birds dozing in cedar thickets, the shrill
+droning of crickets, the monotonous recrimination of katydids, the
+peculiar, querulous call of a family of flying squirrels housed in
+the cleft of an old magnolia, the Gregorian chant of frogs cradled
+in the sedge and ferns, where the river lapped and gurgled.
+
+Humanity had turned its back upon her; but the sinless world of
+creation, with all its glorious chords of beautiful color, and the
+soothing witchery of the solemn voices of the night, ministered
+abundantly to eye and ear. She had hoped and prayed to die; God
+denied her petition; and sent, instead of His Angel of Death, two to
+comfort her, the Angel of Health and the Angel of Resignation;
+whereby she understood, that she had not yet earned surcease from
+suffering, but was needed for future work in the Master's vineyard.
+
+If live she must, through the five years of piacular sacrifice, why
+vitiate its efficacy by rebellious repining, that seemed an affront
+to the divine arbiter of human destinies? She could not escape the
+cross; and bitterness of heart might jeopardize the crown. Beggared
+by time, could she afford to risk the eternal heritage? The deepest
+conviction of her soul was, "Behind fate, stands God"; hidden for a
+season, deaf and blind and mute, it seemed, but always surely there;
+waiting His own appointed season of rescue, and of recompense. So
+strong was her faith in His overruling wisdom and mercy, that her
+soul found rest, through perpetual prayer for patience; and as weeks
+slipped into months, and season followed season, she realized that
+though no roses of happiness could ever bloom along her arid path,
+the lilies of peace kissed her tired feet.
+
+Somewhere in the wicked world, Bertie was astray; and perhaps God
+has kept her alive, intending she should fulfil her mission years
+hence, by bringing him out of the snares of temptation, back into
+the fold of Christ's redeemed. Five years of penal servitude to
+ransom his soul; was the price exorbitant?
+
+One dull, wintry afternoon as she pressed close to the window, to
+catch the fading light on the page of her Bible, it chanced to be
+the chapter in St. Luke, which contained the parable of the Pharisee
+and the Publican; and while she read, a great compunction smote her;
+a remorseful sense of having scorned as utterly unclean and debased,
+her suffering fellow prisoners.
+
+Was there no work to be done for the dear Master, in that moral
+lazaretto--the long rows of cells down stairs, where some had been
+consigned for 'ninety-nine years'? Hitherto, she had shrunk from
+contact, as from leprous contagion; meeting the Penitentiary inmates
+only in the chapel where, since her restoration to health, she went
+regularly to sing and play on the organ, when the chaplain held
+service. The world had cruelly misjudged her; was she any more
+lenient to those who might be equally innocent?
+
+Next day she went humbly, yet shyly, down to the common work-room,
+and took her place among the publicans, hoping that the soul of some
+outcast might be won to repentance. Now and then messages of
+sympathy reached her from the outside world, in the form of flowers,
+books, magazines; and two of the jurors who convicted her, sent from
+time to time generous contributions of dainty articles that
+materially promoted her comfort; while a third, whose dead child had
+clung to her Christmas card, eased his regretful pangs by the gift
+of a box containing paper, canvas, crayons, brushes, paints, and all
+requisite appliances for artistic work.
+
+Sister Serena had gone on a labor of love, to a distant State; and
+faithful Dyce, hopelessly crippled by a fall from the mule which she
+was forcing across the bridge leading to the State dungeon, had been
+permanently consigned to the wide rocking chair, beside her cabin
+hearth at "Elm Bluff".
+
+It was a bleak night in January, and intensely cold, when Mrs.
+Singleton wrapped a shawl about her head, and ran along the dark
+corridor to the cell, where Beryl was walking up and down to keep
+herself warm. Only the moonlight illumined it, as the rays fell on
+the bare floor, making a broad band of silver beneath the window.
+
+"I forgot to tell you, that something very dreadful happened at the
+'Lilacs' last week. Judge Dent had a stroke of paralysis and died
+the same night. As if that were not trouble enough to last for a
+while at least, the house took fire in that high wind yesterday, and
+burned to the ground; leaving poor Miss Patty Dent without a roof to
+cover her. She had gone to the cemetery to carry flowers to her
+brother's grave, and when she returned, it was too late to save
+anything. Miss Gordon's new wing cost thousands of dollars and was
+furnished like a palace, so I am told; but the flames destroyed
+every vestige of the beautiful house, and the pictures and statues.
+It seems that it was heavily insured, but money can't buy the old
+portraits and family silver, the mahogany and glass, and the yellow
+damask--that have been kept in the Dent family since George
+Washington was a teething baby; and Miss Patty wails loudest over
+the loss of an old, old timey communion service, that the Dents
+boasted Queen Anne gave to one of them, who was an Episcopal
+minister. The poor old soul is almost crazy, I hear, and Mr. Dunbar
+carries her to New York to-morrow, where she has a nephew living;
+and next month she will go to Europe to join Miss Gordon. It is
+reported in town, that when Judge Dent died so suddenly, Miss Patty
+sent a cable telegram to her niece to come home; but early
+yesterday, just before the fire, an answer came by cable, asking
+Miss Patty to come to Europe. Some people think Mr. Dunbar intends
+escorting her, and that when he meets Miss Gordon, the marriage will
+take place over there; but I never will believe that, till it
+happens."
+
+She peered curiously into the face of her listener, but the light
+was too dim to enable her to read its expression.
+
+"Why not? Under the circumstances, such a course seems eminently
+natural and proper."
+
+"Do you really think he intends marrying?"
+
+"I am the confidant of neither the gentleman nor the lady; but you
+told me long ago, that a marriage engagement existed between them;
+and since both have shown me much kindness and sympathy, I sincerely
+hope their united lives may be very happy. If Mr. Dunbar searched
+the universe, he could scarcely find Miss Gordon's equal, certainly
+not her superior; and he cannot fail to appreciate his good fortune
+in winning her."
+
+Mrs. Singleton lifted her shoulder significantly. "Perhaps! but you
+can never be sure of men. They are about as uncertain calculations
+as the hatching of guinea eggs, or the sprouting of parsley seed.
+What is theirs can't be worth much; but what belongs to somebody
+else, is invaluable; moreover, they are liable to sudden tantrums of
+sheer obstinacy, that hang on like whooping-cough, or a sprain in
+one's joints. Did you never see a mule take the sulks on his way to
+the corn crib and the fodder rack, and refuse to budge, even for his
+own benefit? Some men are just that perverse. Mr. Dunbar is trailing
+game, worth more to him at present, than a sweetheart across the
+Atlantic Ocean; which reminds me of what brought me here. He asked
+Ned to-day, if you saw Mr. Darrington yesterday when he came here;
+and learning that you did not, he gave him this paper, which he said
+would explain what the Legislature did last month, about declaring
+you of age. Ned told him you signed some document Mr. Wolverton
+brought here last week, which secured all the property to Mr.
+Darrington, and he said he had been informed of the transaction, and
+that Mr. Darrington would soon go back to Germany. Then he added:
+'Singleton, present my respects to Miss Brentano and tell her, I am
+happy to say that my trip West last summer was not entirely
+unsuccessful. It has furnished me with a very valuable clue. She
+will understand.' Oh, dear! how bitterly cold it is! Come to my
+room, and get thoroughly thawed; Ned is down stairs, and the
+children are asleep."
+
+"No, thank you; I should only feel the cold more, when I came back."
+
+"Then take my shawl and cover your ears and throat. There, you must.
+Good night."
+
+She closed the door, and fled down the long black passage, to the
+bright cozy room, where her babes slumbered.
+
+Slowly Beryl resumed her walk from window to door, from bar to bar,
+but of the stinging cold she grew oblivious; and the blood burned in
+her cheeks and throbbed with almost suffocating violence at her
+heart.
+
+She comprehended fully the significance of the message, and dared
+not comfort herself with the supposition that it was prompted by a
+spirit of bravado.
+
+To what quarter of the globe was he tracking the desperate culprit,
+who had fled sorely wounded from his murderous assault? Ignorant of
+his mother's death, and of his sister's expiatory incarceration,
+might not Bertie venture back to the great city, where she had last
+seen him; and be trapped by those wily "Quaestores Paricidii" of the
+nineteenth century--special detectives?
+
+Fettered, muzzled by the stone walls of her dungeon, she could send
+him no warning, could only pray and endure, while she and her
+reckless, wayward brother drifted helplessly down the dark, swift
+river of doom. At every revival of fears for his safety, up started
+the mighty temptation that never slumbered, to confess all to Mr.
+Dunbar; but as persistently she took it by the throat, and crushed
+it back, resolved at all hazards to secure, if possible, the
+happiness of the woman who had trusted her.
+
+In the midst of the wreck of her life, out of the depths of the dust
+of humiliation, had sprung the beautiful blossom of love, shedding
+its intoxicating fragrance over ruin; yet, because the asp of
+treachery lurked in the exquisite, folded petals, she shut her eyes
+to the bewildering loveliness, and loyalty strove to tear it up by
+the roots, to trample it out; learning thereby, that the fibrous
+thread had struck deep into her own heart, defying ejectment.
+
+She had forbidden his visits, interdicted letters; but she could not
+expel the vision of a dear face that haunted her memory; nor
+exorcise the spell of a voice that had first thrilled her pulses
+when pleading with the jury in her behalf.
+
+Sometimes she wondered whether she had been created as a mere
+sentient plummet to sound every gulf of human woe; then humbly
+recanted the impious repining, and thanked God that, at least, she
+had been spared that deepest of all abysses, the Hades of remorse.
+That which comes to most women as the supreme earthly joy--the
+consciousness of possessing the heart of the man they love, fell
+upon Beryl like the lash of flagellation; rendering doubly fierce
+the battle of renunciation, which she fought, knowing that sedition
+and treason were raising the standard of revolt within the fortress.
+
+During the eight months that had elapsed since Leo sailed for
+Europe, Beryl had exchanged no word with Mr. Dunbar; but twice a
+sudden, tumultuous leaping of her heart surprised her at sight of
+him, standing in the door of the chapel; watching her as she sat
+within the altar rail, playing the little organ, while the convict
+congregation stood up to sing. Although no name was ever appended,
+she knew what hand had directed the various American and foreign art
+magazines, which brought their argosy of beauty to divert and
+gladden her sombre meditations.
+
+On Christmas morning, the second of her sojourn within penitentiary
+walls, the express messenger had brought to the door of her cell,
+two packages, one a glowing heart of crimson and purple passion
+flowers, the other an exquisite engraving of Sir Frederick
+Leighton's "Hercules Wrestling with Death"; and below the printed
+title, she recognized the bold characters traced in red ink: "The
+Alcestis you emulate."
+
+To-night, a ray of moonlight crept across the wall, and shivered its
+silver over the rigid face of the dead wife in the picture; and the
+prisoner, gazing mournfully at it, comprehended that her own fate
+was sadder than that of the immortal Greek devotee. To die for
+Admetus after he had sworn on the altar of his gods, that he would
+spend alone the remainder of his days, solaced by no fair successor,
+dedicating his fidelity to appease her manes, was comparatively
+easy; but to turn away, voluntarily resign the man she loved, and
+assist in forging the links which she must live to see chaining him
+to a happy rival, were an ordeal more appalling to Alcestis than
+premature descent into the dusky realm of Persephone.
+
+To secure to her brother immunity from pursuit, and to Miss Gordon
+the allegiance of the husband of her choice, was the problem that
+banished sleep and kept Beryl pacing the floor, until welcome day
+hung her orange mantle over the quivering splendor of the morning
+star. One final effort was all that seemed possible now; and
+kneeling before the table she wrote and sealed a note, to be
+delivered before the express train bore the lawyer away on his
+journey:
+
+"Your message was received, and it has so disquieted and alarmed me
+that I am forced to treat for peace. If you will cancel your police
+contracts, cease your search, go to Europe with Miss Dent, and
+pledge me your honor to marry Miss Gordon before you return, I will
+solemnly promise, bind myself in the sight of the God I serve, to
+live and to die Beryl Brentano; and never, without your consent and
+permission, will I look again on the face of the man whom you are
+hunting to death. The assurance of his safety will atone for all you
+have made me suffer; will nerve me to bear whatever the future may
+hold. You will imagine you understand, but it is impossible that you
+can ever realize the nature of the pain this proposal involves for
+me; nevertheless, if you accept and keep the compact, I believe you
+know that, at all costs, I shall never forfeit the pledged word of
+
+"BERYL BRENTANO."
+
+When marriage vows had irrevocably committed Leo's happiness to his
+honor, it might then be safe to tell him the truth, and solicit
+release from the self-imposed terms. Five hours later, she received
+an answer:
+
+"A trifle too late, you unfurled the flag of truce. With my game in
+sight, I decline to forego the chase. For your solicitude regarding
+my marriage, I tender my thanks; and the assurance, that no magnet
+can draw, not all the charms of Circe lure me across the Atlantic,
+until I have accomplished my purpose. The tardiness of your proposal
+is unerring appraiser of its costliness; and I were a monster of
+cruelty to debar you the sight of your idol, though I bring him with
+the grim garniture of chains and handcuffs. When I consign Miss Dent
+to her relatives in New York, I go to a miners' camp in Dakota, to
+identify a man bearing the marks of one who fled from X---, and lost
+his pipe, on the night he murdered Gen'l Darrington.
+
+"DUNBAR."
+
+To temporize longer would be fatal to Bertie; and no alternative
+remained but to tell the simple truth.
+
+Without an instant's delay she took up her pen, but ere half a line
+had been traced on the paper, a hoarse whistle, somewhat muffled by
+distance, told her the attempt was futile; and through the valley
+beyond the river a trailing serpent of black smoke showed the
+express train darting northward. The attorney had left X---, but
+might linger in New York sufficiently long for a letter to reach
+him; and doubtless his address could be learned at his office:
+
+"If Mr. Dunbar will give me an opportunity of acquainting him with
+some facts, he is anxious to discover, he shall find it unnecessary
+to travel to Dakota; and will thank me for saving him from the long
+journey he contemplates.
+
+"B. B."
+
+The sun was setting when Mr. Singleton returned from the attorney's
+office, and held out the note which he had been instructed to
+address and deposit in the mail.
+
+"If it is a matter of any importance, I am sorry to tell you that
+this cannot reach Mr. Dunbar immediately. He goes only as far as
+Philadelphia, where Miss Dent's nephew meets her; then Dunbar
+travels right on West without stopping, till he reaches Bismarck. He
+left instructions at his office to retain all mail matter here, for
+a couple of weeks, then forward to Washington City; as business
+would detain him there some days after his return from the west.
+Good gracious! how white your lips are. Sit down. What ails you?"
+
+She put her hand over her eyes, and tried to collect her thoughts.
+To suffer so long, so keenly, and yet lose the victory; could it be
+possible that her sacrifice would prove utterly futile?
+
+"Mr. Singleton, you have shown me many times your friendly sympathy,
+and I am again forced to tax your kindness. It is important that I
+should see or communicate with Mr. Dunbar within the next forty-
+eight hours. Could you induce the telegraph operator here to have a
+message delivered to him on the train, before it reaches Washington
+City?"
+
+"I will certainly do my best; and to insure it I will go to the
+railroad operator, who understands the stations, and can catch
+Dunbar more easily than a message from the general office. Write our
+your telegram, while I order my buggy."
+
+"MR. DUNBAR. On board Train No. 2.
+
+"Please let me see you before you go West. I promise information
+that will render you unwilling to make the journey to Bismarck."
+
+"B."
+
+Anxiously she computed the time within which an answer might
+reasonably be expected; and her heart dwelt as a suppliant before
+God, that the message would avail to arrest pursuit; but hours wore
+wearily away, tedious days trod upon the slow skirts of dreary
+nights; and no response lifted the burden of dread. Hope whispered
+feebly that his failure to send a telegraphic reply, implied his
+intention of returning to X---from Philadelphia; and she clung to
+this rope of sand until a week had passed. Then the conviction was
+inevitable that he regarded her appeal as merely a ruse to divert
+his course, to delay the seizure of his prey; and that while he
+misinterpreted the motive that prompted her message, she had merely
+furnished an additional goad to his jealous hatred.
+
+As helpless wrack borne on the sullen tide of destiny, she struck
+her trembling hands together, and cried out in the dark solitude of
+her cell: "Verily! The stars in their courses fought against
+Sisera."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+The winter was marked by an unusual severity of cold, which
+prolonged the rigor of mid-season until late in February, and
+despite the efforts of penitentiary officials who made unprecedented
+requisitions upon the board of inspectors, for additional clothing,
+the pent human herd suffered keenly.
+
+Alarmed by the rapidly increasing rate of sickness within the
+"walls," Mr. Singleton demanded a sanitary commission, which, after
+apparently thorough investigation, reported no visible local cause
+for the mortality among the convicts; but the germs of disease grew
+swiftly as other evil weeds, and the first week in March saw a
+hideous harvest of diphtheria of the most malignant type.
+
+At the earliest intimation of the character of the pestilence, the
+warden's wife fled with her little children to her mother's home in
+a neighboring county; maternal solicitude having extinguished her
+womanly reluctance to desert her husband, at a juncture when her
+presence and assistance would so materially have cheered, and
+lightened his labors. An attempt was made to isolate the first case
+in the hospital, but the cots in that spacious apartment filled
+beyond the limits of accommodation; and soon, a large proportion of
+the cells on the ground floor held each its victim of the fatal
+disease, that as the scythe of death cut a wide swath through
+convict ranks. Consulting physicians walked through the infected
+ward, altered prescriptions, advised disinfectants which were
+liberally used, until the building seemed to exhale pungent,
+wholesome, but unsavory odors; yet there was no abatement in the
+virulence of the type. When the twenty-third case was entered on the
+hospital list, the trustees and inspectors determined to remove all
+who showed no symptom of the contagion, to an old, long-abandoned
+cotton factory several miles distant; where the vacant houses of
+former operatives would afford temporary shelter; and to diminish
+the chances of carrying infection, each prisoner was carefully
+examined by the attending physician, and then furnished with an
+entirely new suit of clothing.
+
+When the nature of the epidemic could no longer be concealed from
+the inmates, instinctive horror drove them from the neighborhood of
+the victims, and like frightened sheep they huddled in remote
+corners, removed as far as possible from the infected precincts, and
+loath to minister to the needs of the sufferers.
+
+Two men, and as many women, selected and detailed as nurses in their
+respective wards, openly rebelled; and while Doctor Moffat and Mr.
+Singleton were discussing the feasibility of procuring outside
+assistance, the door of the dispensary adjoining the hospital,
+opened, and Beryl walked up to the table, where medicines were
+weighed and mixed.
+
+"Put me to work among the sick. I want to help you."
+
+"You! What could you do? I should as soon take a magnolia blossom to
+scrub the pots and pans of a filthy kitchen," answered the doctor,
+looking up over his spectacles from the powder he was grinding in a
+glass mortar.
+
+"I can follow your directions; I can obey orders; and physicians
+deem that the sine qua non in nurses. Closed lips, open ears,
+willing hands are supposed to outweigh any amount of unlicensed
+brains. Try me."
+
+"No. I am not willing. Go back up-stairs, and stay there," said the
+warden.
+
+"Why may I not assist in nursing?"
+
+"In the first place you are not fit to mix with those poor
+creatures, in yonder; their oaths would curdle your blood; and in
+the second, you are not strong, and would be sure to take the
+disease at once."
+
+"I am perfectly well; my lungs are now as healthy as yours, and I am
+not afraid of diphtheria. You detailed nurses, who refused to serve;
+I volunteer; have you any right to reject me?"
+
+"Yes, the right to protect and save your life, which is worth twenty
+of those already in danger," replied Mr. Singleton, pausing in his
+task of filling capsules with quinine.
+
+"Who made you a judge of the value of souls? My life belongs first
+to God, who gave it, next to myself; and if I choose to jeopardize
+it, in work among my suffering comrades in disgrace, you must not
+usurp the authority to prevent me."
+
+"Has it become so intolerable that you desire to commit suicide,
+under the specious plea of philanthropic martyrdom?" said Doctor
+Moffat, whose keen black eyes scanned her closely, from beneath
+shaggy gray brows.
+
+"I think I may safely say, no such selfish motive underlies my
+resolution. My heart is full of pity, and of dread for some women
+here, who admit their guilt, yet have sought no pardon from the
+Maker their sins insult. Sick souls cry out to me louder than dying
+bodies; and who dare deny me the privilege of ministering to both?
+The parable of the sparrows is no fable to me; and if, while trying
+to comfort my unhappy associates here, God calls me out of this dark
+stony vineyard, His will alone overrules all; and I can meet His
+face in peace. We say: 'Lord what wilt Thou have us to do?' and when
+the answer comes, pointing us to perilous and loathsome labors, will
+He forget if we shut our eyes, and turn away, coveting the sunny
+fields into which He sent others to toil? Let me go to my work."
+
+During almost eighteen months, both men had studied her character as
+manifested in the trying phases of prison existence, finding no
+flaw; to-day they looked up reverently at the graceful form in its
+homespun uniform, at the calm, colorless face, wearing its crown of
+meekness, with an inalienable, proud air of cold repose.
+
+"To keep you here is about as sacrilegious as it would have been to
+thrust St. Catherine among the chain-gang in the galleys," muttered
+the doctor.
+
+"No doubt duty called her to much worse places; therefore, when she
+died, the angels buried her on Sinai," answered the prisoner; before
+whose wistful eyes drifted the memory of Luini's picture.
+
+"You have set your heart on this; nothing less will content you?"
+
+"While the necessity continues, nothing less will content me."
+
+"Remember, you voluntarily take your life in your own hands."
+
+"I assume the entire responsibility for any risk incurred."
+
+"Then, I wish you God speed; for the harvest is white, the laborers
+few."
+
+"Why, doctor! I relied on you to help me keep her out of reach. If
+anything happens, how shall I pacify Susie? She made me promise
+every possible care of her favorite. Look here, only an hour ago I
+received a letter and this package marked, 'One for Ned; the other
+for Miss Beryl.' Two little red flannel safety bags, cure-alls, to
+be tied around our necks, close to our noses, as if we could not
+smell them a half mile off? Assafoetida, garlic, camphor, 'jimson
+weed,' valerian powder--phew! What not? Mixed as a voudoo chowder,
+and a scent twice as loud!"
+
+"Be thankful your wife is not here to enforce the wearing of the
+sanitary sachet," said the doctor, allowing himself a grimace of
+contemptuous disgust.
+
+"So I am! but being a bachelor, answerable only to yourself, you
+cannot understand how absence does not exonerate me from the promise
+made when she started away. I would sooner face an 'army with
+banners,' than that little brown-eyed woman of mine when she takes
+the lapel of my coat in one hand, raises the forefinger of the
+other, turns her head sideways like a thrush watching a wriggling
+worm, and says, in a voice that rises as fast as the sound a mouse
+makes racing up the treble of the piano keys: 'Ump! whew! Didn't I
+tell you so? The minute my back was turned, of course you made ducks
+and drakes of all your promises. Show me a "Flying Jenney," that the
+tip end of any idiot's little finger can spin around, and I'll
+christen it Edward McTwaddle Singleton!' Seems funny to you, doctor?
+Just wait till you are married, and your Susan shuts the door and
+interviews you, picking a whole flock of crows, till you wonder if
+it isn't raining black feathers. When I am taken to taw about this
+nursing business, I shall lose no time in laying the blame on you."
+
+"I will assure Mrs. Singleton that you endeavored to dissuade me;
+and that you faithfully kept your promise to shield me from danger."
+
+"Which she will not believe, because she knows that I have the power
+to lock you up indefinitely. Besides, if you live to explain
+matters, there will be no necessity; but suppose you do not? You are
+running into the jaws of an awful danger, and if--"
+
+His frank, pleasant countenance clouded, he gnawed his mustache, and
+the question ended in a long sigh. After a moment, a low, sweet
+voice completed the sentence:
+
+"If I should die, your tender-hearted wife is so truly and
+faithfully my friend, that she could not regret to hear I have
+entered into my rest."
+
+There was a brief silence, during which the physician crossed the
+floor, opened a glass door and surveyed the stock of drugs. When he
+came back, and took up the pestle, he spoke with solemn emphasis:
+
+"This is the most malignant type of an always dangerous disease that
+I have ever encountered; and constant exposure to it, without the
+careful, persistent use of tonic and disinfectant precautions, would
+be tantamount to walking unvaccinated into a pest-house, where
+people were dying of confluent small-pox. I have no desire to
+frighten, but it is proper that I should warn you; and insist upon
+the duty of watching your own health as closely as the symptoms of
+the victims you are desirous of nursing. Will you follow the regimen
+I shall prescribe for yourself?"
+
+"Implicitly."
+
+The warden finished filling the capsules, rose and looked at his
+watch.
+
+"As far as the chances go, it is 'heads I win, tails you lose'; and
+sorry enough I am to see you come down and dare the pestilence; but
+since you are, I might as well say what I was asked to tell you last
+night. For your sake I kept silent; now since you persist, I wash my
+hands of all responsibility for the consequences. You have heard the
+history of the woman Iva Le Bougeois, better known in the 'walls' as
+the 'Bloody Duchess'. Two days ago the scourge struck her down; she
+is very ill, the worst symptoms have appeared, and she is almost
+frantic with terror. Last night, at 12 o'clock, I was going the
+rounds of the sick wards, and found her wringing her hands, and
+running up and down the cell like a maniac. I tried to quiet and
+encourage her, but she paid no more attention than if stone deaf;
+and when I started to leave her, she seized my arm, and begged me to
+ask you to come and stay with her. She thinks if you would sing for
+her, she could listen, and forget the horrible things that haunt
+her. It is positively sickening to see her terror at the thought of
+death. Poor, desperate creature."
+
+"Yet you withheld her message when I might have comforted her?"
+
+"It was a crazy whim. In hardened cases like hers, death-bed remorse
+counts for very little. Her conscience is lashing her; could you
+quiet that? Could you bleach out the blood that spots her soul?"
+
+"Yes, by leading her to One who can."
+
+"Remember, you asked me as a special favor to keep you as far apart
+as possible from all of her class."
+
+"At that time, overwhelmed by the misery of my own fate, I was
+pitiless to the sufferings of others. The rod that smote me was very
+cruel then; but by degrees it seems to bud like Aaron's with
+precious promise, that may expand into the immortal flowers of souls
+redeemed. I dwelt too long in the seat of the Pharisees; I shall
+live closer to God, walking humbly among the Publicans. Will you
+show me the way to the woman who wishes to see me?"
+
+"Not yet. There are some instructions that must be carefully weighed
+before I can install you as nurse, in that dismal mire of moral and
+physical corruption. Singleton, send the hospital steward to me."
+
+There are spectacles which brand themselves so ineffaceably upon
+memory, that time has no power to impair their vividness; and of
+such were some of the scenes witnessed by the new nurse.
+
+Sitting on the side of her cot, from which the gray blanket had been
+dragged and folded half across her shoulders, where one hand held
+it, while the other clutched savagely at her throat; with her bare
+delicate feet beating a tattoo on the white sanded floor, and her
+thin nostrils dilated in the battle for breath, Iva Le Bougeois
+moaned in abject terror. The coarse, unbleached "domestic" night-
+gown that fell to her ankles was streaked across the bosom with some
+dark brown fluid; and similar marks stained the pillow where her
+restless head had tossed. The hot eyes and parched red lips seemed
+to have drained all the tainted blood from her olive cheeks, save
+where, just beneath the lower lids, ominous terra-cotta rings had
+been painted and glazed by the disease.
+
+As Beryl pushed open the iron door, and held up the lantern, that
+its brightness might stream into the cell, where even at five
+o'clock in the afternoon of a rainy day darkness reigned, the rays
+flashed back from the glowing eyes chatoyant as a cougar's.
+
+"Your message was not delivered until to-day, and I lost no time in
+coming."
+
+The small head, where short, straight, blue-black locks, rumpled and
+disordered, were piled elfishly around the low brow, was thrown up
+with the swift movement of some startled furry animal, alert even in
+the throes of death.
+
+"Is all hope over? Did they tell you there is no chance for me?"
+
+The voice was hoarse and thick, the articulation indistinct and
+smothered.
+
+"No. They think you very ill, but still hope the remedies will save
+you. The doctor says your fine constitution ought to conquer the
+disease."
+
+"I am beyond the remedy--because I can't swallow any longer. Since
+the doctor left me, I have tried and tried. See--"
+
+From a bench within reach, she lifted a small yellow bowl, which
+contained a dark mixture, put it to her lips, and chafing her
+swollen glands, attempted several times to swallow the liquid. A
+gurgling sound betrayed the futility of the effort, the medicine
+gushed from her nose, the eyes seemed starting from their sockets,
+and even the husky cry of the sufferer was strangled, as she cowered
+down.
+
+"Compose yourself; nervousness increases the difficulty. Once I had
+diphtheria, and could not swallow for two days, yet I recovered. Be
+quiet, and let me try to help you."
+
+Kneeling in front of her, Beryl turned up the wick of the lantern,
+and with a small brush attached to a silver wire, finally succeeded
+in cauterizing and removing a portion of the poisonous growth that
+was rapidly narrowing the avenue of breath. The spasm of coughing
+that ensued was Nature's auxiliary effort, and temporarily relieved
+the tightening clutch.
+
+After a few moments, a dose of the medicine was successfully
+administered; and then the slender, shapely brown hand of the woman
+grasped the nurse's blue homespun dress.
+
+"Don't leave me! Save me. Oh, don't let me strangle here alone--in
+the dark; don't let me die! I'm not fit. I know where I shall go.
+It's not the devil I dread; I have known many devils in this world,-
+-but God. I am afraid of God!"
+
+"Lie down, and cover your shoulders. If it comforts you to have me,
+I will stay gladly. The doctor, the warden, all of us will do what
+we can to cure you; but the help you need most, can come only from
+one whose pity is greater and tenderer than ours, your merciful God.
+Lift up your heart in prayer to him; ask him to forgive your sins,
+and spare you to lead a better life."
+
+"He would not hear, because He knows how black my heart has been all
+these years; since I gave myself up to hate and cursing. You can't
+understand--you are not one of us. You are as much out of place
+here, as one of the angels would be, held over the flames of torment
+till the wings singed. From the first time we saw you in the chapel,
+and more and more ever since, we found out you did not belong here.
+I have been so wicked--so wicked--!"
+
+She paused, panting, then hurried on.
+
+"When the chaplain tried to talk to me, and gave me a book to read,
+I dashed it back in his face, and insulted him. One Saturday they
+sent me to sweep out and dust the chapel, and when I finished, I
+laid down on one of the benches to rest. You went in to practise,
+not knowing I was there; and began to sing. As I listened, something
+seemed to stir and wake up in my heart, and somehow the music shook
+me out of myself. There was one hymn, so solemn, so thrilling, and
+the end of every verse was, 'Oh, Lamb of God! I come!'--and you sang
+it with a great cry, as if you were running to meet some one. I had
+not wept--for oh! I don't know how long--not since--. Then you
+played on the organ some variations on a tune--'The Sweet By-and-
+by'--and the tears started, and I seemed but a leaf in a wild storm.
+That was the song my little boy used to sing! There was a Sunday-
+school in the basement of a church next to our house, and he would
+stand at the window, and listen till he caught the tune, and learned
+the words. Oh, that hymn! Every note stung me like a whip lash when
+I heard it again. My child's face as I saw him the last time I put
+him to bed; when he opened his drowsy eyes, and raised up to kiss me
+good-night, came back to me, and seemed to sing, 'In the sweet by-
+and-by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore.' No--never--never!
+Oh, my boy! My beautiful angel Max--there is no room for me, on that
+heavenly shore! Oh! my darling--there is NO 'Sweet by-and-by' FOR
+MOTHER NOW."
+
+She had started up, with arms clasped around her knees, and her
+convulsed face lifted toward the low ceiling of the cell, writhed,
+as she drew her breath in hissing gasps.
+
+"You loved your little boy?"
+
+"You are not a mother, or you wouldn't ask me that If ever you had
+felt your baby's sweet warm lips on yours, you would know that it is
+mother-love that makes tigers of women. Because I idolized my little
+one, I could not bear the cruel wrong of having him torn from me,
+taught to despise me; and so I loved him best when I slew him, and I
+was so mad, with the delirium of pain and rage and despair, that I
+forgot I was putting the gulf of perdition between us. Rather than
+submit to separation in this world, than have him raised by them, to
+turn away from his mother as a thing too vile to wear his father's
+name, I lost him for ever and ever! My son, my star-eyed darling."
+
+"Listen to me. You loved him so tenderly, that no matter how wilful
+or disobedient he might have been, you forgave him every offence;
+and when he sobbed on your bosom, you felt he was doubly dear, and
+hugged him closer to your heart? Even stronger and deeper is God's
+love for us. Dare you call yourself more pitiful, more tender than
+your Father in heaven, who gave you the capacity to love your child,
+because He so compassionately loves His children? We sin, we go far
+astray, we think mercy is exhausted, and the door shut against us;
+but when we truly repent and go back, and kneel, and pray to be
+forgiven, Christ Himself unbars the door and leads us in; and our
+Father, loving those whom He created, pardons all; and only requires
+that we sin no more. God does not follow us; we must humbly go back
+all the distance we have put between us by our wickedness; but the
+heavens will fall before He fails to keep His promise to forgive,
+when we do genuinely repent of our wrongdoing."
+
+"It is easy for the good to believe that. You are innocent of any
+crime, and you are punished for other people's sins, not for your
+own; so you can't understand how I dread the thought of God, because
+I know the blackness of my heart, when, to get my revenge, I sold my
+soul to Satan. Oh! the horror of feeling that I can't undo the
+bargain; that pay-day has come! I had the vengeance, I snatched out
+of God's hands, and for a while I gloated over it; but now the awful
+price! My little one in heaven with the angels; knowing that his
+mother is a devil--eternally."
+
+Her head had fallen upon her knees, and in the frenzy of despair she
+rocked to and fro.
+
+"Don't you remember that the most sinful woman Christ met on earth,
+was the one of all others that He first revealed Himself to, when He
+came out of the grave? Because she was so nearly lost, and He had
+forgiven so much, in order to save her, her purified heart was
+doubly dear, and he honored her more than the disciples, who had
+escaped the depth of her wickedness. Try to find comfort in the
+belief, that if sincere remorse and contrition redeemed the soul of
+Mary Magdalen, the same Savior who pitied and pardoned her will not
+deny your prayer."
+
+"God believed her, because she proved her repentance by leading a
+new, purer life. But I have no chance left to prove mine. If she had
+been cut off in the midst of her sins, as I am, she would have been
+obliged to pay in her ruined soul to the Satan she had served so
+long. When I am called to the settlement, it seems an insult and a
+mockery to ask God, whom I have defied, to save me. If I could only
+have a little time to show my penitence."
+
+"Perhaps you may be spared; but if not, God sees your contrition
+just as fully now as if you lived fifty years to show it in good
+works. He sees you are sincerely remorseful, and would be a true
+Christian, if He allowed you an opportunity. That is the blessedness
+of our religion, that when Christ gives us a new heart, purified by
+repentance and faith in Him, He says it makes clean hands, in His
+sight, no matter how black they might have been. One of the thieves
+was already on the cross, in the agonies of death, with his sins
+fresh on his soul, and no possible chance of atoning for his past,
+by future dedication of his life to good; but Christ saw his heart
+was genuinely repentant, and though the man did not escape
+crucifixion by humanity, his pardoned soul met Jesus that same day
+in Paradise. It is not acceptance of our good deeds, though they are
+required, it is forgiveness of our sins, that makes Christ so
+precious. Pray from the very bottom of your heart, to God, and try
+to take hold of the promise to the truly penitent; and trust--trust
+Him."
+
+For a moment the crouching figure was still, as if the sufferer
+mentally grasped at some shred of hope; then she fell back on her
+pillow, and groaned.
+
+"Do you know all I have done? Do you think there is any mercy for--"
+
+"Hush, every word taxes your failing strength. Compose yourself."
+
+"I can't! As long as I have breath let me tell you. If I shut my
+eyes, horrible things seem to be pouncing upon me; dreadful shapes
+laugh, and beckon to me, and I see--oh! pity me! I see my murdered
+child, with the blood spouting, foaming, the velvety brown eyes I
+loved to kiss, staring and glazed as I dragged his little body to--"
+
+With a gurgling scream she paused, shivered, panted.
+
+"It is a feverish dream. Your child is safe in heaven; ask your
+Father to let you see his face among the angels."
+
+"It's not fever; it's the past, my own crimes that come to follow me
+to judgment and accuse me. The hand of my first-born pointing over
+the last bar at the mother who killed him! Do you wonder I am afraid
+to die? I don't deny my bloody deeds--but after all it was a foul
+wrong that drove me to desperation; and God knows, man's injustice
+brought me to my sin. I was a spoiled, motherless child, married at
+sixteen to a man whose family despised me, because my pretty face
+had ruined their scheme of a match with an heiress, whose money was
+needed to retrieve their fortunes. They never forgave the marriage,
+and after a few years, mischief began to brew.
+
+"I loved my husband, but his nature was too austere to deal
+patiently with my freakish, petulant, volcanic temper; and when he
+lectured me for my frivolity, obstinacy plunged me into excesses of
+gayety, that at heart I did not enjoy. His mother and sister shunned
+me more and more, poisoned his mind with wicked and unfounded
+suspicions, and so we grew mutually distrustful. He tired of me, and
+he showed it. I loved him. Oh! I loved him better, and better, as I
+saw him drifting away. He neglected me, spent his leisure where he
+met the woman he had once intended to marry. I was so maddened with
+jealous heart-ache, some evil spirit prompted me to try and punish
+him with the same pangs. That was my first sin of deception; I
+pretended an attachment I never felt, hoping to rekindle my
+husband's affection. Like many another heart-sick wife, I was caught
+in my own snare; and while I was as innocent of any wrong as my own
+baby boy, his father was glad of a pretext to excuse his alienation.
+People slandered me; and because I loved Allen so deeply, I was too
+proud to defend myself, until too late.
+
+"God is my witness, my husband was the only man I ever loved; ah!
+how dear he was to me! His very garments were precious; and I have
+kissed and cried over his gloves, his slippers. The touch of his
+hand was worth all the world to me, but he withheld it. When you
+know your husband loves you, he may ill treat, may trample you under
+his feet, but you can forgive him all; you caress the heel that
+bruises you. Allen ceased to show me ordinary consideration, stung
+me with sneers, threatened separation; even shrunk from the boy,
+because he was mine.
+
+"There came a day, when some fiend forged a letter, and the same
+vile hand laid it in my husband's desk. Only God knows whose is the
+guilt of that black deed, but I believe it was his sister's work.
+Allen cursed me as unworthy to be the mother of his child, and swore
+he would be free. On my knees I begged him to hear, and acquit me. I
+confessed all my yearning love for him, I assured him I was the
+victim of a foul plot; and that if he would only take me back to the
+heaven of his heart, he would find that no man ever had a more
+devoted wife. He wanted an excuse to put me out of his way; he
+repulsed me with scorn, and before the sun set, he forsook me, and
+took up his abode with his mother and sister. Oh! the cruel wrong of
+that dreadful, parting scene!"
+
+She sprang from the cot, breathless from the passionate recital,
+beating the air with one small slender hand, while the other tore at
+the swollen cords of her tortured throat.
+
+Beryl caught the round, prettily turned wrist, and felt the feeble
+thread of pulse that was only a wild flutter, under the olive satin
+of the hot skin.
+
+"This excitement only hastens the end you dread. Lie down, and I
+will pray for you."
+
+"I shall soon lie down for ever. Let me walk a little, before my
+feet slide into the grave."
+
+She staggered twice across the length of the cell, then tottered and
+fell back on the cot. At every respiration the thin nostrils flared,
+and the glazed ring below the eyes lost its sullen red tinge, took
+on blue shadows.
+
+"I did not know then I was to lose my child also; but before long,
+all the scheme was made clear. Allen sued for a divorce. He wanted
+to shake me off; and he persuaded himself all the foul things my
+enemies had concocted must be true. I had lost his love; I was too
+proud to show my torn heart to the world; and men make the laws to
+suit themselves, and they help each other to break chains that gall,
+so Allen was set free. I shut myself up in two rooms, with my boy,
+and saw no one. Even then, though my heart was breaking, and I wept
+away the lonely days--longing for the sight of my husband's face,
+starving for the sound of his voice--I bore up; because I knew I was
+innocent, and unjustly censured, and I had my child to comfort me.
+He slept in my arms and kept me human; and we were all the world to
+each other.
+
+"Then the last blow fell. There came a note, whose every word bit my
+heart like an adder. Allen demanded the boy, whom the law gave to
+his guardianship; and I was warned I must make no attempt to see him
+after he was taken away, because he would be taught to forget me. I
+refused. I dared the officer to lay hands on my little one, and I
+was so frantic with grief, the man had compassion, and left me. Two
+nights afterward, I rocked him to sleep and put him in bed. His arms
+fell from my neck; half aroused, he nestled his face to mine--kissed
+me. I went into the next room, to finish a shirt I was making for
+him, and I shut the door, fearing the noise of the machine would
+wake him. I sewed half an hour, and--when I went back, the bed was
+empty, my child was gone.
+
+"I think I went utterly mad then. I can remember putting my lips to
+the dent on the little ruffled pillow, where his head had lain, and
+swearing that I would have my revenge.
+
+"That night turned me to stone; every tender feeling seemed to
+petrify. When I learned that Allen was soon to marry the woman for
+whom he had cast me off, and that my boy was to have a new mother to
+teach him to hate me, it did not grieve me; I had lost all power of
+suffering; but it woke up a legion of fiends where my heart used to
+beat, and I bided my time. Happy women in happy homes think me a
+monster. With their husbands' arms around them, and their babies
+prattling at their knees, they bear my wrongs so meekly, and shudder
+at my depravity. When I thought of Allen, who was my first and last
+and only love, giving my place to some other woman, who was no more
+worthy than I knew myself to be; and of the baby, who had slept on
+my heart, and was so dear because he had his father's eyes and his
+father's brown curls, growing up to deny and condemn his innocent
+but disgraced mother, it was more than I could bear. I was not
+insane; oh, no! But I was possessed by more than seven devils; and
+revenge was all this world could give me. My husband's family had
+ruined me; so I would spoil their match a second time.
+
+"The wedding was to be very private, but I bribed a servant and got
+into the house, and stood behind the damask curtains. Allen's mother
+and sister came in, leading my boy; and they were so close to me I
+could see the long silky lashes resting against my baby's brow, as
+his great brown eyes looked wonderingly at a horseshoe of roses
+dangling from the chandelier. Then my husband, my handsome husband--
+my darling's father, walked in, with the bride on his arm, and the
+minister met them, saying: 'Dearly beloved--.' I ceased to be a
+woman then, I was a fury, a wild beast--and two minutes later my
+darlings were mine once more, safe from that other woman--dead at my
+feet. Then the ball I aimed at my own breast missed its destination.
+I fell on my slaughtered idols; seeing in a bloody mist the wide
+eyes of my baby boy, and the mangled face of the husband whose kiss
+was the only heaven I shall ever know. I meant to die with them, but
+I failed; so they sent me here. That was years ago; but I was a
+stone until that day in the chapel, when you sang my Max's song,
+'By-and-By'."
+
+There was a brief silence, and Beryl's voice wavered as she said
+very gently:
+
+"Your trials were fiery; and though the crime was frightfully black,
+God judges us according to the natures we are born with, and the
+temptations that betray us; and He forgives all, if we are true
+penitents and throw ourselves trustingly on His mercy. Now take this
+powder; it will make you sleep."
+
+"Will you stay with me? I shall not trouble anybody much longer. Say
+a prayer for my sinful soul, that is going down into the eternal
+night."
+
+"Let us pray together, that your pardoned soul may find blessed and
+eternal peace."
+
+Coming softly to the door, the doctor looked in through the iron
+lattice, saw the figure of the nurse kneeling on the sanded floor,
+with her bronzed head close to the pillow where the moaning victim's
+lay; and involuntarily he took off his cloth cap, and bowed his gray
+head to listen to the brief but solemn petition that went up from
+the dungeon to the supreme and unerring Judge.
+
+When he returned to the same spot an hour later, Beryl sat on the
+side of the cot, with one hand clasping the brown wrist thrown
+across her lap, the other pressed gently over the sufferer's hot,
+aching eyes; and wonderfully sweet was the rich voice that chanted
+low:
+
+     "Just as I am, without one plea,
+      But that Thy blood was shed for me.
+      And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
+      O Lamb of God! I come, I come!
+      Just as I am, and waiting not
+      To rid my soul of one dark blot,
+      To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
+      O Lamb of God! I come, I come!"
+
+The noon sun was shining over a wet world, kindling into diamonds
+the crystal fringe of rain drops hanging from the green lances of
+willows, where a tufted red bird arched his scarlet throat in
+madrigal--when four men lifted a cot, and bore it with its
+apparently dying burden to a spot upon which the warm light fell in
+a golden flood.
+
+Between the Destroying Angel and his gasping prey, stepped two,
+anointed with the chrism of the Priesthood of Cure; and undismayed
+by the strident, sibilant, fitful breath that distorted the blue
+lips of the victim, they parried the sweep of the scythe of death,
+with the tiny, glittering steel blade surgery cunningly fashions;
+and through its silver canula, tracheotomy recalled the vanishing
+spirit, triumphantly renewed the lease of life.
+
+At sunset on the same day, Beryl followed the warden to the door of
+the large hospital.
+
+"Of all pitiful sights here, this has harrowed me the most. The
+doctors did all they could, and the chaplain worked hard to save her
+soul, but she was like flint, till just before the end, when she
+raised up, and heard her child crying down in the work-room, where
+it had been put to sleep. We could scarcely hold her; she fought
+like a panther to get out of bed, till the blood gushed from her
+nose, and though she could not speak plainly, she pointed, and we
+made out: 'Baby--Dovie'. The doctor would not consent that we should
+expose the child to the risk, but I could not hold out against that
+poor creature's pleading wild eyes, so I just brought the little
+one. What a strangling cry she gave, when I put it in her arms, and
+how the tears poured! She was almost gone, and we saw that she
+wanted to tell us something about the child, but we could not
+understand. The doctor put a pencil in her hand, and held a sheet of
+paper before her, and she tried to scrawl her wishes, but all we can
+read is: 'Her father won't ever own her. Baptize--her Dovie--Eve
+Werneth's baby. Don't ever tell her she was born in jail. Raise her
+a good--good--.' She had a sort of spasm then, and squeezed the
+child so tight, it screamed. In five minutes, she was dead. Only
+nineteen years old, and the little one just two years; and not yet
+weaned! I don't know what to do; so I brought you. If I touch the
+child, it seems frightened almost to death, but maybe you can coax
+it away. Poor little thing! What a mercy if it could die!"
+
+"Will you let me have the care of it? Take it, and keep it up in my
+cell?"
+
+"I shall be only too thankful, if you will lift the load from my
+shoulders."
+
+"Tell the steward to bring me a cup of warm, sweetened milk and a
+cracker. The poor little lamb must be almost famished."
+
+Through an open window streamed the radiance of a daffodil sky,
+flecked with curling plumes of drifting fire, and the glory fell
+like a benediction on the iron cot, where lay the body of the early
+dead; a small, slight, blond girl wearing prematurely the crown of
+maternity, whose thorns had torn and stained the smooth brow of mere
+childhood. The half-opened eyes, fixed in their filmy blue glaze,
+seemed a prayer for the pretty infant, whose head, a glistening
+tangle of yellow curls, was nestled down against the bare white
+throat of the rigid mother; while the dimpled hands pulled fretfully
+at the blood-spattered gown, that was buttoned across the breast.
+
+As clusters of wild snowy violets springing up in the midst of mud
+and mire, in a noxious swamp, look doubly pure and sweet because of
+fetid surroundings,--so this blossom of the slums, this human bud,
+with petals of innocence folded close in the calyx of babyhood,
+seemed supremely and pathetically fair, as she stood leaning against
+the cot, the little rosy feet on tip-toe, pressing toward her
+mother; tears on the pink velvet of the round cheeks, on the golden
+lashes beneath the big blue eyes that grew purplish behind the mist.
+
+The Macedonia of suffering humanity lies always within a stone's
+throw; and the "cry for help" had found speedy response in more than
+one benevolent heart.
+
+A gray-haired widow from the "Sheltering Arms," to which Sister
+Serena belonged, and a Sister of Charity from the hospital in X---,
+were already ministering tenderly in the crowded ward; and both had
+essayed to coax away the little figure clutching her mother's gown;
+but the flaring white cap of one, and the flapping black drapery of
+the other, frightened the trembling child.
+
+Into the group stole Beryl; followed closely by the yellow cat,
+which had become her shadow. Kneeling beside the baby, she kissed it
+softly, took one of the hands, patted her own cheek with it, and
+lifted the cat to the mattress, where it began to purr. The silky
+shock of yellow curls was lifted, the wide eyes stared wonderingly
+first at Beryl's face bending near, then at the cat; and by degrees,
+the lovely waif suffered an arm to draw her farther and farther,
+while her rose-red mouth parted in a smile, that showed six little
+teeth, and with one hand fastened in the cat's fur, she was finally
+lifted and borne away; Beryl's soft cheek nestled against hers, the
+bronzed head bent down to the yellow ringlets; one arm holding the
+baby and the cat, while the other white hand closed warmly over the
+child's bare, cold, dimpled feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+Fair and flowery as in the idyllic dawn when Theocritus sang its
+pafatoral charms, was that sunny Sicilian land where, one May
+morning, Leo Gordon wandered with a gay party in quest of historic
+sites, which the slow silting of the stream of time had not
+obliterated. Viewed from the heights of Achradina, whence all the
+vestiges of magnificence and luxury have vanished, and only the
+hideous monument of "man's inhumanity to man" remains, what a vast
+panorama stretched far as the horizon on every side.
+
+To the north, girding the fire-furrowed plain of Catania where
+olive, lemon, oleander and orange springing out of black lava,
+mingled hues like paints on an ebony palette--rose vast, lonely,
+purple at base, snowy at summit, brooding Etna; dozing in the soft,
+sweet springtime, with red, wrathful eyes veiled by a silvery haze.
+An unlimited expanse of crinkling blue sea, shot like Persian silk
+with gleams of gold, and laced here and there with foam scallops,
+bounded the east; smiling treacherously above the ghastly wreck
+sepultured in its coral crypts, that might have told of the crash of
+triremes, the flames of sinking galleys, which twenty-two centuries
+ago lit  the bloody waves that closed over slaughtered hosts.
+
+Westward lay green, wimpling vales, studded with laurel, arched with
+vine-draped pergolas, dotted widi flocks, dimpled with reedy marshes
+where red oxen browsed; and beyond the pale pink flush of almond
+groves--
+
+"A smoke of blue olives, a vision of towers."
+
+Bucolic paradise of Battus and Bombyce, of Corydon and Daphnis, may
+it please the hierophants of Sanskrit lore, of derivative Aryan
+philology, of iconoclastic euhemerism, to spare us yet awhile the
+lovely myths that dance across the asphodel meads of sunny Sicily.
+
+On the verge of the parapet of the Latomia, where the breath of the
+sirocco, the gnawing tooth of time, and the slow ravelling of rain
+had serrated the ledge, stood Leo, gazing into the dizzying depths
+of the charnel house that swarmed with the ghosts of nine thousand
+men, who once were huddled within its stony embrace.
+
+As if pitying nature had striven to appease the manes of the
+unburied dead, a pall of luxuriant ivy and glossy acanthus covered
+the  bottom and sides of the quarry, one hundred feet below; but out
+of the dust of centuries stared the rayless eyes of corpses, and the
+gaunt despairing faces seemed still uplifted, now in invocation,
+anon in imprecation to the overarching sky, where blistering suns
+mocked them by day, and glittering moons and silver stars paused in
+their westward march through dewy night, to tell them tantalizing
+tales of how musically Aegean wavelets broke against the marbles at
+Piraeus; how loud the nightingales sang in the plane and poplar
+groves at home; how the white glory of the Parthenon smiled down on
+violet-crowned Athens, where their wives and children thronged the
+temples, in sacrificial rites to insure their safety.
+
+In crevices of the perpendicular walls lush creepers tapestried the
+gray stone, and far down, out of the mould of the subterranean
+dungeon, sprang slim lemon trees snowed over with fragrant bloom,
+clumps of oleander waving banners of vivid rose, and golden-green
+pomegranate bushes, where scarlet flakes glowed like the wings of
+tropical birds.
+
+"Well, is the game worth the candle? After voyaging thousands of
+miles, do you feel repaid; or down there, in the heart of the
+desolation, do you see only the grinning mask of jeering
+disappointment, which generally follows American realists into the
+dusty haunts of Old World idealism?"
+
+As she spoke, Alma Cutting stepped back under the cool canopy of a
+spreading fig-tree, and fanned herself with a tuft of papyrus
+leaves. She was a tall, handsome woman, pronouncedly brunette in
+type, with large black eyes whose customary indolent indifference of
+expression did not entirely veil the fires "banked" under the velvet
+iris; and a square, firm mouth, around whose full crimson lips
+lurked a certain haughtiness, that despite the curb of good
+breeding, bordered at times closely upon insolence. Thirty years had
+tripped over this dark head, where the hair, innocent of crimp or
+curl, hung in a straight jet fringe low on her wide forehead; and
+though no lines marred the smooth, health-tinted skin, she was
+perceptibly "sun burnt by the glare of life," and the dew of youth
+had vanished before the vampire lips of ennui.
+
+"Disappointed? Certainly not; and I were exacting and unreasonable
+indeed, if I did not feel abundantly repaid. Alma, since the days
+when I pored over Thucydides, Plutarch, Rollin and Grote, this spot
+has beckoned to my imagination with all the uplifted hands of the
+nine thousand captives; and the longing of years is to-day
+completely gratified."
+
+"Am I unusually stupid, or are you rapt, beyond the realm of reason
+and mid-day common sense? Pray what is the fascination? It is
+neither so vast, nor so picturesque as the Colosseum. There, one
+expects to hear the roar of the beasts springing on their human
+prey; the ring of steel on steel, when the gladiators have bowed
+like dancing-masters to the bloated old bald-headed Neros and
+Vespasians; and you fancy that you smell the fountains of perfume
+that toss their spray from tier to tier; and see the rainbow of the
+silk awning flapping overhead. Better than all, you imagine you can
+watch the ravishing toilettes of the Faustinas, and Fulvias and
+Messalinas who flirt with the handsome, straight-nosed beaux so
+immensely classical in their togas; and when their thunder-browed
+husbands unexpectedly step in behind, it is so easy to conjecture
+the sudden change of theme, as they spread their fans to cover the
+message just written on their ivory tablets, and straightway fall to
+clawing the characters of all the  Cornelias, and Calpurnias, and
+Octavias and Julia Domnas, and other respectable wives! All that I
+quite enjoyed because I understood. Eight years' campaigning in New
+York, and London and Paris would teach even an idiot that nineteenth
+century 'best society' can lift you so close to the naughtiness of
+the golden Roman era, that one only has to strain a very little on
+tip-toe, to feel at one's ease with the jeunesse doree of dead ages.
+Here--what do you find in a huge stone well sunk into the bowels of
+the earth? About as enticing as a plunge into a dry cistern,
+suddenly unroofed? If spectres we must hunt, do let them be festive,
+like those Faust danced with on the Brocken!"
+
+"You should be ashamed, Alma! Miss Gordon is the very soul of
+courteous toleration, or she would resent the teasing goad of your
+Philistinism," cried the brother, Rivers Cutting, who in his new
+style yachting suit of blue cloth appeared veritably the jaunty
+genius of fashionable modernity, confronting the ghost of antiquity.
+
+"You forget, Rivers, some of the sage dicta you brought back from
+the 'Summer School of Philosophy', when you followed your last
+Boston flame to Concord, where she went poaching on the sacred
+preserves of the 'Illuminati,' hunting a new sensation. 'We must be
+as courteous to human beings as we are to a picture, which we are
+willing to give the advantage of a good light.' Now being Leo's very
+sincere friend, and knowing that the supreme moment of her facial
+triumph is when, like a startled fawn, she opens her eyes wide in
+horrified amazement at some inconceivable heresy, do you suppose I
+am so recreant to loyalty as to fail in providing her occasionally
+with the necessary Gorgon, ethical or archaeolegical, as
+surroundings warrant?
+
+"History was never the fetich of my girlhood, and that quartette of
+dry-as-dust worthies whom Leo carries around in leash, as other
+women carry pugs and poodles, came near giving me meningitis in my
+tender years. My first governess, a Puritan spinster, full of zeal,
+and conscientiously bent on earning her wages, by exercising my
+brains to their utmost capacity, undertook to introduce me to all
+the highly immoral personages and practices that made the Punic Wars
+famous. By way of making Imilco a lifelong acquaintance, she
+illustrated the siege of Agrigentum by a huge, hideous image of
+Phalaris' 'Brazen Bull,' drawn with chalk on the school-room
+blackboard.
+
+"A wonderful beast it certainly was; that taurus with head lowered,
+tail lashing the air, one hoof pawing savagely, worthy
+representative of all the horrors it typified, and which she
+explained with maddening perspicuity. That night, when papa tore
+himself away from the club room at one o'clock, and met mamma on the
+doorstep--just coming home from a supper at Delmonico's after an
+opera party--they were ascending the stairs, when frantic cries
+drove from her ears the echoes of 'Traviata's' witching strain.
+Thinking only a conflagration would justify the din, papa threw up
+the hall sash and shouted 'fire!' and the police sounded the alarm,
+and all pandemonium broke loose. Investigation discovered me,
+wriggled half way down to the foot of my bed, buried under the
+blankets, and shrieking 'Perillus' Bull! I am roasting in the Brass
+Bull!' Being not very ardent disciples of Clio, my solicitous
+parents failed to understand the nightmare; hence cracked ice was
+folded over my head (mid-winter), and the family physician ordered a
+mustard plaster half a yard long, down my spine. I vividly remember
+Imilco, and the bovine fury pawing the blackboard; but of the three
+Punic Wars, then and there tabooed, I recall only the brass monster
+at Agrigentum. Leo, when we reach Girgenti, the remaining Mecca of
+your historic hopes, some time to-morrow, you will understand why,
+instead of climbing to the temples of the cliff, I shall lock the
+door of our cabin, and drown the bellowing of the beast in Daudet's
+new book."
+
+"I wish, indeed I do, that you had staid there to-day, instead of
+coming ashore to dampen all our ardor and enthusiasm by your
+constant thin drizzle of scorn. One should suppose that in this
+idyllic region, some ray of poetic warmth must melt your frigid,
+scoffing soul. Daudet suits my sister far better than Theocritus,"
+answered her brother, fastening a sprig of orange blossom in his
+button hole.
+
+Pushing back her sailor hat, Alma looked obliquely at him from
+beneath her drooping lids.
+
+"Try me. Perhaps infection haunts the air. Spare us the Greek, come
+down from your Yale and Harvard heights to the level of my
+ignorance, and warble for me in English some of your Sicilian lark's
+melodies. At least I have heard of Amaryllis and Simaetha."
+
+Mr. Cutting shook his head.
+
+"What--? Ashamed of your bucolic hobby! No wonder--since after all
+it's only a goat. I dare you, brother mine, to produce me a
+Theocritan fragment."
+
+"Take the consequences of your rash levity; though I have a dawning
+suspicion some 'Imp of the Perverse' has coached you for the
+occasion."
+
+He stroked his mustache, pondered a moment, then struck an attitude,
+and declaimed:
+
+"I go a serenading to Amaryllis; what time my flocks browse on the
+mountains, and Tityrus drives them. Tityrus beloved of me in the
+highest degree, feed my flocks and lead them to the fountain, etc."
+
+Mimicking his tone exactly, Alma finished the line:
+
+"And mind, Tityrus, that tawny Libyan he-goat lest he butt thee!'
+Come, Rivers; free translation is allowable, considering
+surroundings, but not garbling; and every time you know you
+substituted flocks for goats. Proceed, and do not insult your pet
+author with emendations."
+
+With his hat on the back of his head, and his thumbs in the armholes
+of his vest, Mr. Cutting resumed:
+
+    "Sweet Amaryllis! though by death defiled,
+     Thee shall I ne'er forget; dear to my heart
+     As are my frisking goats, thou did'st depart.
+     To what a lot--was I, unhappy, born!"
+
+Again the mocking voice responded:
+
+    "But see! yon calves devour
+     The olive branches. Pelt them off I pray.
+
+"Confound the calves! 'St--! you white-skin thief--away!' Thanks, no
+more at present. Doubtless it sounds very fine in Greek, because
+then, I could not possibly understand that it is the  melody and the
+rhythmic dance of bleating calves, and capering goats. Here come the
+stragglers laden with plunder. Oh, papa! Do give me those exquisite
+acacia clusters."
+
+"My dear, I have ordered luncheon spread down there, in that strange
+garden. It is the queerest place imaginable; and looking up, the
+effect is quite indescribable."
+
+"Have you had the skulls polished for drinking cups, and printed the
+menus on cross-bones? What shocking taste to add insult to injury by
+spreading all our wealth of canned dainties on the very stones where
+sit the ghosts of those who perished from hunger and thirst!
+Eminently Dantesque, but the sacrilege appalls Leo. She would sooner
+attend an oyster supper, or a clam-bake in the Catacombs, or--"
+bowing to a young Englishman standing near, "lead a German in the
+Poets' corner of Westminster Abbey. My dear girl, under which flag
+do you fight? Athenian, Roman, Carthagenian, Syracusan?
+
+"The child of a man who fell in defence of his own fireside, could
+scarcely fail to sympathize with the holy cause of the invaded; yet
+here, in view of the horrors inflicted upon the captives, one almost
+leans to Athens. It seems to me the most enduring monument of
+Syracusan glory survives in the eloquent protest of Nicolaus against
+her cruelty; especially when we recollect that it came from one who,
+of all others, had most to forgive. Old, decrepit, unable to walk,
+the venerable sorrow-laden man whose only children, two sons, had
+died fighting to save Syracuse--was carried on a litter into the
+midst of the shouting thousands, who were drunk with the wine of
+victory. 'Behold an unhappy father, who has most cause to detest the
+Athenians, the authors of this war, the murderers of my children!
+But I am less sensible of my private afflictions than of the honor
+of my country, when I see it ready to expose itself to eternal
+infamy by violating the law of nations, and dishonoring our victory
+by barbarous cruelty. What! Will you tarnish your glory, and have
+all the world say that a nation who first dedicated a temple in
+their city, to Clemency, found none in yours? Triumphs and victories
+do not give immortal glory to a city; but the use of moderation in
+the greatest prosperity, the exercise of mercy toward a vanquished
+enemy, the fear of offending the gods by a haughty and insolent
+pride.' What a theme for Dore or Munkacsy?"
+
+"Thank you ever so much, Miss Gordon, for brushing away the library
+dust from that historic cameo. I had so utterly forgotten it lay in
+the musty tomes, that it has all the charm of a curio." Mr. Cutting
+took off his hat, and bowed.
+
+"Acknowledgments are due rather to my cousin, Dr. Douglass, who
+called my attention to the passage. The best of all things good
+abide with him; and out of his overflowing store, he shares with the
+needy. Only last night he reminded me of an illustration of the
+vanitas vanitatum of human fame and national gratitude, to be found
+over yonder in the necropolis. Less than a hundred and forty years
+after his death, Archimedes was so completely forgotten by the city
+he had immortalized, that Syracuse denied he was buried on her soil;
+and a foreigner had the honor of clearing away rubbish and brambles,
+in order to show the grave to his own countrymen."
+
+Leighton Douglass handed to his cousin a bunch of the delicate lilac
+blossoms of acanthus, tied with a wisp of some ribbon-like grass,
+and taking off his spectacles, replied:
+
+"Leo unduly exalts my memory at the expense of her own; and we have
+all levied heavily on her fund of topographical accuracy."
+
+"If I travel much longer with two such learned and philosophical
+scholars, I  shall inevitably degenerate into an intellectual
+Dodder," yawned Alma.
+
+"Into a what?" asked her father.
+
+"A Dodder, sir. Pray, papa, be more considerate than to force Doctor
+Douglass to believe that instead of listening to the sermon he
+preached us last year, you either slept ignominiously throughout its
+delivery, or else allowed your unregenerate thoughts to dwell on
+those devices of Lucifer, 'puts,' 'calls, 'spreads,' 'corners,
+'spots' and 'futures'. Of course you remember that he believes in
+evolution? There was a time, even in my extremely recent day, when
+that word was more frightful to the orthodox than a ton of nitro-
+glycerine; was to the elect, a fouler abomination even than opera
+bouffe and the can can. But 'the thoughts of men are widened with
+the process of the suns', and now it appears that the immortal soul
+of us must be evolved, somewhat in the same fashion as protoplasm,
+and unless we fight for 'survival' elsewhere, we shall not be
+numbered among the spirited 'fittest', but degenerate into
+parasites, dodders, backsliders. So, drawing nutriment from the
+Doctor's historic brains, and from Leo's, I fall back into worse
+than a dodder, a torpid violator of the Law of Work, a hopeless
+Sacculina! Doctor Douglass, it was the bravest hour of your life
+when you stood up in--church pulpit, and told us the scientists whom
+we were wont to regard as more dreadful than the cannibals and
+Calmucks, are only a devoted sect of truth seekers, preaching from
+older texts, and drawing nearer and nearer to the kingdom of Heaven.
+To throw that ethical bomb, required more courage than Balaklava."
+
+"Mine was merely a feeble attempt to follow out the analogical
+reasoning of one  of the most original and scientific thinkers of
+our day in Great Britain; but the fact that you recall so correctly
+the line of argument in a sermon delivered more than a year ago, is
+certainly complimentary assurance of at least approximate success in
+my effort."
+
+"After all, I am sorry I humored Leo's whim, and persuaded papa to
+bring us here."
+
+"Why, my dear? We are enjoying it immensely," said her father.
+
+"Because Syracuse has proved my 'crumpled rose leaf', by destroying
+the prestige of the 'Cleopatra'. Hitherto, I deemed our yacht quite
+the most complete and gorgeous floating palace since the days of its
+highly improper namesake's marauding sails on the Cydnus."
+
+"And so she is; there is nothing afloat comparable to her in speed,
+appointments, comfort and beauty," interrupted Mr. Cutting,
+
+"Poor papa! How he bristles at the bare suggestion of rivalry. Be
+comforted, sir, in the knowledge that at least we shall not be run
+down by a phantom cruiser. It is very humiliating to American pride-
+-after winning the international prizes, and boasting so
+inordinately, to find out that we are only about--how many
+centuries, Leo?--twenty-five centuries behind Syracuse in building
+pleasure crafts. Think of a superb cabin with staterooms containing
+beds (not bunks) for one hundred and twenty guests, and the floors
+all covered with agates and other precious stones, that formed a
+mosaic copy of the Iliad! If you wished to emphasize a discussion on
+connubial devotion, behold! there on your right, Andromache and
+Hector; if one's husband objected to a harmless flirtation, lo! on
+the left, Agamemnon and Briseis; and to point the moral of 'pretty
+is, as pretty does'--how very convenient to indicate with the tip of
+your satin slipper, the demure figure of Helen standing on the
+walls, to watch the duel between Menelaus and Paris! Fancy the
+consolation a person of my indolent Sacculina temperament might have
+derived from the untimely fate of Cassandra, oppressed with
+knowledge in advance of her day and generation! There was the
+gymnasium for the beaux; and for the belles bona fide gardens, with
+walks and arbors covered with ivy and flowering vines whose roots
+rested in great stone vessels filled with earth. Imagine the boudoir
+and bathrooms paved with precious stones, encrusted with carved
+ivory and statues--"
+
+"Pooh! Alma. That rigmarole is not in the guide books. Come, Dixon
+is waving his handkerchief down there, as a signal that luncheon is
+ready."
+
+"I prefer to wait here. Alma, bring me some anemones, and a sprig of
+ivy from the circular garden, when you come back," said Leo.
+
+Doctor Douglass drew closer, and asked:
+
+"Will you let me stay also, and enjoy with you the wonderful charm
+of this opalescent air, this beautiful cincturing sea?"
+
+"I would rather be alone. Solitude is a luxury rarely allowed on a
+yacht cruise; and I want a few quiet moments. By day, poor Aunt
+Patty has so much to tell me; at night, Alma is a chattering owl."
+
+There are hours when the ghost of a happy past, from which we have
+persistently fled, constrains us to give audience; and Leo
+surrendered herself to memories that brought a very mournful shadow
+into her brave brown eyes. Thirteen months had passed since her
+departure from X---and despite changing scenes and novel incidents,
+she could not escape the haunting face that met her on mountains,
+was mirrored in every sea; the brilliant mesmeric face set in its
+frame of crisp black locks, with dark blue eyes whose intense lustre
+had the cold, hard gleam of jewels. Sleeping or waking, always that
+dear, powerful face daring her to forget.
+
+When Doctor Douglass and Miss Patty joined the yacht party at
+Palermo, the former had brought a letter and a package, which sorely
+tested Leo's strength of will. Leaning to-day against the twisted
+body of an old olive tree, she opened and read once more, the final
+message.
+
+"When Leighton places this sheet in your hands, the year of release
+which I could not refuse you, will have expired. Once your noble
+heart was wholly mine; and the proudest moment of my life was, and
+will be, that in which you promised to be my wife. All that you ever
+were, you shall always remain to me; and if you can confide your
+happiness to my keeping, I will never betray the sacred trust. Life
+has grown sombre to me, during the past eighteen months; and the
+only companionship that I can hope to cheer it, you alone can bring
+me. I have not willingly or intentionally forfeited your confidence;
+but that I have suffered, I shall not deny. If you love me, as in
+days gone by, our future rests once more in your hands; and you must
+renew the pledges that at your request I surrendered. In behalf of
+our past, I beg that you will retain the ring, hallowed forever by
+the touch of your hand; and its acceptance will typify, if not a
+renewal of our engagement, at least the perpetuity of a sacred
+friendship. Awaiting your final decision, I am, my dear Leo,
+
+"Yours as of yore, LENNOX."
+
+All that she had ever been; no more. The graceful, well-bred heiress
+whom he admired, who commanded his profoundest respect, whom he had
+known from his boyhood, and who of all others he had desired should
+preside over his home and wear his name; but not the woman who
+reigned in his heart; whose touch had lighted the glowing tenderness
+that so transfigured his countenance, as she saw it that day,
+bending over a sick convict in a penitentiary.
+
+He offered her formal allegiance, and that pale phantom of affection
+grounded in reverence, which is to the ardent love that a true woman
+demands in exchange for her own, as--
+
+"Moonlight unto sunlight; and as water unto wine."
+
+She knew that he was no willing victim of a fascination, which had
+audaciously deranged his carefully mapped campaign of life; that he
+would have set his heel on his own insurgent heart, had it been
+possible; and she honored him for the stern integrity that forbade
+his affectation of a warmth of feeling which she was now conscious
+she had never evoked.
+
+Accepting the theory that the young convict was sustained and
+animated by her devotion to a guilty lover, Leo fully understood
+that Lennox, even were he mad enough to sacrifice his pride, could
+indulge no expectation of ever winning the love of the prisoner; and
+despite her efforts to regard their rupture as final, she had
+faintly hoped that he would cross the ocean, and in person urge a
+renewal of the betrothal. The test of absence had proved as
+effectual as she intended it should be, and his letter proclaimed
+the humiliating fact, that while honor inspired him to hold out his
+wrists for conjugal manacles, honor equally constrained him to spare
+her the wrong and insult of insincere professions of tenderness.
+
+Had she found it possible to condemn him as unworthy, it would have
+diminished the pain of surrendering the brightest hope of her life;
+for contempt is the balm a lofty soul offers a bruised heart, but
+she was just, even in her anguish; and that when barbed the arrow,
+was the mortifying consciousness that compassion for her was the
+strongest motive which dictated the carefully phrased letter. She
+was far too proud to parley with the temptation to accept the shadow
+in lieu of the substance; and twenty-four hours after the arrival of
+the final appeal, her answer was speeding with wings of steam across
+the ocean.
+
+"DEAR LENNOX:
+
+"My heart overflows with gratitude for all the affectionate
+interest, the kind solicitude, the innumerable thoughtful attentions
+you have so indefatigably shown to Aunt Patty, in the sad
+complication of misfortunes that so suddenly overwhelmed her; and I
+feel the inadequacy of any attempt to express my thanks. Your letter
+can only rivet more indissolubly the links of an affectionate
+friendship that must always bind you and me; but the future can hold
+no renewal of pledges which I feel assured would conduce neither to
+your happiness, nor to mine. Let us embalm the past and bury it
+tenderly; raising no mound to trip our friendly feet in years to
+come. The serenity of our future might be marred by retrospective
+gleams of the beautiful ring that once enclosed two lives; hence, I
+have ordered the diamonds reset in the form of a four-leaved clover,
+which will be sent to dear Kittie as an auspicious omen.
+
+"With undiminished esteem, and unshaken confidence, and with a
+prayer for your happiness, which will always be dear to me, I
+remain,
+
+"Your sincerely attached friend,
+
+"LEO."
+
+The majority of men, and a large class of women, bury their dead,
+and straightway begin assiduously the cultivation of all that
+promises oblivion; but Leo's nature was deeper, more intense; and
+while she made no audible moan, and shed no tears, she accepted the
+fact that earthly existence had lost its coveted crown, and that her
+aching heart was the dark grave of a beautiful hope that could know
+no resurrection. To-day she asked herself: "What shall I do with my
+life?"
+
+Upon the warm air, sweet with the breath of lemon flowers, floated
+the peculiar, jeering, yet subdued and musical laughter, which told
+that Alma had flown straight at some luckless quarry. She held in
+one hand a cluster of crimson anemones, and purple stars of
+periwinkle, and walking between two English gentlemen, whose yacht,
+the "Albatross", lay anchored close to the "Cleopatra" in the harbor
+below, slowly approached Leo, saying:
+
+"Don't stone your prophets. Especially one hedged about with the
+triple sanctity of Brasenose! 'Consider that thy marbles are but the
+earth's callosities, thy gold and silver its faeces; thy silken robe
+but a worm's bedding; and thy purple an unclean fish.' That is one
+sugar-coated pill that I administer to my humility now and then to
+keep it healthy. Hear him again;--'sitting on the marble bench of
+one of the exhedrea on the edge of the Appian Way, close to the
+fragrant borders of a rose farm': 'So it is, with the philosophers;
+all alike are in search of happiness, what kind of thing it is. It
+is pleasure, it is virtue; what not? All philosophers, so to speak,
+are but fighting about the ass' shadow. I saw one who poured water
+into a mortar, and ground it with all his might with a pestle of
+iron, fancying he did a thing useful; but it remained water only,
+none the less.' Stoicism, hedonism, the gospel of 'Sweetness and
+Light'; what is it, may I ask, that your aesthetic priests furnish,
+to feed immortal British souls? Knee breeches, sun flowers, niello,
+cretonne, Nanking bowls, lily dados? To us it savors sorrowfully of
+that which one of your prophets foreshadowed, 'Despair, baying as
+the poet heard her, in the ruins of old Rome'."
+
+"Beg pardon, Miss Cutting; but you quite surprise me. The tone of
+many American papers and magazines led us to suppose, really, that
+the rosy dawn of Culture was beginning to flush the night of
+Philistinism brooding over your Western world."
+
+"Believe it not. Primeval gloom, raw realism so weigh upon our
+apathetic souls, that we rub our eyes and stare at sight of your
+aesthetic catechism: 'Harmony, but no system; instinct, but no
+logic; eternal growth and no maturity; everlasting movement, and
+nothing attained; infinite possibilities of everything; the becoming
+all things, the being nothing.' We have too much Philistine honesty
+to pretend that we understand that, but like other ambitious parrots
+we can commit to memory. One of your seers tells us that:
+'Renaissance art will make our lives like what seems one of the
+loveliest things in nature, the iridescent film on the face of
+stagnant water!' Now it will require at least a decade, to train us
+to appreciate the subtile symphonies of ditch slime. An English
+friend compassionating my American stupidity, essayed to initiate me
+in the cult of 'culture', and gave me a leaf to study, from the
+latter-day gospel. I learned it after a time, as I did the
+multiplication table. 'Culture steps in, and points out the
+grossness of untempered belief. It tells us the beauty of
+picturesque untruth; the grotesqueness of unmannerly conviction;
+truth and error have kissed each other in a sweet, serener sphere;
+this becomes that, and that is something else. The harmonious, the
+suave, the well bred waft the bright particular being into a
+peculiar and reserved parterre of paradise, where bloom at once the
+graces of Panthism, the simplicity of Deism, and the pathos of
+Catholicism; where he can sip elegances and spiritualities from
+flowerets of every faith!' Fancy my crass ignorance, when I assure
+you that I actually laughed over that verbal syllabub, thinking it
+intended as a famous bit of satire."
+
+"Then it is pathetically true that reverence for the Renaissance has
+not crossed the Atlantic?" asked one of the "Albatross" party, who
+with his sketch book half open, was surreptitiously making an
+"impressionist" view of Leo's profile, as she stood listening to
+Alma's persiflage, and mechanically arranging her lilac acanthus
+blossoms.
+
+"Devoted British colporteurs have philanthropically scattered a few
+art primers and tracts, and there is a possibility that in the near
+future, our people may search the maps for Orvieto, and the
+dictionaries for Campo Santo, to compass the mysteries of the
+'Triumph of Death', and of 'Symmetria Prisca'. Some of us have even
+heard of 'Aucassin et Nicolette', and of 'Nencia da Barberino',
+picking salad in her garden; and I am almost sure a Vassar girl once
+spoke to me of Delia Quercia's Ilaria; but with all my national
+pride, candor  compels me to admit that it is a 'far cry' to the day
+when we can devoutly fall on our knees before the bronze Devil of
+Giovanni da Bologna. Aesthetic paupers, we sit on the lowest bench
+at the foot of the class, in your Dame's Art School, to learn the
+alphabet of the wonderful Renaissance; and in our chastened and
+reverent mood, it almost takes our breath away when your high-
+priestess unrolls the last pronunciamento, and tells us her
+startling story of 'Euphorion!' Why? Ah!--don't you know? The
+Puritan leaven of prudery, and the stern, stolid, phlegmatic decorum
+of Knickerbockerdom mingle in that consummate flower of the
+nineteenth century occident, the 'American Girl', who pales and
+flushes at sight of the carnival of the undraped--in English art and
+literature. Here, Leo, take your anemones; red, are they not, as the
+blood once chilled down yonder, in that huge stone kennel? Dr.
+Douglass has the ivy root; and he and I have concluded, that after
+all, Syracuse was not more cruel here in the Latomia, than some
+States in America, where convicts are leased to mining companies,
+and kept quarrying coal, without even the sweet consolation of
+staring up at this magical blue sky. We leave hideous moral and
+physical leprosy at home, and come here to shed dilettante tears
+over classic tatters twenty-five centuries old! O immortal and
+ubiquitous Tartufe!"
+
+As Leo walked with her cousin toward the spot, where the "Cleopatra"
+rose and fell on the crest of waves racing before Libeccio, she
+suddenly laid her hand on his arm.
+
+"Leighton, I have decided to leave the yacht at Venice and take Aunt
+Patty to Udine for rest and quiet. When summer is over, I shall be
+ready to make arrangements for the journey to Syria and Egypt, and
+you must complete your church mission to England in time to
+accompany us to Jerusalem."
+
+"Is this your itinerary, or Aunt Patty's?"
+
+"She has set her heart upon it; and it will be agreeable to me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+Is it true that in abstract valuation, "the bird in hand, is worth
+two in the bush?"
+
+We stand beneath a loaded apricot tree, and would give all the
+bushel within reach, for one crimson satin globe pendent on the
+extreme tip of the most inaccessible bough; and the largest,
+luscious, richest colored orange always glows defiantly, high up,
+close to the body of the tree, hedged away from our eager grasp by
+its impenetrable chevaux de frise of bristling thorns. The wonderful
+water lily we covet is smiling on its green cushion of leaves just
+beyond the danger line, where death lurks; the rhododendron flame
+that burned brightest amid surrounding floral fires, and lured us,
+springs from the crevice of some beetling precipice, waving a
+challenge over fatal chasms that bar possession; and with fretful
+dissatisfaction we repine, because the colors of the feathered
+captives in our gilt cages are so dull, so faded in comparison with
+their brothers, flashing wings of scarlet, and breasts of vivid blue
+high in the sunlight of God's free air.
+
+The gold and silver dust that powder velvet butterflies, tarnish at
+a touch, stain the fingers that clutch them; and the dewy bloom on
+purple and amber grape clusters, never survives the handling of the
+vintager.
+
+Leaning back in the revolving chair in front of his office desk, Mr.
+Dunbar slowly tore into strips a number of notes and letters, and
+suffered the fragments to fall into a waste basket somewhat faded,
+yet much too elegant to harmonize with its surroundings.
+
+When Leo quilted the lining of ruby silk and knotted the ribbons
+that tied it to the wicker lace work, love pelted her cheek with
+roses, and happy hope sang so loud in her ear, that she could not
+have divined the cruel fact that she was preparing the dainty
+coffin, destined to receive the mutilated remains of a betrothal,
+that typified supreme earthly happiness to her. One by one dropped
+the shreds of Leo's last message from Palermo, like torn crumpled
+petals of a once beloved and sacred flower; and the faint, delicate
+perfume that clung to the fragments, was one which Mr. Dunbar
+recognized as characteristic of the library at the "Lilacs". The
+contents of the farewell note had in no degree surprised him; for
+though fully persuaded that her heart was irrevocably pledged to the
+past, he was equally sure that only the ardor he scorned to feign,
+would avail to melt the wall of ice her outraged pride had built
+between them. There were times when he deplored bitterly the loss of
+her companionship; at others he exulted in the consciousness of
+perfect freedom to indulge an overmastering love, amenable to no
+chastisement by violated loyalty. He had scrupulously endeavored, by
+careful employment of forms of deference, to spare his betrothed as
+far as possible, the stinging humiliation and anguish which every
+woman suffers, when the man whom she loves shows her that she fills
+only a subordinate and insignificant place in his affection; and
+yet, while her nobler nature commanded his homage, and the
+brilliancy of the alliance seems to jeer at his blind fatuity, his
+heart throbbed and yearned with an intolerable longing for one upon
+whom the world had set the seal of an ineradicable disgrace.
+
+Nature and education had made him a coldly calculating man, jealous
+of his honor, but immersed in schemes for his own aggrandizement,
+and superbly invulnerable to the blandishments of sentimentality;
+hence his amazement, when the deep and engrossing love of his life
+burned away that selfishness which was citadel of his affections.
+Because his infatuation had cost him so much, that was alluring
+alike to vanity, pride, and ambition, a fierce hunger for revenge
+possessed him; and herein differs the nature of the love of men and
+women; the one can sacrifice itself for the happiness of the
+beloved; the other will crucify its darling to appease jealous pangs
+in view of happiness it can neither inspire nor share.
+
+"Good morning, Churchill. Come in. Glad to see you. Sit down."
+
+"When did you get back, Lennox?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"Well, what luck?"
+
+"A rather leaky promise. Kneading slag or cold pig iron into
+Bessemer steel would be about as easy as pounding the law of
+evidence into the Governor's brains. I emphasized the moral weight
+of the petition, by calling his attention to the signatures of the
+judge, jury, prosecuting counsel and especially of Prince, who
+presumably has most to forgive. The memorial of the inspectors,
+warden and physician was appended, and constituted a eulogy upon the
+behavior and character of the prisoner; especially the heroic
+service rendered by her during the recent fatal epidemic. Human
+nature is an infernally vexing bundle of paradoxes, and when a man
+throws his conscience in your teeth, what then? The argument from
+which I hoped most, proved a Greek horse, and well-nigh wrought
+ruin. When I dwelt upon the fact that the prisoner had voluntarily
+conveyed to Prince all right and title to the fortune, which was
+supposed to have tempted her to commit the crime, he bristled like a
+Skye terrier, and grandiloquently assured me he valued his
+'prerogative as something too sacred to be prostituted to nepotism!'
+Prince being his cousin, a readiness to exercise Executive clemency
+by pardoning the prisoner, might be construed into a species of
+bargain and sale; and his Excellency could not condone a crime
+merely because the culprit had relinquished a fortune to his
+relative. Braying an ordinary fool in a mortar is an unpromising
+job; but an extraordinary official leatherhead, PLUS thin-skinned
+conscience, and religious scruples, requires the upper and nether
+mill stone. You know, Churchill, it is tough work to straighten a
+crooked ramrod."
+
+"I see; a case of moral curvature of the spine. When he was
+inaugurated last December, I chanced to be at the Capital, and heard
+two old codgers from the piney woods felicitating the State upon
+having a Governor, 'Fit to tie to; honest as the day is long, and
+walks so straight, he is powerful swaybacked.' Dunbar, did he refuse
+outright?"
+
+"He holds the matter in abeyance for maturer deliberation; but
+promises that, unless he sees cogent reasons to the contrary, he may
+grant a pardon when eighteen months of the sentence have expired.
+That will be the last week in August, and almost two years since she
+was thrown into prison. I should have made application to his
+predecessor, Glenbeigh, had I not been so confident of overtaking
+the man who killed Gen'l Darrington; but the clue that promised so
+much merely led me astray. I went with the detective down into the
+mines, and found the man, who certainly had a hideous facial
+deformity, but he was gray as a badger, and moreover proved an
+ALIBI, having been sick with small-pox in the county pest-house on
+the night of the murder. It is a tedious hunt, but I will not be
+balked of my game. I will collar that wretch some day, and meantime
+I will get the pardon."
+
+"I hope so; for I shall never feel easy until that poor girl is set
+free. The more I hear of her deportment and character, especially of
+the religious influence she seems to be exerting through some Bible
+readings she holds among the female convicts, the more painfully am
+I oppressed with the conviction that we all committed a sad blunder,
+and narrowly escaped hanging an innocent woman."
+
+"Speak for yourself. I disclaim complicity in the disgraceful wrong
+of the conviction."
+
+"Well, I confess I would rather stand in your place than mine;
+especially since my wife's brother Garland was called in as
+consulting physician, last month at the penitentiary. He has so
+stirred her sympathies for the woman whom he pronounces a paragon of
+all the virtues and graces, that I begin to fidget now at the sound
+of the prisoner's name, and can hardly look my wife straight in the
+face. When I go up to court next week, I will call on the Governor,
+and add a personal appeal to the one I have already signed.
+According to the evidence, she is guilty; but when justice is
+vindicated, one can afford to listen to the dictates of pity. Now,
+Dunbar, let me congratulate you on your recent good luck. We hear
+wonderful accounts of your new fortune."
+
+"Rumor always magnifies such matters; still it is true that I have
+inherited a handsome estate."  "Does your sister share equally?"
+
+"A very liberal legacy was left to her, but you are aware that I was
+named for my mother's brother, Randall Lennox, and he has for many
+years regarded me as his heir; hence, gave me the bulk of the
+property."
+
+"It is rather strange that he never married. I recall him as a very
+distinguished looking man."
+
+"He had a love affair very early in life, while at college, with the
+daughter of his Greek professor. Surreptitiously he took her to
+drive one afternoon, and the horse became frightened, ran away and
+killed the girl. He was a peculiar man, and seems never to have
+swerved from his allegiance to her memory."
+
+"I hope it is not true that the conditions of the will require you
+to remove from X---and settle in New Orleans? We can't afford to
+lose you from our bar."
+
+"There are no restrictions in my Uncle Lennox's will; the legacy was
+unconditional; but the obligation of complying with his urgent
+desire to have me live in New Orleans will probably induce me to
+make that my future home. For several years he has associated me
+with him in the conduct of some important suits; and I understand
+now, that his motive was to introduce me gradually to a new field of
+professional labor. Not the least valuable of my new possessions is
+his superb law library, probably the finest in the South. Of course
+my business will keep me here, for the present, and I have matured
+no plans."
+
+"Did you reach New Orleans before his death?"
+
+"No, I was in Dakota, and missed a letter designed to acquaint me
+with his illness. While in Washington on my return, arguing a case
+before the Supreme Court, a telegram was forwarded from the office
+here, and I hurried off by the first train, but arrived about ten
+hours too late. Another grudge I have to settle with that bloody
+thief, when I unearth him."
+
+"After all, Dunbar, you are a deucedly lucky fellow,--and--Hello!
+historic Hebrew! Bedney, have you seen a ghost?"
+
+"Yes--Mars Alfred--two of 'em."
+
+Spent with fatigue, panting, with an ashen pallor on his leathery,
+wrinkled face, the old negro ran in to the office, and leaned
+heavily against the oak table.
+
+"What is the matter? Positively, you are turning a grayish white.
+What is the secret of the bleaching? Police after you? Or does the
+Sheriff want you?"
+
+"Mars Alfred, this ain't no fitten time to crack your on'-Gawdly
+jokes, for I am scared all but into fits. I started in a brisk walk,
+but every step I got more and more afeered to look behind, and I
+struk a fox trot, and now my wind is clean gone."
+
+"What is the trouble? What are you running from?"
+
+"'Fore Gawd, Mars Alfred, sperrits! Sperrits, sir."
+
+"Do you mean that you want a dram to steady your nerves?"
+
+"I'm that frustrated I couldn't say what I want; but I didn't
+signify bottle and jimmyjohn liquor, I mean sperrits, sir, ghosts
+what walk, and make the hair rise like wire all over your head. The
+ole house is hanted shore 'nuff; and I can't stay there. Lem'me tell
+you, Lord! Mars Alfred, don't laugh! It's the Gawd's truth, ole
+Marster's sperrit is fighting up yonder in his room with the man
+what killed him. I seen him, in the broad daylight, and I have cum
+for you and Mars Lennox to git there, jest as quick as you kin, so
+you kin see it fur yourselves. I know you won't believe it till you
+see it; nuther should I, but it's there. The sperrits have cum back,
+to show my young mistiss' child never killed her grandpa."
+
+Mr. Dunbar rose quickly, handed a glass of water to the old man, and
+then placed a chair for him.
+
+"Tell me at once what you saw."
+
+"Ole Marster standin' in the flo' close to the vault, with his arm
+up so--and the handi'on in his own hand--"
+
+"How dare you come here, with this cock-and-bull story? You are
+either drunk or in your dotage. Your master has been in his grave
+for eighteen months, and--"
+
+"Oh! to be shore I know'd what you'd say. Cuss me for an idjut; but
+I swar, Mars Lennox, I am that scared I dasn't to tell you no lie.
+The proof of the pudden is jest chawin' the bag, an' I want you both
+to git a carridge quick, and take me up home; and if you don't see
+what I tell you is thar, you may kick me from the front door clean
+down to the big gate. The grave is busted wide open, and the dead
+walks, for I seen him; and I'll sho' him to you. Come on, I want you
+to see for yourself."
+
+"You imbecile old nincompoop! Go home, and tell Dyce to give you
+some catnip tea, and tie you to a chair," laughed Mr. Churchill.
+
+"You'll laugh t'other side of your mouth, Mars Alfred, when you see
+that awful sight up yonder. Ole Marster has come back, to clare the
+name of his grandchile, for he and his murderer is a wrastling, and
+it ain't no 'oman, it's a man! A tall, pretty man, with beard on his
+face."
+
+Mr. Dunbar struck a bell at his side, and a clerk came promptly from
+the rear room.
+
+"Nesbitt, step over to the livery stable, and order a carriage sent
+up at once." Turning to Bedney he continued:
+
+"I suppose the gist of all your yarn-spinning is, that you have
+found a stranger prowling about the place. How did you discover
+him?"
+
+"Lem'me tell you, as fur as I can, how I cum to see ole Marster. Mr.
+Prince gin orders that the house should be opened and arred reglar,
+and he pintedly enjined us to have that room well cleaned and put in
+order. We had all pintedly gin it a wide berth, and kep' ourselves
+on t'other side of the house, 'cause all such places is harryfying;
+but this morning, I thought I would open the outside blind door on
+the west gallery, and look in through the glass door. I know'd Mr.
+Prince had stirred round considerable in there, the day before he
+left, but I didn't know he had drapped the curting what was looped
+back the last time I was inside. So I went up the steps and clared
+away a rose vine what was hanging low down from the i'on pillar of
+the piazzar, and almost screening the door, and I walked up, I did,
+and looked in. Lord Gawd Amighty! The red curting was down on the
+inside, and I seen through it, I swar to Gawd I did, sir! I seen
+clar spang through into that room, and thar stood Marster in his
+night clothes, jest so--and thar stood that murdering vil'yan close
+to him, holding the tin box so--and Marster with the handi'on jest
+daring him to cum on--and--and oh! I am glad to know my Marster was
+game to the last, died game! Never show'd no white feather while
+thar was breath in his body. Mars Lennox, I jest drapped on my
+knees, and I trimbled, and my teeth chattered, and I felt the hair
+as it riz straight up. I was afeer'd to stay, and I was afeer'd to
+move; but I shet my eyes and crawled back'ards easy to the aidge of
+the steps, and then run as fast as I could. I wanted Dyce to see,
+too, but the poor cretur is so crippled she can't walk, and as she
+weighs two hundred and twenty pounds, I couldn't tote her; so I tole
+her what I seen, and she sent me straight to find Mars Alfred fust,
+and you next. I run to Mars Alfred's office, and he was out, so I
+kep' on here. I know'd you lie'yers was barking up the wrong tree,
+and wrongfully pussecutin' that poor young gal; and now the very
+sperrits have riz up to testify fur her. If you two can face ole
+Marster's ghost, and tell him you know better than he did who killed
+him, you've got better pluck and backbone than I give you credit
+fur."
+
+"What did you eat last night, Bedney? Baked possum, and fried
+chitterlings? Evidently you have had a heavy nightmare."
+
+Mr. Churchill drew a match across the heel of his boot, and lighted
+a cigar; looking quizzically at the old man, who was wiping the
+perspiration from his face.
+
+"There's the carridg, I hear the wheels. Mars Lennox and Mars
+Alfred, there is one thing I insists on havin'. The law is all lop-
+sided from fust to last in this here case, and I want it squoze into
+shape, till t'other side swells out a little. I want the Crowner to
+go up yonder now, and hold another inquess. He's done sot all wrong
+on the body, and now let him set on the sperrit if he kin. I'm in
+plum earnest. The Crowner swore that poor young gal knocked Marster
+in the head with the handi'on; and yonder stands Marster, ready to
+brain that man--with that handi'on hilt tight in his own right hand.
+Now what I wants to know is, WHAR is the 'delectible corpus' what
+you lieyers argufied over?"
+
+"You doting old humbug! If you decoy us on a wild goose chase I
+shall feel like cutting one of your ears off!"
+
+"Slit 'em both and welcome, Mars Alfred, if you don't find I'm
+telling you the Gawd's truth. I feel all tore up, root and branch,
+and if folks could be scared to death, I should be stretched out
+this minute on the west piazzar. I had my doubts about ghosts and
+sperrits, and I lost my religion when I cotch our preacher brandin'
+one of my dappled crumple-horned hefers with his i'on; but Bedney
+Darrington is a changed pusson. Come en, let's see which of you will
+dar to laugh up yonder."
+
+"Are you really bent on humoring this insane or idiotic vagary?"
+asked Mr. Churchill, as he saw his companion take his hat and
+prepare to follow the negro, who had left the room.
+
+"His terror is genuine, and his superstitious tale is probably the
+outer shell of some kernel of fact that may possibly be valuable. In
+cases of circumstantial evidence, you and I know the importance of
+looking carefully into the merest trifles. Come with me; you can
+spare an hour."
+
+Leaving the carriage at the front entrance of the deserted and
+stately old house, the attorneys crossed the terrace and walked
+around to the western veranda, preceded by Bedney, who paused at the
+steps, and waved them to ascend.
+
+"Go up and see for yourselves. I am nigh as I want to git."
+
+The stone floor was strewn with branches of rose vine, and the
+pruning shears lay open upon them, just as they had fallen from the
+old man's hand. The sun had passed several degrees below the
+meridian, and the shadows of the twisted iron columns were aslant
+eastward, but the glare of light shone on the plate-glass door,
+which was rounded into an arch at top, and extended within four
+inches of the surface of the floor, where it fitted into the wooden
+frame. It was one wide sheet, unbroken into panes, and on the
+outside dust had collected, and a family of spiders had colonized in
+the lower corner, spinning their gray lace quite across the base. It
+was evident that the Venetian blinds had long been closed, and
+recently opened, as a line of dust and dried drift leaves attested;
+and behind the glass hung the dull red, plush curtain, almost to the
+floor.
+
+Both gentlemen pressed forward, and looked in; but saw nothing.
+
+"Hang your head kinder sideways, down so, and look up, Mars Lennox."
+
+Mr. Dunbar changed his position, and after an instant, started back.
+
+"Do you see it, Churchill? No hallucination; it is as plain as
+print, just like the negative of a photograph."
+
+"Bless my soul! It beats the Chinese jugglers! What a curious
+thing!"
+
+"Stand back a little; you obstruct the light. Now, how clearly it
+comes out."
+
+Printed apparently on the plush background, like the images in a
+camera, were the distinctly outlined and almost life-size figures of
+two men. Clad in a long gown, with loose sleeves, Gen'l Darrington
+stood near the hearth, brandishing the brass unicorn in one hand,
+the other thrown out and clinched; the face rather more than
+profile, scarcely three-quarters, was wonderfully distinct, and the
+hair much dishevelled. In front was the second portrait, that of a
+tall, slender young man who appeared to have suddenly wheeled around
+from the open vault, turning his countenance fully to view; while he
+threw up a dark, square object to ward off the impending blow. A
+soft wool hat pushed back, showed the curling hair about his
+temples, and the remarkable regularity of his handsome features;
+while even the plaid pattern of his short coat was clearly
+discernible.
+
+As the attorneys came closer, or stepped back from the door, the
+images seemed to vary in distinctness, and viewed from two angles
+they became invisible.
+
+Mr. Churchill stared blankly; Mr. Dunbar's gaze was riveted on the
+face of the burglar, and he took his underlip between his teeth, as
+was his habit in suppressing emotion.
+
+"Of course there is some infernal trick about this; but how do you
+account for it? It is beyond Bedney's sleight of hand," said the
+District Solicitor.
+
+"I think I understand how it came here. Bedney, go around and open
+the library door leading into this room, and loop back the curtain
+for a moment."
+
+"No, sir, Mars Lennox. Forty railroad ingines couldn't pull me in
+there alive. I wouldn't dar tamper with ole Marster's ghost; not for
+all the money in the bank. Go yourself; I doesn't budge on no sech
+bizness as prying and spying amongst the sperrits. It would fling me
+into a fit."
+
+"You miserable coward. Is the house open? Where is the key of this
+room?"
+
+"Hanging on the horseshoe under my chimbly board. I'll fetch it and
+unlock the front door, so you kin git in, and hold your inquess
+inside."
+
+"Will you go, Churchill, or shall I?"
+
+"What is your idea?"
+
+"To ascertain whether the images are on the glass, as I believe, and
+if they can be seen without the background. Stand just here--and
+watch. When I pull back the curtain, tell me the effect."
+
+Some moments later, the red folds shook, swayed aside, the curtain
+was pushed out of sight on its brass rod. The interior of the
+apartment came into view, the articles of furniture, the face and
+figure of Mr. Dunbar.
+
+"Is it still there; do you see it?" shouted the latter.
+
+"No. It vanished with the curtain. Drop it back. There! I see it.
+Now loop it. Gone again. Must be on the curtain," shouted the
+Solicitor, peering through the glass at his colleague.
+
+Mr. Dunbar turned a key on the inside, pushed back a bolt, and threw
+open the door, which swung outward on the veranda. Then he carefully
+let fall the plush curtain once more.
+
+"Do you see it?"
+
+"No. A blank show. I can't see into the trick. Dunbar, change places
+with me and satisfy yourself."
+
+The solicitor went inside, and Mr. Dunbar watched from the veranda a
+repetition of the experiment.
+
+"That will do, Churchill. It is all plain enough now, but you cease
+to wonder at Bedney's superstitious solution. You understand it
+perfectly, don't you?"
+
+"No, I'll be hanged if I do! It is the queerest thing I ever saw."
+
+"Do you recollect that there was a violent thunder-storm the night
+of the murder?"
+
+"Since you mention it, I certainly recall it. Go on."
+
+"All the witnesses testified that next morning this door was closed
+as usual, but the outside blinds were open, and the red curtain was
+looped back."
+
+"Yes, I remember all that."
+
+"The images are printed on the glass, and were photographed by a
+flash of lightning."
+
+"I never heard of such a freak. Don't believe it."
+
+"Nevertheless it is the only possible solution; and I know that
+several similar instances have been recorded. It is like the
+negative of a common photograph, brought out by a dark background;
+and do you notice the figures are invisible at certain angles? It is
+very evident the storm came up during the altercation that night,
+and electricity printed the whole scene on this door; stamping the
+countenance of the murderer, to help the instruments of justice.
+While the blinds were closed, and the curtain was looped aside, of
+course this wonderful witness could not testify; but Prince let down
+the folds just before his departure, and the moment Bedney opened
+the blinds, there lay the truthful record of the awful crime.
+Verily, the 'irony of fate!' An overwhelming witness for the
+defence, only eighteen months too late, to save a pure, beautiful
+life from degradation and ruin. Well may Bedney ask, 'where is your
+corpus delicti?' Alfred Churchill, I wish you joy of the verdict,
+you worked so hard to win."
+
+Turning on his heel Mr. Dunbar walked the length of the veranda, and
+stood gazing gloomily across the tangled mass of the neglected rose
+garden, taking no cognizance of the garlands of bloom, seeing
+everywhere only that lithe elegant figure and Hyperion face of the
+man who reigned master of Beryl's heart.
+
+The Solicitor leaned one shoulder against the door facing, and with
+his hands in his pockets, and his brows drawn into a pucker,
+pondered the new fact, and eyed the strange witness.
+
+After a time, he approached his companion.
+
+"If your hypothesis be correct, and it seems plausible, if science
+asserts that electricity can photograph,--then certainly I am sorry,
+sorry enough for all I did in the trial; yet I cannot reproach
+myself, because I worked conscientiously; and the evidence was
+conclusive against the girl. The circumstantial coincidences were
+strong enough to have hung her. We all make mistakes, and no doubt I
+am responsible for my share; but thank God! reparation can be made!
+I will take the night train and see the Governor before noon to-
+morrow. The pardon must come now."
+
+"Pardon! He cannot pardon a crime of which she now stands acquitted.
+The only pardon possible, she may extend to those who sacrificed
+her. His Excellency need exercise no prerogative of mercy; his aid
+is superfluous. Churchill, go in as soon as you can, and send out
+the Sheriff, with as many of the jurors as you can get together; and
+ask Judge Parkman to drive out this afternoon, and bring Stafford,
+the photographer, with him. Tell Doctor Graham I want to see him
+here, as he is an accomplished electrician. I will stay here and
+guard this door till all X---has seen it."
+
+Winged rumor flew through the length and breadth of the town, and
+before sunset a human stream poured along the road leading to "Elm
+Bluff", overflowed the green lawn under the ancient poplars, surged
+across the terrace, and beat against the railing of the piazza. Men,
+women, children, lawyers, doctors, newspaper reporters, all pressing
+forward for a glimpse of the mysterious and weird witness, that, in
+the fulness of time, had arisen to reprove the world for a grievous
+and cruel wrong.
+
+The hinges had been removed; the door was set up at a certain angle,
+carefully balanced against the hanging curtain; and there the
+curious crowd beheld, in a veritable vision of the dead, torn as it
+were from the darkness and silence of the grave, the secret of that
+stormy night, when unseen powers had solemnly covenanted in defence
+of trusting innocence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+On Saturday the regulations of prison discipline reduced the working
+hours much below the daily quota, and at two o'clock the ringing of
+the tower bell announced that the busy convicts of the various
+industrial rooms were allowed leisure during the remainder of the
+afternoon, to give place to the squad of sweepers and scrubbers, who
+flooded the floors and scoured the benches.
+
+June heat had followed fast upon the balmy breath of May, and though
+the air at dawn was still iced with crystal dew, the sun that shone
+through the open windows of the little chapel, burned fiercely on
+the unpainted pine seats, the undraped reading-desk of the pulpit,
+the tarnished gilt pipes of the cabinet organ within the chancel
+railing.
+
+On one of the front benches sat Iva Le Bougeois, with a pair of
+crutches resting beside her on the arm of the seat, and her hands
+folded in her lap. Recovering slowly from the paralysis resulting
+from diphtheria, she had followed Beryl into the chapel, and
+listened to the hymns the latter had played and sung. The glossy
+black head was bent in abject despondency upon her breast, and tears
+dripped over the smooth olive cheeks, but no sound escaped the
+trembling mouth, once so red and riotous, now drawn into curves of
+passionate sorrow; and the topaz gleams that formerly flickered in
+her sullen hazel eyes were drowned in the gloom of dejection. For
+her, memory was an angel of wrath, driving her into the hideous
+Golgotha of the past, where bloody spectres gibbered; the present
+was a loathsome death in life, the future a nameless torturing
+horror. Helpless victim of her own outraged conscience, she seemed
+at times sinking into mental apathy more pitiable than that which
+had seized her physically; and the only solace possible, she found
+in the encouraging words uttered by the voice that had prayed for
+her during that long night of mortal agony, in the gentle pressure
+of the soft hand that often guided her tottering footsteps.
+
+The organ stops had been pushed back, the musical echoes vibrated no
+longer; and the bare room, filled with garish sunshine, was so still
+that the drowsy droning of a bee high up on the dusty sash of the
+barred window, became monotonously audible.
+
+Within the chancel and to the right of the pulpit, a large
+reversible blackboard had recently been placed, and on a chair in
+front of it stood Beryl, engrossed in putting the finishing touches
+to a sketch which filled the entire board; and oblivious for the
+moment of Eve Werneth's baby, who, having emptied her bottle of
+milk, had pulled herself up by the chair, and with the thumb of her
+right hand in her mouth, was staring up at the picture.
+
+The lesson selected for the Sunday afternoon Bible class, which
+Beryl had so successfully organized among a few of the female
+convicts, was the fifteenth chapter of Luke; and at the top of the
+blackboard was written in large letters: "Rejoice with Me, for I
+have found My sheep which was lost."  She had drawn in the
+foreground the flock couched in security, rounded up by the collie
+guard in a grassy meadow; in the distance, overhanging a gorge, was
+a bald, precipitous crag, behind which a wolf crouched, watching the
+Shepherd who tenderly bore in his arms the lost wanderer. On the
+opposite side of the blackboard had been carefully copied the Gospel
+Hymn beginning:--
+
+"There were ninety and nine that safely lay, In the shelter of the
+fold, But one was out on the hills away, Far off from the gates of
+gold--Away on the mountains wild and bare, Away from the tender
+Shepherd's care."
+
+Mental processes are strangely dualistic, and it not unfrequently
+happens that  while one is consciously intent upon a certain train
+of thought, some secret cunning current of association sets in
+vibration the coil of ideas locked in the chambers of memory, and
+long forgotten images leap forth, startling in their pristine
+vividness.
+
+Absorbed by the text she was illustrating, the artist insensibly
+followed lines  she deemed imaginary, yet when the sketch was
+completed, the ensemble suddenly confronted her as a miniature
+reproduction of a very distant scene, that had gladdened her
+childish heart in the blessed by-gone. Far away from the beaten
+track of travel, in a sunny cleft of the Pistoian Apennines, she saw
+the white fleeces grouped under vast chestnuts, the flash of copper
+buckets plunged by two peasant women into a gurgling fountain, the
+curly head of Bertie bowed over the rude stone basin, as he gayly
+coaxed the bearers to let him drink from the beautiful burnished
+copper; the  rocky terraces cut in the beetling cliffs above, where
+dark ruby-red oleanders flouted the sky with fragrant banners; and
+the pathetic face of a vagrant ewe tangled among vines, high on a
+jagged ledge, bleating for the lamb asleep under the chestnuts down
+in the dell.
+
+Across the chasm of years floated the echo of the tinkling bell,
+that told where cows climbed in search of herbage; the singular
+rhythmic cadence of the trescone, danced in a neighboring vineyard;
+the deep, mellow, lingering tones of a monastery bell, rung by
+hermit hands in a gray tower on a mountain eyry, that looked
+westward upon the sparkling blue mirror of the Mediterranean.
+
+Then she was twelve years old, dreaming glorious midsummer day-
+dreams, as she wandered with parents and brother on one of her
+father's sketching tours through unfrequented nooks; now--?
+
+A petulant cry, emphasized by the baby hand tugging at the hem of
+her dress skirt, recalled Beryl's attention; and as she looked down
+at the waif, whom the chaplain had christened "Dovie" on the day of
+her mother's burial, the little one held up her arms.
+
+"So tired, Dulce? You can't be hungry; you must want your nap. There
+don't fret, baby girl. I will take you directly."
+
+She stepped down, turned the side of the blackboard that contained
+the sketch to the wall; lowered the sash which she had raised to
+admit fresh air, and lifted the child from the floor. Approaching
+the figure who sat motionless as a statue of woe, she laid a hand on
+the drooping shoulder.
+
+"Shall I help you down the steps?"
+
+"No, I'll stay here a while. This is the only place where I can get
+courage enough to pray. Couldn't you leave her--the child--with me?
+It has been years since I could bear the sight of one. I hated
+children, because my heart was so black--so bitter; but now, I yearn
+toward this little thing. I am so starved for the kiss of--of--,"
+she swept her hand across her throat, where a sob stifled her.
+
+"Certainly, if she will stay contentedly. See whether she will come
+to you."
+
+At sight of the extended arms, the baby shrank closer to Beryl,
+nestled her head under the girl's chin, and put up her lower lip in
+ominous protest. With an indescribably mournful gesture of
+surrender, the childless mother sank back in the corner of the
+bench.
+
+"I don't wonder she is afraid; she knows--everybody, everything
+knows I killed my baby--my own boy, who slept for nearly four years
+on my heart--oh!--"
+
+"Hush--she was frightened by your crying. She is sleepy now, but
+when she has had her nap, and wakes good-humored, I will fill her
+bottle, and bring her down to you. Try not to torment yourself by
+dwelling upon a distressing past, which you cannot undo; but by
+prayer anchor your soul in God's pardoning mercy. When all the world
+hoots and stones us, God is our 'sure refuge'."
+
+"That promise is to pure hearts and innocent hands; not to such as I
+am, steeped to the lips in crime--black, black--"
+
+"No. One said: 'The whole need not a physician; but they that are
+sick.' Your soul is sick unto death; claim the pledged cure. Yonder
+I have copied the hymn for to-morrow's lesson. While you sit here,
+commit it to memory; and the Shepherd will hear your cry."
+
+Glancing back from the chapel door, she saw that the miserable woman
+had bowed her face in her hands, and with elbows supported on her
+knees, was swaying back and forth in a storm of passionate sobs.
+
+"O! my beautiful baby, my angel Max, pray for mother now. Max--Max--
+there is no 'Sweet By and By'--for mother--"
+
+Hurrying from the wail of anguish that no human agency could
+lighten, Beryl carried the orphan across the yard, and up the stairs
+leading to the corridor, whence she was allowed egress at will. She
+noticed casually, signs of suppressed excitement among some of the
+convicts, who were lounging in groups, enjoying the half holiday,
+and three or four men stood around the under-warden who was
+gesticulating vivaciously; but at her approach he lowered his voice,
+and she lived so far aloof from the jars and gossip of the lower
+human strata, that the suspicious indications failed to arouse any
+curiosity.
+
+The southwest angle of the building was exposed fully to the force
+of the afternoon sun, and the narrow cell was so hot that Beryl
+opened the door leading into the corridor, in order to create a
+draught through the opposite window.
+
+The tired child was fretfully drowsy, but with the innate perversity
+of toddling babyhood, resented and resisted every effort to soothe
+her to sleep. Refusing to lie across the nurse's lap, the small
+tyrant clambered up, wrapped her arms about her neck, and finally
+Beryl rose and walked up and down, humming softly Chopin's dreamy
+"Berceuse"; while the baby added a crooning accompaniment that grew
+fainter and intermittent until the blue eyes closed, one arm fell,
+and the thumb was plunged between the soft full lips.
+
+Warily the nurse laid her down in a cradle, which consisted of an
+oval basket mounted on roughly fashioned wooden rockers, and drawing
+it close to the table, Beryl straightened the white cross-barred
+muslin slip that was too short to cover the rosy dimpled feet; and
+smoothed the flossy tendrils of yellow hair crumpled around the
+lovely face.
+
+The Sister of Charity, who, in the darkest hours of the pestilence
+had shrouded the poor young mother, did not forget the human waif
+astray in the world; but having secured a home for it in an
+"asylum," to which she promised it should be removed so soon as all
+danger of carrying contagion was over, had appointed the ensuing
+Monday on which to bear it away from the gloomy precincts, where
+sinless life had dawned in disgrace and degradation. This pretty
+toy, dowered with an immortal soul, stained by an inherited criminal
+strain, had appealed to the feminine tenderness in Beryl's nature,
+and she stood a moment, lost in admiration of the rounded curves and
+dainty coloring.
+
+"Poor little blossom. Nobody's baby! A lily bud adrift on a dead sea
+of sin. Dovie--Eve Werneth's child--but you will always be to me
+Dulce, my pretty clinging Dulce, my velvet-eyed cherub model."
+
+Turning away, she bathed her face and hands, and leaned for a while
+against the southern window; listening to the exultant song of a red
+bird hovering near his brooding brown mate, to the soothing murmur
+of the distant falls, borne in on the wings of the thievish June
+breeze that had rifled some far-off garden of the aroma of
+honeysuckle. The current of air had swung the door back, leaving
+only a hand's breadth of open space, and while she sang to the baby,
+her own voice had drowned the sound of footsteps in the corridor.
+
+On the whitewashed wall of the cell, a sheet of drawing paper had
+been tacked, and taking her crayons, Beryl returned to the cradle,
+changed the position of the child's left hand, and approaching the
+almost completed sketch on the wall, retouched the outline of the
+sleeping figure. Now and then she paused in her work, to look down
+at the golden lashes sweeping the slumber-flushed cheeks, and
+pondering the mystery of the waif's future, she chanted in a rich
+contralto voice, the solemn "Reproaches" of Gounod's "Redemption."
+
+"Oh, my vineyard, come tell me why thy grapes are bitter? What have
+I done, my People? Wherein hast thou been wronged?"
+
+For weeks the elaboration of this sketch had employed every moment
+which was not demanded for the execution of her allotted daily task
+in the convict workroom; and knowing that on Monday she would be
+bereft of her pretty model, she had redoubled her exertions to
+complete it.
+
+Beside a bier knelt a winged figure, in act of stealing the rigid
+form, and to the awful yet strangely beautiful face of the messenger
+of gloom, she had given the streaming hair, the sunken, cavernous
+but wonderfully radiant eyes of Moritz Retzsch's weird  image of
+Death. A white butterfly fluttered upward, and in mid-air--neither
+descending nor drifting, but waiting--poised on outspread pinions,
+hovered the Angel of the Resurrection holding out his hands. Behind
+and beneath the Destroyer, rolled dense shadows, and all the light
+in this picture rayed out from the plumes above, and fell like a
+glory on the baby's face.
+
+Cut off from all congenial companionship, thrown upon her own mental
+resources, the prisoner had learned to live in an ideal world; and
+her artistic tastes proved an indestructible heritage of  comfort,
+while memory ministered lavishly with images from the crowded realm
+of aesthetics. Victorious over the stony limitations of dungeon
+walls and dungeon discipline, fetterless imagination soared into the
+kingdom of beauty, and fed her lonely soul, as Syrian ravens fed
+God's prophet.
+
+Fourteen months had passed since Mr. Dunbar walked away from this
+cell, after the interview relative to Gen'l Darrington's will; and
+though his longing to see the prisoner had driven him twice to the
+entrance of the chapel, whence he heard the marvellously sweet
+voice, and gazed at the figure before the organ, no word was
+exchanged.
+
+To-day, with his hand on the bolt of the door, and his heart in his
+eyes, he leaned against the facing, and through the opening studied
+the occupant of the cell that held the one treasure which fate had
+denied him.
+
+The ravages of disease, the blemish of acute physical suffering had
+vanished; the clear pallor of her complexion, the full white throat,
+the rounded contour of the graceful form, bespoke complete
+restoration of all the vital forces; and never had she appeared so
+incomparably beautiful.
+
+Oppressed by the heat, she had pushed back the hair from her
+temples, and though hopeless sadness reigned over the profound
+repose of her features, the expression of her eyes told that the
+dream of the artist had borne her beyond surrounding ills.
+
+Where the button of her blue homespun dress fastened the collar, she
+wore a sprig of heliotrope and a cluster of mignonette, from the
+shallow box in the window-ledge where they grew together.
+
+How long he stood there, surrendering himself to the happiness of
+watching the woman whom, against his will, he loved with such
+unreasoning and passionate fervor, Mr. Dunbar never knew; but a
+sudden recollection of the face printed on the glass, the face,
+beautiful as fabled Hylas--of the man for whose sake she was willing
+to die--stung him like an adder's bite; and setting his teeth hard,
+he rapped upon the door held ajar; then threw it open.
+
+At sight of him, her arm, lifted to the sketch, fell; the crayon
+slipped from her nerveless fingers, and a glow rich as the heart of
+some red June rose stained her cheeks.
+
+As he stepped toward her, she leaned against the wall, and swiftly
+drew the baby's cradle between them. He understood, and for a moment
+recoiled.
+
+"You barricade yourself as though I were some loathsome monster! Are
+you afraid of me?"
+
+"What is there left to fear? Have you spared any exertion to
+accomplish that which you believe would overwhelm me with sorrow?"
+
+"You cannot forgive my rejection of the overtures for a compromise
+wrung from you by extremity of dread, when I started to Dakota?"
+
+"That rejection freed me from a self-imposed, galling promise; and
+hence I forgive all, because of the failure of your journey."
+
+"Suppose I have not failed?"
+
+She caught her breath, and the color in her cheeks flickered.
+
+"Had you succeeded, I should not have been allowed so long the
+comparative mercy of suspense."
+
+"Am I so wantonly cruel, think you, that I gloat over your
+sufferings as a Modoc at sight of the string of scalps dangling at
+his pony's neck?"
+
+"When the spirit of revenge is unleashed, Tiberius becomes a law
+unto himself."
+
+He leaned forward, and his voice was freighted with tenderness that
+he made no attempt to disguise.
+
+"Once after that long swoon in the court-room, when I held your
+hand, you looked at me without shrinking, and called me Tiberius.
+Again, when for hours I sat beside your cot, watching the crisis of
+your first terrible illness, you opened your eyes and held out your
+hand, saying: 'Have you come for me, Tiberius?' Why have you told me
+you were at the mercy of Tiberius?"
+
+Hitherto she had avoided looking at him, and kept her gaze upon the
+sleeping child, but warned by the tone that made her heart throb,
+she bravely lifted her eyes.
+
+"When next you write to your betrothed, ask her to go to the Museo
+Chiaramonti while in Rome, and standing before the crowned Tiberius,
+she will fancy her future husband welcomes her. Your wife will need
+no better portrait of you than a copy of that head."
+
+Into his eyes leaped the peculiar glow that can be likened unto
+nothing but the clear violet flame dancing over a bed of burning
+anthracite coal, and into his voice an exultant ring:
+
+"Meantime, like my inexorable prototype, 'I hold a wolf by the
+ears'. Shall I tell you my mission here?"
+
+"As it appears I am indeed always at the mercy of Tiberius, your
+courtesy savors of sarcasm."
+
+"Oh, my stately white rose! My Rosa Alba, I will see to it, that no
+polluting hand lays a grasp on you. My errand should entitle me to a
+more cordial reception, for I bring you good news. Will you lay your
+hand in mine just once, while I tell you?"
+
+He extended his open palm, but she shook her head and smiled sadly.
+
+"In this world no good news can ever come to me."
+
+"Do you know that recently earnest efforts have been made to induce
+the Governor to pardon you? That I have just returned from a visit
+to him?"
+
+"I was not aware of it; but I am grateful for your effort in my
+behalf."
+
+"I was disappointed. The pardon was not granted. Since then, fate,
+who frowned so long upon you, has come to your rescue. The truth has
+been discovered, proclaimed; and I came here this afternoon with an
+order for your release. For you the prison doors and gates stand
+open. You are as free as you were that cursed day when first you saw
+me and robbed my life of peace."
+
+For a moment she looked at him bewildered; then a great dread drove
+the blood from her lips, and her voice shook.
+
+"What truth has been discovered?"
+
+"The truth that you are innocent has been established to the entire
+satisfaction of judge and jury, prosecution and Governor, sheriff,
+warden, and you are free. Not pardoned for that which all the world
+knows now you never committed; but acquitted without man's help, by
+the discovery of a fact which removes every shadow of suspicion from
+your name. You are at liberty, owing no thanks to human mercy;
+vindicated by a witness subpoenaed by the God of justice, in whom
+you trusted--even to the end."
+
+"Witness? What witness? You do not mean that you have hunted down--"
+
+She paused, and her white face was piteous with terror, as pushing
+away the cradle she came close to him.
+
+"I have seen the face of the man who killed Gen'l Darrington."
+
+She threw up her arms, crossing them over her head.
+
+"O, my God! Have I suffered in vain? Shall I be denied the
+recompense? After all my martyrdom, must I lose the one hope that
+sustained me?"
+
+Despite the rage which the sight of her suffering woke within his
+heart, he could not endure to witness it.
+
+"Can you find no comfort in release? No joy in the consciousness of
+your triumphant vindication?"
+
+"None! If you have robbed me of that which is all I care for on
+earth, what solace can I find in release? Vindication? What is the
+opinion of the world to me? Oh! how have I ever wronged you, that
+you persecute me so vindictively, that you stab the only comfort
+life can ever hold for me?"
+
+"And you love him so insanely, that to secure his safety, existence
+here in this moral sty is sweet in comparison with freedom unshared
+with him? Listen! That belief stirs the worst elements in my nature;
+it swings the whip of the furies. For your own sake, do not thrust
+your degrading madness upon my notice. I have labored to liberate
+you; have subordinated all other aims to this, and now, that I have
+come to set you free, you repulse and spurn me!"
+
+She was so engrossed by one foreboding, that it was evident she had
+not even heard him, as moving to the bench in front of the window
+she sat down, shivering. Her black brows contracted till they met,
+and the strained expression of her eyes told that she was revolving
+some possibility of succor.
+
+"Where did you see my--my--?"
+
+"Not in Dakota mines, where I expected to find him."
+
+"Mr. Dunbar." She pointed to the chair at her side.
+
+He shook his head, but approached and stood before her.
+
+"I am waiting to hear you."
+
+"I sent you a telegram, promising information that would have
+prevented that journey."
+
+"It failed to reach me."
+
+Unconsciously she was wringing her hands as her thoughts whirled.
+
+"I will tell you something now, if you will promise me that no harm
+shall--"
+
+He laughed scornfully.
+
+"As if I had anything to learn concerning that cowardly villain!
+Thanks for your confidence, which comes much too late."
+
+"You do not know that--"
+
+"Yes, I know all I want to know; more than you shall ever tell me,
+and I decline to hear a confession that, in my eyes, defiles you;
+that would only drive me to harsh denunciation of your foul idol.
+Moreover, I will not extort by torture what you have withheld so
+jealously. Do not wring your hands so desperately. You are goaded to
+confession now, because you believe that I have secured your lover?
+Take courage, he has not yet been arrested; he is still a wanderer
+hiding from retribution."
+
+She sprang up, trembling.
+
+"But you said you had seen his face?"
+
+"Yes, and I have come to take you where you can identify that face?"
+
+"Then, he is dead." She covered her face with her hands.
+
+"No, I wish to God he was dead! Sit down. I will not see you suffer
+such agony. He is safe for the present. If you will try to think of
+yourself for a moment, and pay me the compliment of listening, I
+will explain. Do you recollect that during the storm on the night of
+the murder the lightning was remarkably vivid and severe?"
+
+"Yes; can I ever forget any details of that night? Go on."
+
+"Do you recall the position of the glass door on the west veranda;
+and also that the crimson drapery or curtain was drawn aside?"
+
+"I recall it distinctly because, while Gen'l Darrington was reading
+my mother's letter, I looked out through the glass at the
+chrysanthemums blooming in the garden."
+
+"That door was almost opposite the chimney, and the safe or vault in
+the wall was very near the fireplace. It appears that when the
+chloroform failed to stupefy Gen'l Darrington, he got up and seized
+one of the andirons on the hearth, and attacked the thief who was
+stealing his money. While they were struggling in front of the
+vault, a burst of electricity, some peculiarly vivid flash of
+lightning, sent by fate, by your guardian angel, it may have been by
+God himself--photographed both men, and the interior of the room on
+the wide glass panel of that door. Forms, faces, features, even the
+pattern of the cloth coat, are printed plainly there, for the whole
+world to study. The murderer and the victim in mortal combat over
+the tin box. Accident--shall I say Providence--unexpectedly brought
+this witness to light. The curtain so long looped back, was recently
+lowered, and when, two days ago, the outside blinds were opened,
+there lay your complete vindication. Crowds have seen it; the
+newspaper issued an 'extra', and so general was the rejoicing, that
+a public demonstration would have been made here at the gaol, had
+not Churchill and I harangued the people and assured them it would
+only annoy and embarrass you. So you are free. Free to shake the
+dust of X---forever from your feet; and it must comfort your proud
+soul to know that you do not owe your liberty to the mercy of a
+community which wronged you. I forbade Singleton to tell you, to
+allow any premature hint to reach you; for I claimed the privilege
+of bringing the glad tidings. Last night I spent in that room at
+'Elm Bluff', guarding that door; and the vigil was cheered by the
+picture hope drew, that when I came to-day you would greet me
+kindly; would lay your dear hands in mine, and tell me that, at
+least, gratitude would always keep a place for me warm in your noble
+heart. I have my recompense in the old currency of scorn. It were
+well for you if you had shown me your hatred less plainly; now I
+shall indulge less hesitation in following the clue the lightning
+lays in my grasp. I warn you that your release only expedites his
+arrest; for you can never pass beyond my surveillance; and the day
+you hasten to him, seals his fate. Long imprisoned doves, when set
+free, fly straight to their distant mates; so--take care--lest the
+hawk overtake both."
+
+Looking up at him, listening almost breathlessly to the tale of a
+deliverance that involved new peril for Bertie, the color came
+slowly back to her blanched face, and her parted lips quivered.
+
+"If the picture means anything, it proves that Gen'l Darrington made
+the assault with the brass andiron, and in the struggle that
+followed, the man you saw might have killed him in self defence."
+
+"When he is brought to trial in X--he shall never be allowed the
+benefit of your affectionate supposition. I promise you, that I will
+annihilate your tenderly devised theory."
+
+He ground his teeth in view of the transparent fact, that she was
+too intently considering the bearing of the revelation upon the
+safety of another, to heed the thought of her own escape from
+bondage.
+
+The little cluster of flowers fastened at her throat had become
+loosened, and fell unnoticed into her lap. He stooped, picked them
+up, and straightened them on his palm. When his eyes returned to
+Beryl, she had bowed her face in her shielding hands.
+
+How little he dreamed that she was silently praying for strength to
+deny the cry of her own beating heart, and to keep him from making
+shipwreck of the honor which she supposed was still pledged to Leo!
+Security for her brother, and unswerving loyalty to the absent woman
+who had befriended her in the darkest hours of the accusation, were
+objects difficult to accomplish simultaneously; yet at every hazard
+she would struggle on. Because she had learned to love so well this
+man, who was the promised husband of another, conscience made her
+merciless to her own disloyalty.
+
+Mr. Dunbar laid on the bench a small package sealed in yellow paper.
+
+"Knowing that your detention here has necessarily forfeited all the
+industrial engagements by which you maintained yourself, before you
+came South, I have been requested to ask your acceptance of this
+purse, which contains sufficient money to defray your expenses until
+you resume your art labors. It is an offering from your twelve
+jurors."
+
+"No--no. I could never touch it. Tell them for me that I am not
+vindictive. I know they did the best they could for me, in view of
+the evidence. Tell them I am grateful for their offer, but I cannot
+accept it. I--"
+
+"You imagine I am one of the generous contributors? Be easy; I have
+not offered you a cent. I am merely the bearer of the gift, or
+rather the attempt at restitution. Your refusal will grieve them,
+and add to the pangs of regret that very justly afflict them at
+present."
+
+"I have some money which Doctor Grantlin collected for my Christmas
+card. He retained only a portion of the amount, and sent me the
+remainder. Mr. Singleton keeps it for me, and it is all that I need
+now."
+
+"The purse contains also a ticket to New York, as it has been
+supposed that you would desire to return there at once."
+
+"Take all back, with my earnest thanks. I prefer to owe X--only the
+remembrance of the great kindness which some few have shown me. The
+officers here have been uniformly considerate and courteous to me;
+Mr. and Mrs. Singleton will ever be very dear to me for numberless
+kind deeds; and Sister Serena was a staff of strength during that
+frightful black week of the trial."
+
+She paused, and her voice betrayed something of the tumult at her
+heart, as while a sudden wave of scarlet overflowed her cheeks, she
+rose and held out both hands.
+
+"Mr. Dunbar, if I have seemed unappreciative of your great exertions
+in my behalf, it is merely because there are some matters which I
+can never explain in this world. One thing I ask you to believe when
+I am gone. I will never, so long as I live, cease to remember the
+debt I owe you. I am and shall be inexpressibly grateful to you, and
+whenever I think of my terrible sojourn here, be sure I shall recall
+tenderly--oh! how tenderly! the two friends who trusted and believed
+in my innocence, when all the world denounced me; the two who
+generously clung to me when public opinion branded me as an outcast-
+-you two--my best friends, you and Miss Gordon. It makes me proud
+and happy to know in this hour of my vindication, that in her, and
+in your good opinion, I needed none. Out of your united lives, let
+me pass as a fleeting gray shadow."
+
+"Out of my life you can never pass. Into it you have brought
+disappointment, humiliation, and a keenness of suffering such as I
+never imagined I was capable of enduring; and some recompense I will
+have. You hope to plunge into the vortex of a great city, where you
+can elude observation and obliterate all traces. Do not cherish the
+ghost of such a delusion. Go where you may, but I give you fair
+warning, you cannot escape me; and the day you meet that guilty
+vagabond, you betray him to the scouts of justice."
+
+He held her hands in a close, warm clasp, and a flush crossed his
+brow, as he looked down into her quivering face where a smile which
+he could not interpret, seemed only a challenge.
+
+"Would a generous man, worthy of Miss Gordon, harass and persecute a
+very unhappy and unfortunate woman, who asks at his hands only to be
+forgotten completely, to be left in peace?"
+
+"I lay no claim to generosity, and, where you are concerned, I am
+supremely selfish. Miss Gordon has no need of your championship; she
+is quite equal to redressing her own wrongs, when the necessity
+presents itself. You are struggling to free your hands, so be it. I
+have a close carriage at the gate, and to make assurance doubly
+sure, I have come to take you to 'Elm Bluff'; to show you the face,
+and ask you to identify it. Understand me, I will harass you with no
+questions; nor will I intrude upon you there. I have ordered the
+grounds cleared, have posted police to prevent the possibility of
+any occurrence unpleasant to you; and all I ask is, that alone, you
+will examine this witness, produced so strangely for your
+justification. I shall wait for you in the rose garden, and if you
+can come down from that gallery and tell me that the face is unknown
+to you, that the man photographed in the act of stealing, is a
+stranger, is not the man you love so well that you bore worse than
+death to save him from punishment, then I will give up the quest;
+and you may flee unwatched to the ends of the earth."
+
+"Never again will I see that place which has blasted every hope that
+life held for me."
+
+"Not even to clear away aspersion from his beloved name?"
+
+"I pray God, his beloved and sacred name may never be associated
+with a crime so awful."
+
+"You will not go to see the face? Remember, I shall ask you neither
+yea nor nay. I shall need only to look once into your eyes, after
+you have seen the Gorgon. Beryl, my white rose! Are you ashamed to
+show me your idol's face?"
+
+"I will never go to 'Elm Bluff'."
+
+"It is no longer necessary. You know already the features printed
+there, and your avoidance stamps them with infamy. How can your
+lofty soul, your pure heart, tolerate a creature so craven, so
+vile?"
+
+"We love not always whom we would, or should, were choice permitted
+us; and to whom I have given my heart, my whole deep heart, you
+shall never learn."
+
+The mournful smile that lent such wistful loveliness to her flushed
+face, seemed to him merely a renewed defiance.
+
+"I bide my time, knowing it will surely come. You are free, but be
+careful. Once when you lay upon the brink of the grave, unconscious,
+I knelt at your side and took you in my arms; laid your head on my
+heart, felt your cheek touch mine. Then and there I made a covenant
+with my soul; and no other man's arms shall ever enfold you. Ah, my
+Rosa Alba! I could dig your grave with my own hands, sooner than see
+that thief claim you. I am a proud man, and you have dragged me
+through the slough of humiliation, but to-day, as I bid you good-
+bye, I realize how one felt, who looking at the bust of him she
+loved supremely, said with her last breath: 'Voila mon univers, mon
+espoir, et mes dieux!' How soon we meet again depends solely on your
+future course. You know the conditions; and I promise you I will not
+swerve one iota."
+
+He took her hand, drew it across his cheek, laid it on his lips; and
+a moment later walked away, with the faded flowers folded close in
+his palm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+Conveniently contiguous to the busy centre of a wide and populous
+city, situated on the shore of one of those great inland fresh-water
+seas, whose lake line girdles the primeval American upheaval, the
+Laurentian rocks,--stands in the middle of a square, enclosed by a
+stone coping and an iron railing, a stately pile of brick and
+granite several stories high, flanked by wings that enclose in the
+rear a spacious court. The facade was originally designed in the
+trabeated style, and still retained its massive entrance, with
+straight, grooved lintel over the door which was adorned by four
+round columns; but subsequent additions reflected the fluctuations
+of popular architectural taste, in the later arched windows, the
+broad oriel with its carved corbel, and in the new eastern wing,
+that had flowered into a Tudor tower with bulbous cupola. The strip
+of velvet sward between the street and the house entrance, was
+embossed with brilliant coleus set in the form of anchors; and a
+raised border, running the entire length under the windows of the
+basement, was ablaze with geraniums of various hues.
+
+On a granite pediment above the portico, a large bronze anchor was
+supported, and beneath it was cut, in projecting letters: "The
+Umilta Anchorage".
+
+In front of the building ran a broad, paved boulevard; in the rear,
+the enclosure was bounded by a stone wall, overgrown with ivy, and
+built upon the verge of the blue lake, whose waves broke against the
+base, and rolled away in the distance beyond the northern horizon.
+
+Fully in accord with the liberal eclecticism that characterized its
+exterior, was the wide-eyed, deep, tender-hearted charity which,
+ignoring all denominational barriers, opened its doors in cordial
+welcome to worthy, homeless women, whom misfortune had swept away
+from family moorings, and whose clean hands and pure hearts sought
+some avenue to honest work. The institution was a memorial erected
+and endowed by a wealthy man, whose only child Umilta, just crossing
+the threshold of womanhood, had been lost in a sudden storm on the
+lake; whose fair, drowned face had been washed ashore just below the
+stone wall, and whose statue stood, guarded by marble angels, in the
+small chapel in the centre of the building, which was designed as an
+enduring monument to commemorate her untimely fate, and perpetuate
+her name.
+
+Divided into various industrial departments, the "Anchorage" was
+maintained almost entirely by the labor of its inmates; and it had
+rarely been found necessary to draw from the reserve endowment fund,
+that was gradually accumulating for future contingencies.
+
+Trained nurses, trained housekeepers were furnished on demand; lace
+curtains mended, laundered; dainty lingerie of every description,
+from a baby's wardrobe to a bride's trousseau; ornamental needle-
+work on all fabrics; artificial flowers, card engraving, artistic
+designs for upholstering, menus, type-writing, all readily supplied
+to customers; and certain confectionery put up in pretty boxes made
+by the inmates, and bearing the "Anchor" stamp. A school of drawing,
+etching, painting, and embroidery attracted many pupils; and a few
+pensioners who had grown too infirm and dim-eyed for active work,
+had a warm, bright room where they knitted stockings and underwear
+of various kinds.
+
+At one end of the long refectory was emblazoned on the wall: "For
+whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in Heaven, the
+same is my brother and sister and mother." At the other: "Bear ye
+one another's burdens." The chapel contained no pulpit, but on a
+marble altar stood a life-size figure of a woman clinging to the
+cross: and on the walls hung paintings representing the Crucifixion,
+the Descent, the Resurrection and the Mater Dolorosa; while in a
+niche at the extremity, behind the altar, an Ecce Homo of carved
+ivory was suspended above a gilt cross, and just beneath it
+glittered the motto "Faith, Hope, Charity". Every morning and
+evening the band of women gathered here, and recited the Apostles'
+Creed, and the Lord's Prayer; but on Sabbath the members attended
+the church best suited to their individual tenets.
+
+The infirmary was a cheerful, airy room, and here professional
+nurses were trained under the guidance of visiting physicians; and
+in an adjoining kitchen were taught to prepare the articles of diet
+usually belonging to the regimen of sick rooms.
+
+Widows, maidens, Catholics, Protestants, admitted from the age of
+eighteen to forty, these "Umilta Sisters" were received on probation
+for eighteen months; then entered upon a term of five years, subject
+to renewal at will; bound by specified rules, but no irrevocable
+vow. Yielding implicit obedience to the matron, elected by
+themselves every four years--subject to approval and ratification by
+the Chapter of Trustees, they were recognized wherever they went by
+the gray garb, the white aprons, and snowy mob caps peculiar to the
+institution.
+
+Fashionable women patronized and fondled the "Anchorage", for much
+the same reason that led them to pamper their pugs; and since the
+Chapter of Trustees consisted of men of wealth and prominence, their
+wives, as magnates in le beau monde, set the seal of "style" upon
+articles manufactured there, by ordering quilted satin afghans with
+anchors of pansies embroidered in the centre, for their baby
+carriages; painted tea gowns; favors for a "German", or fans and
+bonbonnieres for birthday parties.
+
+If children of the Brahmin caste of millionairdom were seized by the
+Pariah ills of measles, or chicken-pox, or mumps, it was deemed
+quite as imperatively the duty of doting parents to provide an
+"Anchorage" nurse, as to secure an eminent physician, and the most
+costly brand of condensed milk. In the name of sweet charity, gay
+gauzy-winged butterflies of fashion harnessed themselves in ropes of
+roses, and dragged the car of benevolence; as painted papillons drew
+chariots of goddesses on ancient classic walls; so in the realm of
+social economy the ubiquitous law of correlation of industrial
+force--of conservation of energy--transmuted the arrested labor of
+the rich and idle into the fostering heat that stimulated the
+working poor.
+
+Scarcely a month previous to her unexpected release from prison,
+Beryl had received a letter from Doctor Grantlin, enclosing one
+addressed to "Sister Ruth, Matron of Anchorage". He wrote that his
+daughter's health demanded some German baths; and on the eve of
+sailing, he desired to secure for the prisoner a temporary refuge,
+should the efforts which he had heard were made to obtain her
+pardon, prove successful. As a nephew of the founder, and a cousin
+of the young lady for whom the "Anchorage" was intended as a lasting
+memorial, he had always been accorded certain privileges by the
+trustees; and the letter, if presented to the matron, would insure
+at least an entrance into the haven of rest, until the prisoner
+could mature some plan for her future.
+
+Spurred away from X--by the dread of another interview with the man
+whom she had assiduously shunned, and of being required to visit
+"Elm Bluff" and scrutinize the accusing picture, Beryl had shrouded
+herself in her heavy mourning, and fled from the scene of her
+suffering, on the 3 A.M. train Sunday morning; ten hours after
+receiving the certificate of her discharge. Shrinking from
+observation, she refused Mr. Singleton permission to accompany her
+to the station house, and bade him good-bye three squares distant;
+promising to write soon to his still absent wife, and assured by him
+that a farewell letter of affectionate gratitude should be promptly
+delivered to Dyce. Fortunately a stranger stood in the office and
+sold her a ticket; and in the same corner, where twenty months
+before she had knelt during the storm, she waited once more for the
+sound of the train. How welcome to her the shuddering shriek that
+tore its way through the dewy silence of the star-lit summer night,
+and she hurried out, standing almost on the rails, in her impatience
+to depart.
+
+Several travellers were grouped near a pile of luggage awaiting the
+train, but as it rolled swiftly in and jarred itself to a
+standstill, she saw even through her crape veil a well known figure,
+leaning against an iron post that held an electric lamp. She sprang
+up the steps leading to the platform, and took the first vacant
+seat, which was in front of an open window.
+
+The silvery radiance from the globe just opposite, streamed in, and
+her heart seemed to cease beating as the tall form moved forward and
+taking off his hat, stood at the side of the car. Neither spoke. But
+when the brass bell rang its signal and the train trembled into
+motion, a hand was thrust in, and dropped upon her lap a cluster of
+exquisite white roses, with one scarlet passion flower glowing in
+the centre.
+
+During the three days spent in New York, Beryl's wounds bled afresh,
+and she felt even more desolate than while sheltered behind prison
+walls. The six-storied tenement house where she had last seen her
+mother's face, and kissed her in final farewell, had been demolished
+to make room for a new furniture warehouse. Strange nurses in the
+hospital could tell her nothing concerning the last hours of the
+beloved dead; and the only spot in the wide western world that
+seemed to belong to her, was a narrow strip of ground in a remote
+corner of the great cemetery, where a green mound held its square
+granite slab, bearing the words "Ellice Darrington Brentano."
+
+With her face bowed upon that stone, the lonely woman had wept away
+the long hours of an afternoon that decided her plan for the future.
+
+Dr. Grantlin had gone abroad for an indefinite period, and no one
+knew the contents of his last letter. In New York her movements
+would be subject to the SURVEILLANCE she most desired to escape; but
+in that distant city where the "Anchorage" was situated, she might
+disappear, leaving no more trace than that of a stone dropped in
+some stormy, surging sea.
+
+To find Bertie and reclaim him, was the only goal of hope life held
+for her, and to accomplish this, the first requisite was to
+effectually lose herself.
+
+Anxious and protracted deliberation finally resulted in an
+advertisement, which she carried next morning to the "Herald"
+office, to be inserted for six months in the personal column, unless
+answered.
+
+"BERTIE, IF YOU WANT THE LOST BUTTON WE BOUGHT AT LUCCA, WHEN CAN
+GIGINA HAND IT TO YOU IN ST. CATHERINE'S, CANADA?"
+
+She wore her old blue bunting dress, and a faded blue veil when she
+delivered the notice at the office of the newspaper, and paid in
+advance the cost of its publication. Later in the same day, clad in
+her mourning garments, she went down to the Grand Central Depot and
+bought a railway ticket; and the night express bore her away on her
+long journey westward.
+
+It was on the fourth of July, her twenty-first birthday, that she
+entered the reception room at the "Anchorage", and presented in
+conjunction with Doctor Grantlin's letter, a copy of the newspaper
+printed at X--, which contained an article descriptive of the
+discovery of the picture on the glass door; and expressive of the
+profound sympathy of the public for the prisoner so unjustly
+punished by incarceration.
+
+For twenty years a resident of the institution, over which she had
+repeatedly presided, Sister Ruth was now a woman of fifty-five,
+whose white hair shone beneath her cap border like a band of spun
+silver, and whose yellowish, dim eyes seemed unnaturally large
+behind their spectacles. Thin and wrinkled, her face was nobly
+redeemed by a remarkably beautiful, patient mouth; and her angular,
+wiry figure, by small feet and very slender hands, where the veins
+rose like blue cords lacing ivory satin. Over the shoulders of her
+gray flannel dress was worn the distinctive badge of her office, a
+white mull handkerchief pleated surplice fashion into her girdle,
+whence hung by a silver chain a set of tablets; and the folds of
+mull were fastened at her throat by a silver anchor.
+
+Having deliberately read letter and paper, she put the former in her
+pocket, and returned the latter with a stately yet graceful
+inclination of the head, that would have been creditable in Mdm.
+Recamier's salon.
+
+"I have expected you for some weeks, an earlier letter from Doctor
+Grantlin having prepared me for your arrival; but it appears you
+have not been released from prison by the pardon he anticipated?"
+
+"No, madam; the authorities who caused my arrest and imprisonment,
+considered the discovery of the printed door a complete refutation
+of the accusation against me, and ordered my release. I come here
+not as a pardoned criminal, but as an unfortunate victim of
+circumstantial evidence; acquitted of all suspicion by a
+circumstance even stranger than those which seemed to condemn me. In
+the darkest days of my desolation, Doctor Grantlin believed me
+innocent, honored me with his confidence and friendship, soothed my
+mother's dying hour; and he will rejoice to learn that acquittal
+anticipated the mockery of a pardon. Only his generous encouragement
+emboldened me to hope for a temporary shelter here."
+
+"Then you have no desire to become a permanent resident?"
+
+"At present, I shall be grateful if allowed to enjoy the privilege
+of hiding my sore heart for a while from the gaze of a world that
+has cruelly wronged me. I want to rest where wicked men and women do
+not pollute the air, where I can try to forget the horrors of
+convict life; and the rest I need is not idleness, it is labor of
+some kind that will so fully employ my hands and brain, that when I
+lie down at night my sad, aching heart and wounded soul can find
+balm in sleep. Locked at night into a dark cell has made existence
+for nearly eighteen months a mere hideous vigil, broken by fitful
+nightmare. To see only pure faces, to listen to sweet feminine
+voices that never knew the desecration of blasphemy, to exchange the
+grim, fetid precincts of a penitentiary for a holy haven such as
+this, is indeed a glimpse of paradise to a tortured spirit."
+
+"Have you special reasons for wishing to shun observation?"
+
+The dim eyes probed like some dull blade that tears the tissues.
+
+"Yes, madam, special cause to want to be forgotten by the public,
+who have stared me at times almost to frenzy."
+
+"You are an orphan, I am told; with no living relatives in America."
+
+"I am an orphan; and think I have no relative in the United States."
+
+"In the very peculiar circumstances that surround and isolate you, I
+should imagine you would esteem it a great privilege to cast your
+lot here, and become one of the permanently located Sisters of the
+'Anchorage'. Ours is a noble and consecrated mission."
+
+"Knowing literally nothing of your institution, except that it is a
+hive of industrious good women, offering a home and honest work to
+homeless and innocent unfortunates, I could not pledge myself to a
+life which might not prove suitable on closer acquaintance. Take me
+in; give me employment that will prevent me from being a tax upon
+your hospitality and mercifully shelter me from pitiless curiosity
+and gossip."
+
+"Even were our sympathies not enlisted in your behalf, Doctor
+Grantlin's request would insure your admission, at least for a
+season. Where is your luggage?"
+
+"I have only a trunk, for which I have retained the railway check,
+until I ascertained your willingness to receive me."
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+She crossed the room and pressed the knob of a bell on the opposite
+wall. Almost simultaneously a door opened, and to a stout, middle-
+aged woman who appeared on the threshold, the matron gave
+instructions in an under tone.
+
+Returning to the stranger, she resumed:
+
+"I infer from the Doctor's letter, that you are a gifted person. In
+what lines do your talents run?"
+
+"Perhaps I should not lay claim to talent, but I am, by grace of
+study, a good musician; and I draw and paint, at least with
+facility. At one time I supported my mother and myself by singing in
+a choir, but diphtheria closed that avenue of work. With the
+restoration of health, I think I have recovered my voice. I am an
+expert needle woman, and can embroider well, especially on fine
+linen."
+
+"Do you feel competent to teach a class in 'water color', in our Art
+School? Our aquarelle Sister is threatened with amaurosis, and the
+oculist prohibits all work at present."
+
+"You can form an opinion of my qualifications by examining some
+sketches which are in my trunk. I have furnished several designs for
+the 'Society of Decorative Art', and have sold a number of painted
+articles at the Woman's Exchange."
+
+"Then I think you have only to step into a vacant niche, and supply
+a need which was beginning to perplex us. During the latter part of
+September, an International Scientific Congress will be held in this
+city, and one of our patrons, Mr. Brompton, who expects to entertain
+the distinguished foreign delegates, has given us an order for
+dinner cards for eight courses, and each set for twenty-four covers.
+As nearly as we can comprehend the design, his intention is to
+represent the order of creation in fish, game, fruits and flowers;
+and each card will illustrate some special era in geology and
+zoology. The cream and ices set are expected to show the history of
+Polar regions as far as known, and at the conclusion of the banquet,
+each guest will be presented with a velvet smoking cap, to which
+must be attached a card representing 'scientific soap-bubbles
+pricked by the last scientists' junta'. Now while the 'Anchorage's'
+cultured art standard claims to be as high as any, East, we should
+scarcely venture to fill this order, had not two of the professors
+in our University, promised to map out the order, and furnish some
+dots in the way of engravings, which will aid the accomplishment of
+the work; and we are particularly desirous of pleasing our patron,
+from whom the 'Anchorage' expects a bequest. If you think you can
+successfully undertake a portion of this order, given us by Mr.
+Brompton, we shall make you doubly welcome."
+
+"I think I may safely promise satisfactory work in the line you
+designate; and at least, I shall be grateful for the privilege of
+making the attempt."
+
+"You are aware, I presume, that all inmates of the 'Anchorage' are
+required to wear its regulation uniform."
+
+"I shall be very glad to don it; hoping it may possess some spell to
+exorcise memories of the last uniform I wore; the blue homespun of
+penitentiary convicts."
+
+"You must try to forget all that. The 'Anchorage' gates shut fast on
+the former lives we led; here we dwell in a busy present, hoping to
+secure a blessed future. Come with me to the cutting room, and be
+measured for your flannel uniform; then one of the Sisters will show
+you to your own cell in this consecrated bee-hive, which you will
+find as peaceful as its name implies."
+
+The first story contained the reception rooms, chapel, schoolroom,
+apartments for the display of sample articles manufactured; the
+refectory, kitchen and laundry; and one low wide room with glass on
+three sides, where orchids and carnations, the floral specialties of
+the institution, were grown. On the second floor were various
+workrooms, supplied with materials required for the particular
+fabric therein manufactured or ornamented; and cut off from
+communication, was the east wing, used exclusively as an infirmary,
+and provided with its separate kitchen and laundry. The third story
+embraced the dormitory, a broad, lofty apartment divided by carved
+scroll work and snowy curtains, into three sets of sleeves running
+the entire length of the floor; separated by carpeted aisles, and
+containing all the articles of furniture needed by each occupant. On
+the ceiling directly over every bed, was inscribed in gilt letters,
+some text from the Bible, exhorting to patience, diligence,
+frugality, humility, gentleness, obedience, cheerfulness, honesty,
+truthfulness and purity; and mid-way the central aisle, where a
+chandelier swung, two steps led to a raised desk, whence at night
+issued the voice of the reader, who made audible to all the
+occupants the selected chapter in the Bible. At ten o'clock a bell
+was rung by the Sister upon whom devolved the duty of acting as
+night watch; then lights were extinguished save in the infirmary.
+This common dormitory was reserved for Sisters who had spent at
+least five years in the building; and to probationers were given
+small rooms on the second story of the west wing.
+
+The third story of the same wing fronted north, and served as a
+studio where all designs were drawn and painted; and upon its walls
+hung pictures in oil and water color, engravings, vignettes, and all
+the artistic odds and ends given or lent by sympathetic patrons.
+
+Each story was supplied with bath-rooms, and the entire work of the
+various departments was performed by the appointed corps of inmates;
+the Sisters of the wash tub, and of the broom brigade, being
+selected for the work best adapted to their physical and
+intellectual development.
+
+Visitors lingered longest in the great kitchen with its arched
+recess where the range was fitted; where like organ pipes glittering
+copper boilers rose, and burnished copper measures and buckets
+glinted on the carved shelves running along one side. The adjoining
+pastry room was tiled with stone, furnished with counters covered
+with marble slabs, and with refrigerators built into the wall; and
+here the white-capped, white-aproned priestesses of pots, pans and
+pestles moved quietly to and fro, performing the labor upon which
+depended in great degree the usefulness of artificers in all other
+departments.
+
+The refectory opened on a narrow terrace at the rear of the
+building, which was sodded with turf and starred with pansies and
+ox-eyed daisies, and on the wide, stone window sills sat boxes and
+vases filled with maiden-hair ferns and oxalis, with heliotrope and
+double white violets. Three lines of tables ran down this bright
+pretty room, and in the centre rose a spiral stair to a cushioned
+seat, where when "Grace" had been pronounced, the Reader for the day
+made selections from such volumes of prose or poetry as were deemed
+by the Matron elevating and purifying in influence; tonic for the
+soul, stimulant for the brain, balm for the heart.
+
+Close to the rear wall overhanging the lake, ran a treillage of
+grape vines, and on the small grass sown plat of garden, belated
+paeonies tossed up their brilliant balls, as play-things for the
+wind that swept over the blue waves, breaking into a fringe of foam
+beyond the stone enclosure.
+
+Except at meals, and during the last half hour in the dormitory,
+night and morning, no restriction of silence was imposed, and one
+hour was set apart at noon for merely social intercourse, or any
+individual scheme of labor. Busy, tranquil, cheerful, often merry,
+they endeavored to eschew evil thoughts; and cultivated that rare
+charity which makes each tolerant of the failings of the other,
+which broadens a sympathy that can excuse individual differences of
+opinion, and that consecrates the harmony of true home life.
+
+The room assigned to Beryl was at the extremity of the second story,
+just beneath the studio; and as the north end of the wings was built
+at each corner into projections that were crowned with bell towers,
+this apartment had a circular oriel window, swung like a basket from
+the wall, and guarded by an iron balcony. Cool, quiet, restful as an
+oratory seemed the nest; with its floor covered by matting diapered
+in blue, its low, wide bedstead of curled maple, with snowy
+Marseilles quilt, and crisply fluted pillow cases; its book shelves
+hanging on the wall, surmounted by a copy in oil of Angelico's
+Elizabeth of Hungary, with rapt face upraised as she lifted her
+rose-laden skirt.
+
+The lambrequins of blue canton flannel were bordered with trailing
+convolvulus in pink cretonne, and the diaphanous folds of white
+muslin curtains held in the centre an embroidered anchor which
+dragged inward, as the breeze rushed in through open windows. An
+arched recess in the wall, whence a door communicated with the
+adjoining chamber, was concealed by a portiere of blue that matched
+the lambrequins, and the alcove served as a miniature dressing-room,
+where the brass faucet emptied into a marble basin.
+
+In this apartment the imperial sway of dull maroons, sullen
+Pompeiian reds, and sombre murky olives had never cast encroaching
+shadows upon the dainty brightness of tender rose and blue, nor
+toned down the silvery reflection of the great sea of waters that
+flashed under the sunshine like some vast shifting mirror.
+
+Travel-worn and very weary, Beryl sat down by the window and looked
+out over the lake, that far as the eye could reach, lifted its
+sparkling bosom to the cloudless dim blue of heaven, effacing the
+sky line; dotted with sails like huge white butterflies, etched here
+and there with spectral, shadowy ship masts, overflown by gray gulls
+burnished into the likeness of Zophiels' pinions, as their wings
+swiftly dipped.
+
+Driven by storms of adversity away from the busy world of her
+earlier youth, leaving the wrack of hopes behind, she had drifted on
+the chartless current of fate into this Umilta Sisterhood, this
+latter day Beguinage; where, provided with work that would furnish
+her daily bread, she could hide her proud head without a sense of
+shame. Doctor Grantlin, in compliance with her request, would keep
+the secret of her retreat; and surely here she might escape forever
+the scrutiny and the dangerous magnetism of the man who had
+irretrievably marred her fair, ambitious youth.
+
+To-day, twenty-one, full statured in womanhood, prematurely scorched
+and scarred in spirit by fierce ordeals, she saw the pale ghost of
+her girlhood flitting away amid the ruins of the past; and knew that
+instead of making the voyage of life under silken sails gilded with
+the light, and fanned by the breath of love and happiness, she had
+been swept under black skies before a howling hurricane, into an
+unexpected port,--where, lashed to the deck with "torn strips of
+hope", she had finally moored a strained, dismasted barque in the
+"Anchorage", whence with swelling canvas and flying pennons no ships
+ever went forth.
+
+A rush of grateful tears filled her tired eyes, and soothed by the
+consciousness of an inviolable security, her trembling lips moved in
+a prayer of thankfulness to God, upon whom she had stayed her
+tortured soul, grappling it to the blessed promise: "Lo, I am with
+you always. I will never leave you nor forsake you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+"Why deny it, Leo? Let us at least be frankly realistic, and 'call a
+spade a spade' when we set ourselves to dig ditches, draining the
+stagnant pools of life. Each human being has a special goal toward
+which he or she strains, with nineteen chances out of twenty against
+reaching it in time; and if it be won, is it worth the race? With
+some of us it is love, ambition, mundane prosperity; with others,
+intellectual supremacy, moral perfection, exalted spirituality,
+sublimated altruism; but after all, in the final analysis, it is
+only hedonism! Each struggles with teeth and claws for that which
+gives the largest promise of pleasure to body, mind, or soul, as the
+individual happens to incline. To Sybarites the race is too short to
+be fatiguing, and the goal is only an ambuscade for satiety and
+ennui; to ascetics, the race course stretches to the borders of
+futurity, but even for them one form of pleasure, spiritual
+pleasure, lights up eternity. The thing we want, we want; not
+because of its orthodoxy, or its excellency or beauty PER SE; we
+want it because it gratifies some idiosyncratic craving of our
+threefold natures. The good things of this world are very adroitly
+and ingeniously labelled, but we rummage in the bonbonniere for a
+certain marron glace, and if it be not there, all the caramels in
+Venice, all the 'gluko' in Greece, all the rahatlicum in Turkey will
+not appease us."
+
+With her arms thrown back, and clasped around the satin cushion
+crushed against her head and shoulders, Miss Cutting lay on a red
+plush divan in her father's picture gallery at home; and the
+swathing folds of a topaz-hued surah gown embroidered with scarlet
+poppies half concealed the feet that beat a tattoo on the polished
+oak floor.
+
+"Then you have missed your marron glace?" answered Leo, turning from
+the contemplation of a new picture which Mr. Cutting had recently
+added to his collection.
+
+"Of course. Do not all of us sooner or later? Where is yours? Safe
+under lock and key, or hanging on some crag, ripening for the
+confectioner; or filched by some stealthy white hand, devoured by
+some eager lips that smile derisively at you while they nibble?"
+
+From beneath drooping lids, Alma's oblique glance noted the result
+of her Scipio Africanus' tactics.
+
+"Alma, too intemperate and prolonged diet of sweets has ruined your
+digestion; has rendered you an ethical dyspeptic. A surfeit of sugar
+betrays itself in fermentation, and you have reached the stage of
+moral acidulation."
+
+"Ah, don't drift into homiletics! I see your marron grows hard by
+the vineyard where sour grapes flourish. Leo, I am not so serenely
+proud as you, but a trifle more honest, and I have cried for my
+bonbon, never flouting its delicious flavor; hence, when I am
+ordered back to boiled milk and oatmeal, I make no feint to disguise
+my wry faces."
+
+Alma's low, teasing laugh stung like some persistent buzzing insect,
+and a slight flush tinged her companion's cheek as she replied:
+
+"Why plunge to the opposite extreme? You will starve on that
+porridge you are desperately preparing for yourself."
+
+"What else remains? This world is a huge bazaar, a big church fair,
+and like other eager-eyed children I promptly set my heart on the
+great 'bisc' doll with its head turning coquettishly from side to
+side, singing snatches from 'La Grande Duchcsse', and clad like
+Sheba's queen! I stake all my pennies on a chance in the raffle,
+which has a 'consolation prize' hidden away from vulgar gaze. By and
+by the dice rattle, and over my head, quite out of my reach, is
+borne the coveted beauty (owned now by a girl I know), bowing and
+singing to the new owner, who exultantly exhibits her as she
+departs; and into my outstretched arms falls something hideous
+enough to play Medusa in a tableau, a rag baby with grinning
+Senegambian lips, rayless owlish eyes, and a concave nose whose
+nostrils suggest the Catacombs! Bitter rage and murderous fury
+possess me, but I am much too wise to show my tempers at the fair;
+so I hug my 'consolation prize', and get away as fast as possible
+with my treasure, and once safe from observation, box, deride,
+trample upon it, and toss it into the garret as suitable prey for
+dust, cobwebs and mildew! After a time, the keenness of the
+disappointment dulls, like all other human aches that do not kill,
+and by degrees I think less vindictively of the despised substitute.
+Finally comes a day, when all else failing to amuse me, I creep
+sheepishly into the attic and pick up the rejected, and persuade
+myself it is at least better than no doll at all, and forthwith
+adorn it with rags of finery; but the echoes of 'La Grande Duchesse'
+will always ring in my ears, and through the halo of tears I see
+ever and anon the prize beauty that was withheld. The two-edged
+sword in the diablerie of fate is, that we are ordained to fret
+after 'bisc,' when stuffed rags have been meted out as our share of
+the fair."
+
+Leo drew a chair near the divan and seated herself; looking steadily
+into the velvety black eyes that instead of betraying hid, like a
+domino, the soul of their owner.
+
+"Alma, better cross empty arms forever over empty heart, than mock
+your womanhood by acceptance of a 'consolation prize'."
+
+"We all say that the day after the fair; but wait a few years as I
+have done; and like all your sisters in the ranks of the
+disappointed, you will ultimately crawl back to the attic and kiss
+the thick lips, and try to persuade yourself the nose is not so
+formidable, though certainly a trifle less classic than Antinous's!
+We set out with our eyes fixed on Vega, blazing above, and flaunt
+our banner--'tout ou rien!'--but when the campaign ends, Vega laughs
+at us from the horizon, quitting our world; and we console ourselves
+with a rushlight, and shelter it carefully from the wind with
+another flag: 'Quand on n'a pas ce qu'on aime, il faut aimer ce
+qu'on a!' Such is the worldly wisdom that comes with ripening years,
+like the deep stain on the sunny side of a peach. Moreover, 'folding
+empty arms,' is only melodrama metaphor, and 'empty hearts' are,
+begging your pardon, only figments of romantic brains. Our hearts
+aren't empty, more's the pity! They hold deep, deep, the image of
+Vega, and the flare of the tallow eandle on the surface serves as
+cross lights to dazzle the world, and help us to hide the reflection
+of our star. I saw that metaphor in some novel, and recognize its
+truth. Do you, my princess?"
+
+"I will never so utterly degrade myself. I could neither lower my
+standard, nor sacrifice my ideal," said Leo, with a touch of scorn
+in her usually gentle voice.
+
+"You prefer that your ideal should sacrifice you? One enjoys for a
+season the wide expanse visible from that lofty emotional pinnacle;
+but the atmosphere is too rarefied, and we gladly descend to the
+warm, denser air of the plains of common sense selfishness. If it be
+lowering your standard to become the wife of a bishop (the youngest
+ever ordained in his State), clothed with the double distilled odors
+of sanctity and popularity, then heaven help your standard, which
+only heaven can fitly house."
+
+"Since you persist in assuming that so flattering an offer has been
+made me, I will set this subject at rest, by a final assurance that
+even were your surmise correct, I could never under any imaginable
+circumstances marry my cousin, Bishop Douglass. Although I trust and
+reverence him beyond all other men, 'I love my cousin cousinly, no
+more,' and he is too much absorbed by his holy office and its solemn
+responsibilities, to waste thought on the frail, sweet, rosy garland
+of any woman's love. Fret yourself no longer in casting matrimonial
+horoscopes for me."
+
+The flushed cheeks, and a certain icy curtness in Leo's tone, warned
+her companion that she was rashly invading sacred precincts.
+
+"Eight years ago I made the solemn asseveration that I would never
+marry; and I ran as a raw recruit to swell the army of foolish
+virgins who lost all the wedding splendors, the hypothetical 'cakes
+and ale', for want of the oil of worldly wisdom. Now I am thirty-
+three, and my lamp is filled to the brim, and the bridegroom is in
+sight. Why not? Adverse weather, rain, rust and mildew spoiled my
+beautiful golden harvest ten years ago, but aftermath is better than
+bare stubble fields, and though you miss the song of the reapers,
+you escape starvation. Deny it as we may, we are hopelessly given
+over to fetichism, and each one of us ties around her stone image
+some beguiling orthodox label. Leo, yours is pride, masquerading in
+the dun garb of 'religious duty'. Mine is self-love, pure and
+simple, the worldly weal of Alma Cutting; but nominally it is dubbed
+'grateful requital of a life of devotion' in my lover! You grieve
+over my heartlessness? That is the one compensation time brings,
+when men and women have killed the best in our natures. Teeth ache
+fiercely; then the nerve dies, and we have surcease from pain, and
+find comfort in knowing that the darkening wreck can throb no more.
+There was a time when the pangs of Prometheus seemed only pastime to
+mine, but all things end; and now I get on as comfortably without a
+heart, as the victims of vivisection--the frogs, and guinea pigs,
+and rabbits--do without their brains."
+
+"I do indeed grieve over the fatal step you contemplate; I grieve
+over your unwomanliness in marrying a man whom you do not even
+pretend to love; and some terrible penalty will avenge the outrage
+against feminine nature. Some day your heart will stir in its cold
+torpor, and then all Dante's visions of horror, will become your
+realities, scuurging you down to despair."
+
+"Because 'Farleigh Court' may lie dangerously close to 'Denzil
+Place'? Be easy, Leo; the cold remains of my ossified affection will
+lie in as decorous repose as the harmless ash heaps of some long
+buried damosel of the era of Lars Porsenna, dug out of Vulci or
+Chiusi. To make a safe and brilliant marriage is the acme of social
+success. What else does the world to which I belong, offer me now?"
+
+"There remains always, Alma, the alternative of listening to the
+instinctive monitors God set to watch in every woman's nature; and
+we have the precious and inalienable privilege of being true to
+ourselves. Better mourn your 'bisc' than stoop to a lower
+substitute. Be loyal to yourself, be true to your own heart."
+
+"I know myself rather too intimately to offer a tribute of
+admiration on the altar of ego; and I prefer to make the experiment
+of trying to be true and loyal to some one else, with whose
+imperfections I am not so well acquainted. When you meet your
+adorable 'bisc' in society, with a wife hanging on his arm,--when as
+pater familias he convoys his flock of small children who tread on
+your toes at the chrysanthemum shows, what then? The world, my
+world, is generously and munificently lax, and though the limits of
+respectable endurance may be as hard to find as the 'fourth
+dimension of space', or the authenticity of the 'Book of Jasher',
+still for decency's sake we submit there are limits of decorum;
+certain proprietorial domains upon which we may not openly poach;
+and mcum et tuum though moribund, is not yet numbered with belief in
+the 'grail'. Female emancipation is not quite complete even in
+America, and noblesse oblige! our code still reads: 'Zeus has
+unquestioned right to Io; but woe betide Io when she suns her heart
+in the smiles that belong to Hera!' Some women find exhilaration in
+the effort to excel, by flying closest to the flame without singeing
+their satin wings; by executing a pirouette on the extremest ledge
+of the abyss, yet escape toppling in; female Blondins skipping
+across the tight rope of Platonic friendship, stretched above the
+unmentionable. You are shocked?"
+
+"Indeed, I am pained. I can scarcely recognize the Alma of old."
+
+"Wait one moment, I have the floor. In the days when I wept for my--
+shall I say 'bisc'? for impersonality is hedged about with safety,
+and the consolation prize had not yet been invited to come back from
+Coventry, a funny trifle set me to thinking seriously of my sin of
+covetousness. One summer at a certain fashionable resort, let us
+call it villeggiatura of the Lepidoptera, the amusement programme
+had reached the last act, and people yawned for something new, when
+'sweet charity' came to the rescue, and proposed an entertainment to
+raise funds for enlarging an ecclesiastical 'Columbary' where aged,
+unsightly and repentant doves might moult, and renew their plumage.
+Musical, dramatic, poetic recitations, and tableaux vivants
+constituted the method of collecting the money, and the selections
+would have made Rabelais chuckle. We had the most flagitiously
+erotic passages (rendered in costume) from opera and opera bouffe,
+living reproductions of the tragic pose of Paolo and Francesca that
+would hare inspired Cabanel anew; of 'Ginevra Da Siena,' of
+'Vivien,'--a carnival of the carnal! where nurseries were robbed to
+supply the mimic ballet, and where bald-headed clergyman, and white-
+haired mothers in Israel clapped and encored. One fair forsaken
+dame, whose indignant spouse was seeking a divorce, came to the
+footlights in an artistic garment so decollete that a man sitting
+behind me whispered to his friend: 'What pictures does she suggest
+to you? "Phryne before the Judges"--or Long's "Thisbe?" She
+languorously waved a floral fan of crimson carnations, and recited
+with all of Siddons' grace and Rachel's fire selections from a book
+of poems, that were so many dynamite bombs of vice smothered in
+roses. Amid tumultuous applause, she gave as encore something that
+contained a fragment of Feydeau, and its closing words woke up my
+drowsy soul, like a clap of thunder: 'Ce que les poetes appellent
+l'amour, et les moralistes l'adultere!' Leo, there is a moral
+somnambulism more frightful than that which leads to midnight
+promenades on the combs of roofs, and the borders of Goat Island; so
+I wiped my tears away, and after that day, began to read the billet
+doux and wear the flowers of my 'consolation prize'."
+
+"You do not love him, and your marriage will degrade you in your own
+estimation. Your bridal vows will be perjury, an insult to your God,
+and a foul terrible wrong against the man who trusts your
+truthfulness. According to our church, wedlock is a 'holy
+ordinance'; and to me an unloving wife is unhallowed; is a blot on
+her sex, only a few degrees removed from unmarried mothers. You know
+the difference between friendship and love, and when you go to the
+altar, and give the former in exchange for the latter, the base
+counterfeit for the true gold, you are consciously and
+premeditatedly dishonest."
+
+"Thanks, for your clearness of diction, your perspicuity which
+leaves no cobweb of misty doubt wherewith to drape my shivering
+moral deformity! To 'see ourselves as others see us' is as
+disappointing as the result of plunging one's hand into the 'grab-
+bag', but at least it brings the stimulating tingle of a new
+sensation. Suppose each knows perfectly well that as regards the
+true gold, both are equally bankrupt? There is a queer moral fungus
+called 'honesty among thieves', and we both know that we never sang
+snatches from Offenbach to each other, through pink 'bisc' lips. He
+loved quite desperately a mignonne of a blonde, with heavenly blue
+eyes and cherubic yellow hair, who, not knowing his expectations
+from a California uncle, jilted him for a rich Cuban. Look you, Leo,
+because I cannot wear Kohinoor, must I disport myself without any
+diamond necklace? Since he can never own 'La Peregrina,' must he
+eschew pearl studs in his shield front? We distinctly understand
+that we are not first prizes; but perhaps we may be something better
+than total blanks in the lottery, even though we quite realize the
+difference between love and friendship. Do you? Portia should know
+every jot and tittle of the law, and all the subtle shades of
+evidence, before she lifts her voice in court."
+
+Alma pushed away her cushion, sat upright, and the slumbering fire
+flashed up under her jet lashes.
+
+"If I do, that knowledge which earlier or later comes to all women,
+is certainly linked with the comforting consciousness that I can
+trust myself to govern and protect myself, without being tied to a
+watch-dog, whose baying would serve much the same purpose as that
+picture in mosaic in the House of the Tragic Poet. I have a very
+sincere affection for you, Alma, but the day on which you sell
+yourself in a loveless marriage, will strain hard on the cable of
+esteem."
+
+"Is it for this reason that you refuse to officiate as my
+bridesmaid?"
+
+"Solely because I will neither witness nor participate in an act
+which will give me great pain by lowering my estimate of your
+character."
+
+Alma's long, supple, tapering fingers were outstretched, and taking
+Leo's white dimpled hands, drew them caressingly to her face,
+pressing a palm against each cheek.
+
+"Your good opinion is so precious, I cannot afford to lose it. We
+accept men's flattery and expect their compliments, because it is a
+traditional homage that survives the chivalry that inspired it; but
+we don't mistake chaff for wheat, and the purest, sweetest, noblest
+and holiest friendship in life is that of a true, good woman. The
+perfume is as different as the stale odor of a cigar, from the
+breath of the honeysuckle that bleached all night under crystal dew,
+floats in at your window like a message from heaven, I love you
+dearly, my pretty Portia, hence I wince a trifle at your harsh
+ascription of cave canem motives in my marriage. In the idyllic
+Arthurian days, the 'Lily Maid of Astolot' made a touching picture,
+weeping and dying for the man who rode away, marauding on kingly
+preserves; but this is the era of wise, common sense 'Maud Mullers',
+and she and the Judge, mating as best they can, lead peaceful lives
+in a wholesome atmosphere, and cause no scandal by following
+'affinities' across the lines of law; as some high in literature,
+art, and society have done, trusting that the starred mantle of
+genius would hide their moral leprosy. With all my faults, at least
+I am honest; and when I bow my stiff neck under the yoke connubial,
+I promise you I will keep step demurely and sedately. Do you
+remember a sombre book we read while yachting, which contained this
+brave confession of a woman, whose marriage made her historic? 'I
+thought I had done with life. I knew I had now cause to be proud of
+belonging to this man, and I was proud. At the same time I as little
+feigned ardent love for him, as he demanded it from me.' Leo, you
+and I represent different types. You are an eagle brooding in cold
+eternal solitude upon the heights, rather than be wooed by valley
+hawks; I am only a very tired wren, who missed a mate on my first
+Valentine season, and seeing my plumage grows a rusty brown, I
+accept the overtures of one similarly forlorn, and hope for serene
+domesticity under the sheltering eaves of some quiet, cosey barn.
+You are a nobler bird, no doubt; but trust me dear, I shall be the
+happier."
+
+Leo withdrew her hands, and pushed back her chair, widening the
+space that divided them.
+
+"You disappoint me keenly. I thought you too brave to crouch before
+the jeers hurled at 'old maidenism'. Moral cowardice is the last
+flaw I expected in one of your fibre."
+
+"Wait till you are thirty-three, and stand as a target at Society's
+archery meeting. Yesterday Celeste was pale with horror when she
+showed me two white hairs pulled from my 'bangs', and added, 'Helas
+races! and powdered hair no more the style!' My dear girl--
+
+    "'True love, of course, is scarcely in society,
+     Unless in fancy dress, and masked like one of us--'"
+
+still I really am very proud of my six feet two inches prospective
+conjugal yoke-fellow; proud of his martial bearing, his brilliant
+reputation, 'proud of his pride'; and I think I shall grow very fond
+of him, because in a mild way I think he cares for me'; and we can
+make a little Indian Summer for each other before the frosts of
+Winter fall upon us. What else can I do with my life? Think of it.
+Papa will be married soon, and while I don't propose to tear my hair
+and insult his bride, nobody can be expected to reach such altitudes
+of self-abnegation as to want a step-mother. Poor papa, I am sure I
+hope he may be very happy, but it is superhuman to elect to live
+under the same roof, and smile benignantly on his bliss. Rivers,
+too, has slipped under the matrimonial noose, and I am absolutely
+thrown on my own resources for companionship. What does society
+offer me? Haggard, weazen old witch, bedizened in a painted mask;
+don't I know the yellow teeth and bleared eyes behind the paste-
+board, and the sharp nails in the claws hidden under undressed kid?
+Have not I gone around for years on her gaudy wheel, like that
+patient, uncomplaining goat we saw stepping on the broad spokes of
+the great wheel that churned the butter, and pressed the cheese in
+that dairy, near Udine? The dizzying circle, where one must step,
+step--keep time or be lost! In Winter, balls, receptions, luncheons,
+teas, Germans, theatre parties, opera suppers; a rush for the first
+glimpse of the last picture that emerges from the custom-house; for
+a bouquet of the newest rose that took the prize at the London Show.
+In season, coaching parties, tally ho! Then fox hunting minus the
+fox, and later, boating and bathing and lawn tennis!--and--always--
+everywhere heart-burnings, vapid formalities; beaux setting belles
+at each other like terriers scrambling after a mouse; mothers lying
+in wait, as wise cats watching to get their paws on the first-class
+catch they know their pretty kittens cannot manage successfully. Oh!
+Don't I know it all! I dare say my world is the very best possible
+of its kind; and I am not cynical, but oh Lord! I am so deadly tired
+of everything, and everybody."
+
+"No wonder, unless you mercilessly calumniate it; but you have only
+yourself to blame. You made social success your aim, fashionable
+life your temple of worship, sham your only God. If you habitually
+drink poppy juice, can you fail to be drowsy?"
+
+"Oh bless you! I have been polytheistic as any other well-read pagan
+of my day, and changed the heads and the labels of the fetiches on
+my altar almost as often as my ball wardrobe. I aspired to 'culture'
+in all the 'cults', and I improved diligently my opportunities. One
+year the stylish craze was sesthetics, and I fought my way to the
+front of the bedlamites raving about Sapphic types, 'Sibylla
+Palmifera' and 'Astarte Syriaca'; and I wore miraculously limp,
+draggled skirts, that tangled about my feet tight as the robes of
+Burne Jones' 'Vivien.' Next season the star of ceramics and bric-a-
+brac was in the ascendant, and I ran the gamut of Satsuma, Kyoto, de
+la Robbia, Limoge and Gubbio; of niello, and millchori glass, of
+Queen Anne brass and Japanese bronze; while my snuff boxes and my
+'symphony in fans' graced all the loan exhibitions. Soon after, a
+celebrated scientist from England who had bowled over all the pins
+set up by his predecessors, lectured in our Bojotia; and fired with
+zeal for truth, I swept aside all my costly idealistic rubbish into
+a 'doomed pyramid of the vanities', and swore allegiance to the
+Positive, the 'Knowable', whose priests handled hammers,
+spectroscopes, electric batteries--and who set up for me a whole
+Pantheon of science fetiches. I bought a microscope and peered into
+tissues, pollen cells, diatoms, ditch ooze; and pitied my clever and
+very talented grandmother who died ignorant of the family secrets
+revealed by 'totemism', ignorant of 'parthenogenesis' which proved
+so conclusively the truth of her own firm conviction, that the
+faults she deplored in her son's children were all inherited
+directly from her daughter-in-law, whom she detested; ignorant of
+the fact that the sun which she regarded as a dazzling yellow fire
+was by bolometric measures shown to be in reality of a restful, and
+refreshing blue color. By the time I was fully convinced that
+teleology was as dead as the Ptolemaic theory, and that 'wings were
+not planned for flight, but that flight has produced wings', hence
+that Haeckel's gospel of 'Dysteleology' or purposelessness in Nature
+satisfactorily explained creation--a great wave of oriental
+theosophy overflowed us; and a revival of Buddhism invited me to
+seek Nirvana as the final beatitude, where--
+
+                                "'We shall be
+     Part of the mighty universal whole,
+     And through all icons mix and mingle with the
+     Kosmic Soul!'"
+
+Or to make matters clearer still:
+
+   "'Om, mani Padma, Om! the dewdrop slips
+     Into the shining sea!'"
+
+Even a sponge can hold only so much, and I fell back--or shall I say
+forward--in the path of progress to rest in the dimness of
+agnosticism. Is it strange, Leo, that I am desperately tired; and
+willing to plant my feet on the rock of matrimony, which will
+neither dissolve nor slip away, and to which my vows will moor me
+firmly?"
+
+"If you had clung to your Bible, and prayed more, you would not have
+wasted so signally the years that might have brought you enduring
+happiness. Forgive me, Alma, but you have lived solely for self."
+
+"Yet now, when I propose to live solely for somebody else, you shake
+me off, and repudiate me? Selfish you think? I dare say I am, but
+religion now-a-day winks at that, nay fosters it. Each church is an
+octopus, and the members are laboriously striving to disprove the
+Saviour's admonition: 'Ye cannot serve God and mammon.' I am no
+worse than my ritualistic sisters whom I meet and gossip with, under
+cover of the organ muttering, and sometimes I wonder if after all we
+are any nearer the kingdom of heaven that Christ preached, than the
+pagans whose customs we retain under evangelical names. 'They
+sacrificed a white kid to the propitious divinities, and a black kid
+to the unpropiticus.' Do not we likewise? The church or one of its
+pensioners needs money; so instead of denying ourselves some secular
+amusement, cutting short our chablis, terrapin, pate de foie gras,
+gateau, Grec, Amontillado; wearing less sealskin and sables, buying
+fewer pigeon-blood rubies, absolutely mortifying the flesh in order
+to offer a contribution out of our pockets to God, how ingeniously
+we devise schemes to extract the largest possible amount of purely
+personal pleasure from the expenditure of the sum, we call our
+contribution to charity? We build chapels, and feed orphans, and
+clothe widows, and endow reformatories, and establish beds in
+hospitals, how? By a devout, consecrating self-denial which
+manifests itself in eating and drinking, in singing and dancing, at
+kirmess, charity balls, amateur theatricals, garden parties; where
+the cost of our XV. Siecle costume is quadruple the price of the
+ticket that admits to our sacrifice of black and white kids in the
+same sanctuary. We serve God with one hand, and we surely serve with
+the other the Mammon of selfishness and vanity. We have Lenten
+service, Lenten dietetics, Lenten costumes even; Lenten progressive
+euchre, Lenten clubs; but where are the Lenten virtues, where the
+genuine humility, charity, self-dedication of body and soul to true
+holiness?"
+
+"The church is a school. If pupils will not heed admonition, and
+defy the efforts of instructors, is the institution responsible for
+the failure in education? The eradication of selfishness is the
+mission of the churches; and if we individually practised at home a
+genuine self-denial for righteousness' sake, we should collectively
+show the world fewer flaws for scoffing reprimand."
+
+"The Shepherds are too timid to control their flocks. If they only
+had the nerve to pick us up, turn our hearts inside out, show us the
+black corners, and the ossifications, and call sin, sin, we should
+begin to realize what despicable shams we are. Dr. Douglass, the
+Bishop, is the only one I know who lays us on the dissecting table,
+and who does not speak of 'human fallibility' when he means vice. He
+told us one day that the Gospel required a line of demarcation
+between the godly and the ungodly, between Christians and
+unbelievers; but that it has become imaginary like the meridian and
+the equator; and that he very much feared the strongest microscope
+in the laboratories could not find where the boundary line ran
+between the World, the Flesh and the Devil, and the Kingdom of God
+in our souls. I am sorry a distant State called him to her Episcopal
+chair, for his cold steel is needed among us. Now tell me, Leo, what
+you intend to do with your life?"
+
+"Spend it for God and my fellow creatures; and enjoy all the pure
+happiness I can appropriate without wronging others. I have so many
+privileges granted me, that I ought to accomplish some good in this
+world, as a thank offering."
+
+"Take care you don't make a fetich of Jerusalem missions, Chinese
+tracts, and Sheltering Arms; and lose your dear, sweet personality
+in a goody-goody machine bigot. Forgive me, dear old girl, but
+sometimes I fear a shadow has fallen in your sunshine."
+
+"Sooner or later they fall into every life, yet mine will pass away
+I feel assured. 'Pain, suffering, failure are as needful as ballast
+to a ship, without which it does not draw enough water, becomes a
+plaything for the winds and waves, travels no certain road, and
+easily overturns.' If the gloomiest pessimist of this century can
+extract that comfort, what may I not hope for my future? I am going
+to rebuild my house at X----and when it is completed, I shall expect
+the privilege of returning the hospitality you have so kindly shown
+me. I shall be very busy for at least two years, and I am glad to
+know that Aunt Patty is beginning to manifest some interest in my
+plans."
+
+"Leo, may I ask something?"
+
+"If you are quite sure you have the right to ask, and that I can
+have no reason to decline answering."
+
+"I can't bear that you should live and die without being a happy
+wife. I don't want you to become a mere benevolent automaton set
+aside for church work, and charities; getting solemn and thin, with
+patient curves deepening around your mouth, and loneliness looking
+out of--
+
+"'Eyes, meek as gentle Mercy's at the throne of heaven.'"
+
+"To be a happy wife is the dream of womanhood, and if the day should
+ever dawn when God gives me that crown of joy, I shall wear it
+gladly, proudly, and feel that this world has yielded me its richest
+blessing; but, Alma, to-day I know no man whom I could marry with
+the hope of that perfect union which alone sanctions and hallows
+wedded love. I must be all the world to my husband; and he--next to
+God--must be the universe to me. There is Gen'l Haughton coming up
+the stairs, so I considerately efface myself. Good-bye till
+luncheon."
+
+As she glided away and disappeared behind the curtain leading into
+the library, Alma looked after her, with very misty eyes, full of
+tenderness.
+
+"Brave, proud soul; deep, sorrowful heart. If she can't drown her
+star, at least she will admit no lesser light. She will never swerve
+one iota from her lofty standard, and some day, please God, she may
+yet wear her coveted crown right royally. Governor Glenbeigh is
+worthy even of her, but will his devotion win her at last?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+If it be true that the universal Law of Labor, physical or mental,
+emanated from the Creator as a penal statute, for disobedience which
+forfeited Eden, how merciful and how marvellous is the delicacy of
+an adjustment, whereby all growth of body, mind and soul being
+conditioned by work, humanity converts punishment into benediction;
+escapes degeneration, attains development solely in accordance with
+the provisions of the primeval curse, man's heritage of labor? Amid
+the wreck of sacerdotal systems, the destruction of national gods,
+the periodical tidal waves of scepticism, the gospel of work
+maintains triumphantly its legions of evangels; its apostolic
+succession direct from Adam; its myriad temples always alight with
+altar fires, always vocal with the sublime hymn swelling from
+millions of consecrated throats.
+
+The one infallible tonic for weakened souls, the one supreme balm
+for bruised hearts is the divinely distilled chrism of labor.
+
+Absorbed in the round of duties that employed her hands and
+thoughts, and necessitated dedication of every waking hour, Beryl
+found more solace than she had dared to hope; and the artistic
+fancies which she had supposed extinguished, spread their frail
+gossamer wings and fluttered shyly into the serene sunshine that had
+broken rpon her frozen life. The distinctively ornamental character
+of many of the industrial pursuits at the "Anchorage", demanded
+originality and variety of designs, and as this department had been
+assigned to her, she entered with increasing zest the tempting field
+of congenial employment; yet day by day, bending over her tasks, she
+never lost sight of the chain that clanked at her wrist, that bound
+her to a hideous past, to a murky, lowering and menacing future.
+
+Weeks slipped away, months rolled on; Autumn overtook her. Winter
+snows and sleet blanched the heavenly blue of the dimpling lake, and
+no tidings reached her from the wanderer, for whom she prayed. The
+advertisement had elicited no reply, and though it had long ceased
+to appear, she daily searched the personal column of the "Herald",
+with a vague expectation of some response. If her brother still
+lived, was the world so wide, that she could never trace his erring
+passage through it? Would no instinct of natural affection prompt
+him to seek news of the mother who had idolized him? After a while
+she must renew the quest, but for the present, safety demanded her
+seclusion; and since only Doctor Grantlin knew the place of her
+retreat, she felt secure from discovery.
+
+One Spring day, when warm South winds had kissed open the spicy lips
+of lilacs, and yellowed the terrace with crocus flakes, Beryl
+dismissed her class of pupils in drawing and painting, and was
+engaged in dusting the plaster casts, and arranging the palettes and
+pencils left in disorder. The door opened, and a pretty, young
+German Sister looked in.
+
+"Sister Ruth have need of you to do some errands; and you must go on
+the street; so you will get your bonnet and veil. Is it that you
+will be there soon?"
+
+"I will come at once, Sister Elsbeth."
+
+For several days Sister Ruth had been confined to her room by
+inflammatory rheumatism, and when Beryl entered, the invalid
+presented the appearance of a mummy swathed in red flannel.
+
+"I am sorry to disturb you, and equally sorry that I feel obliged to
+exact a reluctant service, because I know you dislike to visit the
+business part of the city, and there I must send you. This note from
+Mrs. Vanderdonk will explain the nature of the business, which I can
+intrust to no one except yourself; and you will see that the
+commission admits of no delay. Here is your car fare. Go first to
+No. 100 Lucre Avenue, talk fully with Mrs. Vanderdonk, and then ride
+down to Jardon & Jackson's and get all the material you think will
+be required. You will observe, she lays great stress on the
+superfine quality of the plush. Order the bill delivered with the
+goods; and if anything be required in your department, you had
+better leave the list with Kling & Turner."
+
+Three squares south of the "Anchorage" ran a line of street cars
+which carried her away to the heart of the city; and at the
+expiration of an hour and a half, Beryl had executed the commission,
+and was walking homeward, watching for a car which would expedite
+her return. Dreading identification, she went rarely into the great
+thoroughfare; and now felt doubly shielded from observation by the
+Quaker-shaped drab bonnet and veil that covered her white cap. As
+she was passing the entrance of a dancing academy, a throng of boys
+and girls poured out, filling the sidewalk, and creating a temporary
+blockade, through which a gentleman laden with several packages,
+elbowed his way. A moment later, Beryl's foot struck some obstacle,
+and looking down she saw a large portfolio lying on the pavement. It
+was a handsome morocco case, with the initials "G. McI.", stamped in
+gilt upon the cover, which was tied with well-worn strings. She held
+it up, looked around, even turned back, thinking that the owner
+might have returned to search for it; but the gentleman who had
+hurried through the crowd was no longer visible, and in the distance
+she fancied she saw a similar figure cross the street, and spring
+upon a car rolling in the opposite direction.
+
+The human clot had dissolved, the juvenile assembly had drifted
+away; and as no one appeared to claim the lost article, she
+signalled to the driver of the car passing just then, entered and
+took a seat in one corner. The only passengers were two nurses with
+bands of little ones, seeking fresh air in a neighboring park; and
+slipping the book under her veil, Beryl began to examine its
+contents. A glance showed her that it belonged to some artist, and
+was filled with sketches neatly numbered and dated; while between
+the leaves lay specimens of ferns and lichens carefully pressed.
+
+The studies were varied, and in all stages of advancement; here two
+elk heads and a buffalo; there a gaunt coyote crouching in the
+chaparral; a cluster of giant oaks; far off, a waving line of
+mountain peaks; a canon with vultures sailing high above it; cow
+boys, and a shoreless sea of prairie, with no shadows except those
+cast by filmy clouds drifting against the sun. Slowly turning the
+leaves, which showed everywhere a master's skilful hand, Beryl found
+two sheets of paper tied together with a strand of silk; and between
+them lay a fold of tissue paper, to preserve some delicate lines.
+She untied the knot, and carefully lifted the tissue, looking at the
+sketch.
+
+A faint, inarticulate cry escaped her, and she sank back an instant
+in the corner of the seat; but the chatter of the nurses, and the
+whimpering wail of one dissatisfied baby mercifully drowned the
+sound. The car, the trees on the Street, the belfry of a church
+seemed spinning in some witch's dance, and an icy wind swept over
+and chilled her. She threw aside her veil, stooped, and her lips
+whitened.
+
+What was there in the figure of a kneeling monk, to drive the blood
+in cold waves to her throbbing heart? The sketch represented the
+head and shoulders of a man, whose cowl had fallen back, exposing
+the outlines and moulding of a face and throat absolutely flawless
+in beauty, yet darkened by the reflection of some overpowering and
+irremediable woe. The features were youthful as St. Sebastian's; the
+expression that of one prematurely aged by severe and unremitting
+mental conflict; but neither shaven crown, nor cowl availed to
+disguise Bertie Brentano, and as his sister's eyes gazed at the
+sketch, it wavered, swam, vanished in a mist of tears.
+
+In one corner of the sheet a man's hand had written "Brother Luke",
+August the 10th. Had relenting fate, or a merciful prayer-answering-
+God placed in her hand the long sought clue? When Beryl recovered
+from the shock of recognition, and looked around, she found the car
+empty; and discovered that she had been carried several squares
+beyond the street where she intended to get out and walk.
+
+Carefully replacing the tissue paper and silk thread, she tied the
+leathern straps of the portfolio, and left the car, holding the
+sketches close to her heart as she hurried homeward. When she turned
+a corner and caught sight of the bronze anchor over the door, she
+involuntarily slackened her pace, and at the same moment a policeman
+crossed the street, stood in front of her, and touched his cap. The
+sight of his uniform thrilled her with a premonition of danger.
+
+"Pardon me, Sister, but something has been lost on the street."
+
+"A portfolio? I have found it."
+
+"It is very valuable to the owner."
+
+"I intend having it advertised in to-morrow's paper."
+
+"The person to whom it belongs, wishes to leave the city; to-night,
+hence his haste in trying to recover it."
+
+"I picked it up in front of Heilwiggs' Dancing Academy. How did you
+know who had found it?"
+
+"The owner discovered he had dropped it, soon after he boarded a
+car, where Captain Tunstall of our force happened to be, and he at
+once telegraphed to all the stations to be on the look out. A boot-
+black whose stand is near Heilwiggs', reported that he saw one of
+the 'Gray Women' pick up something, and get on an upbound car. Our
+station was telephoned to interview the 'Anchorage', so you see we
+are prompt. I was just going over to ring the bell, and make
+inquiries."
+
+"Who lost the book?"
+
+"A man named McIlvane, an Englishman I think, who is obliged to
+hurry on to-night, in order to catch some New York steamer where his
+passage is engaged."
+
+"You are sure he is a foreigner?" asked Beryl, who was feverishly
+revolving the possibility that the sketch belonged to some
+detective, and was intended for identification of the picture on the
+glass door at X----.
+
+"You can't be sure of anything that is only lip deep, but that was
+the account telephoned to us. There is a reward of twenty dollars if
+the book is delivered by eight P.M.; after that time, ten dollars,
+and directions left by which to forward it to London. He said it was
+worthless to anybody else, but contained a lot of pictures he
+valued."
+
+"I do not want the reward, but before I surrender the portfolio, I
+must see the owner."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"For reasons that concern only myself. He can come here, and claim
+his property; or I will take it to him, and restore it, after he has
+answered some questions. You are quite welcome to the reward, which
+I am sure you merit because of your promptness and circumspection.
+Will you notify him that he can obtain his book by calling at the
+'Anchorage'?"
+
+"Our instructions are, to deliver the book at Room 213, Hotel
+Lucullus. It is now four o'clock."
+
+"I will not surrender the book to you; but I will accompany you to
+the hotel, and deliver it to the owner in your presence. Let us lose
+no time."
+
+"Very well. Sister, I'll keep a little behind, and jump on the first
+red star car that passes down. Look out for me on the platform, and
+I'll stop the car for you."
+
+"Thank you," said Beryl, wondering whether the sanctity of her garb
+exacted this mark of deference, or whether the instinctive chivalry
+of American manhood prompted him to spare her the appearance of
+police surveillance.
+
+Keeping her in sight, he loitered until they found themselves on the
+same car, where the officer, apparently engrossed by his cigarette,
+retained his stand on the rear platform. In front of the hotel two
+omnibuses were discharging their human freight, and in the
+confusion, Beryl and her escort passed unobserved into the building.
+He motioned her into one of the reception rooms on the second floor,
+and made his way to the office.
+
+Drawing her quaint bonnet as far over her face as possible, and
+straightening her veil, Beryl sat down on a sofa and tried to quiet
+the beating of her pulses, the nervous tremor that shook her. She
+had ventured shyly out of her covert, and like all other hunted
+creatures, trembled at her own daring in making capture feasible.
+Memory rendered her vaguely apprehensive; bitter experience
+quickened her suspicions.
+
+Was she running straight into some fatal trap, ingeniously baited
+with her brother's portrait? Would the Sheriff in X----, would Mr.
+Dunbar himself, recognize her in her gray disguise? She walked to a
+mirror set in the wall, and stared at her own image, put up one hand
+and pushed out of sight every ring of hair that showed beneath the
+white cap frill; then reassured, resumed her seat. How long the
+waiting seemed.
+
+Somebody's pet Skye terrier, blanketed with scarlet satin
+embroidered with a monogram in gilt, had defied the bienseance of
+fashionable canine and feline etiquette, by flying at somebody's
+sedate, snowy Maltese cat, whose collar of silver bells jangled out
+of tune, as the combatants rolled on the velvet carpet, swept like a
+cyclone through the reception room, fled up the corridor. Two pretty
+children, gay as paroquets, in their cardinal plush cloaks, ran to
+the piano and began a furious tattoo, while their nurse gossiped
+with the bell boy.
+
+With her hands locked around the portfolio, Beryl sat watching the
+door; and at last the policeman appeared at the threshold, where he
+paused an instant, then vanished.
+
+A gentleman apparently forty years of age came in, and approached
+her. He was short in stature, florid, slightly bald; wore mutton
+chop whiskers, and a traveling suit of gray tweed broadly checked.
+
+Beryl rose, the stranger bowed.
+
+"Ah, you have my sketch book! Madam, I am eternally your debtor.
+Intrinsically worthless, perhaps; yet there are reasons which make
+it inestimably valuable to me."
+
+"I picked it up from the pavement, and though I opened and examined
+it, you will find the contents intact. Will you look through it?"
+
+"Oh! I dare say it is all right. No one cares for unfinished
+sketches, and these are mere studies."
+
+He untied the thongs, turned over a dozen or more papers, then
+closed the lid, and put his hand in his pocket.
+
+"I offered a reward to--"
+
+"I wish no fee, sir; but the policeman has taken some trouble in the
+matter, and without his aid I should probably not have been able to
+restore it. Pay him what you promised, or may deem proper; and then
+permit me to ask for some information, which I think you can give
+me."
+
+She beckoned to the officer who looked in just then; and when the
+money had been counted into his hand, the latter lifted his cap.
+
+"Sister, shall I see you safe on the car?"
+
+"Thank you, no. I can find my way home. I teach drawing at the
+'Anchorage', and desire to ask a few questions of this gentleman,
+who I am sure is an artist."
+
+When the policeman had left them, Beryl took the portfolio and
+opened it, while the owner watched her curiously, striving to
+penetrate the silver gray folds of her veil.
+
+"May I ask whether you expect to leave America immediately?"
+
+"I expect to sail on the steamer for Liverpool next Saturday."
+
+"Have you relatives in this country?"
+
+"None. I am merely a tourist, seeking glimpses of the best of this
+vast continent of yours."
+
+"Did you make these sketches?"
+
+"I did, from time to time; in fact, mine has been a sketching tour,
+and this book is one of several I have filled in America."
+
+With trembling fingers she untied the silk, lifted the sketch, and
+said in a voice which, despite her efforts, quivered:
+
+"I hope, sir, you will not consider me unwarrantably inquisitive, if
+I ask, where did you see this face?"
+
+"Ah! My monk of the mountains? That is 'Brother Luke'; looks like
+one of Il Frate's wonderful heads, does he not? I saw him--let me
+see? Egad! Just exactly where it was, that is the rub! It was far
+west, beyond Assiniboia; somewhere in Alberta I am sure."
+
+"Was it on British soil, or in the United States?"
+
+"Certainly in British territory; and on one of the excursions I made
+from Calgary. I think it was while hunting in the mountains between
+Alberta and British Columbia. Let me see the sketch. Yes--10th of
+August; I was in that region until 1st of September."
+
+Beryl drew a deep breath of intense relief, as she reflected that
+foreign territory might bar pursuit; and leaning forward, she asked
+hesitatingly:
+
+"Have you any objection to telling me the circumstances under which
+you saw him; the situation in which you found him?"
+
+"None whatever; but may I ask if you know him? Is my sketch so good
+a portrait?"
+
+"It is wonderfully like one I knew years ago; and of whom I desire
+to receive tidings. My friend is a handsome man about twenty-four
+years of age."
+
+"I was camping out with a hunting party, and one day while they were
+away gunning, I went to sketch a bit of fir wood clinging to the
+side of a rocky gorge. The day was hot, and I sat down to rest in
+the shadow of a stone ledge, that jutted over the cove where a
+spring bubbled from the crag, and made a ribbon of water. Here is
+the place, on this sheet. Over there, are the fir trees. Very soon I
+heard a rich voice chanting a solemn strain from Palestrinas'
+Miserere; the very music I had listened to in the Sistine Chapel, a
+few months before; and peeping from my sheltered nook, I saw a man
+clad in monkish garb stoop to drink from the spring. He sat a while,
+with his arms clasped around his knees, and his profile was so
+perfect I seized my pencil and drew the outlines; but before I
+completed it, he suddenly fell upon his knees, and the intense
+anguish, remorse, contrition--what not--so changed the countenance,
+that while he prayed, I made rapidly a new sketch. Then the most
+extraordinary thing happened. He rose, and turning fully toward me,
+I saw that one-half of his face was nobly regular, classically
+perfect; while the other side was hideously distorted, deformed.
+Absolutely he was 'Hyperion and Satyr' combined--with one set of
+features between them. I suppose my astonishment caused me to utter
+some exclamation, for he glanced up the cliff, saw me, turned and
+fled. I shouted and ran, but could not overtake him, and when I
+reached the open space, I saw a figure speeding away on a white
+mustang pony, and knew from the fluttering of the black skirts that
+it was the same man. My sketch shows the right side of his face, the
+other was drawn down almost beyond the lineaments of humanity. Beg
+pardon, madam, but would you be so good as to tell me whether this
+freak of nature was congenital, or the result of some frightful
+accident?"
+
+Beryl had shut her eyes, and her lips were compressed to stifle the
+moan that struggled in her throat. When she spoke, the stranger
+detected a change in her voice.
+
+"The person whose countenance was recalled by your sketch, was
+afflicted by no physical blemish, when last I saw him."
+
+"His appearance was so singular, that I made sundry inquiries about
+him, but only one person seemed ever to have encountered him; and
+that was a half-breed Indian driver, belonging to our party. He told
+me, 'Brother Luke' belonged to a band of monks living somewhere
+beyond the mountains; and that he sometimes crossed, searching for
+stray cattle. That is the history of my sketch, and since I am
+indebted to you for its recovery, I regret for your sake that it is
+so meagre."
+
+"It was last August that you made the sketch?"
+
+"Last August. And now may I ask, to whom my thanks are due?"
+
+"I am merely an humble member of a sisterhood of working women, and
+my name could possess no interest for you. I owe you an apology for
+trespassing upon your time, and prying into the mysteries of your
+portfolio; but the beauty of your sketch, and its startling
+resemblance to one in whom I have long felt an interest, must plead
+my pardon. I am grateful, sir, for your courtesy, and will detain
+you no longer."
+
+He bowed profoundly; she bent her head, and walked quickly away,
+keeping her face lowered, dreading observation.
+
+For the first time since her trial and conviction, a sensation of
+perfect tranquillity shed rest upon her anxious and foreboding
+heart. Bertie was safe from capture, on foreign soil; and the
+testimony of the traveller that he prayed in the solitude of the
+wilderness, brought her the comforting assurance, that the fires of
+remorse had begun the purification of his sinful soul from the crime
+that had blackened so many lives. Trained in his early youth at a
+Jesuit College, his sympathies had ever been with the priesthood to
+whom his tutors belonged; and his sister readily understood how
+swiftly he fled to their penitential, expiatory system, when the
+blood of his grandfather had stained his hands, and the scouts of
+the law hunted him to desert wilds.
+
+Vain of the personal beauty that had always distinguished him, she
+comprehended the keenness of the humiliation, which would goad him
+to screen in a cloister, the facial mutilation, that punished him
+more excruciatingly than hair shirt, or flagellation. Beyond the
+reach of extradition (as she fondly hoped), inviolate beneath the
+cowl of some Order which, in protecting his body, essayed also to
+cleanse, regenerate and sanctify his imperilled soul, could she not
+now dismiss the tormenting apprehension that sleeping or waking had
+persistently dogged her, since the day when she saw the fuchsias on
+the handkerchief, and the mother-of-pearl grapes on the sleeve
+button, in the penitentiary cell?
+
+In a crisis of dire extremity, overborne by adversity, terrified by
+the realization of human helplessness, we fly to God, and barter by
+promise all our future, for the boon of temporary succor.
+
+How different, how holy the mood that brings us in tearful gratitude
+to dedicate our lives to His service, when having abandoned all
+hope, His healing hand lifts us out of long agony into unexpected
+rest?
+
+When an ignominious death stared this woman in the face, she had
+cried to her God: "Though You slay me, yet will I trust You!" and
+to-night she bowed her head in prayer, thankful that the uplifted
+hand held no longer a dagger, but had fallen tenderly in
+benediction.
+
+Far away in the heart of the city, the clock in its granite tower
+was striking two; yet Beryl knelt at her oriel window, with her arms
+crossed on the wide sill, and her eyes fixed upon the shimmering
+sea, where a soft south wind ruffled it into ridges of silver,
+beneath a full May moon. Beyond those silent waters, hidden in some
+lonely, snow-girt eyry, where perhaps the muffled thunder of the
+Pacific responded to the midnight chants of his oratory, dwelt
+Bertie; and to touch his hand once more, to hear from his own lips
+that he had made his peace with God, to kiss him good-bye seemed all
+that was left for accomplishment.
+
+Poor and unknown, she lacked apparently every means requisite for
+this attainment; but faith, patience, and courage were hers. Daily
+work for daily wage was the present duty; and in God's good time she
+would find her brother. How, or when, so expensive and difficult a
+quest could be successfully prosecuted, disquieted her not; she had
+learned to labor and to trust; she remembered: "Their strength is to
+sit still."
+
+The symphony of her life was set in minors, yet subtle and perfect
+was the harmony that dwelt therein; and because she had sternly shut
+love out of her lonely heart, she kept votive lights burning
+ceaselessly on the cold altar of duty. The solitary red rose of
+happiness that might have brightened and perfumed her thorny path,
+she had cut off, ere the bud expanded, and offered it as a loyal
+tribute to broaden the garland that crowned Miss Gordon. At the
+mandate of conscience, she had unmurmuringly surrendered this
+precious blossom, but memory was tantalizingly tenacious; and in
+sorrowful hours of sore temptation, the brave, pure soul came
+swiftly to the rescue of famishing heart: "What? Is it so hard for
+us to keep the Ten Commandments? Do we covet our neighbor's lover?"
+
+In the garden of earthly existence, some are ordained to bloom as
+human plantae tristes, shedding their delicate aroma like the
+"Pretty-by-nights", only when the glory of the day is done, and
+twilight shadows coax open their pure hearts.
+
+To-night she seemed cradled in the arms of peace, soothed by an
+unfaltering trust that whispered:
+
+    "Would I could wish my wishes all to rest;
+     And know to wish the wish, that were the best."
+
+While her lips moved in a prayer for Bertie, she fell asleep; like a
+child at ease, after long paroxysms of pain. When she awoke, the
+lilacs were swinging their purple thuribles filled with dew, in
+honor of the new day; a silvery mist, tinged here and there with the
+pale pink hue of an almond blossom, wavered and curled over the
+quiet lake, and a robin red-breast, winging his way from the orange
+and jasmine boughs of the far sweet South, rested on the ivied wall,
+and poured out his happy heart in a salutatory to the rising sun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+"I fear, my sister, that you have made a great mistake in refusing
+an offer of marriage, which almost any woman might be proud to
+accept."
+
+Sister Ruth closed her writing desk, and looked at Beryl over her
+spectacles.
+
+"Why should you infer that any such proposal has been made to me?"
+
+"Simply because I know all that has occurred, and my cousin writes
+me that you decline to marry him. If you had intended to remain here
+and identify yourself with this institution, I could better
+understand your motives in rejecting a man who offers you wealth,
+good looks, a stainless reputation, an honored name, and the best
+possible social position."
+
+"All of which tempt me in no degree. Mr. Brompton is doubtless
+everything you consider him; lives in a brown stone palace, is an
+influential and respected citizen, but comparatively, we are
+strangers. He bought my pictures, took a fleeting fancy to my face,
+and to my great surprise, indulged in a romantic whim. What does he
+comprehend of my past? How little he understands the barrier that
+shuts me out from the lot of most women."
+
+"He is fully acquainted with every detail of your life that has been
+confided to me, or discovered by the public; and he has studied and
+admired you ever since you came to dwell among us. In view of your
+very peculiar history, you must admit that his affection is
+certainly strong. If you married him, your past would be effectually
+blotted out."
+
+"I have no desire to blot it out, and though misfortune overshadowed
+my name, it is the untarnished legacy my father left me, and I hold
+it very sacred; wrap it as a mantle about me. When suspicion of any
+form of disgrace falls upon a woman, it is as though some delicate
+flower had been thrust too close to a scorching fire; and no matter
+how quickly or how far removed, no matter how heavy the dews that
+empearl it, how fresh and cool the wind that sweeps over it, how
+bright the sun that feeds its pulses,--the curled petals are never
+smoothed, the hot blasts leaves its ineffaceable blight. To me, the
+thought of marriage comes no more than to one who knows death sits
+waiting only for the setting of the sun, to claim his own. That
+phase of life is as inaccessible and uninviting to me, as Antartic
+circumpolar lands; and even in thought, I have no temptation to
+explore it. My future and my past are so interblended, that I could
+as easily tear out my heart and continue to breathe, as attempt to
+separate them. I have a certain work to do, and its accomplishment
+bars all other paths."
+
+"Does the nature of that work involve vows of celibacy?"
+
+"Sometimes fate decrees for us, allowing no voluntary vows. How soon
+the path to my work will open before me, I cannot tell; but the day
+must come, and like a pilgrim girded, I wait and watch."
+
+"Can you find elsewhere a nobler field of work than surrounds you
+here?"
+
+"Certainly not, and some dross of selfishness mingles with the
+motives that will ultimately bear me beyond these hallowing
+precincts; yet a day may come, when having fulfilled a sacred duty,
+I shall travel back, praying you to let me live, and work, and die
+among you."
+
+"My sister, your patient submission, your tireless application, have
+endeared you to me; and I should grieve to lose you from our little
+gray band, where your artistic labors have reflected so much credit
+on the 'Home'."
+
+"Thank you, Sister Ruth; praise from fellow toilers is praise
+indeed, and the greatest blessing one human being can bestow upon
+another, I owe to you; the blessing of being helped to procure work,
+which enables me to help myself. If I leave the 'Anchorage' for a
+season, it will be on an errand such as Noah's dove went forth from
+refuge to perform; and when I return with my olive branch, the
+deluge of my life will have spent its fury, and I shall rest in
+peace where the ark is anchored."
+
+"Do you imagine that desertion from our ranks will be so readily
+condoned? Drum-head court martial obtains here."
+
+"Would you call it desertion, if seizing the flag of duty that
+floats over us here, I forsook the camp only long enough to scout on
+a dangerous outpost, to fight single-handed a desperate battle! If I
+fell, the folds of our banner would shroud me; if I conquered, would
+you not all greet me, when weary and worn I dragged myself back to
+the ranks? Some day, when I tap at the ark window, you will open
+your arms and take me in; for then my earthly mission will have
+ended, and the smoke of the accepted sacrifice will linger in my
+garments."
+
+"Meantime, to-day's duties demand attention. I have a note from
+Cyril Brompton requesting that special courtesy be shown by us to
+his friend, the new Bishop, who is in the city, and who desires to
+inspect the 'Anchorage'. Cyril declines escorting the party, because
+he finds it painful to meet you now, and he wishes particularly that
+you should show your own department. I shall not be able to climb to
+the third story, while my ankles are so swollen, so I must deputize
+you to do the honors on your floor. Hold yourself in readiness, if I
+should send for you, and do not forget to give the Bishop a package
+of the new prospectus of the art school. That basket of orchids must
+be delivered before five o'clock. Sister Joanna said you detained
+her to make a sketch of it."
+
+"I had almost finished when you summoned me. Send her up for the
+basket in half an hour."
+
+The long studio was deserted, and very quiet on that sultry Saturday
+afternoon in midsummer, and the drowsy air was laden with fragrance
+from the pots of white carnations, massed on the iron balcony, upon
+which the tall, plate glass windows opened to the north. Down the
+centre of the apartment ran a table covered with oil cloth, and on
+the walls hung pictures in oil, water-color, crayon, while upon
+brackets and pedestals were mounted plaster casts, terra cotta
+heads, a few bronzes, and some hammered brass plaques. In the
+corners of the room, four marvels of taxidermy contributed brilliant
+colors mixed on the feathered palettes of a pea-fowl, a scarlet
+flamingo, a gold and a silver pheasant, all perched on miniature
+mounds, built of curious specimens of rock, of shells, coral and
+sphagnum.
+
+The slow, languid swish, swish of the waters stirred by a passing
+steamer, broke on the cliff beyond the wall; and along the sky line
+where lake and atmosphere melted insensibly into blue distance,
+great cumulus copper-colored clouds hooded with salmon-tinted folds,
+tipped here and there with molten silver, shadowed with pearly
+hollows, hung entranced by their own image, over the inland sea that
+gleamed like a mirror.
+
+At the end of the studio, near the open windows, Beryl had placed
+the plateau basket of orchids on the table; and she stood before an
+easel, transferring to the surface of a concave brass plaque, the
+fluted outlines of the scarlet and orange ribbons, the vivid green,
+purple and golden-brown lips, the rose velvet cups, the tender
+canary-hued calyxes of the glistening floral mass, whose aroma
+seemed a panting breath from equatorial jungles. Having secured the
+strange forms of these vegetable simulacra of the insect world, she
+replaced the sheathing of tissue paper around the gorgeous mosaic of
+color; and just then, Sister Joanna threw open the door, and ushered
+in a party of visitors, consisting of two gentlemen and a lady. One
+was Mr. Kendall, a member of the Chapter of Trustees.
+
+"Good evening, Sister. Bishop Douglass, of our State, and Miss
+Gordon, from the South. I have been boasting to them of the perfect
+success of the 'Anchorage', as an industrial institution. Will you
+show us some of the work done in this department?"
+
+As on a swiftly revolving wheel, Beryl saw the black eyes and gold-
+rimmed spectacles of Leighton Douglass; the shield-shaped amethyst
+ring on his broad, white hand; the slender figure by his side,
+draped in some soft brown tint of surah silk, the blond hair, the
+wide, startled hazel eyes of Leo, who made a step forward, then
+paused irresolute.
+
+The gaze of the visitors was fastened upon the superb form wearing
+the gray garb of flannel, with snowy fluted frills at the rounded
+wrists and throat, and a ruffled white muslin mob cap crowning rich
+waves of bronze hair, that framed a beautiful pale face, whose gray
+eyes kept always the soft shadow of their long jet lashes.
+
+Only half a minute sufficed to gird Beryl, and with no hint of
+recognition in her tranquil countenance, she moved forward, opened
+the drawers, and spread out for inspection various specimens of
+drawing and painting, in all stages of advancement.
+
+A crimson tide overflowed Leo's cheeks, but accepting the cue of
+silence, she refrained from any manifestation of previous
+acquaintance; and bending over the pictures, listened to the grave,
+sweet voice that briefly, though courteously answered all inquiries
+concerning the school, hours of classes, tuition fees, remunerative
+rates paid for designs for carpets, wall papers and decorative
+upholstering. Unrolling from a wooden cylinder a strip of thick
+paper, two yards long and twenty inches wide, she displayed an
+elaborate arabesque pattern done in sepia for a sgraffito frieze,
+sixteenth century, which had been ordered by the architect of the
+new "Museum of Art".
+
+"A bit of your favorite Florentine facade," said the Bishop,
+addressing his cousin, and peering closely at the scroll work.
+
+"In this corner of the world, one scarcely expects a glimpse of
+Andrea Feltrini," answered Leo, avoiding the necessity of looking at
+Beryl, by glancing at Mr. Kendall.
+
+"What are your sources of information?" inquired Bishop Douglass.
+
+"We have a carefully selected collection of engravings, and a few
+good sketches and cartoons; moreover, some of our Sisterhood have
+been in Italy."
+
+In attempting to roll the strip, it slipped from her fingers. Both
+women stooped to catch it, and their hands met. Looking into Leo's
+eyes, Beryl whispered: "See me alone." Then she rewound the paper,
+restored its oil silk cover, and shut the drawer.
+
+"Do you find that the demand for purely ornamental work renders this
+department self-sustaining?" asked Leighton Douglass.
+
+"I think the experience of the 'Anchorage' justifies that belief;
+especially since the popularization of so-called 'Decorative Art',
+which projects the useful into the realm of the beautiful; and by
+lending the grace of ornament to the strictly utilitarian, dims the
+old line of demarcation."
+
+"We are particularly interested in acquiring accurate knowledge on
+this subject, because Miss Gordon hopes to establish a similar
+institution near her home in the South; where so many of our
+countrywomen, rendered destitute in consequence of the late war,
+need training which will enable them to do faithful remunerative
+work, without compromising their feminine refinement. While in
+Europe she inspected various industrial organizations; saw
+Kaiserswerth, and the Training Schools for Nurses, even the Swedish
+'Naas Slojd', and her visit here is solely to verify the flattering
+accounts she has received of the success of the eclectic system of
+the 'Anchorage'. The South is so rich in fine materials that appear
+to offer a premium for carving, that we wish to investigate this
+branch of 'decorative' labor, and hope you can help us by some
+practical suggestions."
+
+"Within the past twelve months, we have commenced the experiment of
+wood work; make all the utensils we need, and one of our patrons
+secured for us some models from the school you mentioned near
+Gothenburg. As yet we have received only two orders; one for a base
+in walnut for a baptismal font; the other an oak triptych frame for
+a choir in a Minnesota church. The carving is a distinct branch,
+that does not belong to my department; but if you will knock at the
+arched door on the right hand side of the hall, Sister Katrina, who
+has charge of that work, will take pleasure in exhibiting the
+process. Mr. Kendall knows the 'Anchorage' so well, he needs no
+guide to the work-rooms. Permit me to offer you some copies of our
+new prospectus, and also a photograph of this building, as a slight
+souvenir of your visit here."
+
+She fitted papers and picture into a square envelope stamped with an
+anchor in red ink, and handing it to Miss Gordon, walked to the door
+and opened it. On the threshold Leo turned, and looked intently into
+her face:
+
+"Are you sufficiently at leisure to allow me a little further
+conversation this afternoon; or shall I call again?"
+
+"I am entirely at your service, and shall gladly furnish any
+information you may desire. Our matron has placed my time at your
+disposal."
+
+"Mr. Kendall, if you will kindly accompany the Bishop to the wood-
+carving room, I can remain here a little while, to ask Sister some
+questions, which would scarcely interest you gentlemen. I will join
+you there, very soon. Leighton, please get an estimate of the cost
+of the necessary outfit, and talk with Mr. Kendall concerning the
+feasibility of sending one of our women here for a year."
+
+Closing the door, Beryl put out both hands, and took Leo's. She
+stood a moment, holding them in a tight clasp.
+
+"Thank you, for considerately withholding a recognition that would
+have embarrassed me. I hoped that the habit of our Order would in
+some degree disguise me, yet, at a glance you knew me."
+
+"Shall I infer that your history is unknown here?"
+
+"Sister Ruth, our Matron, is thoroughly acquainted with my past
+life, but she kindly respects my sorrows, and deems it unnecessary
+to publish the details among the Sisterhood. Do you know me so
+little, that you imagine I am capable of abusing the confidence of
+the head of an establishment which mercifully shelters an outcast?"
+
+She stepped back, and motioned her visitor to a seat near the
+balcony.
+
+"I should be very reluctant to ascribe any unworthy motive to you;
+therefore I fail to understand why you desire to preserve your
+incognito, especially since the signal vindication of your
+innocence. The news of the extraordinary discovery of the picture on
+the glass, and of your complete acquittal, even of suspicion, gave
+me so much pleasure that I should have written you my hearty
+congratulations, had I been able to obtain your address."
+
+"I felt assured you would rejoice with me; and because I hold your
+good opinion so valuable, let me say that my happiness in the
+unexpected vindication of my character was enhanced by the proud
+consciousness that in your estimation I needed none. When the
+blackness of an intolerable shame overshadowed me, you groped your
+way to the dungeon, and held out your hands in confidence and
+sympathy. All the world suspected; you trusted me. You offered your
+noble name as bond, and made a place for me at your own sacred
+hearthstone. Do you think I can ever forget the blessedness of the
+balm that your faith in me poured into my crushed, despairing heart?
+Do you doubt that no sun sets, without seeing me on my knees,
+praying God's blessing of perfect happiness for you? What would I
+not do--what would I not suffer--to secure your peace, and to prove
+my gratitude?"
+
+Her voice vibrated like the silver string of a deep violon-cello,
+and Leo, gazing up into the misty splendor of the beautiful sad
+eyes, ceased to wonder at the fascination which she had exerted over
+Mr. Dunbar. Unintentionally this woman's face had marred her life;
+had unwittingly stolen her lover's heart; yet she believed no
+treachery sullied the pure perfection of the soft red lips, and
+Leo's generous nature rose above the narrow limits of ordinary
+feminine jealousy. Had she doubted for an instant the theory that
+Beryl was heroically suffering the penalty of a crime, in order to
+screen her guilty lover, some suspicion of the truth might have
+dawned upon her.
+
+"Suppose I intend to put your gratitude to the test? You have
+exaggerated the debt which you acknowledge; are you prepared to
+cancel it? If I say to you, because I believed in you, trusted you,
+will you repay me now, by granting a favor which I shall ask?"
+
+"I think Miss Gordon could express no wish that I would not gladly
+execute, in order to promote her happiness."
+
+"Will you come back to X----and help me to establish a home for
+women, who are destitute alike of money and of family ties? When you
+preside over it I shall be haunted by no fears of failure. Once, I
+gave you my sympathy; now, when I need help, will you give me
+yours?"
+
+Beryl shivered, and looked wonderingly at her companion. Was she
+indeed so unsuspicious of the quicksand on which stood the fair
+temple of her hopes in marriage?
+
+"O, Miss Gordon! That is the one thing, in all the world, that for
+your sake as well as mine, I could never do. No, no; impossible."
+
+"Why, not for my sake, since I desire it so earnestly?"
+
+A bright flush had risen in Leo's cheeks, and she threw back her
+small head challengingly.
+
+For a moment Beryl wavered. Could she bear to wound that proud
+spirit?
+
+"Go back to X----? To X----! It would be a renewal of my martyrdom,
+and I should only be a stumbling block in the scheme you
+contemplate. You do not understand, perhaps; but believe me, I prove
+my gratitude by refusing your kind offer."
+
+"I think I understand; and if I am willing to run the risk, what
+then?"
+
+"Do not ask me the impossible. The very atmosphere of X----would
+numb me, destroy all capability of usefulness, by reviving harrowing
+memories."
+
+"Had not every shadow of suspicion vanished, and the entire
+community manifested delight in your triumphant innocence, I should
+never have suggested a return to the scene of your sufferings.
+Certainly, I cannot press the payment of a debt, which you
+volunteered to cancel; but I am sorry your refuse to oblige me."
+
+There was a starry sparkle in the soft hazel eyes, and an
+involuntary and unconscious hardening of her lips, as Leo rose.
+
+"It is hard, Miss Gordon, to be always misunderstood; but sometimes
+duty points to lines that subject us to harsh and bitter censure. I
+bear ever a heavy burden; do not increase my load by condemning me
+as ungrateful, God knows, you hold a warm and a holy place in my
+heart, and your happiness is more to me than my own; yet the one
+thing you ask, my conscience forbids."
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"It will be two years to-morrow since I entered these peaceful
+walls."
+
+"Then your probation ends, and you become permanently a Sister of
+the 'Anchorage'?"
+
+"Not yet. I have been permitted to earn my daily bread here, upon
+conditions somewhat at variance with the regulations that usually
+govern the institution. I have not applied for admission to
+permanent membership, because my stay is contingent upon
+circumstances, which may call me hence to-morrow; which may never
+arise to beckon me away. Sister Ruth generously allows me the
+latitude of choice; not for my own sake, but for that of a friend,
+whose influence secured my admission. After a while, when I have
+finished my work, I hope to come back; to spend the residue of my
+earthly days, and to die here, a faithful Umilta Sister of the
+'Anchorage', which opened its arms when I was a needy and desolate
+waif."
+
+"The peace of your new life is certainly reflected in your face.
+Patience has had its perfect work; and that 'peace that passeth all
+understanding' is the reward granted you."
+
+Leo held out her hand, and Beryl took it between both hers.
+
+"Dear Miss Gordon, grapes yield no wine until they are crushed,
+trampled, bereft of bloom, of rounded symmetry, of beautiful color;
+but the Lord of the Vineyard is entitled to His own. I was a very
+proud, self-reliant girl, impatient of poverty, daringly ambitious;
+and what I deemed a cruel fate, threw me into the vat, to be trodden
+under foot. It may be, that when the ferment ends, and time mellows
+all, the purple wine of my bruised and broken life may be accounted
+worthy the seal of a sacramental sacrifice. I have ceased to
+question, to struggle, to plan. Like a blind child, fearing to
+stumble into ruin, I stand, and stretch out my hands to Him, who has
+led me safely through deep waters, along frightful gorges. Each day
+brings its work, which I strive worthily to accomplish; but my aim
+is to lay my heart, mind, soul, my stubborn will, all in God's
+hands. You think peace the summum bonum? Sometimes we obtain it by
+an ignominious surrender, when we should possess it by conquest.
+'Peace of mind is a beautiful and heavenly thing; but even peace of
+mind may become an idol; and there is perhaps no idol to which women
+bow down more passionately.' For this reason, I am waiting for the
+drum beat of duty, and my march may begin at any moment. I asked to
+see you alone, in order to beg that you will increase my debt of
+obligations, by promising to reveal to no one the place of my
+retreat. Accident has betrayed to you that which I am anxious to
+keep secret; and I trust you will tell no one where you met me."
+
+"Why should you hide, as though you were a culprit? You have been so
+completely exonerated from the imputation of guilt which once hung
+over you, that you owe it to yourself to front the gaze of the world
+fearlessly. What have you to dread?"
+
+"The failure of something, which, though its accomplishment costs me
+very dear, I shall not relax my efforts to promote. I am trying to
+be loyal to my duty, even when the command is to strangle my own
+weak heart. You do not, cannot understand. God grant you never will.
+There are reasons why it is best for me to live in strict seclusion,
+for the present. Those reasons I can explain neither to you, nor to
+any other human being; and yet, I ask you to respect them, and to
+keep my secret. You trusted me in the terrible exigencies of the
+past; and you must trust me now, for--oh! God knows--I do indeed
+deserve your confidence."
+
+She raised the hand folded in her own, and bowed her head upon it.
+
+"You have my promise. Without your permission, I will mention our
+meeting to no one. I trust you; and perhaps if you would trust me, I
+might render you some aid."
+
+"The day may come, when I can find it compatible with duty to tell
+you the secret of my life. In future years, when you are a happy
+wife, I shall by God's help be able to seek you and your husband,
+and thank you both for many kindnesses. I pray that you may be as
+happy as you deserve."
+
+There was no tremor in the voice that answered quickly.
+
+"If you refer to Mr. Dunbar, you have been led astray by the gossip
+in X----. Once, there seemed a probability that our lives might be
+united; but long ago, we found that ardent friendship could not take
+the place of love; and rather more than three years have passed
+since we have even seen each other."
+
+With a startled movement Beryl dropped her companion's fingers, and
+laid a hand on her shoulder.
+
+"Oh! do not tell me that you have broken your engagement!"
+
+The two looked steadily at each other, and while Leo's proud face
+gave no hint of pain or embarrassment, Beryl's blanched, quivered.
+
+"How did you know that any engagement ever existed?"
+
+"All X----knew it. Mrs. Singleton and Sister Serena told me."
+
+"I dissolved that engagement before I went to Europe."
+
+"Then you rashly wrecked your beautiful future. Why did you cast him
+off? He would have made you happy; he is worthy, I think, even of
+you."
+
+"Yes, he is worthy, I believe, of any woman whom he may really love;
+but my happiness is not in his keeping, and my future holds, I
+trust, something much brighter than our marriage would hate proved
+to me."
+
+"You have thrown away the substance for the shadow. Before it is too
+late, reconsider your decision; give him an opportunity to reinstate
+himself in your affection. You have both been so kind to me, that I
+have hoped you would find life long happiness in each other."
+
+"Dismiss that delusion. His path and mine diverge more and more, and
+we no longer dwell in the same State. He has inherited a large
+amount of property in Louisiana, and now lives in New Orleans; hence
+you can readily perceive how far apart the currents of our lives
+have drifted. I rejoice in my freedom; and he, I suspect, is not
+inconsolable for my loss."
+
+Through Beryl's whirling brain darted the recollection of a rumor,
+that Leighton Douglass was suitor for his cousin's hand; and that
+Miss Dent favored the alliance. Was the solution of Miss Gordon's
+cold, calm indifference to be found in the presence and devotion of
+the Bishop? Could he have supplanted Mr. Dunbar in her affection?
+Had the world swung from its moorings? What meant the light that
+broke upon her, as if the walls of heaven had fallen, and let all
+the glory out?
+
+After a moment she said, solemnly:
+
+"I pray God to overrule all earthly things, for your welfare, for
+your heart's truest happiness; and for the realization of your
+dearest hopes. When my mission has been accomplished, and duty lifts
+her seal from my lips, I may try to see you once more, and explain
+the necessity that forced me to seek seclusion."
+
+"I believe I understand; and I trust your reward will not be
+delayed. You and I can lean with confidence upon the wisdom and the
+mercy of the God we worship; but each must serve out His appointed
+time of bondage in the Egypt of suffering, in the famine of the
+desert; and must drink at Marah, before the blessing of the manna,
+the grapes of Eshcol, the roses of Sharon. If ever you should need
+an earthly friend, remember me; and if all other refuge fail you, my
+home can be always yours."
+
+Hand in hand they walked to the door, and Leo pitied the future of
+this woman, whose lover was a wandering outlaw, with a price set
+upon his head; and beneath her gray flannel habit, Beryl's heart was
+torn with conflicting emotions, as she watched the placid, proud
+face, that showed no vestige of the storm of disappointment which
+had stranded her sweetest hope in life.
+
+"Good-bye, Beryl; God keep you in His tender care."
+
+"Good-bye, dear Miss Gordon. I will pray for your happiness, so long
+as I live."
+
+She stooped, drew Leo's hands to her face, pressed her trembling
+lips twice upon them; then turned quickly, and locked herself in the
+studio.
+
+Is it true, that "Orestes and Pylades have no sisters?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+A Persian proverb tells us: "A stone that is fit for the wall is not
+left in the way." Strong artistic aspirations will plough through
+arid sands, leap across bottomless chasms, toil over bristling
+obstacles, climb bald, freezing crags to reach that shining plateau,
+where "beauty pitches her tents", and the Ideal beckons. Favorable
+environment is the steaming atmosphere that fosters, forces and
+develops germs which might not survive the struggle against adverse
+influences, in uncongenial habitat; but nature moulds some types
+that attain perfection through perpetual elementary warfare which
+hardens the fibre, and strengthens the hold; as in those invincible
+algx towering in the stormy straits of Tierra del Fuego, swept from
+Antartic homes toward the equator,--defying the fierce flail of surf
+that pulverizes rock, "Breed is stronger than pasture; and no matter
+how savage a stepmother the circumstances of life may prove, the
+inherited psychological strain will sometimes dominate, and triumph."
+According to the Talmud: "A myrtle, even in a desert, remains a
+myrtle".
+
+From her tenth year, Beryl had begun to build her castle in the
+Spain of Art; daubed its walls with wonderful frescoes, filled its
+echoing corridors with heroic men and lovely women of the classic
+ages; and through its mullioned windows looked into an enchanted
+land, clothed with that witching "light that never was on sea or
+land". When all else on earth was sombre and dun-hued, sunlight and
+moonlight still gilded those magical towers. In darkest nights,
+through hissing rain and hurtling hail, she caught the glitter of
+its starry vanes smiling through murkiness, and above the wail and
+sob of the storms that had swept over the waste places of her youth,
+she heard the divine melodies which the immortal harper, Hope,
+played always in the marvellous palace of the Muses.
+
+In early girlhood she had followed her father into the solemn
+mysteries of Greek Tragedy; and in that vast white temple dedicated
+to the inexorable Fates, where predestined victims moved like marble
+images to their immolation, her own plastic nature had been moulded
+in unison with the classic cult. Among the throng of Attic types, an
+immortal statue of filial devotion and sisterly love had attracted
+her irresistibly, and to Antigone she rendered the homage of a
+boundless admiration, an unwavering fealty.
+
+Intellectually, humanity cleaves to idolatry; and each of us
+worships in the  Pantheon, where our favorite divinities in
+literature crowd the niches. To become a skilful artist, and paint
+the portrait of Antigone, vas the ambition that had shaped and
+colored Beryl's young dreams, long ere she suspected that a mournful
+parallelism in fate would consign her to a living tomb more
+intolerable than that devised by Theban Creon.
+
+Our grandest pictures, statues, poems, are not the canvas, the
+marble, the bronze, and the gilded vellum, that the world handles,
+criticises, weighs, buys and sells, accepts with praise, or rejects
+with anathema. Invisible and inviolate, imagination, keeps our best,
+our ideals, locked in the cerebrum cells of "gray matter", which we
+are pleased to call our workshop.
+
+What art gallery, what library can rival the sublime and beautiful
+images that crowd the creased and folded labyrinth of the human
+brain; as far beyond the ken and analysis of the biologist's
+microscope, as some remote nebulae shining in blue gulfs of
+interstellar space, that no telescopic Jense can ever discover, even
+as a faint blur of silvery mist upon the black velvet vault that
+suns and planets spangle?
+
+In some degree, Beryl's artistic dream had been realized; and the
+study of years slowly flowered into a large painting, which
+represented Antigone standing beside the heap of dust, strewn
+reverently to sepulchre the form dimly outlined at her feet. The
+sullen red sunset of a tempestuous day flared from the horizon,
+across a desolate plain; showed the city walls in the background,
+the hungry vultures poised high above the dead, the marauding dogs
+crouched in the wind-swept sand, watching their banquet, decreed by
+the king. The dust had been scattered from a black vase that bore on
+its front, in a circular medallion, the lurid head of grinning
+Hecate; and the last rite to appease the unquiet manes was performed
+by the uplifted right arm that poured libations from a burnished
+brass urn, held aloft over the pall of earth that denned the figure
+beneath. The left hand was stretched, not heavenward, but
+shieldingly over the mound, and in the beautiful, stern face bent a
+little downward in invocation of the infernal gods, one read sublime
+self-surrender, grief for Oedipus, regret for Hasmon, farewell to
+life,--mingled with exultant consciousness that a successful
+sacrifice had been accomplished for Polynices, and that the spirit
+of the brother rested in peace.
+
+The soul of the artist seemed to look triumphantly through the
+solemn, purplish blue eyes of the young martyr, and Beryl knew that
+her own heart beat under the pamted folds of the diploidion; that
+she had epitomized in a symbolic picture, the history of her own
+joyless youth.
+
+The canvas had been framed and hung at the art exhibition of the new
+"Museum", opened in September; and only the "U" traced in one corner
+beneath an anchor, indicated that it was the work of the Umilta
+Sisters' "Anchorage".
+
+The public peered, puzzled, shook its sapient head, shrugged its
+authoritative shoulders, and sundry criticisms crept into the
+journals; but the prophet was judged in "his own country"; and home
+work, according to universal canons, rarely finds favor among home
+awarding committees, whose dulness its uncomprehended excellence
+affronts.
+
+One censured vehemently the masonry of the city wall; another
+deplored pathetically the "defective foreshortening of a dog's
+shoulders"; the picture "lacked depth of tone"; the "coloring was
+too bizarre", the "tints too neutral".
+
+Like chemicals tested in a laboratory, or like Pharaoh's lean kine,
+each objection devoured the preceding one; and unanimity of blame
+assaulted only one salient point on the entire canvas: the red
+sandals of the Greek girl--upon which outraged good taste fell with
+pitiless fury.
+
+Undismayed, Beryl withdrew her picture, erased the ciphers in the
+corner, and shipped it to New York to Doctor Grantlin, who had
+recently returned from Europe; requesting him to place it at a
+picture dealer's on Broadway, and to withhold the name of its birth-
+place.
+
+Two weeks later, a popular journal published an elaborate
+description of "A painting supposed to have been obtained abroad by
+a New York collector, who merited congratulation upon possession of
+a masterpiece, which recalled the marvellous technique of Gerome,
+the atmosphere of Jules Breton, the rich, mellow coloring, and
+especially the scrupulous fidelity of archaic detail, which
+characterized Alma Tadema; and was conspicuously manifest in the red
+shoes so distinctively typical of Theban women".
+
+Mr. Kendall caused this article to be copied into the leading
+newspaper of his own city; and the first mail, thereafter, carried
+to New York an offer of eight hundred dollars for the painting, from
+the President of the "Museum" Directors, who had been so shocked by
+the unknown significance of the "red shoes". After a few days, it
+was generally known, but mentioned with bated breath, that the
+"Antigone" had been bought by a wealthy Philadelphian, who paid for
+it two thousand dollars, and hung it in his gallery, where Fortunys,
+Madrazos, and Diazs ornamented the walls.
+
+Why should journeying abroad to render "Caesar's things" to foreign
+Caesars, demand such total bankruptcy that we must needs repudiate
+the just debts of home creditors, whose chimneys smoke just beyond
+the fence that divides us? De mortuis nil nisi bonum is a
+traditional and sacred duty to departed workers; but does it exhaust
+human charity, or require contemptuous crusade against equally
+honest, living toilers? Are antiquity and foreign birthplace
+imperatively essential factors in the award of praise for even
+faithful and noble work? We lament the caustic moroseness of
+embittered Schopenhauer, brooding savagely over his failure to
+secure contemporaneous recognition; yet after all, did he malign his
+race, or his age, when, in answer to the inquiry where he desired to
+be buried, he scornfully exclaimed: "No matter where; posterity will
+find me."
+
+It was on the 26th of October, a week subsequent to the receipt of
+the letter which contained the check sent in payment for the
+picture, that Beryl sat down on the stone sill of her oriel window,
+to rest in the seclusion of her room, after the labors of the day.
+
+It was the anniversary of her ill-starred visit to X----, and
+melancholy memories had greeted her at dawn, clung to her skirts,
+chanted their dismal refrain, and renewed the pain which time had in
+some degree dulled. Four years ago she had felt her mother's
+feverish lips on hers, in a parting kiss, and four years ago to-day
+the sun of her girlhood had passed suddenly into total eclipse.
+Since then, moving in a semi-twilight, suffering had prematurely
+aged her, and she had schooled herself to expect no star, save that
+of duty, to burn along her lonely path. To-day, she thought of the
+pride her picture would have aroused in her devoted father; of the
+comforts the money would have purchased for her invalid mother; of
+the pleasure, success as an artist would have brought to her own
+ambitious soul, if only it had not come so many years too late. What
+crown could fame bring to one, dwelling always in the chill shadow
+of a terrible shame? The glory of noble renown could never gild a
+name that had answered at the convicts' roll call; a name which, at
+any moment, Bertie's arrest might drag back to the disgrace of
+established felony.
+
+Of all mocking fiends, the arch torturer is that hand which draws
+aside the black curtain of grim actuality, and shows us the
+wonderful realm of "might have been", where lost hopes blossom
+eternally, and the witchery of hallowed illusions is never
+dispelled.
+
+Wearily Beryl closed her eyes, as though the white lids availed to
+shut out visions, tantalizing as the dream of bubbling springs, and
+palm-fringed isles of dewy verdure, to the delirious traveller dying
+of thirst, in the furnace blasts of mid-desert.
+
+If she had defied her mother's wishes, and refused to go to X--? How
+different the world would seem to her; but, what was a world worth,
+that had never known Mr. Dunbar?
+
+Over burning ploughshares she had walked to meet one destined to
+stir to its depths the slumbering sea of her tenderest love; and to
+forego the pain, would she relinquish the recompense?
+
+During the months that elapsed after Leo's visit to the "Anchorage",
+Beryl had surrendered her heart to the great happiness of dwelling,
+unrebuked by conscience, upon the precious assurance that the love
+of the man whom she had so persistently defied and shunned, was
+irrevocably hers. The sharpest pain that can horrow womanhood,
+springs from the contemplation of the superior right of another to
+the object of her affection; and though honor coerces submission to
+the just claims of a rival, renunciation of the beloved entails
+pangs that no anaesthetic has power to quiet.
+
+After the long struggle to aid Miss Gordon's accepted lover in
+keeping his vows of loyalty, the discovery of his freedom, and the
+belief that Bishop Douglass had supplanted him in the affection of
+her generous benefactress, had brought to Beryl an exquisite
+release; sweet as the spicy breath of the tropics wafted suddenly to
+some stranded, frozen Arctic voyager. Heroic and patient, keeping
+her numb face steadfastly turned to the pole star of duty, where the
+compass of conscience pointed--was the floe ice on which she had
+been wrecked, drifting slowly, imperceptibly, yet surely down to the
+purple warmth of the Gulf Stream, dotted with swelling sails of
+rescue? Like oceanic streams meeting, running side by side,
+freighted with cold for the equatorial caldrons, with heat for the
+poles, are not the divinely appointed currents of mercy and of
+affliction, God's agents of compensation, to equalize the destinies
+of humanity?
+
+We rail at Fate as triple monsters; but sometimes it happens, that
+the veil of inscrutability floats aside, for an instant, and we
+catch a glimpse of the radiant smile of an infinite love.
+
+Hope had set in Beryl's sky, but a tender afterglow held off the
+coming night, when she thought of the face that had bent so
+yearningly above her, of the passionate voice and the thrilling
+touch that were now her most precious memories. The pearl which Miss
+Gordon had cast away as worthless, the discarded convict might
+surely, without sin, claim as her own for ever. To-day an intense
+longing to see him once more, to hear from his lips praise of her
+"Antigone", disturbed the tranquillity that was spreading its robes
+of minever over a stony path; but she put aside the temptation.
+
+To the Sisterhood of the "Anchorage" she had given one-half the
+proceeds of the picture sale; and the remainder would enable her at
+last to renew the search for her unhappy brother. So vague were the
+topographical lines furnished by the English tourist, that
+prosecuting her quest in the remote wilderness of mountains, which
+wore their crown of snow, seemed a reckless waste of hope, time and
+money; nevertheless, she must make the attempt. She knew that a
+gigantic railway system was crawling like an anaconda under rocky
+ranges, over foaming rivers, stretching its sinuous steel trail from
+Bay of Chaleur to Georgia Gulf; with termini that saw the sun rise
+from the Atlantic Ocean, and watched its setting in the red glory of
+the far Pacific; and perhaps steam shovels, and iron tight-ropes
+might furnish her facilities on her long journey.
+
+Winter would soon overtake her, and in the inhospitable region where
+her brother had been surprised at his prayers, how could a lonely
+woman travel without protection? Doubt, apprehension flitted as ill-
+boding birds of night, flapping dusky wings to hide the signal
+beacon, which love and duty swung to and fro; yet the yearning to
+see her brother's face again, dwarfed all barriers, and she trusted
+God's guidance.
+
+On a chair near her, lay, on this afternoon, a map which for many
+days she had been studying; and opening it once more, she ran a
+finger along the dotted lines, mentally debating whether it would be
+best to go by rail to Ottawa, by water to Sault St. Marie, whence
+the new railway could be easily reached, or whether the most direct
+route would be via St. Paul to Winnepeg. When she left the
+"Anchorage", her destination must remain a secret; hence she could
+ask no counsel. In view of approaching cold weather, economy of time
+seemed imperative; and she resolved to buy a railway ticket to
+Fargo, where she could elude suspicion, should the threatened
+invisible detective "shadow" her; and whence another Pacific highway
+offered egress to western wilds. With this definite conclusion she
+closed the map, and a moment later, some one knocked at her door.
+
+"Come in."
+
+She went forward, and met Sister Katrina, a robust dame of forty
+years, blond as Gerda; with the "light of the glowworm's tails" in
+her  golden-lashed violet eyes, and the "ruby spots of the cowslip's
+leaves" on her full, frank lips.
+
+"Will you sit a while with me? There is still a half hour, before
+your evening work begins in the carving shop. Come in."
+
+"I am sorry I have not time now, to indulge myself in such luxury as
+a chat with you always proves. I came to beg the loan of your India
+ink copy of the marble screens at Agra; which I have an idea would
+be very effective done in cherry, for the panels under the new
+bookcases we are designing for the library."
+
+"The copy is up stairs in the studio; but I shall be glad to get it
+for you."
+
+"No; with your permission I can help myself, and I am going up there
+now, for some red chalk. I know exactly where to find the picture,
+because I was examining it two days ago. What think you of my idea?"
+
+"I am afraid you will find cherry too dark. A lighter wood, I think,
+would be better adapted to the exceeding delicacy of the design."
+
+"Wait till I cut out a sample scroll, and we will talk it over.
+Sister Ruth asked me to hand to you this paper, which contains a
+very complimentary notice of your lovely picture. I read it as I
+came up, and congratulate you on all the fine things said. You
+scarcely know how proud we feel of our Sister's work. Thanks for the
+use of the drawing."
+
+She smiled, nodded and closed the door; and when her bright cheery
+countenance vanished, it seemed as though a film of cloud had
+drifted across the sun.
+
+Beryl went back to a low chair in front of the window, and opened
+the paper, which chanced to be the New York "Herald." Unfolding it
+to hunt the designated article, her glance fell accidentally upon
+the personal column. Her heart leaped, then almost ceased beating,
+as she read:
+
+"Important. Bertie will meet Gigina in the Museum at Niagara Falls,
+Canada side, any day during the last week in October."
+
+Two years and a half had almost gone by since she inserted the
+advertisement, to which this was evidently a reply. Long ago she had
+ceased to expect any tidings through this channel; but the seed sown
+in faith, watered by tears, and guarded by continual prayer had
+stirred to life; blossomed in the sunshine of God's pitying smile,
+and after weary waiting, the ripe fruit fell at her feet. How fair
+and smooth, rosy and fragrant it appeared to her famishing heart?
+How opportune the guiding hand that pointed her way, when cross
+roads baffled her. Two days later, she would have been journeying
+away from the coveted goal. Now the tide of battle was turning. Had
+the stars rolled back on their courses to rescue Sisera?
+
+How long the happy woman sat there, exulting in the mellowness of
+the perfect fruit of patience, she never knew.
+
+Day died slowly; the vivid crimson and dazzling gold that fired the
+West were reflected in the tranquil bosom of the lake, faded into
+the tender pale rose of the sacred lotus, into the exquisite tints
+that gild the outer petals of a daffodil, the heart of  buttercups;
+and then, robed in faintest violet powdered with silvery dust, the
+vast pinions of Crepuscule spread over sky and water, fanning into
+full flame the glittering sparks of planets and constellations that
+lighted the chariot course of the coming moon.
+
+Across the sleeping lake hurried a north wind, on its long journey
+to blow open the snowy camellias folded close in the heart of the
+South, and under his winged sandals the waters crimped, rippled,
+swelled into wavelets that played their minor adagio in nature's
+nocturn, as their foam fingers fell on the pebbles that fringed the
+beach. From the deck of a schooner anchored off shore, floated the
+deep voice of a man singing Schubert's "Ave Maria"; and far, far
+away over the weird waste of waters, where a buoy marked a sunken
+wreck, its red beacon burned like the eye of Polyphemus, crouching
+in  darkness, watching to surprise Galatea.
+
+The penetrating chill of the night air aroused Beryl from her
+profound trance; and lighting the gas over her dressing table, she
+re-read the magical words that had transformed her narrow world.
+This was Monday the 26th, and next Saturday was the limit of the
+proposed interview. One day must suffice for necessary preparation,
+and starting by early morning express on Wednesday, she would arrive
+in time to keep the tryst that involved so much. She cut out the
+notice that was merely a sentence in the page of social
+hieroglyphics, where no key fitted more than one paragraph, and
+forgetting the criticism on her picture, she went swiftly down
+stairs.
+
+The members of the Sisterhood were at supper, and she waited at the
+refectory door for an opportunity to meet the matron.
+
+On the platform raised in the centre of the long room, sat the
+reader for the day, Sister Agatha; a plump, florid young woman, with
+bright black eyes, and a voice sweet and strong as the flute stop of
+an organ. The selection that evening had been from "Agate Windows"
+and "Ice Morsels", and the closing words were:
+
+"Alpine flowers are warmed by snow; the summer beauty of our hills,
+and the autumn fertility of our valleys, have been caused by the
+cold embrace of the glacier; and so, by the chill of trial and
+sorrow, are the outlines of Christian character moulded and
+beautified. And we, who recognize the loving kindness as well as the
+power of God in what may seem the harsher and more forbidding
+agencies of nature, ought not to be weary and faint in our minds, if
+over our own warm human life, the same kind pitying Hand should
+sometimes cause His snow of disappointment to fall like wool, and
+cast forth His ice of adversity like morsels; knowing that even by
+these unlikely means, shall ultimately be given to us also, as to
+nature, the beauty of Sharon, and the peace of Carmel!"
+
+Somewhere in the apartment, a bell tapped. All rose, and each head
+in the gray ranks bowed, while "thanks" were offered; then amid a
+subdued murmur of conversation, the Sisterhood filed out, gathered
+in groups, separated for various duties.
+
+"Sister Ruth, may I see you alone?" asked Beryl, touching her arm in
+the hall.
+
+"This is the night for the examination of accounts, of last week's
+expenses, and I shall be busy with Sister Elena, our book-keeper;
+moreover, I promised to look over the linen closet of the Infirmary,
+with Sister Consuelo, whose demands are like those of the daughter
+of the horse-leech. Is your business urgent?"
+
+"Yes; but I will not detain you more than ten minutes."
+
+"Very well, come to my cabinet."
+
+The place designated was a pigeon box in size, and adjoined the
+reception room on the first floor. Two desks packed with papers,
+three chairs and a picture of Elijah and the ravens, constituted the
+furniture. The matron brightened the light, seated herself and
+looked at her companion.
+
+"Well. What can I do for you? Why, Sister? Something has happened;
+your face is all aglow, your eyes are great stars."
+
+"Yes; a heavy burden I have long borne is slipping from my heart,
+and after the pressure it rebounds. I have told you that my stay
+here was contingent on events which I could not control; that at any
+moment I might consider it incumbent upon me to go away into the
+world; therefore, I could bind myself by no compact to remain
+permanently in the 'Anchorage'. The time has come; the drum taps, I
+must march away."
+
+"And you are so glad to leave us?" said the matron, gazing in wonder
+at the radiant face, usually so impassive and cold with its locked
+lips, and grave, sad, downcast eyes.
+
+"No, glad only in the occasion that calls me; regretting that duty
+separates me temporarily from the Sisterhood, who so mercifully
+opened their arms, when I had no spot in all the wide world where I
+could lay my head, but the sod on my mother's grave. This blessed
+haven is for those whose first duty in life summons them nowhere
+beyond its walls. If conscience bade you leave these peaceful and
+hallowed halls, for work far more difficult, would you hesitate to
+obey? It is safer and less arduous to keep step with the main army;
+but some must perish on picket duty, and is the choice ours, when an
+order details us?"
+
+"Who signed your order?"
+
+Sister Ruth took off her spectacles, and bent closer, with a
+keenness of scrutiny, that was unflatteringly suspicious.
+
+"My dear mother."
+
+"I understood that you had been an orphan for years?"
+
+"Yes, for four wretched, lonely and terrible years; but no tomb is
+deep enough to shut in the voice that uttered our mother's last
+wishes; and all time cannot hush the sound of the command, cannot
+hide the beloved hand that pointed to the path she asked us to
+follow. When my mother kissed me good-bye, she blessed me, because
+of a promise I gave her; and Heaven means to me the place where I
+can look into her sainted face, and tell her 'Hold me close to your
+tender heart, for oh! I have indeed kept my word. Your little girl
+obeyed your last command.'" Her voice trembled, and she passed one
+hand over her eyes for an instant.
+
+"Sister Ruth, the opportunity has arrived, and I go to execute the
+last clause of a sacred order. When I shall have finished my
+mission, I shall want to come back home. Oh! you see? I call it
+home. For where else can I ever have a home, till I join my father
+and mother? If I should come back and ask you to take me for the
+remainder of my life, as a sister worker, will you let me die with
+the 'anchor' on my breast? I shall be as worthy of your confidence
+then, as I am now."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"I hoped that you would not ask me, because I cannot tell you now.
+Will you not trust me?"
+
+"Your extremely cautious reticence makes it difficult; and I have
+always known that some distressing mystery brought you here."
+
+"Confidence that defies suspicious appearances is precious indeed;
+but confidence that crumbles like Jericho's walls at the blast of
+Joshua's trumpets, is as worthless a sham as a cable whose strands
+part at the first taut strain. Sister Ruth, there are reasons why I
+go away alone, to an unknown destination; and I am  about to tax
+your trust yet more severely, when I tell you that I need the
+disguise of the 'Umilta' uniform. I ask your permission to wear it
+during my absence."
+
+The matron shook her head.
+
+"Surely, Sister Ruth, you cannot think it possible that I should
+bring discredit upon this dear gray flannel, which I hold as sacred
+as priestly vestments?"
+
+She laid her cheek against her own shoulder, with a caressing
+motion, and passed her fingers softly across her sleeve.
+
+"My young sister, to some extent I am responsible for those who wear
+the 'Umilta' gray. If I allowed you to carry our badge under such
+peculiar circumstances beyond the limits of my supervision, I should
+hazard too much; should deserve the severity of the censure I most
+certainly should receive, if any disaster brought reproach upon our
+spotless record as an institution. It was not designed as a disguise
+in which to masquerade for unknown purposes."
+
+Beryl put up both hands, pressing her pretty white cap close to her
+ears; and her lips trembled, as was their wont, when she was
+wounded.
+
+"Do not discrown me. My father's Beryl will never sully your pure
+record; and it would be as impossible for me to disgrace your
+uniform, as defile my mother's shroud. Grant me the protection of
+this consecrated garb."
+
+"No. The 'Anchorage' must remain as heretofore, like Caesar's wife."
+
+"Although I have lived here so long, how little you know me."
+
+"Very true, my Sister; therefore, as custodian of the interests of
+our little community, I must not put them in jeopardy. When do you
+expect to take your departure?"
+
+"Wednesday, at 6 A.M., on the express for New York."
+
+"Have you received letters?"
+
+"No, Sister. Doctor Grantlin is the only person who writes to me,
+and as his letters are always addressed to your care, I receive them
+from your hands."
+
+"How long do you propose to stay in New York?"
+
+"I am not going to New York, and I know not how long I may be
+detained; but I desire to return without needless delay."
+
+"Then you want your money."
+
+"Give me to-morrow five hundred dollars, and keep the remainder
+until I come, or until you hear from me. Please say that I have gone
+on a journey to fulfil a pledge made years ago; and try not to show
+the Sisters that you have no confidence in me. That--would rob my
+home-coming of half its pleasure. If any unforeseen accident should
+keep me away, should cut short a life which has overflowed with
+great sorrow, then retain the money and the pictures I leave behind;
+and believe that I died, as I have lived, not unworthy of all thy
+kindness and true charity this dear sacred 'Anchorage' has shown to
+me. Sister Elena is impatient; I hear her walking up and down the
+floor. While I am absent, Sister Katrina, and especially Sister
+Anice, can take my place in the Art School; and all my orders were
+finished last week, except the mirror for Mrs. St. Clair. She wished
+it framed in scarlet bignonias, and as the painting is more than
+half done, Sister Anice can easily complete it. I will not detain
+you longer. Good-night, Sister Ruth."
+
+No sleep visited Beryl, and as she lay at two o'clock, watching the
+shimmer of the moonlight reflected from the tossing waves upon the
+panes of her wide window, where the tangled mesh of quivering rays
+coiled, uncoiled, glided hither and yon like golden serpents, she
+heard the click of the key, and the turning of the knob in a door,
+which opened from the alcove into an adjoining room. That apartment
+was reserved as a guest chamber; had been unoccupied for months; and
+puzzled by the sound, Beryl sat up in her bed and listened. The blue
+folds of the drapery hanging over the alcove arch, were drawn aside,
+and Sister Ruth, wrapped in a trailing dressing-gown, held up a
+small lamp and peered cautiously around.
+
+"What is the matter, Sister?"
+
+"Did I frighten you? I came this way rather than knock at the other
+door, because Sister Frances is on watch to-night; and though she is
+a dear good soul, she is afflicted with an undue share of the
+feminine frailty, curiosity, and I prefer that no one should canvass
+my unseasonable visit to you. Do not get up."
+
+She put the brass lamp on a chair, and sat down on the edge of the
+bed.
+
+"Our conversation has disquieted me, and I cannot sleep. Long ago,
+for my own sake, I made a rule by which to govern my judgment of my
+fellow beings; and it amounts to this: where I cannot be sure of
+evil in others, I give them the benefit of the doubt, and sincerely
+endeavor to think the best. I have watched you very closely. There
+is much that I cannot understand; much that it appears strange you
+should hesitate to explain; yet in these years I have had no cause
+to question your truthfulness, and that is the basis of all human
+worth. We profess to live here as one family, as sisters, holding
+each other in love, charity and trust; yet in searching myself to-
+night, I fear I have gone astray. I have pondered and prayed over
+this matter, and my heart yearns toward you. I feel as I fancy a
+mother might, who had too hastily slapped the face of her child;
+and, my sister, I have come to say, forgive me, if I too harshly
+refused your request, if I wounded you."
+
+She held out her hand, but Beryl did not see it; she had covered her
+face, and unable to speak she leaned forward and laid her head on
+the matron's lap. Gently the thin fingers stroked the shining hair,
+until they were drawn down and pressed to the girl's lips.
+
+"Again, I asked myself, whether my decision had not been inspired by
+an overweening pride in the public estimation of our home; rather
+than by an unselfish regard for the welfare and peace of mind of one
+of its members? What will the world think of us, must be
+subordinated to, what is the best for my young sister, whose cross
+it is my duty to lighten? I cannot bear to give you up; and I shall,
+I will trust you. Wear the 'gray' armor, and remember, if any blot
+stain it, you will bring disgrace upon a holy cause; you will be the
+first to stain the Umilta uniform; and I shall be blamed, for
+reposing confidence in one who betrayed us to public scorn. My
+Sister Beryl, I give you 'the gray'. God grant it may shelter you
+from harm, and bring you home to fill my place with honor, when I
+have passed into the eternal Anchorage."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+
+Over the region of the great lakes, her favorite haunt, hung the
+enchanted stillness, the misty glamour of the purple-cloaked witch--
+Indian Summer; whose sorcery veiled the dazzling face of the sun,
+and changed the silver lustre of Selene into the vast, solemn red
+blot that stared wonderingly at its own weird image in the glassy
+waters.
+
+Wrapped in that soft, sweet haze, which like the eider down of
+charity smooths all roughness, rounds all angles, the world of shore
+and lake presented a magical panorama of towns and villages, herds
+of cattle, flocks of sheep, spires of churches, masts of vessels,--
+all flashing past the open window of the car, where Beryl sat,
+watching the shadows lengthen as the long train thundered eastward,
+and the tree dials marked the hour record on the golden brown
+stubble fields.
+
+When the goal is in sight, do we dwell on the hazard, the strained
+muscles, the blistered feet, and the fierce thirst the long race-
+course cost us? Who know that they are weary and spent, while the
+prize brightens, nears as they stretch panting to grasp it?
+
+The certainty of meeting her brother, the anticipation of all that
+she felt assured he would promise concerning his future, when he
+learned the severity of the ordeal which she had endured in his
+behalf, blotted out the costliness of the accomplishment. Like that
+glorious violet haze of Indian Summer, which was drawing its
+opalescent drapery along the vanishing iron railway track blackened
+with cinders, and softly shrouding the grim outlines of wreck, that
+told where a vessel had foundered on the lake in the early autumn
+gale, an overruling Providence seemed shedding peace even upon her
+troubled past. In the swift flash of the divine fire that sanctified
+the accepted sacrifice, she was too dazzled to remember the moan of
+the slaughtered victim, the agony of the death struggle; and now,
+her thoughts spanned the gulf of time, and painted the eternal
+reunion of the broken and dishonored family group.
+
+From these comforting reflections she was aroused by a piercing cry
+that made her spring forward, and scan the crowd of human faces
+collected close to the rails, at a small town where the cars had
+halted.
+
+On a side track in front of her window, was a train which had just
+dashed in from Buffalo, and amid the surging mass of jeering
+spectators, two officers stepped down from the platform, each with a
+hand on the arm of a man, who was heavily handcuffed. At the sight,
+a white-haired, withered woman leaning from a carriage and staring
+with horror-haunted eyes, had screamed, and was falling back
+insensible.
+
+"That is his mother. Poor thing, why did they let her come? He is
+her only boy," said a man to his comrade, who stood near Beryl's
+seat.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked a gentleman, sitting immediately in
+front of her.
+
+"Two of our officers winged a bird, who thought it was safe flying
+over yonder, with the lake between him and the county jail. Canada
+is handy hunting-ground, when the game happens to be runaway
+thieves; and we have bagged one. He was the cashier of our Savings
+Bank, and not satisfied with tampering with the books, and forcing
+balances, he finally robbed the vault of a lot of gold, and flew
+across the line. His wife met him at St. Catherine's, and he met the
+iron bracelets he was dodging."
+
+The train moved on, and once more Beryl heard the howling of the
+wolves, that she had hoped were left forever behind; that now seemed
+in full cry bearing down upon their prey. Should she return to the
+"Anchorage", and advertise Bertie's danger? So vague were her ideas
+relative to the limits of extradition, that she had regarded Canada
+as a city of refuge; considered its protection of United States'
+criminal fugitives as efficacious, as meeting a Vestal Priestess on
+the way to his execution, proved in rescuing a Roman malefactor from
+the penalty of violated law; but this shred of comfort had parted,
+when most she required its aid.
+
+"Yes, I understand extradition provisions have been arranged, which
+are bound to have a wholesome effect; especially in this section,
+where it is so easy to slip across the lakes any dark night. I am
+told nearly all felonies will be embraced now--from murder to
+burglary--and that Her Majesty's Secretaries are more willing to aid
+our officers, than was the case a few years ago, when no end of
+quibbling tied up justice."
+
+The gentlemen on the seat in front of her, moved away to the smoking
+car; and the woman in gray listened to the creak and whirr of the
+wheel of torturing dread, upon which some malignant fate once more
+bound her. Bertie had been safe in his mountain fastness, until her
+ill-starred advertisement coaxed him within reach of the police
+Briareus. Could she discern the hand of merciful warning in this
+fortuitous meeting with a captured culprit; which so vividly
+recalled the maddening incidents of her return to X---, when the
+sheriff had hurried her from the car? A sickening terror seized her,
+and along the expanse of pearly mist that united earth and sky, in
+tke snowy fringe of ripples breaking their teeth on the shelving
+beach, she seemed to read the doom of her stratagem written in words
+of menace:
+
+"Go where you may, but I give you fair warning you cannot escape me;
+and the day on which you meet that guilty vagabond, you betray him
+to the scouts of justice."
+
+Far away, among the orange groves of Louisiana, would he forget his
+threat, or fail to execute it? On and on darted the train; people
+laughed and talked; a tired baby swayed from side to side on the
+nurse's knees, crooned herself to sleep; and a canary in a cage
+covered with pink net, broke suddenly into a spasm of trills and
+roulades.
+
+It was almost four o'clock when the dull roar of Niagara set the air
+a tremble, and the few remaining passengers left the train. The
+little town was unusually quiet and deserted, the tide of summer
+travel having ebbed; and not until the crystal fingers of the ice
+fairy had built her wonderful Giralda out of foam and spray, would
+that of Winter tourists begin to flow.
+
+Leaving her trunk at the "baggage room" of the station, Beryl
+engaged a carriage driver to take her to the Suspension Bridge.
+Drawing her gray bonnet and veil as far as possible over her face,
+she paid the toll, and noticed that the keeper peered curiously at
+her, and muttered something in an undertone to a man wearing a
+uniform, who turned and stared at her.
+
+She hurried away along that iron mesh swinging high in air like a
+vast spider web, spun from shore to shore across the swirling,
+snarling caldron of hissing waters. Was the officer the wary spider
+watching her movements, waiting to slip down the metal snare, and
+devour her hopes? Her heart beats sounded as the heavy thuds of a
+drum; the rush of dire forebodings drowned even the roar of the
+Falls, and the magnificence of the spectacle vanished before the
+awful realization of the danger to which she had invited Bertie.
+
+The bridge was deserted; no human being was visible; and now and
+then she glanced back over her shoulder, dreading she knew not what
+form of pursuit. At last her flying feet touched British soil, but
+she knew now, that neither Bezer nor yet Shechcm lay before her; and
+no sign-post rose to welcome her, with the "Refuge--Refuge"--the
+water and the bread appointed of old, for spent fugitives. Canada
+was an ambush that, despite all caution, might betray her. Against
+the last rail of the bridge she leaned, tried to steady her nerves;
+and put up one passionate prayer:
+
+"Turn not Thy face from me, O my God! in this last hour! Guide me
+aright. Overrule all my mistakes, and save my repentant brother."
+
+On the wide gallery of the "Clifton House" stood a gardener engaged
+in removing the flower baskets that hung between the columns; and as
+he paused in his work, to observe the quaint gray figure below, she
+asked, in a voice that was strained beyond its customary sweetness:
+
+"Please direct me to the Museum."
+
+"Follow the street along the cliff, and you can't miss it. Behind
+those trees yonder, on the right hand side. To the best of my
+belief, it is shut up this week."
+
+Turning south, she walked more leisurely, lest undue haste should
+excite suspicion; and all the solemn sublimity of the scene
+confronted her. The green crescent of the Horseshoe blanched to
+foam, as it leaped to the stony gulf below, the wreaths of mist
+floating up, gilded by the sunshine; the maddened rush of the
+tossing, frothing, whirling rapids seething like melted gold as the
+western radiance smote the bubbling surface; the scarlet flakes of
+foliage clinging to the trees on Goat Island, and far above, on the
+wooded height beyond, the picturesque outlines of the Convent,
+lifting its belfry against the azure sky. As doomed swimmers lost in
+those rapids, swept head downward to destruction, nearing the last
+wild plunge catch the glimmer of that consecrated tower held aloft,
+so to Beryl's eyes it now seemed a symbol of comfort; and faith once
+more girded her.
+
+A woman wearing a blue plaid handkerchief tied over her head and
+knotted under her chin, and carrying a basket of red apples on one
+arm, while with the other she led a lowing cow along the dusty road,
+paused at a signal, in front of the gray clad stranger.
+
+"Which is the Museum?"
+
+"Yonder, where the goats are huddled."
+
+The building was closed, but in those days a garden lay to the north
+of it; and a small gate that gave admittance to seats and flowers
+connected with the Museum, now stood open.
+
+The walks were strewn with pale yellow poplar leaves, and bordered
+with belated pink hollyhocks, and crimson chrysanthemums blighted by
+frost, shivering in their death chill; and from a neighboring willow
+stripped of curtaining foliage, a lonely bird piped its plaintive
+threnody, for the loss of one summer's mate. At the extremity of the
+little garden, under shelter of an ancient, gnarled tree, that
+screened a semicircular seat from the observation of those passing
+on the street, Beryl sat down to rest; to collect her thoughts.
+
+In the solitude, she threw back her veil, leaned her head against
+the trunk of the tree where wan lichens made a pearly cushion, and
+shut her eyes. The afternoon was wearing away; a keen wind shook the
+bare boughs; only the ceaseless, unchanging chant of waters rose
+from the vast throat of nature, invoking its God.
+
+She heard no footsteps; but some strange current attacked her veins,
+thrilled along her nerves, strung as taut as the wires of a harp,
+and starting up she became aware that a man was standing on the
+clover sward close to her. A dark brown overcoat, a broad brimmed,
+soft wool hat, drawn as a mask down to the bridge of the nose, and a
+bare hand covering the mouth, was all she saw.
+
+Stretching out her arms, she sprang to meet him:
+
+"O Bertie! At last! At last!"
+
+The figure drew back slightly, lifted his hat; and where she had
+expected to see her brother's golden curls, the crisp, black locks
+of Mr. Dunbar met her gaze.
+
+"You! Here?"
+
+She staggered, and sank back on the bench; the realization of
+Bertie's peril throttling the joy that leaped up in her heart, at
+sight of the beloved features.
+
+"I am here. I come as promptly to fulfil my promise as you to keep
+your tryst. Do you understand me so little, that you doubted my
+word?"
+
+Her bonnet had slipped back, and as all the chastened beauty of her
+face framed in the dainty cap, became fully exposed, a heavy sigh
+escaped him, and he set his teeth, like one nerved to endure
+torture.
+
+For months he had nourished the germ of a generous purpose, had
+tried to accustom himself to the idea of ultimately surrendering
+her; but in her presence, a certain bitter fury swept away the
+wretched figment, and he remembered only how fair, how holy, how
+dear she was to him. Once more the cry of his famishing heart was:
+"Death may part us. I swear no man's arms ever shall."
+
+"Why waylay and torment me? Have I not suffered enough at your
+hands? Between me and mine not even you can come."
+
+"Take care! For your sake I am here, hoping to spare you some pangs;
+to allow you at least an opportunity to see him--"
+
+"What have you done? Don't tell me I am too late. Where is he? Oh!
+where--where is he?"
+
+She had sprung up, and her hands closed around his arm, shaking it
+in the desperation of her dread; while her voice quivered under the
+strain of a conjecture that Bertie had already been arrested.
+
+"Where is your chivalrous, courageous, unselfish, devoted lover? To
+ascertain exactly where he skulks, is my mission to Canada; for I
+thought I had schooled myself to bear the pain of--"
+
+"What do you mean? What have you done with my Bertie? Oh--"
+
+She threw herself suddenly on her knees, held up her hands, and a
+wailing cry broke the stillness:
+
+"Save him, Mr. Dunbar! You will break my heart if you bring ruin
+upon his dear head. He is all I have on earth, he is my own brother!
+My brother! my brother!"
+
+The blood ebbed from his face; the haughty mouth twitched in a
+sudden spasm, and he put his hand over his eyes.
+
+Could she adopt this ruse to thwart pursuit of the man whom she
+idolized? For half a moment he stood, with whitened lips; then
+stooped, took the face of the kneeling woman in his palms, and
+scanned it.
+
+"Your brother?"
+
+"My brother. Do you understand at last, why I must save him? Why you
+must help me to screen him from ruin?"
+
+"Great God! After all, what a blind fool I have been!"
+
+He raised her, placed her on the bench; sat down and leaned his head
+on his hand. To Beryl, the silence that followed was an excruciating
+torture, beyond even her power of endurance.
+
+"Do not keep me in suspense. Where is Bertie? Let me see him, if he
+is here."
+
+"He is not here. It was to assist you in finding him, that I enticed
+you here."
+
+"You enticed me?"
+
+"I put the advertisement in the 'Herald', knowing that if you
+chanced to see it, all the legions of Satan could not keep you away.
+I have been here since Sunday, waiting and watching. I was obliged
+to see you, for your own sake, as well as to satisfy my longing to
+look once more into your face; and I felt assured the magnetic name
+of 'Bertie' would draw you here swiftly."
+
+"Then it was only a snare, that advertisement? Oh! you are cruel!"
+
+"Not to you. It was to promote your peace of mind, by enabling you
+to meet the man who, I supposed was your lover, that I invited you
+to this place. Mark you, only to see, never to marry him."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Exactly where, I do not yet know; but very soon you shall learn."
+
+"Is he in peril?"
+
+"Not from arrest at present, by human officers of retributive
+justice."
+
+"He is not coming here?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"How did you learn his name?"
+
+"I suspected that the advertisement you published in the "Herald"
+after leaving X---, was a clue that would aid me. I clung to it, for
+I was sure it referred to the man whom I have hunted so
+persistently."
+
+"You have something to tell me. Be merciful, and end my suspense."
+
+"First, answer one question. Why did you conceal from me the fact
+that you had a brother? Why did you allow me to suffer from a false
+theory, that you knew made my life a slow torture?"
+
+He leaned nearer, and under the blue fire of his eager eyes, the
+blood mounted into her pale cheeks.
+
+"My motive belongs to a past, with which I trust I have done
+forever; and you have no right to violate its buried ashes."
+
+"I must, and I will have all the truth, cost what it may. Between
+you and me, no spectre of mystery shall longer stalk. If you had
+trusted me, and confessed the facts before the trial, you would have
+muzzled me effectually, and prevented the employment of detectives
+whom I have hissed on your brother's track. Why did you lead me
+astray, and confirm my suspicion that you were shielding a lover?"
+
+"I was innocent; but my name, my father's honored name, was in
+jeopardy of dishonor, and to protect it, I would not undeceive you.
+Had my brother been convicted, the established guilt would have
+tarnished forever our only legacy, all that father left to Bertie
+and to me--his spotless name."
+
+"You are quibbling. Did you shield the family name by enduring the
+purgatory of seeing your own on the list of penitentiary convicts?
+You deliberately fastened the odium of the crime upon your father's
+daughter; and you knew, you understood perfectly, that by
+strengthening my erroneous supposition, you  were lashing me to a
+pursuit of the person, whom you could have best protected by frankly
+telling me all. If he is really your brother, what did you expect to
+accomplish by fostering my belief that he was your lover?"
+
+"Mr. Dunbar, spare me this inquisition. Release me from the rack of
+suspense. Tell me why you set this snare, baited with Bertie's
+name?"
+
+"I must first end my own suspense. If you wish to find the man, you
+tell me is your brother, I will aid you only when you have bared
+your heart to me. You had some powerful incentive unrevealed. I will
+know exactly, why you made me suffer all these years, the pangs of a
+devouring jealousy, keener than a vulture's talons."
+
+With crimson cheeks, and shy, averted eyes, she sat trembling;
+unconsciously locking and unlocking her fingers. Her head drooped,
+and the voice was a low flutter:
+
+"If I had told you that the handkerchief was one I gave to my
+brother, because he fancied the gay border, and that the pipe
+belonged to my dear father, and if you had known that for more than
+a year before I went to X---no tidings from that brother had reached
+me, would you have kept my secret, when you saw my life laid in the
+scales held by the jury? Suppose they had condemned me to death? I
+expected that fate; but knowing the truth, would you have permitted
+the execution of that sentence?"
+
+"Certainly not; and you understand why I should never have allowed
+it."
+
+"I knew that in such an emergency I could not trust you."
+
+Five minutes passed, while he silently sought to unravel the web;
+and Beryl dared not meet his gaze.
+
+"You had some stronger motive, else you would have confessed all,
+when I started to Dakota. Anxiety for your brother's safety would
+have unsealed your lips. What actuated you then? I mean to know
+everything now."
+
+"Miss Gordon was my friend. She showed me kindness which I could
+never forget."
+
+"Miss Gordon is a very noble woman, kinder to all the world than to
+herself; but did gratitude to her involve sacrifice of me?"
+
+"You were betrothed. I owed it to her, to keep you loyal to your
+vows, as far as my power extended. I tried faithfully to guard her
+happiness, while endeavoring to shield my brother."
+
+"Knowing you had all my heart, you dared not let me learn that the
+rival existed only in my imagination? loyal soul! Did you deem it a
+kindness to aid in binding her to an unloving husband? Her womanly
+instincts saved her from that death in life; and years ago, she set
+us both free. She wears no willows, let me tell you; and those who
+should know best, think that before very long she will sail for
+Europe as wife of Governor Glenbeigh, the newly appointed minister
+to Z---, a brilliant position, which she will nobly grace. She will
+be happier as Glenbeigh's wife than I could possibly have made her;
+for he loves her as she deserves to be loved. So, for Miss Gordon's
+sake, you immolated me?"
+
+Only the pathetic piping of the lonely bird made answer.
+
+Like the premonitory thrill that creeps through forest leaves,
+before the coming burst of a tempest, he seemed to tremble slightly;
+his tone had a rising ring, and a dark flush stained his swarthy
+face, deepened the color in his brilliant eyes.
+
+"Oh, my white rose! A wonderful fragrance of hope steals into the
+air; a light breaks upon my dreary world that makes me giddy! Can it
+be possible that you--"
+
+He paused, and she covered her face with her hands.
+
+"Beryl, you are the only woman I have ever loved. You came suddenly
+into my life, as an irresistible incarnation of some fateful
+witchery that stole and fired my heart, subverted all my plans, made
+havoc of lifelong hopes, dominated my will, changed my nature;
+overturned the cool selfishness on the altar of my worship, and set
+up your own image in a temple, swept, garnished, and sanctified
+forever by your in-dwelling. You have cost me stinging humiliation,
+years of regret, of bitter disappointment; and the ceaselessly
+gnawing pain of a jealous dread that despite my vigilance, another
+man might some day possess you. I have money, influence,
+professional success, gratified ambition, and enviable social
+eminence; I have all but that which a man wants most, the one woman
+in the great wide world whom he loves truly, loves better than he
+loves himself; and who holds his heart in the hollow of her hand. I
+want my beautiful, proud, pure, stately white rose. I want my Beryl.
+I will have my own."
+
+He had risen, stood before her; took the hands that veiled her
+countenance, and drew her to her feet.
+
+"You have been loyal to parents, to brother, to friends, to duty; be
+loyal now to your own heart; answer me truly. What did you mean when
+you once said, with a mournful pathos I cannot forget: 'We love not
+always whom we should, or would, were choice permitted us?' You
+defied me that day, and prayed God to bless your lover; taunted me
+with words that have made days dreary, nights hideous: 'To whom I
+have given my whole deep heart, you shall never know.' Did you mean-
+-ah--will you tell me now?"
+
+She bent her head till it almost touched him, but no answer came.
+
+"You will not? I swear you shall; else I shall hope, believe, know
+beyond all doubt, that during these years, I have not been the only
+sufferer; and that loyal as was your soul, your rebel heart is as
+truly mine, as all my deathless love is surely yours."
+
+She tried to withdraw her hands; but his hold tightened, and
+infinite exultation rang in his voice.
+
+"My darling! My darling--you dare not deny it? I shall wear my white
+rose to make all the future sweet with a blessed love; but have you
+no word of assurance for my hungry ears? Is my darling too proud?"
+
+He raised her hands, laid her arms around his neck, and folded very
+close to his heart, the long coveted prize.
+
+"My Beryl, it was a stubborn battle, but Lennox Dunbar claims his
+own; and will hold her safe forever. Will you be loyal to your
+tyrant?"
+
+Was it a white or a crimson rose that hid its lovely petals against
+his shoulder, and whispered with lips that his kiss had rouged:
+
+"Have I ever been allowed a choice? Was I not foredoomed to be
+always at the mercy of Tiberius?"
+
+The little garden was growing dusky, the gilded mist waving its
+spectral banners over the thundering cataract, had whitened as the
+sun went down behind the wooded crest that barred the western sky
+line; and the shimmering gold on the heaving, whirling current of
+the Rapids faded to leaden tints, flecked with foam, as like a
+maddened suitor, parted by Goat Island from its beloved, it rushed
+to plunge into the abyss, where the silvery bridal veil shook her
+signal, and all the roaring gorge filled with purple gloom.
+
+Mr. Dunbar drew his companion's hand under his arm, and led her
+toward the Clifton House.
+
+"You and I have done with shadows. On the heights yonder, the sun
+still shines. Up there waits one, who will tell you that which he
+refuses to divulge to any one else. Ten days ago my agents notified
+me that a man was searching for Mrs. Brentano and her daughter Beryl
+in New York; and that he had gone to X---, where he spent several
+days in consultation with the Catholic priest. Singleton sent me a
+telegram, and I reached X---in time to accompany the stranger back
+to New York. To me he admits only, that he lives in Montreal; and is
+the bearer of a message, the import of which, sacred promises
+prevent him from revealing to any one but Miss Brentano. He is an
+elderly man, and so wary, no amount of dexterity can circumvent his
+caution. Very complex and inexplicable motives brought me here;
+chiefly the longing to see you, to learn your retreat, your mode of
+existence; and also the intention to exact one condition, before I
+made it possible for you to find the object of your search. When you
+had given me your promise not to marry him, it was my purpose to
+allow you one final meeting; and if you forfeited your compact, the
+dungeon and the gallows awaited him. Love makes women martyrs; they
+are the apostles of the gospel of altruism. Love revives in men of
+my stamp, the primeval and undifferentiated tiger. When I think of
+all that you have endured, of how nearly I lost you, my snowdrop, do
+you wonder I shall hasten to set you in the garden of my heart, and
+shelter your dear head from every chill wind of adversity?"
+
+They had passed through a gate, crossed a lawn, and reached a long,
+steep flight of steps leading straight up the face of a cliff, to
+the grounds attached to a villa. With her hand clasped tightly in
+his, Mr. Dunbar and Beryl slowly mounted the abrupt stairway, and
+when they gained the elevated terrace, a man who was walking up and
+down the sward, came quickly forward.
+
+Pressing her fingers tenderly, Mr. Dunbar released her hand.
+
+"When your interview is ended, come to me yonder at the side gate,
+where I have a carriage to take you over the bridge. Father Beckx,
+this is Miss Brentano. I leave her in your care."
+
+The sun was sending his last level shafts of light from the edge of
+the sky, when a man dressed in long black vestments, a raven-haired,
+raven-eyed, thin lipped and clean shaven personage, with a placid
+countenance as coldly irresponsive as a stone mask, sat down on the
+top step of the long stairs, beside the woman in gray, whose eager
+white face was turned to meet his, in breathless and mute
+expectancy.
+
+The lingering twilight held at bay slowly marching night; the sunset
+glory streamed up almost to the zenith in bands of amethyst and
+faint opaline green, like the far reaching plumes of an archangel's
+pinions beating the still, crystal air. Later, the vivid orange of
+the afterglow burned with a transient splendor, as the dying smile
+of a day that had gone to its eternal grave; and all the West was
+one vast evening primrose of palest gold sprinkled with star dust,
+when Beryl went slowly to join the figure pacing restlessly in front
+of the gate.
+
+Across the grassy lawn he came to meet her. In mute surrender she
+lifted her arms, laid her proud head, with its bared wealth of
+burnished bronze hair, down on his shoulder, and wept passionately.
+
+When he had placed her in the carriage, and held her close to his
+heart, with his dark cheek resting on hers, where tears still
+trickled, he whispered:
+
+"How much are you willing to tell me?"
+
+"Only that I must start at once on a long, lonely journey to a
+desolate retreat, in mountain solitudes; far away in the wilderness
+of the Northwest. Bertie is there; and I must see him once more."
+
+"How soon do you wish to start?"
+
+"Within the next three days."
+
+"You must wait one week. I cannot go before that time."
+
+"You--?"
+
+"Do you suppose I shall allow you to travel there without me? Do you
+imagine I shall ever lose sight of you, till the vows are uttered
+that make you my wife? You cannot see your brother's face, until you
+have first looked into your husband's. In one week I can arrange to
+go, to the ends of the earth if you will; but you will meet your
+brother only when you are Beryl Dunbar."
+
+"No--no! You forget, ah!--You forget. I have worn the penitentiary
+homespun, and the brand of the convict seared my fair name, scarred
+all my life. The wounds will heal, but time can never efface the
+hard lines of the cicatrice; and I could not bear to mar the lustre
+of your honored name by--"
+
+"Hush!--hush. It is ungenerous in you to wound me so sorely. When I
+remember the fiery furnace through which my wife walked unscorched,
+with such sublime and patient heroism, is it possible that I should
+forget whose rash hand, whose besotted idiocy consigned her to the
+awful ordeal? Out of the black shadow where I thrust you, sprang the
+halo that glorifies you. How often, in the silence of my sleepless
+nights, have I heard the echo of your wild, despairing cry: 'You
+have ruined my life!' Oh, my darling! If you withhold yourself, if
+you cast me away, you will indeed ruin mine. If you could realize
+how I wince at the recollection of your suffering, you would not
+cruelly remind me of my own accursed work."
+
+"If the soul of my brother be ransomed thereby, I shall thank you,
+even for all that X---cost me. The world knows now, that no
+suspicion clings to me; but, Mr. Dunbar, the disgrace blots forever
+the dear name I tried to shield; and my vindication only blackens
+Bertie."
+
+"The world will never know. Your sad secret shall be kept, and my
+name shall wrap you in ermine, and my love make your future redeem
+the past. Having found my darling, can I afford to run the risk of
+losing her? You belong to me, and I will not trust you out of my
+sight, until the law gives me a husband's claim. The mother of one
+of my oldest friends is boarding here in Niagara. I will commit you
+to her care until to-morrow; then some church will furnish an altar
+where you shall pledge me your loyalty."
+
+"Impossible! To-night a train will take me to Buffalo, where I can
+catch the express going West. There are reasons why I must make no
+delay; must hasten back to explain many things to the Matron of the
+Sisterhood, where I have dwelt so safely and so peacefully since I
+left X---."
+
+"Give me the reasons. 'Impossible' ne me dites jamais ce bete de
+mot!' Give me your reasons."
+
+His arm tightened around her.
+
+"Not now."
+
+"Then you shall not leave me. I will endure no more mysteries."
+
+"Mr. Dunbar, I wear the uniform of a celibate Order of Gray Sisters;
+and the matron trusted me in an unusual degree, when she consented
+that I should undertake this journey on a secret mission. I came to
+Niagara, as I supposed, to keep an appointment with my brother, and
+I met you. If I lingered one instant here, it might reflect some
+discredit upon this dear gray garb, which all hold so
+irreproachable. Sister Ruth trusted me. I cannot, I will not, even
+in the smallest iota, appear to betray her confidence; and I must go
+at once, and go as I came--alone. Bid the driver take me to the
+railway station, and you must remain in the carriage. I can have no
+escort. Your presence would subject me to criticism, and I will
+guard the 'gray' that so mercifully guarded me."
+
+"Beryl, are you trying to elude me?"
+
+"I am faithfully trying to keep my compact with Sister Ruth. Here is
+a card bearing the exact address of the 'Anchorage'. I am going
+there as quickly as possible, to make speedy arrangements for my
+long journey West, to that place almost within sound of the Pacific
+Ocean."
+
+"Put your hand in mine. Promise me before God, that you will not
+vanish from me; that you will not leave the 'Anchorage' until I come
+and see you there."
+
+"I promise; but time presses. I must hasten to find Bertie."
+
+"Do you know exactly where to go?"
+
+"Yes. I have minute directions written down."
+
+"Wait until I come. I trust you to keep your promise. Ah! after to-
+day, I could not bear to lose my 'Rosa Alba.' God make me more
+worthy of my loyal and beautiful darling. After all, not Alcestis,
+but Antigone!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+
+White and still, lay the world of the far Northwest, wrapped in
+peace as profound as that which reigned in primeval ages; when
+ancestral Nahuas, dragging their sleds across frozen Behring
+Straits, or cast amid other drift of the Japanese current upon the
+strange new Pacific shore, climbed the mountains, and fell on their
+faces before the sun, whose worshippers have sacrificed in all
+hemispheres.
+
+If civilization be the analogue of geologic accretion, how tortuous
+is the trend and dip of the ethnological strata, how abrupt the
+overlapping of myths. How many aeons divided the totem coyote from
+the she-wolf of Romulus and Remus? Which is the primitive and parent
+flame, the sacred fire of Pueblo Estufas, of Greek Prytaneum, of
+Roman Vesta, of Persian Atish-khudahs? If the Laurentian system be
+the oldest upheaval of land, and its "dawn animal" the first
+evolution of life that left fossil footprints, where are all the
+missing links in ethnology, which would save science that rejects
+Genesis--the paradox of peopling the oldest known continent by
+immigration from those incalculably younger?
+
+Winter had lagged, loath to set his snow shoes upon the lingering,
+diaphanous train of Indian Summer, but December was inexorable, and
+the livery of ice glittered everywhere in the mid-day sun.
+
+Along a well-worn bridle trail, now slippery as glass, winding
+around the base of crags, through narrow gorges that almost
+overarched, leaving a mere skylight of intense blue to mark the way,
+moved a party of four persons in single file, slowly ascending a
+steep spiral. In advance, mounted on a black pony, was a cowled
+monk, whose long, thin profile suggested that of Savonarola; and
+just behind him rode a Canadian half-breed guide, with the copperish
+red of aboriginal America on his high cheek bones, and the warm glow
+of sunny France in his keen black eyes. Guiding his horse with the
+left hand, his right led the dappled mustang belonging to the  third
+figure; a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing an overcoat that
+reached to his knees, who walked with his hand on the bridle bit of
+a white mule, whereon sat a woman, wrapped in silver fox furs from
+throat to feet. A cap or hood of the same soft, warm material was
+worn over her head, where a roll of dark auburn hair coiled at the
+back; and around her white temples clustered rings and  tendrils of
+the glossy bronze locks that contrasted so singularly with the black
+arch of the brows, and the fringe that darkened the luminous gray
+eyes.
+
+One month had elapsed since the Umilta Sisters of the "Anchorage",
+following Sister Ruth, walked in the star-lit dawn of a November
+day, to a neighboring church, and watched Doctor Grantlin lead down
+the aisle, a pale, trembling woman whose hand he placed in that of
+the man, waiting in front of the altar. The Sisterhood had listened
+to the solemn words of the marriage service, the interchange of
+vows, and the benediction, while priestly hands were laid tapon two
+bowed heads.
+
+When the rising sun greeted the husband and wife, they were speeding
+westward, on the first stage of their long journey.
+
+To-day, the quest would end; and into Beryl's face had crept the
+wistful yearning that was a reflection of that strange blending of
+patience and longing, which made her so beautiful in her husband's
+eyes; so strong in faith, so serene in waiting resignation. Suddenly
+the monk drew rein, threw up his drooping head, and listened. Clear
+and sweet as the silvery chime of bells ringing in happy dreams,
+floated through the crystal air the sound of the Angelus; and
+fainter and fainter fell the echoes, dying in immeasurable distance.
+Low bent the shaven head, and through brown, fingers stole the
+consecrated beads, while with closed eyes the prayers were uttered;
+and in the pause, the guide made the sign of the cross, and Mr.
+Dunbar instinctively took off his hat.
+
+"Six hours' steady climbing is a severe tax. Are you very tired?" he
+whispered, laying his arm around Beryl's waist, and lifting his
+brilliant eyes eloquent with an infinite tenderness.
+
+With one hand on his shoulder as he stood beside her, she leaned
+down until her lips touched the black hair tossed back from his
+forehead.
+
+"After waiting so many terrible years, what are a few more hours of
+suspense? Since I have you, can I ever again feel tired?"
+
+Behind them lay a dark undulating line, where oak and cedar had made
+their last stand on the upward march; nearer, the spectral ranks of
+stunted firs showed the outposts of forest advance; and a few feet
+from the narrow path, a perpendicular cliff formed one wall of a
+deep canon, where a glittering ribbon of water hurried to leap into
+the Pacific, ere pursuing Winter arrested and bound it with icy
+manacles to its stony bed. To the north dazzling white peaks cut
+strange solemn shapes, like silver cameos on a ground of indigo sky;
+and overhead, burnished lines of snow geese printed their glittering
+triangles on the paler blue of the zenith, as the winged host dipped
+southward.
+
+The monk moved on, and after a while his companions perceived that
+the way descended rapidly until they reached the face of a rock that
+rose straight and smooth as a wall of human masonry, and apparently
+barred further progress. Taking from his bosom the twisted section
+of a polished horn, only a finger's length, the cowled figure raised
+it to his lips, and blew three whistles, that ended in a rising
+inflection which waked all the wolfish pack of mountain echoes into
+fitful barking. Two moments later, an answering signal seemed to
+issue from the invisible jaws of Hades; a wild, quivering sepulchral
+cry, as of a monster half throttled. Twenty feet beyond the spot
+where the party had halted, a steep descent led them to a shelving
+canon, once the bed of a broad mountain torrent, whose course some
+seismic upheaval had diverted to other channels. Following for a few
+yards the sinuous stony way, worn here and there into smooth
+circular cavities like miniature wells, by the eddying of the
+ancient current and the grinding of pebbles, the travellers turned a
+sharp angle, and found themselves at the mouth of Tartarus.
+
+The force of the stream had originally cut a low arch in its egress,
+which human needs and ingenuity had broadened, heightened and closed
+by heavy iron bars, slipped into stone slots. Behind this gateway
+glimmered a faint light that brightened into a red star; and soon, a
+figure clad in the long, black monastic gown, and bearing a huge
+torch of blazing pitch pine, emerged from the bowels of the earth.
+There was the rattle of a chain, the creak of a pulley, and the bars
+were lowered.
+
+So vividly did the scene recall that black, stormy night in
+February, when Mr. Dunbar had seen the lantern of the gaoler flash
+through the penitentiary gates closing on the young convict, that he
+drew his breath now through clinched teeth, and quickly laid his
+hand upon that of his wife, which grasped the bridle resting upon
+the neck of her mule. Silently the procession filed in, and with
+little delay the torch bearer replaced the bars, advanced to the
+head of the column, and with long, swift strides led the way down a
+wide tunnel. Between the monks no salutation was exchanged; and only
+the ringing tramp of the horses' feet on the stone pavement, jarred
+the profound stillness. The lurid glare of the torch danced on the
+rocky vault, and the shadows projected by men and beasts were
+gigantic and grotesque. Very soon a gray twilight stole to meet
+them; an arch of light like a window opening into heaven brightened,
+glared, and the party emerged into a courtyard that seemed an
+entrance to some vast amphitheatre.
+
+Opposite the mouth of the tunnel, and distant perhaps two hundred
+yards, lay an oval lake, bordered on the right by a valley running
+southeast, while its northern shore rose abruptly in a parapet of
+rock, that patient cloistered workmen had cut into broad terraces;
+and upon which opened rows of cells excavated from the mountain
+side, and resembling magnified swallow nests, or a huge petrified
+honeycomb sliced vertically.
+
+A legend so hoary, that "the memory of man runneth not to the
+contrary", had assigned the outlines of this stone cutting to that
+dim dawn of primeval tribal life, which left its later traces in the
+Watch Tower of the Mancos, the Casa del Eco, and the "niche stairway
+of the Hovenweep".
+
+In the slow deposition of the human strata, cliff dwellers
+disappeared beneath predatory, nomadic modern savages, who, hunting
+and fishing in this lonely fastness, had increased its natural
+fortifications, and made it an impregnable depot of supplies, until
+Hudson Bay trappers wrenched it from their grasp, and appropriated
+it as a peltry magazine. To the dynasty of traders had succeeded the
+spiritual rule of a Jesuit Mission; then miners kindled camp fires
+in the deserted excavations, as  they probed the mountain for ores;
+and more recently the noiseless feet of a band of holy celibates
+belonging to an austere Order, went up and down the face of the
+cliff, with cross and bell and incense exorcising haunting
+aboriginal spectres; while holy water sprinkled the uncanny, dismal
+precincts of a circular room hollowed behind and beneath all other
+apartments, the monumental, sacred Estufa.
+
+At a signal from the monk who had escorted them, Mr. Dunbar lifted
+Beryl from her saddle, and hand in hand they followed him across the
+courtyard, mounted a flight of steps cut in the rock, and passed
+into a low, dim room, where the ceiling was crossed in squares by
+heavy, red cedar beams. The floor was paved with diamond-shaped
+slabs of purple slate, the whitewashed wall adorned with colored
+lithographs of the Passion; and above the cavernous chimney arch,
+where cedar logs blazed, ran the inscription: "Otiositas inimica est
+animae."
+
+Noiselessly as the wings of a huge bat, a leathern screen was folded
+back from the corner of the room, and a venerable man advanced from
+the gloom.
+
+A fringe of white hair surrounded his head like a laurel chaplet in
+old statues, and the heavy, straight brows that almost met across
+the nose, hung as snowflakes over the intensely black eyes as
+glowing as lamps set in the sockets of an ivory image. Scholarly and
+magnetic as Abelard, with a certain innate proud poise of the head
+and shoulders, that ill accorded with the Carlo-Borromeo expression
+of seraphic serenity and meekness, set like a seal on the large
+square mouth, he looked a veritable type of the ecclesiastical
+cenobites who, since the days of Pachomius at Tabennae, have made
+their hearts altars of the Triple Vows, and girdled the globe with a
+cable of scholastic mysticism. The pale, shrunken hand he laid on
+the black serge that covered his breast, was delicate as a woman's,
+and checkered with knotted lines where the blood crept feebly.
+
+Bowing low, he spoke in a carefully modulated voice, deep and
+resonant as a bass viol:
+
+"Welcome to such hospitality as our poverty permits. A cipher
+telegram forwarded from the nearest station, sixty miles hence,
+prepared us to expect a newly-married woman searching for a man,
+known to the secular world as Robert Luke Brentano. You claim to be
+his nearest blood relative?"
+
+"I am his sister. How is he?"
+
+"Alive, but sinking fast; sustained beyond all human calculation by
+the hope of seeing you. You have not come one moment too soon. The
+man you seek is only a lay brother here. The rules of our Order
+forbid the admission of women to the cloister, but in articulo
+mortis! can I deny him now the confession he wishes to offer you?
+Our holy ordinances have done their divine work; the last rites of
+the Church have soothed and consecrated the heart of Brother Luke,
+and an hour ago, extreme unction was administered. Follow me."
+
+"He knows that I am coming?" asked Beryl, raising her white, tear-
+drenched face from her husband's shoulder.
+
+"He knows; and holds death back to see you. His self-imposed penance
+makes him steadfastly refuse the comparative comfort of our meagre
+infirmary, and it is his wish to die, where he has spent so many
+nights in penitential prayer. For several days, the paralysis of
+years has been gradually loosening its fetters, and this morning,
+the distressing and ghastly distortion of one side of his face
+almost disappeared. Though his voice is well nigh gone, it returns
+fitfully, and his strength seems supernatural. Fearing that you
+might not arrive in time, I have written down his last confession,
+and here commit it to you."
+
+He placed a roll of paper in her hand, and drawing his cowl over his
+head, led them up an easy stairway cut in the stone, to a second
+terrace four feet wide, that projected as a roof beyond the lower
+tier of cells.
+
+A hundred feet below lay the lakelet, shining as a mirror; to the
+southeast stretched a valley bounded by buttes crowned with cedar,
+and in the undulating field, locked from fierce winds, cattle and
+goats sunned themselves, where in summer time grain waved, fruit
+ripened, and bees hummed.
+
+From the parapet of a low wall facing west, rose a round tower
+heavily buttressed, where swung the bell; and through an open arch
+in the side, under the uplifted cross, the eye swept on and on, over
+a world of snowy peaks, dark canons, mountain minarets girding the
+northern horizon; and far, far away a scintillating thread of white
+fire marked where the Pacific smiled behind the fiords that
+channelled the rock-ribbed coast.
+
+In that still, cold and brilliant atmosphere, how dazzling the snow
+blink, how sharp the outline of projected shadows, how close the
+bending heavens seemed; but to the yearning soul of Beryl, the
+silent, solemn sublimity of the mighty panorama made no appeal.
+
+Through slowly dripping tears she saw only the spectral flitting of
+her mother's sad face, as in their last interview she had committed
+the soul of the son to the guardianship of the daughter.
+
+The monk paused, and pointed to the third cell from the spot where
+he stood.
+
+"It is but a step farther. Yonder, where the skull is set over the
+entrance."
+
+"I will wait here," said Mr. Dunbar, relinquishing with a tight
+pressure, his wife's cold hand.
+
+"No, come. Are we not one?"
+
+She hurried along the terrace, and reached the low open doorway
+fronting the South, where the sunshine streamed in like God's smile
+of forgiveness.
+
+On the stone floor was a straw pallet covered with coarse brown
+blankets, whereon, half propped by one elbow, with head against the
+gray rocky wall, lay the emaciated wreck of a man, whose pallid face
+might have been mistaken for that of a corpse, but for the
+superhuman splendor of the wide, deep brown eyes.
+
+Beryl sprang into the cave-like recess, and fell on her knees. She
+snatched him to her heart, laid his head on her shoulder.
+
+"Bertie! My darling! my darling!--"
+
+He tried to raise one arm to her neck, but it fell back. She lifted
+it, held it close, and face to face with her lips on his, she broke
+into passionate sobbing, rocking herself to and fro, in the tempest
+of grief.
+
+"Give me, give--me--air--" He struggled for breath, which her tight
+clasp denied him; and for some minutes he panted, while Mr. Dunbar
+fanned him with his hat. Then the heaving chest grew more quiet, and
+after a moment, his eyes lighted with a happy smile as they fastened
+on Beryl's face, bent over him.
+
+"Gigina, sweet, faithful sister, it is almost heaven to see you once
+more. God is good, even to me."
+
+"If I could have found you sooner! All these dreadful years I have
+lived at God's feet--with one prayer: let me help my Bertie, let me
+see my brother's face," moaned Beryl, pressing her lips to the
+clammy, fleshless hand she held against her throat.
+
+"I was too unworthy. I dreaded your pure eyes, and mother's, as I
+would an accusing angel's. I did not know, then, that mother was
+already one of the Beatified. I know now, that neither life nor
+death, nor sin nor shame, nor the brand of disgrace can change
+mother's love; for I see her to-day, smiling at the door, beckoning
+me to follow where the sun shines forever. My sainted mother."
+
+"Her last breath was a blessing for you. See, Bertie! this was her
+wedding ring. Her final message was, 'Give this to my darling!' Be
+comforted, dear Bertie, she loved you even to the end--supremely.
+You were her idol in death as in life. Our father's ring was the
+most sacred relic she owned, and she left it to you."
+
+She attempted to place the gold band on one of his fingers, but he
+closed that hand, and the dark eyes so like his mother's, were for
+an instant dimmed by tears.
+
+"Keep it; no sin of theft soils your hands. You can wear it without
+a blush. You never robbed an old man of his gold. That was my crime,
+I am a thief."
+
+"Our God sees you have repented bitterly; and He has pardoned your
+sins for His dear Son's sake. Tell me, Bertie, have you made your
+eternal salvation sure? Are you, in your soul, at peace with God?"
+
+"At perfect peace. I want to die, because now I am no longer afraid
+to meet Him, who forgives even thieves. Gigi, wait a little--"
+
+He seemed to make a desperate effort to rally his strength, and the
+thin, fine nostril flared, in the battle for breath.
+
+"There has been a terrible mistake, and they made you suffer for
+what they imagined happened. When I found I had only a few months to
+live, I wrote to Father Beckx, whom I had known in Montreal, and
+asked him to tell mother where I was. I never knew till he went to
+X---and wrote us about the trial, that you were suspected and
+punished for a crime that was never committed. I thought you and
+mother were safe in New York, all those years, and I knew that you
+would be sure to take care of her. I have it all written down--and I
+can't tell you now--but I want to look straight into your dear eyes-
+-my brave sister, my loving sister--and let you learn first from me-
+-the reward you have won--your Bertie is not a murderer. I did take
+the money from the vault which was wide open, when first I saw it. I
+did steal and destroy the will, which I thought unjustly robbed us
+all of our right to the Darrington estate, but that was my sole
+offence. I am a thief, before God and man, but there is no more
+stain of blood on my hands than on yours. General Darrington was not
+murdered. He died by the hand of God alone--"
+
+A bluish shadow settled around his parted lips, and he panted.
+
+Mr. Dunbar raised him, fanned him, rested his head more comfortably
+against his sister's shoulder; and again he looked intently into her
+eyes, as though his soul, plumed for departure, must right itself in
+the presence of hers, before the final flight.
+
+"He struck me with the andiron, and broke my wrist here--then before
+I ever touched him--as he raised it to assault me the second time--
+there came an awful blinding glare--the world was wrapped in a blue
+fire--and God struck us both down. When I became conscious, my
+senses were all stunned, but after a while I knew I was lying on the
+floor, with a cold hand resting like lead on my face. I got up; the
+figure didn't move, and I supposed that like myself he was stunned
+by the shock. As I passed a mirror on my way to the window--I saw
+myself--for the lamp was burning bright. God had branded me a thief.
+Do you see here--drawn--paralyzed, oh, Gina! All these years I have
+worn the dark streak, and one eye was blind, one ear stone deaf. I
+was a walking shadow of my own sin; horrible to look upon--and I
+fled to avoid the gaze of my race. Somewhere, in Illinois I think, I
+heard two men on a train speak of a large reward offered for the
+recovery of Gen'l Darrington's will, which had been stolen by one of
+his heirs, whom the police were hunting. I was branded--and on my
+breast here was printed the face of the dead man--for he had torn my
+shirt open as he seized me with one hand, and struck me with the
+other. I hid in mines, crossed the plains, secreted myself in a bee
+ranche. Then the Canadian railroad was partly built, and I joined
+the grading party and worked--until the curse of my sin was more
+than I could bear. I heard of the holy Brothers here, made my last
+journey, confessed my theft, and entered on my penance. Gina,
+General Darrington was killed instantly by the lightning."
+
+As the burden Beryl had long borne slipped suddenly from her heart,
+the joy of release from blood-stain was so unexpected, so intense,
+that her face blanched to a deadly pallor, and the glad eyes she
+lifted to her husband's shone as those of an angel.
+
+"Bertie--Bertie--" Words failed her. She could only kiss the wasted
+cold hands that were innocent of bloodshed.
+
+After some moments, the dying man said almost in a whisper:
+
+"I never knew you were punished for my sin, until it was too late to
+save you, but God's witness cleared your pure name. The lightning
+that scorched me, printed its testimony to set you free. My sister--
+my sister--God will surely recompense your faithful--" The voice
+died in a quivering gurgle.
+
+"I have my reward, dear Bertie. Oh, how much more than I deserve! I
+have you in my arms, innocent of murder, thank God! thank God! I
+have the blessed absurance that your pardoned soul goes to meet
+mother's in Eternal Peace; and to secure that, I would have
+willingly died an ignominious death. It was through the fiery flames
+of prison, and trial and convict shame, that God led me to the most
+precious crown any woman ever wore, my husband's confidence and
+love. Only behind dungeon bars could I have won my husband's heart,
+which holds for me the whole wide world of earthly peace and hope.
+For your sin, you have suffered. Its consequences to others from the
+destruction of the will, have been averted by the prompt transfer of
+all the property which Gen'l Darrington left, to his chosen heir
+Prince. Pecuniarily no one was injured by your act. Dear Bertie--
+Bertie, are you listening?"
+
+He smiled but made no answer, and his eyes had a strained and
+exultant expression. After a long silence, he cried huskily:
+
+"The curse is taken away--out of my blinded eye I see--Agnus Dei qui
+tollis peccata mundi--"
+
+A slight spasm shook him, and feeling his cheek grow colder, Beryl
+threw off the fur cloak, and folded it closely around the wasted
+body which leaned heavily against her. The sunny short rings of hair
+clung to his sunken, blue veined temples, where cold drops gathered;
+and a gray seal was set about the wan lips that writhed in the fight
+for breath.
+
+"Bertie, kiss me--tell me you are not afraid."
+
+She fancied he nestled his face closer, but the wide eyes were fixed
+on the golden light that was fading fast across the narrow doorway.
+
+Pressing her quivering lips to his, she sobbed:
+
+"Tell mother, her little girl was faithful--"
+
+Another spasm shook the form, and after a little while, the eyes
+closed; the panting ceased, and the tired breath was drawn in long,
+shuddering sighs.
+
+Mr. Dunbar beckoned to the cowled form who, rosary in hand, paced
+the terrace, and the two laid the dying man back on his pallet of
+straw.
+
+Fainter grew the slow breath, and the voice of the monk rolled
+through the silence, like the tremolo swell of an organ:
+
+"Delicta juventutis, et ignorantias ejus, quoesumus, ne memineris,
+Domine; sed secundum magnam misericordiam tuam memor esto illius in
+gloria claritatis tuoe."
+
+On the stone floor Beryl knelt, with her brother's icy hand clasped
+against her cheek, and as she watched, the twitching of the muscles
+ceased, the lips so long distorted, took on their old curves of
+beauty. A marble pallor blanched the dark stain of the branded
+cheek, and the Bertie of innocent youth came slowly out of the long
+eclipse.
+
+Death, God's most tender angel, laid her divine lips upon the scars
+of sin, that vanished at her touch; drew her white fingers across
+the lines and shadows of suffering time, and leaving the halo of
+eternal peace upon the frozen features, gave back to Beryl her
+beautiful Bertie of old.
+
+The sun was setting; and far away the ice domes and minarets of
+immemorial mountains took on the burnished similitude of the New
+Jerusalem, which only the exiled saw from lonely Patmos.
+
+Lennox Dunbar lifted his wife from the form of the sleeper, whose
+ransomed soul had entered early into Rest; and folded her tenderly
+to the heart that henceforth was her refuge from all earthly woes.
+
+At midnight, the brooding silence of the snow-hooded solitude was
+broken by the tolling of the monastery bell; and while all the
+mountain echoes responded to the slow knell for the departed soul,
+there rose from the chapel under the cliffs, the solemn chant of the
+monks for their dead:
+
+"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis."
+
+"Give them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon
+them."
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's At the Mercy of Tiberius, by Augusta Evans Wilson
+
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