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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7697.txt b/7697.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6699e8a --- /dev/null +++ b/7697.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2061 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook A Strange Story, by E. B. Lytton, Volume 6. +#125 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: A Strange Story, Volume 6. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7697] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 22, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGE STORY, LYTTON, V6 *** + + +This eBook was produced by Andrew Heath +and David Widger + + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + +There is an instance of the absorbing tyranny of every-day life which must +have struck all such of my readers as have ever experienced one of those +portents which are so at variance with every-day life, that the ordinary +epithet bestowed on them is "supernatural." + +And be my readers few or many, there will be no small proportion of them +to whom once, at least, in the course of their existence, a something +strange and eerie has occurred,--a something which perplexed and baffled +rational conjecture, and struck on those chords which vibrate to +superstition. It may have been only a dream unaccountably verified,--an +undefinable presentiment or forewarning; but up from such slighter and +vaguer tokens of the realm of marvel, up to the portents of ghostly +apparitions or haunted chambers, I believe that the greater number of +persons arrived at middle age, however instructed the class, however +civilized the land, however sceptical the period, to which they belong, +have either in themselves experienced, or heard recorded by intimate +associates whose veracity they accept as indisputable in all ordinary +transactions of life, phenomena which are not to be solved by the wit that +mocks them, nor, perhaps, always and entirely, to the contentment of the +reason or the philosophy that explains them away. Such phenomena, I say, +are infinitely more numerous than would appear from the instances +currently quoted and dismissed with a jest; for few of those who have +witnessed them are disposed to own it, and they who only hear of them +through others, however trustworthy, would not impugn their character for +common-sense by professing a belief to which common-sense is a merciless +persecutor. But he who reads my assertion in the quiet of his own room, +will perhaps pause, ransack his memory, and find there, in some dark +corner which he excludes from "the babbling and remorseless day," a pale +recollection that proves the assertion not untrue. + +And it is, I say, an instance of the absorbing tyranny of everyday life, +that whenever some such startling incident disturbs its regular tenor of +thought and occupation, that same every-day life hastens to bury in its +sands the object which has troubled its surface; the more unaccountable, +the more prodigious, has been the phenomenon which has scared and +astounded us, the more, with involuntary effort, the mind seeks to rid +itself of an enigma which might disease the reason that tries to solve it. +We go about our mundane business with renewed avidity; we feel the +necessity of proving to ourselves that we are still sober, practical men, +and refuse to be unfitted for the world which we know, by unsolicited +visitations from worlds into which every glimpse is soon lost amid +shadows. And it amazes us to think how soon such incidents, though not +actually forgotten, though they can be recalled--and recalled too vividly +for health--at our will, are nevertheless thrust, as it were, out of the +mind's sight as we cast into lumber-rooms the crutches and splints that +remind us of a broken limb which has recovered its strength and tone. It +is a felicitous peculiarity in our organization, which all members of my +profession will have noticed, how soon, when a bodily pain is once passed, +it becomes erased from the recollection,--how soon and how invariably the +mind refuses to linger over and recall it. No man freed an hour before +from a raging toothache, the rack of a neuralgia, seats himself in his +armchair to recollect and ponder upon the anguish he has undergone. It is +the same with certain afflictions of the mind,--not with those that strike +on our affections, or blast our fortunes, overshadowing our whole future +with a sense of loss; but where a trouble or calamity has been an +accident, an episode in our wonted life, where it affects ourselves alone, +where it is attended with a sense of shame and humiliation, where the pain +of recalling it seems idle, and if indulged would almost madden +us,--agonies of that kind we do not brood over as we do over the death or +falsehood of beloved friends, or the train of events by which we are +reduced from wealth to penury. No one, for instance, who has escaped from +a shipwreck, from the brink of a precipice, from the jaws of a tiger, +spends his days and nights in reviving his terrors past, re-imagining +dangers not to occur again, or, if they do occur, from which the +experience undergone can suggest no additional safeguards. The current of +our life, indeed, like that of the rivers, is most rapid in the midmost +channel, where all streams are alike comparatively slow in the depth and +along the shores in which each life, as each river, has a character +peculiar to itself. And hence, those who would sail with the tide of the +world, as those who sail with the tide of a river, hasten to take the +middle of the stream, as those who sail against the tide are found +clinging to the shore. I returned to my habitual duties and avocations +with renewed energy; I did not suffer my thoughts to dwell on the dreary +wonders that had haunted me, from the evening I first met Sir Philip +Derval to the morning on which I had quitted the house of his heir; +whether realities or hallucinations, no guess of mine could unravel such +marvels, and no prudence of mine guard me against their repetition. But I +had no fear that they would be repeated, any more than the man who had +gone through shipwreck, or the hairbreadth escape from a fall down a +glacier, fears again to be found in a similar peril. Margrave had +departed, whither I knew not, and, with his departure, ceased all sense of +his influence. A certain calm within me, a tranquillizing feeling of +relief, seemed to me like a pledge of permanent delivery. + +But that which did accompany and haunt me, through all my occupations and +pursuits, was the melancholy remembrance of the love I had lost in Lilian. +I heard from Mrs. Ashleigh, who still frequently visited me, that her +daughter seemed much in the same quiet state of mind,--perfectly +reconciled to our separation, seldom mentioning my name, if mentioning +it, with indifference; the only thing remarkable in her state was her +aversion to all society, and a kind of lethargy that would come over her, +often in the daytime. She would suddenly fall into sleep and so remain +for hours, but a sleep that seemed very serene and tranquil, and from +which she woke of herself. She kept much within her own room, and always +retired to it when visitors were announced. + +Mrs. Ashleigh began reluctantly to relinquish the persuasion she had so +long and so obstinately maintained, that this state of feeling towards +myself--and, indeed, this general change in Lilian--was but temporary and +abnormal; she began to allow that it was best to drop all thoughts ofa +renewed engagement,--a future union. I proposed to see Lilian in her +presence and in my professional capacity; perhaps some physical cause, +especially for this lethargy, might be detected and removed. Mrs. +Ashleigh owned to me that the idea had occurred to herself: she had +sounded Lilian upon it: but her daughter had so resolutely opposed +it,--had said with so quiet a firmness "that all being over between us, a +visit from me would be unwelcome and painful,"--that Mrs. Ashleigh felt +that an interview thus deprecated would only confirm estrangement. One +day, in calling, she asked my advice whether it would not be better to try +the effect of change of air and scene, and, in some other place, some +other medical opinion might be taken? I approved of this suggestion with +unspeakable sadness. + +"And," said Mrs. Ashleigh, shedding tears, "if that experiment prove +unsuccessful, I will write and let you know; and we must then consider +what to say to the world as a reason why the marriage is broken off. I +can render this more easy by staying away. I will not return to L---- +till the matter has ceased to be the topic of talk, and at a distance any +excuse will be less questioned and seem more natural. But +still--still--let us hope still." + +"Have you one ground for hope?" + +"Perhaps so; but you will think it very frail and fallacious." + +"Name it, and let me judge." + +"One night--in which you were on a visit to Derval Court--" + +"Ay, that night." + +"Lilian woke me by a loud cry (she sleeps in the next room to me, and the +door was left open); I hastened to her bedside in alarm; she was asleep, +but appeared extremely agitated and convulsed. She kept calling on your +name in a tone of passionate fondness, but as if in great terror. She +cried, 'Do not go, Allen--do not go--you know not what you brave!--what +you do!' Then she rose in her bed, clasping her hands. Her face was set +and rigid; I tried to awake her, but could not. After a little time, she +breathed a deep sigh, and murmured, 'Allen, Allen! dear love! did you not +hear, did you not see me? What could thus baffle matter and traverse +space but love and soul? Can you still doubt me, Allen?--doubt that I +love you now, shall love you evermore?--yonder, yonder, as here below?' +She then sank back on her pillow, weeping, and then I woke her." + +"And what did she say on waking?" + +"She did not remember what she had dreamed, except that she had passed +through some great terror; but added, with a vague smile, 'It is over, and +I feel happy now.' Then she turned round and fell asleep again, but +quietly as a child, the tears dried, the smile resting." + +"Go, my dear friend, go; take Lilian away from this place as soon as you +can; divert her mind with fresh scenes. I hope!--I do hope! Let me know +where you fix yourself. I will seize a holiday,--I need one; I will +arrange as to my patients; I will come to the same place; she need not +know of it, but I must be by to watch, to hear your news of her. Heaven +bless you for what you have said! I hope!--I do hope!" + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + +Some days after, I received a few lines from Mrs. Ashleigh. Her +arrangements for departure were made. They were to start the next +morning. She had fixed on going into the north of Devonshire, and staying +some weeks either at Ilfracombe or Lynton, whichever place Lilian +preferred. She would write as soon as they were settled. + +I was up at my usual early hour the next morning. I resolved to go out +towards Mrs. Ashleigh's house, and watch, unnoticed, where I might, +perhaps, catch a glimpse of Lilian as the carriage that would convey her +to the railway passed my hiding-place. + +I was looking impatiently at the clock; it was yet two hours before the +train by which Mrs. Ashleigh proposed to leave. A loud ring at my bell! +I opened the door. Mrs. Ashleigh rushed in, falling on my breast. + +"Lilian! Lilian!" + +"Heavens! What has happened?" + +"She has left! she is gone,--gone away! Oh, Allen, how?--whither? +Advise me. What is to be done?" + +"Come in--compose yourself--tell me all,--clearly, quickly. Lilian +gone,--gone away? Impossible! She must be hid somewhere in the +house,--the garden; she, perhaps, did not like the journey. She may have +crept away to some young friend's house. But I talk when you should talk: +tell me all." + +Little enough to tell! Lilian had seemed unusually cheerful the night +before, and pleased at the thought of the excursion. Mother and daughter +retired to rest early: Mrs. Ashleigh saw Lilian sleeping quietly before +she herself went to bed. She woke betimes in the morning, dressed +herself, went into the next room to call Lilian--Lilian was not there. No +suspicion of flight occurred to her. Perhaps her daughter might be up +already, and gone downstairs, remembering something she might wish to pack +and take with her on the journey. Mrs. Ashleigh was confirmed in this +idea when she noticed that her own room door was left open. She went +downstairs, met a maidservant in the hall, who told her, with alarm and +surprise, that both the street and garden doors were found unclosed. No +one had seen Lilian. Mrs. Ashleigh now became seriously uneasy. On +remounting to her daughter's room, she missed Lilian's bonnet and mantle. +The house and garden were both searched in vain. There could be no doubt +that Lilian had gone,--must have stolen noiselessly at night through her +mother's room, and let herself out of the house and through the garden. + +"Do you think she could have received any letter, any message, any visitor +unknown to you?" + +"I cannot think it. Why do you ask? Oh, Allen, you do not believe there +is any accomplice in this disappearance! No, you do not believe it. But +my child's honour! What will the world think?" + +Not for the world cared I at that moment. I could think only of Lilian, +and without one suspicion that imputed blame to her. + +"Be quiet, be silent; perhaps she has gone on some visit and will return. +Meanwhile, leave inquiry to me." + + + + +CHAPTER LV. + +It seemed incredible that Lilian could wander far without being observed. +I soon ascertained that she had not gone away by the railway--by any +public conveyance--had hired no carriage; she must therefore be still in +the town, or have left it on foot. The greater part of the day was +consumed in unsuccessful inquiries, and faint hopes that she would return; +meanwhile the news of her disappearance had spread: how could such news +fail to do so? + +An acquaintance of mine met me under the archway of Monks' Gate. He wrung +my hand and looked at me with great compassion. + +"I fear," said he, "that we were all deceived in that young Margrave. He +seemed so well conducted, in spite of his lively manners. But--" + +"But what?" + +"Mrs. Ashleigh was, perhaps, imprudent to admit him into her house so +familiarly. He was certainly very handsome. Young ladies will be +romantic." + +"How dare you, sir!" I cried, choked with rage. "And without any +colouring to so calumnious a suggestion! Margrave has not been in the +town for many days. No one knows even where he is." + +"Oh, yes, it is known where he is. He wrote to order the effects which he +had left here to be sent to Penrith." + +"When?" + +"The letter arrived the day before yesterday. I happened to be calling at +the house where he last lodged, when at L----, the house opposite Mrs. +Ashleigh's garden. No doubt the servants in both houses gossip with each +other. Miss Ashleigh could scarcely fail to hear of Mr. Margrave's +address from her maid; and since servants will exchange gossip, they may +also convey letters. Pardon me, you know I am your friend." + +"Not from the moment you breathe a word against my betrothed wife," said +I, fiercely. + +I wrenched myself from the clasp of the man's hand, but his words still +rang in my ears. I mounted my horse; I rode into the adjoining suburbs, +the neighbouring villages; there, however, I learned nothing, till, just +at nightfall, in a hamlet about ten miles from L----, a labourer declared +he had seen a young lady dressed as I described, who passed by him in a +path through the fields a little before noon; that he was surprised to see +one so young, so well dressed, and a stranger to the neighbourhood (for he +knew by sight the ladies of the few families scattered around) walking +alone; that as he stepped out of the path to make way for her, he looked +hard fnto her face, and she did not heed him,--seemed to gaze right before +her, into space. If her expression had been less quiet and gentle, he +should have thought, he could scarcely say why, that she was not quite +right in her mind; there was a strange unconscious stare in her eyes, as +if she were walking in her sleep. Her pace was very steady,--neither +quick nor slow. He had watched her till she passed out of sight, amidst a +wood through which the path wound its way to a village at some distance. + +I followed up this clew. I arrived at the village to which my informant +directed me, but night had set in. Most of the houses were closed, so I +could glean no further information from the cottages or at the inn. But +the police superintendent of the district lived in the village, and to him +I gave instructions which I had not given, and, indeed, would have been +disinclined to give, to the police at L----. He was intelligent and +kindly; he promised to communicate at once with the different +police-stations for miles round, and with all delicacy and privacy. It +was not probable that Lilian could have wandered in one day much farther +than the place at which I then was; it was scarcely to be conceived that +she could baffle my pursuit and the practised skill of the police. I +rested but a few hours, at a small public-house, and was on horseback +again at dawn. A little after sunrise I again heard of the wanderer. At +a lonely cottage, by a brick-kiln, in the midst of a wide common, she had +stopped the previous evening, and asked for a draught of milk. The woman +who gave it to her inquired if she had lost her way. She said "No;" and, +only tarrying a few minutes, had gone across the common; and the woman +supposed she was a visitor at a gentleman's house which was at the farther +end of the waste, for the path she took led to no town, no village. It +occurred to me then that Lilian avoided all high-roads, all places, even +the humblest, where men congregated together. But where could she have +passed the night? Not to fatigue the reader with the fruitless result of +frequent inquiries, I will but say that at the end of the second day I had +succeeded in ascertaining that I was still on her track; and though I had +ridden to and fro nearly double the distance--coming back again to places +I had left behind--it was at the distance of forty miles from L---- that I +last heard of her that second day. She had been sitting alone by a little +brook only an hour before. I was led to the very spot by a woodman--it +was at the hour of twilight when he beheld her; she was leaning her face +on her hand, and seemed weary. He spoke to her; she did not answer, but +rose and resumed her way along the banks of the streamlet. That night I +put up at no inn; I followed the course of the brook for miles, then +struck into every path that I could conceive her to have taken,--in vain. +Thus I consumed the night on foot, tying my horse to a tree, for he was +tired out, and returning to him at sunrise. At noon, the third day, I +again heard of her, and in a remote, savage part of the country. The +features of the landscape were changed; there was little foliage and +little culture, but the ground was broken into moulds and hollows, and +covered with patches of heath and stunted brushwood. She had been seen by +a shepherd, and he made the same observation as the first who had guided +me on her track,--she looked to him "like some one walking in her sleep." +An hour or two later, in a dell, amongst the furze-bushes, I chanced on a +knot of ribbon. I recognized the colour Lilian habitually wore; I felt +certain that the ribbon was hers. Calculating the utmost speed I could +ascribe to her, she could not be far off, yet still I failed to discover +her. The scene now was as solitary as a desert. I met no one on my way. +At length, a little after sunset, I found myself in view of the sea. A +small town nestled below the cliffs, on which I was guiding my weary +horse. I entered the town, and while my horse was baiting went in search +of the resident policeman. The information I had directed to be sent +round the country had reached him; he had acted on it, but without result. +I was surprised to hear him address me by name, and looking at him more +narrowly, I recognized him for the policeman Waby. This young man had +always expressed so grateful a sense of my attendance on his sister, and +had, indeed, so notably evinced his gratitude in prosecuting with Margrave +the inquiries which terminated in the discovery of Sir Philip Derval's +murderer, that I confided to him the name of the wanderer, of which he had +not been previously informed; but which it would be, indeed, impossible to +conceal from him should the search in which his aid was asked prove +successful,--as he knew Miss Ashleigh by sight. His face immediately +became thoughtful. He paused a minute or two, and then said,-- + +"I think I have it, but I do not like to say; I may pain you, sir." + +"Not by confidence; you pain me by concealment." + +The man hesitated still: I encouraged him, and then he spoke out frankly. + +"Sir, did you never think it strange that Mr. Margrave should move from +his handsome rooms in the hotel to a somewhat uncomfortable lodging, from +the window of which he could look down on Mrs. Ashleigh's garden? I have +seen him at night in the balcony of that window, and when I noticed him +going so frequently into Mrs. Ashleigh's house during your unjust +detention, I own, sir, I felt for you--" + +"Nonsense! Mr. Margrave went to Mrs. Ashleigh's house as my friend. He +has left L---- weeks ago. What has all this to do with--" + +"Patience, sir; hear me out. I was sent from L---- to this station (on +promotion, sir) a fortnight since last Friday, for there has been a good +deal of crime hereabouts; it is a bad neighbourhood, and full of +smugglers. Some days ago, in watching quietly near a lonely house, of +which the owner is a suspicious character down in my books, I saw, to my +amazement, Mr. Margrave come out of that house,--come out of a private +door in it, which belongs to a part of the building not inhabited by the +owner, but which used formerly, when the house was a sort of inn, to be +let to night lodgers of the humblest description. I followed him; he went +down to the seashore, walked about, singing to himself; then returned to +the house, and re-entered by the same door. I soon learned that he lodged +in the house,--had lodged there for several days. The next morning, a +fine yacht arrived at a tolerably convenient creek about a mile from the +house, and there anchored. Sailors came ashore, rambling down to this +town. The yacht belonged to Mr. Margrave; he had purchased it by +commission in London. It is stored for a long voyage. He had directed it +to come to him in this out-of-the-way place, where no gentleman's yacht +ever put in before, though the creek or bay is handy enough for such +craft. Well, sir, is it not strange that a rich young gentleman should +come to this unfrequented seashore, put up with accommodation that must be +of the rudest kind, in the house of a man known as a desperate smuggler, +suspected to be worse; order a yacht to meet him here; is not all this +strange? But would it be strange if he were waiting for a young lady? +And if a young lady has fled at night from her home, and has come secretly +along bypaths, which must have been very fully explained to her +beforehand, and is now near that young gentleman's lodging, if not +actually in it--if this be so, why, the affair is not so very strange +after all. And now do you forgive me, sir?" + +"Where is this house? Lead me to it." + +"You can hardly get to it except on foot; rough walking, sir, and about +seven miles off by the shortest cut." + +"Come, and at once; come quickly. We must be there before--before--" + +"Before the young lady can get to the place. Well, from what you say of +the spot in which she was last seen, I think, on reflection, we may easily +do that. I am at your service, sir. But I should warn you that the +owners of the house, man and wife, are both of villanous character,--would +do anything for money. Mr. Margrave, no doubt, has money enough; and if +the young lady chooses to go away with Mr. Margrave, you know I have no +power to help it." + +"Leave all that to me; all I ask of you is to show me the house." + +We were soon out of the town; the night had closed in; it was very dark, +in spite of a few stars; the path was rugged and precipitous, sometimes +skirting the very brink of perilous cliffs, sometimes delving down to the +seashore--there stopped by rock or wave--and painfully rewinding up the +ascent. + +"It is an ugly path, sir, but it saves four miles; and anyhow the road is +a bad one." + +We came, at last, to a few wretched fishermen's huts. The moon had now +risen, and revealed the squalor of poverty-stricken ruinous hovels; a +couple of boats moored to the shore, a moaning, fretful sea; and at a +distance a vessel, with lights on board, lying perfectly still at anchor +in a sheltered curve of the bold rude shore. The policeman pointed to the +vessel. + +"The yacht, sir; the wind will be in her favour if she sails tonight." + +We quickened our pace as well as the nature of the path would permit, left +the huts behind us, and about a mile farther on came to a solitary house, +larger than, from the policeman's description of Margrave's lodgement, I +should have presupposed: a house that in the wilder parts of Scotland +might be almost a laird's; but even in the moonlight it looked very +dilapidated and desolate. Most of the windows were closed, some with +panes broken, stuffed with wisps of straw; there were the remains of a +wall round the house; it was broken in some parts (only its foundation +left). On approaching the house I observed two doors,--one on the side +fronting the sea, one on the other side, facing a patch of broken ground +that might once have been a garden, and lay waste within the enclosure of +the ruined wall, encumbered with various litter; heaps of rubbish, a +ruined shed, the carcass of a worn-out boat. This latter door stood wide +open,--the other was closed. The house was still and dark, as if either +deserted, or all within it retired to rest. + +"I think that open door leads at once to the rooms Mr. Margrave hires; he +can go in and out without disturbing the other inmates. They used to +keep, on the side which they inhabit, a beer-house, but the magistrates +shut it up; still, it is a resort for bad characters. Now, sir, what +shall we do? + +"Watch separately. You wait within the enclosure of the wall, hid by +those heaps of rubbish, near the door; none can enter but what you will +observe them. If you see her, you will accost and stop her, and call +aloud for me; I shall be in hearing. I will go back to the high part of +the ground yonder--it seems to me that she must pass that way; and I would +desire, if possible, to save her from the humiliation, the--the shame of +coming within the precincts of that man's abode. I feel I may trust you +now and hereafter. It is a great thing for the happiness and honour of +this poor young lady and her mother, that I may be able to declare that I +did not take her from that man, from any man--from that house, from any +house. You comprehend me, and will obey? I speak to you as a +confidant,--a friend." + +"I thank you with my whole heart, sir, for so doing. You saved my +sister's life, and the least I can do is to keep secret all that would +pain your life if blabbed abroad. I know what mischief folks' tongues can +make. I will wait by the door, never fear, and will rather lose my place +than not strain all the legal power I possess to keep the young lady back +from sorrow." + +This dialogue was interchanged in close hurried whisper behind the broken +wall, and out of all hearing. Waby now crept through a wide gap into the +inclosure, and nestled himself silently amidst the wrecks of the broken +boat, not six feet from the open door, and close to the wall of the house +itself. I went back some thirty yards up the road, to the rising ground +which I had pointed out to him. According to the best calculation I could +make--considering the pace at which I had cleared the precipitous pathway, +and reckoning from the place and time at which Lilian had been last +seen-she could not possibly have yet entered that house. I might presume +it would be more than half an hour before she could arrive; I was in hopes +that, during the interval, Margrave might show himself, perhaps at the +door, or from the windows, or I might even by some light from the latter +be guided to the room in which to find him. If, after waiting a +reasonable time, Lilian should fail to appear, I had formed my plan of +action; but it was important for the success of that plan that I should +not lose myself in the strange house, nor bring its owners to Margrave's +aid,--that I should surprise him alone and unawares. Half an hour, three +quarters, a whole hour thus passed. No sign of my poor wanderer; but +signs there were of the enemy from whom I resolved, at whatever risk, to +free and to save her. A window on the ground-floor, to the left of the +door, which had long fixed my attention because I had seen light through +the chinks of the shutters, slowly unclosed, the shutters fell back, the +casement opened, and I beheld Margrave distinctly; he held something in +his hand that gleamed in the moonlight, directed not towards the mound on +which I stood, nor towards the path I had taken, but towards an open space +beyond the ruined wall to the right. Hid by a cluster of stunted shrubs I +watched him with a heart that beat with rage, not with terror. He seemed +so intent in his own gaze as to be unheeding or unconscious of all else. +I stole from my post, and, still under cover, sometimes of the broken +wall, sometimes of the shaggy ridges that skirted the path, crept on, on +till I reached the side of the house itself; then, there secure from his +eyes, should he turn them, I stepped over the ruined wall, scarcely two +feet high in that place, on--on towards the door. I passed the spot on +which the policeman had shrouded himself; he was seated, his back against +the ribs of the broken boat. I put my hand to his mouth that he might not +cry out in surprise, and whispered in his ear; he stirred not. I shook +him by the arm: still he stirred not. A ray of the moon fell on his face. +I saw that he was in a profound slumber. Persuaded that it was no natural +sleep, and that he had become useless to me, I passed him by. I was at +the threshold of the open door, the light from the window close by falling +on the ground; I was in the passage; a glimmer came through the chinks of +a door to the left; I turned the handle noiselessly, and, the next moment, +Margrave was locked in my grasp. + +"Call out," I hissed in his ear, "and I strangle you before any one can +come to your help." + +He did not call out; his eye, fixed on mine as he writhed round, saw, +perhaps, his peril if he did. His countenance betrayed fear, but as I +tightened my grasp that expression gave way to one of wrath and +fierceness; and as, in turn, I felt the grip of his hand, I knew that +the struggle between us would be that of two strong men, each equally +bent on the mastery of the other. + +I was, as I have said before, endowed with an unusual degree of physical +power, disciplined in early youth by athletic exercise and contest. In +height and in muscle I had greatly the advantage over my antagonist; but +such was the nervous vigour, the elastic energy of his incomparable frame, +in which sinews seemed springs of steel, that had our encounter been one +in which my strength was less heightened by rage, I believe that I could +no more have coped with him than the bison can cope with the boa; but I +was animated by that passion which trebles for a time all our +forces,--which makes even the weak man a match for the strong. I felt +that if I were worsted, disabled, stricken down, Lilian might be lost in +losing her sole protector; and on the other hand, Margrave had been taken +at the disadvantage of that surprise which will half unnerve the fiercest +of the wild beasts; while as we grappled, reeling and rocking to and fro +in our struggle, I soon observed that his attention was distracted,--that +his eye was turned towards an object which he had dropped involuntarily +when I first seized him. He sought to drag me towards that object, and +when near it stooped to seize. It was a bright, slender, short wand of +steel. I remembered when and where I had seen it, whether in my waking +state or in vision; and as his hand stole down to take it from the floor, +I set on the wand my strong foot. I cannot tell by what rapid process of +thought and association I came to the belief that the possession of a +little piece of blunted steel would decide the conflict in favor of the +possessor; but the struggle now was concentred on the attainment of that +seemingly idle weapon. I was becoming breathless and exhausted, while +Margrave seemed every moment to gather up new force, when collecting all +my strength for one final effort, I lifted him suddenly high in the air, +and hurled him to the farthest end of the cramped arena to which our +contest was confined. He fell, and with a force by which most men would +have been stunned; but he recovered himself with a quick rebound, and, as +he stood facing me, there was something grand as well as terrible in his +aspect. His eyes literally flamed, as those of a tiger; his rich hair, +flung back from his knitted forehead, seemed to erect itself as an angry +mane; his lips, slightly parted, showed the glitter of his set teeth; his +whole frame seemed larger in the tension of the muscles, and as, gradually +relaxing his first defying and haughty attitude, he crouched as the +panther crouches for its deadly spring, I felt as if it were a wild beast, +whose rush was coming upon me,--wild beast, but still Man, the king of +the animals, fashioned forth from no mixture of humbler races by the slow +revolutions of time, but his royalty stamped on his form when the earth +became fit for his coming.[1] + +At that moment I snatched up the wand, directed it towards him, and +advancing with a fearless stride, cried,-- + +"Down to my feet, miserable sorcerer!" + +To my own amaze, the effect was instantaneous. My terrible antagonist +dropped to the floor as a dog drops at the word of his master. The +muscles of his frowning countenance relaxed, the glare of his wrathful +eyes grew dull and rayless; his limbs lay prostrate and unnerved, his head +rested against the wall, his arms limp and drooping by his side. I +approached him slowly and cautiously; he seemed cast into a profound +slumber. + +"You are at my mercy now!" said I. + +He moved his head as in sign of deprecating submission. + +"You hear and understand me? Speak!" + +His lips faintly muttered, "Yes." + +"I command you to answer truly the questions I shall address to you." + +"I must, while yet sensible of the power that has passed to your hand." + +"Is it by some occult magnetic property in this wand that you have +exercised so demoniac an influence over a creature so pure as Lilian +Ashleigh?" + +"By that wand and by other arts which you could not comprehend." + +"And for what infamous object,--her seduction, her dishonour?" + +"No! I sought in her the aid of a gift which would cease did she cease +to be pure. At first I but cast my influence upon her that through her I +might influence yourself. I needed your help to discover a secret. +Circumstances steeled your mind against me. I could no longer hope that +you would voluntarily lend yourself to my will. Meanwhile, I had found in +her the light of a loftier knowledge than that of your science; through +that knowledge, duly heeded and cultivated, I hoped to divine what I +cannot of myself discover. Therefore I deepened over her mind the spells +I command; therefore I have drawn her hither as the loadstone draws the +steel, and therefore I would have borne her with me to the shores to which +I was about this night to sail. I had cast the inmates of the house and +all around it into slumber, in order that none might witness her +departure; had I not done so, I should have summoned others to my aid, in +spite of your threat." + +"And would Lilian Ashleigh have passively accompanied you, to her own +irretrievable disgrace?" + +"She could not have helped it; she would have been unconscious of her +acts; she was, and is, in a trance; nor, had she gone with me, would she +have waked from that state while she lived; that would not have been +long." + +"Wretch! and for what object of unhallowed curiosity do you exert an +influence which withers away the life of its victim?" + +"Not curiosity, but the instinct of self-preservation. I count on no life +beyond the grave. I would defy the grave, and live on." + +"And was it to learn, through some ghastly agencies, the secret of +renewing existence, that you lured me by the shadow of your own image on +the night when we met last?" + +The voice of Margrave here became very faint as he answered me, and his +countenance began to exhibit the signs of an exhaustion almost mortal. + +"Be quick," he murmured, "or I die. The fluid which emanates from that +wand, in the hand of one who envenoms that fluid with his own hatred and +rage, will prove fatal to my life. Lower the wand from my forehead! +low--low,--lower still!" + +"What was the nature of that rite in which you constrained me to share?" + +"I cannot say. You are killing me. Enough that you were saved from a +great danger by the apparition of the protecting image vouchsafed to your +eye; otherwise you would--you would--Oh, release me! Away! away!" + +The foam gathered to his lips; his limbs became fearfully convulsed. + +"One question more: where is Lilian at this moment? Answer that question, +and I depart." + +He raised his head, made a visible effort to rally his strength, and +gasped out,-- + +"Yonder. Pass through the open space up the cliff, beside a thorn-tree; +you will find her there, where she halted when the wand dropped from my +hand. But--but--beware! Ha! you will serve me yet, and through her! +They said so that night, though you heard them not. They said it!" Here +his face became death-like; he pressed his hand on his heart, and shrieked +out, "Away! away! or you are my murderer!" + +I retreated to the other end of the room, turning the wand from him, and +when I gained the door, looked back; his convulsions had ceased, but he +seemed locked in a profound swoon. + +I left the room,--the house,--paused by Waby; he was still sleeping. +"Awake!" I said, and touched him with the wand. He started up at once, +rubbed his eyes, began stammering out excuses. I checked them, and bade +him follow me. I took the way up the open ground towards which Margrave +had pointed the wand, and there, motionless, beside a gnarled fantastic +thorn-tree, stood Lilian. Her arms were folded across her breast; her +face, seen by the moonlight, looked so innocent and so infantine, that I +needed no other evidence to tell me how unconscious she was of the peril +to which her steps had been drawn. I took her gently by the hand. "Come +with me," I said in a whisper, and she obeyed me silently, and with a +placid smile. + +Rough though the way, she seemed unconscious of fatigue. I placed her +arm in mine, but she did not lean on it. We got back to the town. I +obtained there an old chaise and a pair of horses. At morning Lilian +was under her mother's roof. About the noon of that day fever seized +her; she became rapidly worse, and, to all appearance, in imminent +danger. Delirium set in; I watched beside her night and day, +supported by an inward conviction of her recovery, but tortured by +the sight of her sufferings. On the third day a change for the better +became visible; her sleep was calm, her breathing regular. + +Shortly afterwards she woke out of danger. Her eyes fell at once on me, +with all their old ineffable tender sweetness. + +"Oh, Allen, beloved, have I not been very ill? But I am almost well now. +Do not weep; I shall live for you,--for your sake." And she bent forward, +drawing my hand from my streaming eyes, and kissed me with a child's +guileless kiss on my burning forehead. + +[1] And yet, even if we entirely omit the consideration of the soul, that +immaterial and immortal principle which is for a time united to his body, +and view him only in his merely animal character, man is still the most +excellent of animals.--Dr. Kidd, On the Adaptation of External Nature to +the Physical Condition of Man (Sect. iii. p. 18). + + + + +CHAPTER LVI. + +Lilian recovered, but the strange thing was this: all memory of the weeks +that had elapsed since her return from visiting her aunt was completely +obliterated; she seemed in profound ignorance of the charge on which I +had been confined,--perfectly ignorant even of the existence of Margrave. +She had, indeed, a very vague reminiscence of her conversation with me in +the garden,--the first conversation which had ever been embittered by a +disagreement,--but that disagreement itself she did not recollect. Her +belief was that she had been ill and light-headed since that evening. +From that evening to the hour of her waking, conscious and revived, all +was a blank. Her love for me was restored, as if its thread had never +been broken. Some such instances of oblivion after bodily illness or +mental shock are familiar enough to the practice of all medical men;[1] +and I was therefore enabled to appease the anxiety and wonder of Mrs. +Ashleigh, by quoting various examples of loss, or suspension, of memory. +We agreed that it would be necessary to break to Lilian, though very +cautiously, the story of Sir Philip Derval's murder, and the charge to +which I had been subjected. She could not fail to hear of those events +from others. How shall I express her womanly terror, her loving, +sympathizing pity, on hearing the tale, which I softened as well as I +could? + +"And to think that I knew nothing of this!" she cried, clasping my hand; +"to think that you were in peril, and that I was not by your side!" + +Her mother spoke of Margrave, as a visitor,--an agreeable, lively +stranger; Lilian could not even recollect his name, but she seemed shocked +to think that any visitor had been admitted while I was in circumstances +so awful! Need I say that our engagement was renewed? Renewed! To her +knowledge and to her heart it had never been interrupted for a moment. +But oh! the malignity of the wrong world! Oh, that strange lust of +mangling reputations, which seizes on hearts the least wantonly cruel! +Let two idle tongues utter a tale against some third person, who never +offended the babblers, and how the tale spreads, like fire, lighted none +know how, in the herbage of an American prairie! Who shall put it out? + +What right have we to pry into the secrets of other men's hearths? True +or false, the tale that is gabbled to us, what concern of ours can it be? +I speak not of cases to which the law has been summoned, which law has +sifted, on which law has pronounced. But how, when the law is silent, can +we assume its verdicts? How be all judges where there has been no +witness-box, no cross-examination, no jury? Yet, every day we put on our +ermine, and make ourselves judges,--judges sure to condemn, and on what +evidence? That which no court of law will receive. Somebody has said +something to somebody, which somebody repeats to everybody! + +The gossip of L---- had set in full current against Lilian's fair name. +No ladies had called or sent to congratulate Mrs. Ashleigh on her return, +or to inquire after Lilian herself during her struggle between life and +death. + +How I missed the Queen of the Hill at this critical moment! How I longed +for aid to crush the slander, with which I knew not how to grapple,--aid +in her knowledge of the world and her ascendancy over its judgments! I +had heard from her once since her absence, briefly but kindly expressing +her amazement at the ineffable stupidity which could for a moment have +subjected me to a suspicion of Sir Philip Derval's strange murder, and +congratulating me heartily on my complete vindication from so monstrous a +charge. To this letter no address was given. I supposed the omission to +be accidental, but on calling at her house to inquire her direction, I +found that the servants did not know it. + +What, then, was my joy when just at this juncture I received a note from +Mrs. Poyntz, stating that she had returned the night before, and would be +glad to see me. + +I hastened to her house. "Ah," thought I, as I sprang lightly up the +ascent to the Hill, "how the tattlers will be silenced by a word from her +imperial lips!" And only just as I approached her door did it strike me +how difficult--nay, how impossible--to explain to her--the hard positive +woman, her who had, less ostensibly but more ruthlessly than myself, +destroyed Dr. Lloyd for his belief in the comparatively rational +pretensions of clairvoyance--all the mystical excuses for Lilian's flight +from her home? How speak to her--or, indeed, to any one--about an occult +fascination and a magic wand? No matter: surely it would be enough to say +that at the time Lilian had been light-headed, under the influence of the +fever which had afterwards nearly proved fatal, The early friend of Anne +Ashleigh would not be a severe critic on any tale that might right the +good name of Anne Ashleigh's daughter. So assured, with a light heart and +a cheerful face, I followed the servant into the great lady's pleasant but +decorous presence-chamber. + +[1] Such instances of suspense of memory are recorded in most +physiological and in some metaphysical works. Dr. Abercrombie notices +some, more or less similar to that related in the text: "A young lady +who was present at a catastrophe in Scotland, in which many people lost +their lives by the fall of the gallery of a church, escaped without any +injury, but with the complete loss of the recollection of any of the +circumstances; and this extended not only to the accident, but to +everything that had occurred to her for a certain time before going to +church. A lady whom I attended some years ago in a protracted illness, in +which her memory became much impaired, lost the recollection of a period +of about ten or twelve years, but spoke with perfect consistency of things +as they stood before that time." Dr. Aberercmbie adds: "As far as I have +been able to trace it, the principle in such cases seems to be, that when +the memory is impaired to a certain degree, the loss of it extends +backward to some event or some period by which a particularly deep +impression had been made upon the mind."--ABERCROMBIE: On the +Intellectual Powers, pp. 118, 119 (15th edition). + + + + +CHAPTER LVII. + +Mrs. Poyntz was on her favourite seat by the window, and for a wonder, not +knitting--that classic task seemed done; but she was smoothing and folding +the completed work with her white comely hand, and smiling over it, as if +in complacent approval, when I entered the room. At the fire-side sat the +he-colonel inspecting a newly-invented barometer; at another window, in +the farthest recess of the room, stood Miss Jane Poyntz, with a young +gentleman whom I had never before seen, but who turned his eyes full upon +me with a haughty look as the servant announced my name. He was tall, +well proportioned, decidedly handsome, but with that expression of cold +and concentred self-esteem in his very attitude, as well as his +countenance, which makes a man of merit unpopular, a man without merit +ridiculous. + +The he-colonel, always punctiliously civil, rose from his seat, shook +hands with me cordially, and said, "Coldish weather to-day; but we shall +have rain to-morrow. Rainy seasons come in cycles. We are about to +commence a cycle of them with heavy showers." He sighed, and returned to +his barometer. + +Miss Jane bowed to me graciously enough, but was evidently a little +confused,--a circumstance which might well attract my notice, for I had +never before seen that high-bred young lady deviate a hairsbreadth from +the even tenor of a manner admirable for a cheerful and courteous ease, +which, one felt convinced, would be unaltered to those around her if an +earthquake swallowed one up an inch before her feet. + +The young gentleman continued to eye me loftily, as the heir-apparent to +some celestial planet might eye an inferior creature from a half-formed +nebula suddenly dropped upon his sublime and perfected, star. + +Mrs. Poyntz extended to me two fingers, and said frigidly, "Delighted to +see you again! How kind to attend so soon to my note!" + +Motioning me to a seat beside her, she here turned to her husband, and +said, "Poyntz, since a cycle of rain begins tomorrow, better secure your +ride to-day. Take these young people with you. I want to talk with Dr. +Fenwick." + +The colonel carefully put away his barometer, and saying to his daughter, +"Come!" went forth. Jane followed her father; the young gentleman +followed Jane. + +The reception I had met chilled and disappointed me. I felt that Mrs. +Poyntz was changed, and in her change the whole house seemed changed. The +very chairs looked civilly unfriendly, as if preparing to turn their backs +on me. However, I was not in the false position of an intruder; I had +been summoned; it was for Mrs. Poyntz to speak first, and I waited quietly +for her to do so. + +She finished the careful folding of her work, and then laid it at rest in +the drawer of the table at which she sat. Having so done, she turned to +me, and said,-- + +"By the way, I ought to have introduced to you my young guest, Mr. +Ashleigh Sumner. You would like him. He has talents,--not showy, but +solid. He will succeed in public life." + +"So that young man is Mr. Ashleigh Sumner? I do not wonder that Miss +Ashleigh rejected him." + +I said this, for I was nettled, as well as surprised, at the coolness with +which a lady who had professed a friendship for me mentioned that +fortunate young gentleman, with so complete an oblivion of all the +antecedents that had once made his name painful to my ear. + +In turn, my answer seemed to nettle Mrs. Poyntz. + +"I am not so sure that she did reject; perhaps she rather misunderstood +him; gallant compliments are not always proposals of marriage. However +that be, his spirits were not much damped by Miss Ashleigh's disdain, nor +his heart deeply smitten by her charms; for he is now very happy, very +much attached to another young lady, to whom he proposed three days ago, +at Lady Delafield's, and not to make a mystery of what all our little +world will know before tomorrow, that young lady is my daughter Jane." + +"Were I acquainted with Mr. Sumner, I should offer to him my sincere +congratulations." + +Mrs. Poyntz resumed, without heeding a reply more complimentary to Miss +Jane than to the object of her choice,-- + +"I told you that I meant Jane to marry a rich country gentleman, and +Ashleigh Sumner is the very country gentleman I had then in my thoughts. +He is cleverer and more ambitious than I could have hoped; he will be a +minister some day, in right of his talents, and a peer, if he wishes it, +in right of his lands. So that matter is settled." + +There was a pause, during which my mind passed rapidly through links of +reminiscence and reasoning, which led me to a mingled sentiment of +admiration for Mrs. Poyntz as a diplomatist and of distrust for Mrs. +Poyntz as a friend. It was now clear why Mrs. Poyntz, before so little +disposed to approve my love, had urged me at once to offer my hand to +Lilian, in order that she might depart affianced and engaged to the house +in which she would meet Mr. Ashleigh Sumner. Hence Mrs. Poyntz's anxiety +to obtain all the information I could afford her of the sayings and +doings at Lady Haughton's; hence, the publicity she had so suddenly given +to my engagement; hence, when Mr. Sumner had gone away a rejected suitor, +her own departure from L----; she had seized the very moment when a vain +and proud man, piqued by the mortification received from one lady, falls +the easier prey to the arts which allure his suit to another. All was so +far clear to me. And I--was my self-conceit less egregious and less +readily duped than that of yon glided popinjay's! How skilfully this +woman had knitted me into her work with the noiseless turn of her white +hands! and yet, forsooth, I must vaunt the superior scope of my intellect, +and plumb all the fountains of Nature,--I, who could not fathom the little +pool of this female schemer's mind! + +But that was no time for resentment to her or rebuke to myself. She was +now the woman who could best protect and save from slander my innocent, +beloved Lilian. But how approach that perplexing subject? + +Mrs. Poyntz approached it, and with her usual decision of purpose, which +bore so deceitful a likeness to candour of mind. + +"But it was not to talk of my affairs that I asked you to call, Allen +Fenwick." As she uttered my name, her voice softened, and her manner took +that maternal, caressing tenderness which had sometimes amused and +sometimes misled me. "No, I do not forget that you asked me to be your +friend, and I take without scruple the license of friendship. What are +these stories that I have heard already about Lilian Ashleigh, to whom you +were once engaged?" + +"To whom I am still engaged." + +"Is it possible? Oh, then, of course the stories I have heard are all +false. Very likely; no fiction in scandal ever surprises me. Poor dear +Lilian, then, never ran away from her mother's house?" + +I smothered the angry pain which this mode of questioning caused me; I +knew how important it was to Lilian to secure to her the countenance and +support of this absolute autocrat; I spoke of Lilian's long previous +distemper of mind; I accounted for it as any intelligent physician, +unacquainted with all that I could not reveal, would account. Heaven +forgive me for the venial falsehood, but I spoke of the terrible charge +against myself as enough to unhinge for a time the intellect of a girl so +acutely sensitive as Lilian; I sought to create that impression as to the +origin of all that might otherwise seem strange; and in this state of +cerebral excitement she had wandered from home--but alone. I had tracked +every step of her way; I had found and restored her to her home. A +critical delirium had followed, from which she now rose, cured in health, +unsuspicious that there could be a whisper against her name. And then, +with all the eloquence I could command, and in words as adapted as I could +frame them to soften the heart of a woman, herself a mother, I implored +Mrs. Poyntz's aid to silence all the cruelties of calumny, and extend her +shield over the child of her own early friend. + +When I came to an end, I had taken, with caressing force, Mrs. Poyntz's +reluctant hands in mine. There were tears in my voice, tears in my eyes. +And the sound of her voice in reply gave me hope, for it was unusually +gentle. She was evidently moved. The hope was soon quelled. + +"Allen Fenwick," she said, "you have a noble heart; I grieve to see how it +abuses your reason. I cannot aid Lilian Ashleigh in the way you ask. Do +not start back so indignantly. Listen to me as patiently as I have +listened to you. That when you brought back the unfortunate young woman +to her poor mother, her mind was disordered, and became yet more +dangerously so, I can well believe; that she is now recovered, and thinks +with shame, or refuses to think at all, of her imprudent flight, I can +believe also; but I do not believe, the World cannot believe, that she did +not, knowingly and purposely, quit her mother's roof, and in quest of that +young stranger so incautiously, so unfeelingly admitted to her mother's +house during the very time you were detained on the most awful of human +accusations. Every one in the town knows that Mr. Margrave visited daily +at Mrs. Ashleigh's during that painful period; every one in the town knows +in what strange out-of-the-way place this young man had niched himself; +and that a yacht was bought, and lying in wait there. What for? It is +said that the chaise in which you brought Miss Ashleigh back to her home +was hired in a village within an easy reach of Mr. Margrave's lodging--of +Mr. Margrave's yacht. I rejoice that you saved the poor girl from ruin; +but her good name is tarnished; and if Anne Ashleigh, whom I sincerely +pity, asks me my advice, I can but give her this: 'Leave L----, take your +daughter abroad; and if she is not to marry Mr. Margrave, marry her as +quietly and as quickly as possible to some foreigner.'" + +"Madam! madam! this, then, is your friendship to her--to me! Oh, shame +on you to insult thus an affianced husband! Shame on me ever to have +thought you had a heart!" + +"A heart, man!" she exclaimed, almost fiercely, springing up, and +startling me with the change in her countenance and voice. "And little +you would have valued, and pitilessly have crushed this heart, if I had +suffered myself to show it to you! What right have you to reproach me? I +felt a warm interest in your career, an unusual attraction in your +conversation and society. Do you blame me for that, or should I blame +myself? Condemned to live amongst brainless puppets, my dull occupation +to pull the strings that moved them, it was a new charm to my life to +establish friendship and intercourse with intellect and spirit and +courage. Ah! I understand that look, half incredulous, half +inquisitive." + +"Inquisitive, no; incredulous, yes! You desired my friendship, and how +does your harsh judgment of my betrothed wife prove either to me or to her +mother, whom you have known from your girlhood, the first duty of a +friend,--which is surely not that of leaving a friend's side the moment +that he needs countenance in calumny, succour in trouble!" + +"It is a better duty to prevent the calumny and avert the trouble. Leave +aside Anne Ashleigh, a cipher that I can add or abstract from my sum of +life as I please. What is my duty to yourself? It is plain. It is to +tell you that your honour commands you to abandon all thoughts of Lilian +Ashleigh as your wife. Ungrateful that you are! Do you suppose it was no +mortification to my pride of woman and friend, that you never approached +me in confidence except to ask my good offices in promoting your courtship +to another; no shock to the quiet plans I had formed as to our familiar +though harmless intimacy, to hear that you were bent on a marriage in +which my friend would be lost to me?" + +"Not lost! not lost! On the contrary, the regard I must suppose you had +for Lilian would have been a new link between our homes." + +"Pooh! Between me and that dreamy girl there could have been no sympathy, +there could have grown up no regard. You would have been chained to your +fireside, and--and--but no matter. I stifled my disappointment as soon as +I felt it,--stifled it, as all my life I have stifled that which either +destiny or duty--duty to myself as to others--forbids me to indulge. Ah, +do not fancy me one of the weak criminals who can suffer a worthy liking +to grow into a debasing love! I was not in love with you, Allen Fenwick." + +"Do you think I was ever so presumptuous a coxcomb as to fancy it?" + +"No," she said, more softly; "I was not so false to my household ties and +to my own nature. But there are some friendships which are as jealous as +love. I could have cheerfully aided you in any choice which my sense +could have approved for you as wise; I should have been pleased to have +found in such a wife my most intimate companion. But that silly +child!--absurd! Nevertheless, the freshness and enthusiasm of your love +touched me; you asked my aid, and I gave it. Perhaps I did believe that +when you saw more of Lilian Ashleigh you would be cured of a fancy +conceived by the eye--I should have known better what dupes the wisest men +can be to the witcheries of a fair face and eighteen! When I found your +illusion obstinate, I wrenched myself away from a vain regret, turned to +my own schemes and my own ambition, and smiled bitterly to think that, in +pressing you to propose so hastily to Lilian, I made your blind passion an +agent in my own plans. Enough of this. I speak thus openly and boldly to +you now, because now I have not a sentiment that can interfere with the +dispassionate soundness of my counsels. I repeat, you cannot now marry +Lilian Ashleigh; I cannot take my daughter to visit her; I cannot destroy +the social laws that I myself have set in my petty kingdom." + +"Be it as you will. I have pleaded for her while she is still Lilian +Ashleigh. I plead for no one to whom I have once given my name. Before +the woman whom I have taken from the altar, I can place, as a shield +sufficient, my strong breast of man. Who has so deep an interest in +Lilian's purity as I have? Who is so fitted to know the exact truth of +every whisper against her? Yet when I, whom you admit to have some +reputation for shrewd intelligence,--I, who tracked her way,--I, who +restored her to her home,--when I, Allen Fenwick, am so assured of her +inviolable innocence in thought as in deed, that I trust my honour to her +keeping,--surely, surely, I confute the scandal which you yourself do not +believe, though you refuse to reject and to annul it?" + +"Do not deceive yourself, Allen Fenwick," said she, still standing beside +me, her countenance now hard and stern. "Look where I stand, I am the +World! The World, not as satirists depreciate, or as optimists extol its +immutable properties, its all-persuasive authority. I am the World! And +my voice is the World's voice when it thus warns you. Should you make +this marriage, your dignity of character and position would be gone! If +you look only to lucre and professional success, possibly they may not +ultimately suffer. You have skill, which men need; their need may still +draw patients to your door and pour guineas into your purse. But you have +the pride, as well as the birth of a gentleman, and the wounds to that +pride will be hourly chafed and never healed. Your strong breast of man +has no shelter to the frail name of woman. The World, in its health, will +look down on your wife, though its sick may look up to you. This is not +all. The World, in its gentlest mood of indulgence, will say +compassionately, 'Poor man! how weak, and how deceived! What an +unfortunate marriage!' But the World is not often indulgent,--it looks +most to the motives most seen on the surface. And the World will more +frequently say, 'No; much too clever a man to be duped! Miss Ashleigh had +money. A good match to the man who liked gold better than honour.'" + +I sprang to my feet, with difficulty suppressing my rage; and, remembering +it was a woman who spoke to me, "Farewell, madam," said I, through my +grinded teeth. "Were you, indeed, the Personation of The World, whose +mean notions you mouth so calmly, I could not disdain you more." I turned +to the door, and left her still standing erect and menacing, the hard +sneer on her resolute lip, the red glitter in her remorseless eye. + + + + +CHAPTER LVIII. + +If ever my heart vowed itself to Lilian, the vow was now the most trustful +and the most sacred. I had relinquished our engagement before; but then +her affection seemed, no matter from what cause; so estranged from me, +that though I might be miserable to lose her, I deemed that she would be +unhappy in our union. Then, too, she was the gem and darling of the +little world in which she lived; no whisper assailed her: now I knew that +she loved me; I knew that her estrangement had been involuntary; I knew +that appearances wronged her, and that they never could be explained. I +was in the true position of man to woman: I was the shield, the bulwark, +the fearless confiding protector! Resign her now because the world +babbled, because my career might be impeded, because my good name might be +impeached,--resign her, and, in that resignation, confirm all that was +said against her! Could I do so, I should be the most craven of +gentlemen, the meanest of men! + +I went to Mrs. Ashleigh, and entreated her to hasten my union with her +daughter, and fix the marriage-day. + +I found the poor lady dejected and distressed. She was now sufficiently +relieved from the absorbing anxiety for Lilian to be aware of the change +on the face of that World which the woman I had just quitted personified +and concentred; she had learned the cause from the bloodless lips of Miss +Brabazon. + +"My child! my poor child!" murmured the mother. "And she so +guileless,--so sensitive! Could she know what is said, it would kill her. +She would never marry you, Allen,--she would never bring shame to you!" + +"She never need learn the barbarous calumny. Give her to me, and at once; +patients, fortune, fame, are not found only at L----. Give her to me at +once. But let me name a condition: I have a patrimonial independence, I +have amassed large savings, I have my profession and my repute. I cannot +touch her fortune--I cannot,--never can! Take it while you live; when you +die, leave it to accumulate for her children, if children she have; not +to me; not to her--unless I am dead or ruined!" + +"Oh, Allen, what a heart! what a heart! No, not heart, Allen,--that bird +in its cage has a heart: soul--what a soul!" + + + + +CHAPTER LIX. + + +How innocent was Lilian's virgin blush when I knelt to her, and prayed +that she would forestall the date that had been fixed for our union, and +be my bride before the breath of the autumn had withered the pomp of +thewoodland and silenced the song of the birds! Meanwhile, I was so +fearfully anxious that she should risk no danger of hearing, even of +surmising, the cruel slander against her--should meet no cold contemptuous +looks, above all, should be safe from the barbed talk of Mrs. Poyntz--that +I insisted on the necessity of immediate change of air and scene. I +proposed that we should all three depart, the next day, for the banks of +my own beloved and native Windermere. By that pure mountain air, Lilian's +health would be soon re-established; in the church hallowed to me by the +graves of my fathers our vows should be plighted. No calumny had ever +cast a shadow over those graves. I felt as if my bride would be safer in +the neighbourhood of my mother's tomb. + +I carried my point: it was so arranged. Mrs. Ashleigh, however, was +reluctant to leave before she had seen her dear friend, Margaret Poyntz. +I had not the courage to tell her what she might expect to hear from that +dear friend, but, as delicately as I could, I informed her that I had +already seen the Queen of the Hill, and contradicted the gossip that had +reached her; but that as yet, like other absolute sovereigns, the Queen of +the Hill thought it politic to go with the popular stream, reserving all +check on its direction till the rush of its torrent might slacken; and +that it would be infinitely wiser in Mrs. Ashleigh to postpone +conversation with Mrs. Poyntz until Lilian's return to L---- as my wife. +Slander by that time would have wearied itself out, and Mrs. Poyntz +(assuming her friendship to Mrs. Ashleigh to be sincere) would then be +enabled to say with authority to her subjects, "Dr. Fenwick alone knows +the facts of the story, and his marriage with Miss Ashleigh refutes all +the gossip to her prejudice." + +I made that evening arrangements with a young and rising practitioner to +secure attendance on my patients during my absence. I passed the greater +part of the night in drawing up memoranda to guide my proxy in each case, +however humble the sufferer. This task finished, I chanced, in searching +for a small microscope, the wonders of which I thought might interest and +amuse Lilian, to open a drawer in which I kept the manuscript of my +cherished Physiological Work, and, in so doing, my eye fell upon the wand +which I had taken from Margrave. I had thrown it into that drawer on my +return home, after restoring Lilian to her mother's house, and, in the +anxiety which had subsequently preyed upon my mind, had almost forgotten +the strange possession I had as strangely acquired. There it now lay, the +instrument of agencies over the mechanism of nature which no doctrine +admitted by my philosophy could accept, side by side with the presumptuous +work which had analyzed the springs by which Nature is moved, and decided +the principles by which reason metes out, from the inch of its knowledge, +the plan of the Infinite Unknown. + +I took up the wand and examined it curiously. It was evidently the work +of an age far remote from our own, scored over with half-obliterated +characters in some Eastern tongue, perhaps no longer extant. I found that +it was hollow within. A more accurate observation showed, in the centre +of this hollow, an exceedingly fine thread-like wire, the unattached end +of which would slightly touch the palm when the wand was taken into the +hand. Was it possible that there might be a natural and even a simple +cause for the effects which this instrument produced? Could it serve to +collect, from that great focus of animal heat and nervous energy which is +placed in the palm of the human hand, some such latent fluid as that which +Reichenbach calls the "odic," and which, according to him, "rushes through +and pervades universal Nature"? After all, why not? For how many +centuries lay unknown all the virtues of the loadstone and the amber? It +is but as yesterday that the forces of vapour have become to men genii +more powerful than those conjured up by Aladdin; that light, at a touch, +springs forth from invisible air; that thought finds a messenger swifter +than the wings of the fabled Afrite. As, thus musing, my hand closed over +the wand, I felt a wild thrill through my frame. I recoiled; I was +alarmed lest (according to the plain common-sense theory of Julius Faber) +I might be preparing my imagination to form and to credit its own +illusions. Hastily I laid down the wand. But then it occurred to me that +whatever its properties, it had so served the purposes of the dread +Fascinator from whom it had been taken, that he might probably seek to +repossess himself of it; he might contrive to enter my house in my +absence; more prudent to guard in my own watchful keeping the +incomprehensible instrument of incomprehensible arts. I resolved, +therefore, to take the wand with me, and placed it in my travelling-trunk, +with such effects as I selected for use in the excursion that was to +commence with the morrow. I now lay down to rest, but I could not sleep. +The recollections of the painful interview with Mrs. Poyntz became vivid +and haunting. It was clear that the sentiment she had conceived for me +was that of no simple friendship,--something more or something less, but +certainly something else; and this conviction brought before me that proud +hard face, disturbed by a pang wrestled against but not subdued, and that +clear metallic voice, troubled by the quiver of an emotion which, perhaps, +she had never analyzed to herself. I did not need her own assurance to +know that this sentiment was not to be confounded with a love which she +would have despised as a weakness and repelled as a crime; it was an +inclination of the intellect, not a passion of the heart. But still it +admitted a jealousy little less keen than that which has love for its +cause,--so true it is that jealousy is never absent where self-love is +always present. Certainly, it was no susceptibility of sober friendship +which had made the stern arbitress of a coterie ascribe to her interest +in me her pitiless judgment of Lilian. Strangely enough, with the image +of this archetype of conventional usages and the trite social life, came +that of the mysterious Margrave, surrounded by all the attributes with +which superstition clothes the being of the shadowy border-land that lies +beyond the chart of our visual world itself. By what link were creatures +so dissimilar riveted together in the metaphysical chain of association? +Both had entered into the record of my life when my life admitted its own +first romance of love. Through the aid of this cynical schemer I had been +made known to Lilian. At her house I had heard the dark story of that +Louis Grayle, with whom, in mocking spite of my reason, conjectures, which +that very reason must depose itself before it could resolve into +distempered fancies, identified the enigmatical Margrave. And now both +she, the representative of the formal world most opposed to visionary +creeds, and he, who gathered round him all the terrors which haunt the +realm of fable, stood united against me,--foes with whom the intellect I +had so haughtily cultured knew not how to cope. Whatever assault I might +expect from either, I was unable to assail again. Alike, then, in this, +are the Slander and the Phantom,--that which appalls us most in their +power over us is our impotence against them. + +But up rose the sun, chasing the shadows from the earth, and brightening +insensibly the thoughts of man. After all, Margrave had been baffled and +defeated, whatever the arts he had practised and the secrets he possessed. +It was, at least, doubtful whether his evil machinations would be renewed. +He had seemed so incapable of long-sustained fixity of purpose, that it +was probable he was already in pursuit of some new agent or victim; and as +to this commonplace and conventional spectre, the so-called World, if it +is everywhere to him whom it awes, it is nowhere to him who despises it. +What was the good or bad word of a Mrs. Poyntz to me? Ay, but to Lilian? +There, indeed, I trembled; but still, even in trembling, it was sweet to +think that my home would be her shelter,--my choice her vindication. Ah! +how unutterably tender and reverential Love becomes when it assumes the +duties of the guardian, and hallows its own heart into a sanctuary of +refuge for the beloved! + + + + +CHAPTER LX. + +The beautiful lake! We two are on its grassy margin,--twilight melting +into night; the stars stealing forth, one after one. What a wonderful +change is made within us when we come from our callings amongst men, +chafed, wearied, wounded; gnawed by our cares, perplexed by the doubts of +our very wisdom, stung by the adder that dwells in cities,--Slander; nay, +even if renowned, fatigued with the burden of the very names that we have +won! What a change is made within us when suddenly we find ourselves +transported into the calm solitudes of Nature,--into scenes familiar to +our happy dreaming childhood; back, back from the dusty thoroughfares of +our toil-worn manhood to the golden fountain of our youth! Blessed is +the change, even when we have no companion beside us to whom the heart +can whisper its sense of relief and joy. But if the one in whom all our +future is garnered up be with us there, instead of that weary World which +has so magically vanished away from the eye and the thought, then does the +change make one of those rare epochs of life in which the charm is the +stillness. In the pause from all by which our own turbulent struggles for +happiness trouble existence, we feel with a rapt amazement how calm a +thing it is to be happy. And so as the night, in deepening, brightened, +Lilian and I wandered by the starry lake. Conscious of no evil in +ourselves, how secure we felt from evil! A few days more--a few days +more, and we two should be as one! And that thought we uttered in many +forms of words, brooding over it in the long intervals of enamoured +silence. + +And when we turned back to the quiet inn at which we had taken up our +abode, and her mother, with her soft face, advanced to meet us, I said to +Lilian,-- + +"Would that in these scenes we could fix our home for life, away and afar +from the dull town we have left behind us, with the fret of its wearying +cares and the jar of its idle babble!" + +"And why not, Allen? Why not? But no, you would not be happy." + +"Not be happy, and with you? Sceptic, by what reasoning do you arrive at +that ungracious conclusion?" + +"The heart loves repose and the soul contemplation, but the mind needs +action. Is it not so?" + +"Where learned you that aphorism, out of place on such rosy lips?" + +"I learned it in studying you," murmured Lilian, tenderly. + +Here Mrs. Ashleigh joined us. For the first time I slept under the same +roof as Lilian. And I forgot that the universe contained an enigma to +solve or an enemy to fear. + + + + +CHAPTER LXI. + +Twenty days--the happiest my life had ever known--thus glided on. Apart +from the charm which love bestows on the beloved, there was that in +Lilian's conversation which made her a delightful companion. Whether it +was that, in this pause from the toils of my career, my mind could more +pliantly supple itself to her graceful imagination, or that her +imagination was less vague and dreamy amidst those rural scenes, which +realized in their loveliness and grandeur its long-conceived ideals, than +it had been in the petty garden-ground neighboured by the stir and hubbub +of the busy town,--in much that I had once slighted or contemned as the +vagaries of undisciplined fancy, I now recognized the sparkle and play of +an intuitive genius, lighting up many a depth obscure to instructed +thought. It is with some characters as with the subtler and more ethereal +order of poets,--to appreciate them we must suspend the course of +artificial life; in the city we call them dreamers, on the mountain-top we +find them interpreters. + +In Lilian, the sympathy with Nature was not, as in Margrave, from the +joyous sense of Nature's lavish vitality; it was refined into exquisite +perception of the diviner spirit by which that vitality is informed. +Thus, like the artist, from outward forms of beauty she drew forth the +covert types, lending to things the most familiar exquisite meanings +unconceived before. For it is truly said by a wise critic of old, that +"the attribute of Art is to suggest infinitely more than it expresses; +"and such suggestions, passing from the artist's innermost thought into +the mind that receives them, open on and on into the Infinite of Ideas, as +a moonlit wave struck by a passing oar impels wave upon wave along one +track of light. + +So the days glided by, and brought the eve of our bridal morn. It had +been settled that, after the ceremony (which was to be performed by +license in the village church, at no great distance, which adjoined my +paternal home, now passed away to strangers), we should make a short +excursion into Scotland, leaving Mrs. Ashleigh to await our return at the +little inn. + +I had retired to my own room to answer some letters from anxious patients, +and having finished these I looked into my trunk for a Guide-Book to the +North, which I had brought with me. My hand came upon Margrave's wand, +and remembering that strange thrill which had passed through me when I +last handled it, I drew it forth, resolved to examine calmly if I could +detect the cause of the sensation. It was not now the time of night in +which the imagination is most liable to credulous impressions, nor was I +now in the anxious and jaded state of mind in which such impressions may +be the more readily conceived. The sun was slowly setting over the +delicious landscape; the air cool and serene; my thoughts +collected,--heart and conscience alike at peace. I took, then, the wand, +and adjusted it to the palm of the hand as I had done before. I felt the +slight touch of the delicate wire within, and again the thrill! I did not +this time recoil; I continued to grasp the wand, and sought deliberately +to analyze my own sensations in the contact. There came over me an +increased consciousness of vital power; a certain exhilaration, +elasticity, vigour, such as a strong cordial may produce on a fainting +man. All the forces of my frame seemed refreshed, redoubled; and as such +effects on the physical system are ordinarily accompanied by correspondent +effects on the mind, so I was sensible of a proud elation of spirits,--a +kind of defying, superb self-glorying. All fear seemed blotted out from +my thought, as a weakness impossible to the grandeur and might which +belong to Intellectual Man; I felt as if it were a royal delight to scorn +Earth and its opinions, brave Hades and its spectres. Rapidly this +new-born arrogance enlarged itself into desires vague but daring. My mind +reverted to the wild phenomena associated with its memories of Margrave. +I said half-aloud, "if a creature so beneath myself in constancy of will +and completion of thought can wrest from Nature favours so marvellous, +what could not be won from her by me, her patient persevering seeker? +What if there be spirits around and about, invisible to the common eye, +but whom we can submit to our control; and what if this rod be charged +with some occult fluid, that runs through all creation, and can be so +disciplined as to establish communication wherever life and thought can +reach to beings that live and think? So would the mystics of old explain +what perplexes me. Am I sure that the mystics of old duped them selves +or their pupils? This, then, this slight wand, light as a reed in my +grasp, this, then, was the instrument by which Margrave sent his +irresistible will through air and space, and by which I smote himself, in +the midst of his tiger-like wrath, into the helplessness of a sick man's +swoon! Can the instrument at this distance still control him; if now +meditating evil, disarm and disable his purpose?" Involuntarily, as I +revolved these ideas, I stretched forth the wand, with a concentred +energy of desire that its influence should reach Margrave and command +him. And since I knew not his whereabout, yet was vaguely aware that, +according to any conceivable theory by which the wand could be supposed +to carry its imagined virtues to definite goals in distant space, it +should be pointed in the direction of the object it was intended to +affect, so I slowly moved the wand as if describing a circle; and thus, in +some point of the circle--east, west, north, or south--the direction could +not fail to be true. Before I had performed half the circle, the wand of +itself stopped, resisting palpably the movement of my hand to impel it +onward. Had it, then, found the point to which my will was guiding it, +obeying my will by some magnetic sympathy never yet comprehended by any +recognized science? I know not; but I had not held it thus fixed for +many seconds, before a cold air, well remembered, passed by me, stirring +the roots of my hair; and, reflected against the opposite wall, stood the +hateful Scin-Laeca. The Shadow was dimmer in its light than when before +beheld, and the outline of the features was less distinct; still it was +the unmistakable lemur, or image, of Margrave. + +And a voice was conveyed to my senses, saying, as from a great distance, +and in weary yet angry accents, + +"You have summoned me? Wherefore?" + +I overcame the startled shudder with which, at first, I beheld the Shadow +and heard the Voice. + +"I summoned you not," said I; "I sought but to impose upon you my will, +that you should persecute, with your ghastly influences, me and mine no +more. And now, by whatever authority this wand bestows on me, I so abjure +and command you!" + +I thought there was a sneer of disdain on the lip through which the answer +seemed to come,-- + +"Vain and ignorant, it is but a shadow you command. My body you have cast +into a sleep, and it knows not that the shadow is here; nor, when it +wakes, will the brain be aware of one reminiscence of the words that you +utter or the words that you hear." + +"What, then, is this shadow that simulates the body? Is it that which in +popular language is called the soul?" + +"It is not: soul is no shadow." + +"What then?" + +"Ask not me. Use the wand to invoke Intelligences higher than mine." + +"And how?" + +"I will tell you not. Of yourself you may learn, if you guide the wand by +your own pride of will and desire; but in the hands of him who has learned +not the art, the wand has its dangers. Again I say you have summoned me! +Wherefore?" + +"Lying shade, I summoned thee not." + +"So wouldst thou say to the demons, did they come in their terrible wrath, +when the bungler, who knows not the springs that he moves, calls them up +unawares, and can neither control nor dispel. Less revengeful than they, +I leave thee unharmed, and depart." + +"Stay. If, as thou sayest, no command I address to thee--to thee, who art +only the image or shadow--can have effect on the body and mind of the +being whose likeness thou art, still thou canst tell me what passes now in +his brain. Does it now harbour schemes against me through the woman I +love? Answer truly." + +"I reply for the sleeper, of whom I am more than a likeness, though only +the shadow. His thought speaks thus: 'I know, Allen Fenwick, that in thee +is the agent I need for achieving the end that I seek. Through the woman +thou lovest, I hope to subject thee. A grief that will harrow thy heart +is at hand; when that grief shall befall, thou wilt welcome my coming. In +me alone thy hope will be placed; through me alone wilt thou seek a path +out of thy sorrow. I shall ask my conditions: they will make thee my tool +and my slave!'" + +The shadow waned,--it was gone. I did not seek to detain it, nor, had I +sought, could I have known by what process. But a new idea now possessed +me. This shadow, then, that had once so appalled and controlled me, was, +by its own confession, nothing more than a shadow! It had spoken of +higher Intelligences; from them I might learn what the Shadow could not +reveal. As I still held the wand firmer and firmer in my grasp, my +thoughts grew haughtier and bolder. Could the wand, then, bring those +loftier beings thus darkly referred to before me? With that thought, +intense and engrossing, I guided the wand towards the space, opening +boundless and blue from the casement that let in the skies. The wand no +longer resisted my hand. + +In a few moments I felt the floors of the room vibrate; the air was +darkened; a vaporous, hazy cloud seemed to rise from the ground without +the casement; an awe, infinitely more deep and solemn than that which the +Scin-Laeca had caused in its earliest apparition, curdled through my +veins, and stilled the very beat of my heart. + +At that moment I heard, without, the voice of Lilian, singing a simple, +sacred song which I had learned at my mother's knees, and taught to her +the day before: singing low, and as with a warning angel's voice. By an +irresistible impulse I dashed the wand to the ground, and bowed my head as +I had bowed it when my infant mind comprehended, without an effort, +mysteries more solemn than those which perplexed me now. Slowly I raised +my eyes, and looked round; the vaporous, hazy cloud had passed away, or +melted into the ambient rose-tints amidst which the sun had sunk. + +Then, by one of those common reactions from a period of overstrained +excitement, there succeeded to that sentiment of arrogance and daring with +which these wild, half-conscious invocations had been fostered and +sustained, a profound humility, a warning fear. + +"What!" said I, inly, "have all those sound resolutions, which my reason +founded on the wise talk of Julius Faber, melted away in the wrack of +haggard, dissolving fancies! Is this my boasted intellect, my vaunted +science! I--I, Allen Fenwick, not only the credulous believer, but the +blundering practitioner, of an evil magic! Grant what may be possible, +however uncomprehended,--grant that in this accursed instrument of +antique superstition there be some real powers--chemical, magnetic, no +matter what-by which the imagination can be aroused, inflamed, deluded, so +that it shapes the things I have seen, speaks in the tones I have +heard,--grant this, shall I keep ever ready, at the caprice of will, a +constant tempter to steal away my reason and fool my senses? Or if, on +the other hand, I force my sense to admit what all sober men must reject; +if I unschool myself to believe that in what I have just experienced there +is no mental illusion; that sorcery is a fact, and a demon world has gates +which open to a key that a mortal can forge,--who but a saint would not +shrink from the practice of powers by which each passing thought of ill +might find in a fiend its abettor? In either case--in any case--while I +keep this direful relic of obsolete arts, I am haunted,--cheated out of my +senses, unfitted for the uses of life. If, as my ear or my fancy informs +me, grief--human grief--is about to befall me, shall I, in the sting of +impatient sorrow, have recourse to an aid which, the same voice declares, +will reduce me to a tool and a slave,--tool and slave to a being I dread +as a foe? Out on these nightmares! and away with the thing that bewitches +the brain to conceive them!" + +I rose; I took up the wand, holding it so that its hollow should not rest +on the palm of the hand. I stole from the house by the back way, in order +to avoid Lilian, whose voice I still heard, singing low, on the lawn in +front. I came to a creek, to the bank of which a boat was moored, undid +its chain, rowed on to a deep part of the lake, and dropped the wand into +its waves. It sank at once; scarcely a ripple furrowed the surface, not a +bubble arose from the deep. And, as the boat glided on, the star mirrored +itself on the spot where the placid waters had closed over the tempter to +evil. + +Light at heart, I sprang again on the shore, and hastening to Lilian, +where she stood on the silvered, shining sward, clasped her to my breast. + +"Spirit of my life!" I murmured, "no enchantments for me but thine! Thine +are the spells by which creation is beautified, and, in that beauty, +hallowed. What though we can see not into the measureless future from the +verge of the moment; what though sorrow may smite us while we are dreaming +of bliss, let the future not rob me of thee, and a balm will be found for +each wound! Love me ever as now, oh, my Lilian; troth to troth, side by +side, till the grave!" + +"And beyond the grave," answered Lilian, softly. + + + + +CHAPTER LXII. + +Our vows are exchanged at the altar, the rite which made Lilian my wife is +performed; we are returned from the church amongst the hills, in which my +fathers had worshipped; the joy-bells that had pealed for my birth had +rung for my marriage. Lilian has gone to her room to prepare for our +bridal excursion; while the carriage we have hired is waiting at the door. +I am detaining her mother on the lawn, seeking to cheer and compose her +spirits, painfully affected by that sense of change in the relations of +child and parent which makes itself suddenly felt by the parent's heart on +the day that secures to the child another heart on which to lean. + +But Mrs. Ashleigh's was one of those gentle womanly natures which, if +easily afflicted, are easily consoled. And, already smiling through her +tears, she was about to quit me and join her daughter, when one of the +inn-servants came to me with some letters, which had just been delivered +by the postman. As I took them from the servant, Mrs. Ashleigh asked if +there were any for her. She expected one from her housekeeper at L----, +who had been taken ill in her absence, and about whom the kind mistress +felt anxious. The servant replied that there was no letter for her, but +one directed to Miss Ashleigh, which he had just sent up to the young +lady. + +Mrs. Ashleigh did not doubt that her housekeeper had written to Lilian, +whom she had known from the cradle and to whom she was tenderly attached, +instead of to her mistress; and, saying something to me to that effect, +quickened her steps towards the house. + +I was glancing over my own letters, chiefly from patients, with a rapid +eye, when a cry of agony, a cry as if of one suddenly stricken to the +heart, pierced my ear,--a cry from within the house. "Heavens! was that +Lilian's voice?" The same doubt struck Mrs. Ashleigh, who had already +gained the door. She rushed on, disappearing within the threshold and +calling to me to follow. I bounded forward, passed her on the stairs, was +in Lilian's room before her. + +My bride was on the floor prostrate, insensible: so still, so colourless, +that my first dreadful thought was that life had gone. In her hand was a +letter, crushed as with a convulsive sudden grasp. + +It was long before the colour came back to her cheek, before the breath +was perceptible on her lip. She woke, but not to health, not to sense. +Hours were passed in violent convulsions, in which I momentarily feared +her death. To these succeeded stupor, lethargy, not benignant sleep. +That night, my bridal night, I passed as in some chamber to which I had +been summoned to save youth from the grave. At length--at length--life +was rescued, was assured! Life came back, but the mind was gone. She +knew me not, nor her mother. She spoke little and faintly; in the words +she uttered there was no reason. + +I pass hurriedly on; my experience here was in fault, my skill +ineffectual. Day followed day, and no ray came back to the darkened +brain. We bore her, by gentle stages, to London. I was sanguine of good +result from skill more consummate than mine, and more especially devoted +to diseases of the mind. I summoned the first advisers. In vain! in +vain! + + + + +CHAPTER LXIII. + +And the cause of this direful shock? Not this time could it be traced to +some evil spell, some phantasmal influence. The cause was clear, and +might have produced effects as sinister on nerves of stronger fibre if +accompanied by a heart as delicately sensitive, an honour as exquisitely +pure. + +The letter found in her hand was without name; it was dated from L----, +and bore the postmark of that town. It conveyed to Lilian, in the biting +words which female malice can make so sharp, the tale we had sought +sedulously to guard from her ear,--her flight, the construction that +scandal put upon it. It affected for my blind infatuation a contemptuous +pity; it asked her to pause before she brought on the name I offered to +her an indelible disgrace. If she so decided, she was warned not to +return to L----, or to prepare there for the sentence that would exclude +her from the society of her own sex. I cannot repeat more, I cannot +minute down all that the letter expressed or implied, to wither the orange +blossoms in a bride's wreath. The heart that took in the venom cast its +poison on the brain, and the mind fled before the presence of a thought so +deadly to all the ideas which its innocence had heretofore conceived. + +I knew not whom to suspect of the malignity of this mean and miserable +outrage, nor did I much care to know. The handwriting, though evidently +disguised, was that of a woman, and, therefore, had I discovered the +author, my manhood would have forbidden me the idle solace of revenge. +Mrs. Poyntz, however resolute and pitiless her hostility when once +aroused, was not without a certain largeness of nature irreconcilable with +the most dastardly of all the weapons that envy or hatred can supply to +the vile. She had too lofty a self-esteem and too decorous a regard for +the moral sentiment of the world that she typified, to do, or connive at, +an act which degrades the gentlewoman. Putting her aside, what other +female enemy had Lilian provoked? No matter! What other woman at L---- +was worth the condescension of a conjecture? + +After listening to all that the ablest of my professional brethren in the +metropolis could suggest to guide me, and trying in vain their remedies, I +brought back my charge to L----. Retaining my former residence for the +visits of patients, I engaged, for the privacy of my home, a house two +miles from the town, secluded in its own grounds, and guarded by high +walls. + +Lilian's mother removed to my mournful dwelling-place. Abbot's House, in +the centre of that tattling coterie, had become distasteful to her, and to +me it was associated with thoughts of anguish and of terror. I could not, +without a shudder, have entered its grounds,--could not, without a stab at +the heart, have seen again the old fairy-land round the Monks' Well, nor +the dark cedar-tree under which Lilian's hand had been placed in mine; and +a superstitious remembrance, banished while Lilian's angel face had +brightened the fatal precincts, now revived in full force. The dying +man's curse--had it not been fulfilled? + +A new occupant for the old house was found within a week after Mrs. +Ashleigh had written from London to a house-agent at L----, intimating her +desire to dispose of the lease. Shortly before we had gone to Windermere, +Miss Brabazon had become enriched by a liberal life-annuity bequeathed to +her by her uncle, Sir Phelim. Her means thus enabled her to move from the +comparatively humble lodging she had hitherto occupied to Abbot's House; +but just as she had there commenced a series of ostentatious +entertainments, implying an ambitious desire to dispute with Mrs. Poyntz +the sovereignty of the Hill, she was attacked by some severe malady which +appeared complicated with spinal disease, and after my return to L---- I +sometimes met her, on the spacious platform of the Hill, drawn along +slowly in a Bath chair, her livid face peering forth from piles of Indian +shawls and Siberian furs, and the gaunt figure of Dr. Jones stalking by +her side, taciturn and gloomy as some sincere mourner who conducts to the +grave the patron on whose life he him self had conveniently lived. It was +in the dismal month of February that I returned to L----, and I took +possession of my plighted nuptial home on the anniversary of the very day +in which I had passed through the dead dumb world from the naturalist's +gloomy death-room. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGE STORY, LYTTON, V6 *** + +******* This file should be named 7697.txt or 7697.zip ******* + +This eBook was produced by Andrew Heath +and David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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